American Tabloid - James Ellroy [176]
Pete forked over the hundred. “Look up his address for me.”
Larry checked his Rolodex and plucked a card. “It’s 831 North Kilkea, which isn’t that far from here.”
A hospital van pulled up. Pete said, “What’s that?”
Larry whispered. “Fresh blood for the Count. Certified Mormon-pure.”
The new gig felt good, but strictly second-string. The main gig should be WHACK FIDEL.
Santo and Company quashed it. They acted bored, like the Cause meant jackshit.
WHY?
He cut his shooters loose. Kemper took his boys back to Mississippi.
Laurent Guéry went with them. Kemper tapped his own stock fund for Ops cash. Kemper was acting weirdly persistent lately.
Pete turned on to Kilkea. 831 was your standard West Hollywood four-flat.
The standard two-story Spanish-style building. The standard two units per floor. The standard beveled glass doors that your standard B&E guys drooled for.
There was no garage at the back—the tenants had to park at the curb. Lenny’s Packard was nowhere in sight.
Pete parked and walked up to the porch. All four doors showed slack at the door-doorjamb juncture.
The street was dead. The porch was dead quiet. The mail slot for the left downstairs unit read “L. Sands.”
Pete snapped the lock with his pocketknife. An inside light hit him straight off.
Lenny planned to stay out after dark. He could prowl the pad for four solid hours.
Pete locked himself in. The crib spread out off a hallway—maybe five rooms total:
He checked the kitchen, the dinette and the bedroom. The pad was nice and quiet—Lenny eschewed pets and stay-at-home bun boys.
An office connected to the bedroom. It was cubbyhole size—a desk and a row of file cabinets ate up all the floor space.
Pete checked the top drawer. It was one fat mess—Lenny jammed it full of overstuffed folders.
The folders contained 100% U.S. prime-cut skank.
Published Hush-Hush skank and unpublished skank tips. Skank logged in since early ’59—the all-time Skank Hit Parade.
Boozer skank, hophead skank, homo skank. Lezbo skank, nympho skank, miscegenation skank. Political skank, incest skank, child molester skank. The one skank problem: the female skankees were too skankily well known.
Pete spotted some non-sequitur skank: a real skankeroo report dated 9/12/60. A Hush-Hush editorial memo was attached to the page.
Lenny,
I don’t see this one as a feature or anything else. If it went to arrest & trial, great, but it didn’t. The whole thing seems skewed to me. Plus, the girl’s a nobody.
Pete read the report. Skewed?—no shit.
Lenny “Skank Man” Sands, verbatim:
I learned that gorgeous redhead singer-dancer Barb Jahelka (the lead attraction in her ex-husband Joey Jahelka’s “Swingin’ Dance Revue”) was arrested on August 26th as part of an extortion scheme levied against Rock Hudson.
It was a photo job. Hudson and Barb were in bed at Rock’s house in Beverly Hills when a man snuck in and managed to snap several pictures with infra-red film. A few days later Barb demanded that Hudson pay her 10 thousand dollars or the pictures would be circulated everywhere.
Rock called private detective Fred Otash. Otash called the Beverly Hills PD, and they arrested Barb Jahelka. Hudson then went soft hearted and refused to press charges. I like this for the 9/24/60 issue. Rock’s a hot ticket these days, and Barb’s a real dish. (I’ve got bikini pictures of her we can use.) Let me know, so I can formally write the piece up.
Skewed?—no shit, Sherlock.
Rock Hudson was a fruitfly with no yen for cooze. Fred Otash was an ex-cop Hollywood lapdog. Dig the skewed postscript: Freddy’s phone number doodled right there on the report.
Pete grabbed the phone and dialed it. A man answered, “Otash.”
“It’s Pete Bondurant, Freddy.”
Otash whistled. “This has to be interesting. The last time you made a sociable phone call was never.”
“I’m not starting now.”
“This sounds like we’re talking about money. If it’s your money for my time, I’m listening.”
Pete checked the report. “In August of ’60 you allegedly helped Rock Hudson out of a jam. I think the whole thing was a setup. I’ll give you a thousand