My Dark Places - James Ellroy [150]
I drove out to West L.A. I wanted to find a private pay phone and call Helen. I wanted to talk about Tracy and Geneva.
I remembered the phone bank at the Mondrian Hotel. It was rush hour. Sunset Boulevard was probably jammed. I turned north on Sweetzer. I crossed Santa Monica Boulevard and saw where I was.
I was driving through a murder zone.
Karyn Kupcinet died at 12-something North Sweetzer. It was late 11/63. Jack Kennedy was four or five days dead. Somebody strangled Karyn in her apartment. She was nude. Her living room was a mess. She was facedown on the sofa. Sheriff’s Homicide handled the case. Ward Hallinen worked it. They looked at Karyn’s actor boyfriend and one of Karyn’s freaky neighbors. Karyn’s father was Irv Kupcinet. He was a big talk-show host and columnist in Chicago. Karyn moved to L.A. to score as an actress. Her dad was floating her. She wasn’t making it. Her boyfriend and his friends were. Karyn ran a few pounds over svelte. She took diet pills to control her weight and fly. Charlie Guenther thought she died accidentally. They found a book on the coffee table near her body. It was all about nude dancing. You could dance like a wood nymph and free your inhibitions. Guenther figured she was bombed. She was dancing stark nude. She fell down and broke her hyoid bone on the coffee table. She crawled up on the couch and died. Bill thought she was murdered. It could have been the boyfriend or the freaky neighbor or some geek she picked up at a bar. They got a lot of tips in ’63. They still got tips. An FBI guy called in a tip recently. He said he got it off a wiretap recording. A mob guy said he had the real goods. Karyn was giving a guy some skull and choked to death on his dick.
I turned west at Sweetzer and Fountain. I saw the El Mirador building. Judy Dull lived there. She was 19. She had an estranged husband and a kid already. She posed for cheesecake pix. Harvey Glatman found her. Glatman was a Jean Ellroy suspect. Jack Lawton cleared him on Ellroy and nailed him on Dull.
I turned north on La Cienega. Georgette Bauerdorf’s apartment house stood right there. Georgette Bauerdorf was murdered on 10/12/44. A man broke into her pad. He stuffed a bandage roll in her mouth and raped her. She choked to death on the roll. They never found the killer. Ray Hopkinson worked the case. Georgette was 19—like Judy Dull. Georgette had money—like Karyn Kupcinet. Georgette volunteered at the USO Canteen. Her family was back in New York. Her friends said she was nervous and smoked too much. She lived all by herself. She drove around L.A. impulsively.
Karyn was running on dope and hiding out behind her father’s money. Judy was running from too much life too fast. Georgette got cabin fever and ran to the boys at the USO Canteen. Tracy hid out at home. Robbie picked her up there. Jean picked the wrong town to hide in.
I saw their faces. I formed them into a group shot. I made my mother their mother. I placed her in the middle of the frame.
Tell me why.
Tell me why it was you and not somebody else.
Take me back and show me how you got there.
26
My mother said she saw the Feds gun down John Dillinger. She was a nursing school student in Chicago. Dillinger was killed on 7/22/34. Geneva Hilliker was 19 then. My father said he was Babe Ruth’s trainer. He had a display case full of medals he didn’t really win. Her stories were always more plausible. He was more desperate and anxious to impress. She lied to get what she wanted. She understood the limits of verisimilitude. She could have been three blocks away from the Biograph Theater. She could have heard gunshots. She could have made the jump from sound to sight through pure imagination. She could have filled in the details over bourbon highballs and convinced herself that they were true. She could have told me the story in good faith. She was 19 then. She could have been saying, Look how bright and hopeful I was.
My father was a liar. My mother was a fabricator. I knew them for six years together and four years apart.