Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [74]
They had had their ups and downs. Henry had gone to jail and she had hustled to keep him on dope while he was inside. He had made her pose for specially photographed “Deluxe Collectors Item” pornography books that he had given his friends. He had fixed her up with the owner of the cannery, where she worked as a combination typist/party girl. The cannery mogul paid for her apartment and gave her a grand a month in exchange for frequent nighttime visits.
Henry was a rat, she admitted, but she loved him, and that was that. To my dismay, she was turning me on. My mind was reverberating away from the case toward various sleazy ploys to bed her. Her sexual power was overwhelming. To keep it at bay, I opened up a new line of questioning. “Tell me about Richard Ralston.”
“What about him?”
“Everything. Think about it for a minute.” While Dori thought, I concentrated on my driving. The terrain was unspectacular at night, dark hills on my left and the dark Pacific on my right. I was concerned about Dori’s reliability. Would she be able to find the place?
She read my mind: “Don’t worry, I’m not conning you,” she said. “Henry showed me the place. He was in fucking awe of it. It’s some crib.”
“You’re a mind-reader, Dori. Tell me about Ralston.”
“Ralston is kind of a low-level manipulator. A ladies’ man, too. He’s known as ‘Hot Rod’ because he’s hung like a barracuda. I know, because Henry made me fuck him once. He and Henry used to play baseball together, minor league. Back in the fifties. He’s into a lot of shit, gambling, bookmaking, all that. He’s got this golf course job that’s really a front, and he’s got this hotel and bar that he owns. Really a sleazo racket. He’s got all these poor old guys on pensions and Welfare living there, all boozehounds. They live in his fleabag hotel and drink in his bar. It’s their whole fucking life. Hot Rod collects their checks each month, subtracts their bar tab and rent, sells them cigarettes that he gets from a fence dirt cheap, and gives them a few bucks spending money. No shit! He told me about it once. Most of the old fuckers at the hotel are caddies too old to carry bags. Hot Rod says he’s keeping them alive, if you can call it living. Personally, he’s got a lot of style; you know, he’s sexy and charming and all that. But basically he’s a shit. That’s okay, though. I like shits. I relate to them. Henry’s a shit and we’ve been together a long time. You’re a kind of a shit, too. I can tell.”
“Thanks.”
“No, really. I meant it as a compliment.”
“Thanks.”
We drove in silence, I was keyed up. My case was moving upward, in power, property and prestige from the depths of caddy despair to the seaside casas of the rich, and I was furiously anxious to unravel it, conclude it, mete out whatever justice I could, and return to Jane and Walter and some kind of peace. I checked my watch. We had been driving for fifty minutes. Dori started getting nervous, muttering to herself.
“Now?” I asked.
“Soon,” she replied, sticking her head out the window to look for landmarks. “Okay, now,” she said. “There’s a road just beyond the next bend. Slow down and turn when I tell you.”
I did and my headlights caught a wide, well-traveled dirt road leading straight up toward what looked like a pass between two large mountains. As we approached, the terrain flattened out and the mountains became hills. We passed between them, going inland toward a dark, cold, nothingness. It was very silent. Far in the distance coyotes bayed. The road meandered up and down among a series of small hills. It was utterly dark, my high beams the only light.
Gradually the road widened and off to my right a large white shape began to emerge and take form.
“There,” Dori said, pointing toward it, “that’s the place.”
I pulled off the road. “You stay here,” I said. “I’ll be back within half an hour. Don’t leave the car.”
She nodded nervously. I took