I pulled out the film. I slid a slice under the slide on the movie magnifier. I looked in the lens. I thrilled to the throes of the Three-Way Supreme.
Freon Frank Sinatra.
Avid Ava Gardner.
Barbaric Barbara Graham.
Surreptitiously shot shakedown shit. An extortion extravaganza. The blackmail blight of all time.
I fed film and sliced it under the slide. I shared the sheets with a shimmering cast and spun under their spell. I popped a posthumous pardon on Barbaric Barb.
She didn’t murder Mabel Monahan. She had an all-star alibi for 3/9/5 3. Linda Lansing learned about it. She shook down Freon Frank and had him pay her off with payola. Bad Bob and Demon Dot–in league with Devil DA Leavy on the Graham case. His conviction: contaminated by the contents of the film can. Call it a cause célèbre–the can could lay L.A. law enforcement laughingstock low–Leavy pulled the plug on the payola probe for that reputation-ruining reason.
It ALL congealed and constellated. A special spark spoke to my spirit. Call it the Sermon on Mount Monahan.
Barbaric Barb the martyred madonna.
Who refused to rat off Frigid Frank and Avid Ava as her alibi. Who died in deference to the deification confirmed at the cutrate Calvary.
Who jumped off the jury and did not Judas the Juke Box Jesus.
8
The kiddie coup went commie. The cops quelled it quicksville.
I filched five film cans and trawled TJ. for Jesus and Jungle John. I hit some hot spots and ran up against the Red Revolt in retreat.
Malnutrition-mauled muchachos moped down the main drag. They lurched and lisped leftist slogans. They slung empty machine guns and stumbled with the weight–withered waifs who wasted their wad at the White House.
They staggered and stumped for pickled plantains on every plate. They lashed out at laissez-faire labor laws and slandered slavery. They sideswiped soldiers and sailors. They agitated against Uncle Sam. They propagandized prostitutes. They chanted and chastised the cholos who made Mexico great. They beat their balls into an uproar and ran out of Red rancor. They hit the street from heat stroke one by one.
The local cops let them run raucous and run out of steam. They didn’t muscle them or mow them down and martyr them. They made like that Martin Luther King motherfucker. They put out passive resistance and popped the little putzes into paddy wagons. Pedro Pimentel’s successor would subsidize their rigorous reeducation.
They succumbed to Sinatra in one magic moment of misplaced identity. They couldn’t sustain their subversion without him.
I said vaya con dios to the Vauxhall van and freed Frank’s lilac Lincoln. I hit the hip whorehouses and the jai alai games and buzzed by the bullfight ring. I saw Sambo and the Savior at the Salamander Club and dipped by on disingenuous instinct.
Frank looked freon-fresh and crisply non-Christlike. His gracious greeting: “Getchell, you cocksucker, what are you doing here?”
Sammy marched me into the men’s room and revealed the reverse metamorphosis.
Frank collapsed cold on Mink Mountain. He woke up wigged out and wondered where he was. His lost days lapped back to L.A. and the snuff snafu. He did not recall his re-resurrection and his acid-induced atavism. He was pissed at my piece on the payola probe–properly so. Sammy said he propagandized the prick. Bygones as bygones–let’s bop back to L.A.
Sammy’s pulverizing punch line:
“He is the Christ, Danny. I know you think it’s all some kind dope fluke, but it’s not. I’m back with him now, and I’ll always be with him, and thank God he doesn’t know that I betrayed him.”
We buzzed up to the border. We quaffed Cuervo from the bottle and bit bitter limes. Re-Sambofied Sammy chauffeured and shucked and jived. I daydreamed and disdained his Christ crap.
Fuck Frank the Freewheeling Freak. I had the 3/9/5 3 fuck film and four more. I had Governor GoodwinJ. Knight and his nigger nurse. I had Diana Dors and a dipshit who delivered her pizza. I had Dan Dailey in a daisy chain and Mickey Mantle and Marilyn Monroe in the men’s room at the Mocambo. That meant MONEY in my tote tucked in the trunk.