I blinked. A car pulled up to the curb. Somebody whispered, “Ring the bell, shithead.”
I yipped and cringed. I turned around. I saw the nut-ward guy and the goon in the goonmobile.
I rang the bell. Viv opened the door. My peephole panorama went poof!
I stepped inside. Viv handed me a martini. I sniffed it for Spanish fly or knockout drops.
Viv shut the door. My drink looked kosher. I chugalugged it and ate the olive.
The living room was king-sized and leftist primitive chic.
Labor posters. Furniture fabrics finished in gold filigree. Atavistic statues with fat phalluses and pointy pudenda.
Viv tracked my eyes. “I’m eclectic. And the fertility gods are special to me.”
I said, “You married a fag, so I guess you needed all the help you could get.”
Viv walked to a sideboard and mixed herself a martini. My martini sent me mixed messages:
Fuck her/Don’t fuck her/Fuck her rich Red pawn of a husband. Fuck the LAPD for the way they flicked you/Fack everyone and flick no one at all.
Viv said, “You shouldn’t underestimate my husband. He has some powerful allies.”
“I know. I saw him talking to Sheriff Biscailuz.”
Viv dropped an olive in her drink. “Gene’s a friend, yes. He kept Trent out of the papers when he–”
“Got picked up during a fruit roust at some joint in West Hollywood?”
Viv smiled. “You’re correct. He saved Trent from a great deal of embarrassment and turned him into quite a resource.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s Trent’s a good lawyer, and Gene Biscailuz isn’t so blinded by a hatred of homosexuals that he can’t utilize his talent.”
I said, “Too bad the LAPD doesn’t feel that way.”
Viv sipped her drink. “Yes and no. For one, Trent hates them too much to work with them. Gene hates them, too, and Trent’s been working with him on this budget contretemps that the Sheriff’s and the LAPD are embroiled in.”
“On the Q.T., you mean.”
“That’s correct. Gene doesn’t want it known that Trent’s working with him, and Trent doesn’t ever want the LAPD to learn that he’s quite fond of young men. He’s quite sure that the LAPD is out to compromise him any way they can, so of course he’s remained quite discreet.”
I looked around the room. The labor posters were laid out in gold-lacquered frames.
“Is Trent an actual Communist?”
Viv laughed. “Nobody with brains and a soul is a real Communist.”
“What about Commie front groups?”
“For instance?”
I pulled names off Freddy 0’s crib sheet. “The People’s Committee for a Free Philippines, the Free-the-Rosenbergs Defense Fund, the National Alliance for Social Justice, the–”
Viv cut me off. “It sounds like you have those names memorized.”
I shuddered. My chest mike shifted and settled off to the left.
Viv said, “Fixate on me. Don’t fixate on my husband.”
I got pissed. I got wild-hair-up-the-ass pissed.
“I can’t get work because of your husband. He’s run a big, goddamn guilt-by-association number on me.”
Viv shrugged. “Then work for social justice. Teach underprivileged Negro children to play the accordion, and I’ll pay you what Las Vegas entertainers earn.”
Don’t blow your cool/Don’t blast your cork/Don’t–
“Really, Dick, you must overlook the few injudicious comments my husband has made about you. Look to the real historical source of your troubles and try to understand the big picture.”
I tamped my temper down. “For instance?”
“For instance, my husband is involved in big issues.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, a woman came to Trent recently. Trent wouldn’t tell me her name, but he told me she broke up with her boyfriend, and she knew something about a horribly draconian LAPD plot to initiate some truly Fascistic measures, all of it tied in to TV propaganda. You see, Dick, those are the types of issues my husband deals with.”
My skin prickled. My hackles hopped. The pitch tweaked and tantalized me.
“What else did your husband say about the woman?”
Viv said, “That she was a big, busty blonde.”
My synapses snapped and snagged a connection.
Joi Lansing was a big, busty blonde. Harvey Glatman said she just dumped Jack Webb. Webb: LAPD lapdog. TV propaganda. Dragnet: top-rated TV fare and the LAPD’S PR lightning rod.