My Dark Places - James Ellroy [142]
I remembered my mother’s old boyfriend Hank Hart. I found them in bed together. Hank Hart had one thumb. I found my mother in bed with another man. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know the name Nikola Zaha.
Nikola Zaha might be a crucial witness. He might explain my mother’s precipitous move to El Monte.
Bill and I drove out to Van Nuys. We found John Howell’s house. The door was wide open. We found Howell and his wife in the kitchen. A nurse was preparing their lunch.
Mr. Howell was hooked up to a respirator. Mrs. Howell was sitting in a wheelchair. They were old and frail. They looked like they wouldn’t live much longer.
We talked to them gently. The nurse ignored us. We explained our situation and asked them to think back a ways. Mrs. Howell made the first connection. She said her mother was my old babysitter. Her mother died fifteen years ago. She was 88. I fought for the woman’s name and snagged it.
Ethel Ings. Married to Tom Ings. Welsh immigrants. Ethel worshipped my mother. Ethel and Tom were in Europe in June ’58. My mother drove them to the Queen Mary, My father called Ethel and told her my mother was dead. Ethel was distraught.
Mr. Howell said he remembered me. My name was Lee— not James. The cops found his calling card at my mother’s house. They questioned him. They got pretty raw.
The nurse pointed to her wristwatch and held up two fingers. Bill leaned toward me. He said, “Names.”
I saw an address book on the kitchen table. I asked Mr. Howell if I could look through it. He nodded yes. I looked through the book. I recognized one name.
Eula Lee Lloyd. Our next-door neighbor—circa ’54. Eula Lee was married to a man named Harry Lloyd. She lived in North Hollywood now. I memorized her address and phone number.
The nurse tapped her watch. Mrs. Howell was shaking. Mr. Howell was gasping for breath. Bill and I said goodbye. The nurse showed us out and slammed the door behind us.
I got a glimpse of my own flawed memory. I didn’t remember Eula Lee Lloyd. I didn’t remember Ethel and Tom Ings. The investigation was nine months old. My memory gaps might be impeding our progress. I retrieved a memory. I went to the boat with Ethel and Tom and my mother. It was late May or early June ’58. I thought I had that time microscopically framed. I thought I had every detail culled for analysis. The Howells taught me otherwise. My mother could have said things. My mother could have done things. She could have mentioned people. The cops questioned me and requestioned me. They wanted to trap my recent memories. I had to trap my old memories. I had to split myself in two. The 47-year-old man had to interrogate the 10-year-old boy. She lived in my purview. I had to live with her again. I had to exert extreme mental pressure and go at our shared past. I had to place my mother in fictional settings and try to mine real memories through symbolic expression. I had to relive my incestuous fantasies and contextualize them and embellish them past the shame and the sense of boundary that always restricted them. I had to shack up with my mother. I had to lie down in the dark with her and go—
I wasn’t ready yet. I had to clear a block of time first. I had to track down Lloyd, Bellavia and Zaha and see where they took me. I wanted to go at my mother with a full load of recollective ammo. The Beckett trial was coming up. Bill would be at the prosecution table all day every day. I wanted to see the trial. I wanted to look at Daddy Beckett and put a hex on his worthless soul. I wanted to see Tracy Stewart get her altogether too late and unsatisfactory vengeance. Bill said the trial would probably last two weeks. It would probably conclude in late July or August. I could shack with the redhead then.
We had three hot names. We chased them full-time.
We called Eula Lee Lloyd and got no answer. We knocked on her door and got no answer. We called her and knocked on her door for three days straight and got no answers. We talked to the landlady. She said Eula Lee was holed up with a sick sister