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The next hour went Speed-O-Vision fast.
Friendly Norm helped him clean himself up and took him to a bar on the Boulevard. Danny came out of his thumping quickly, thudding pains in the soft part of his back, loose teeth, side aches. The bluesuits had to have been in on Considine’s plan–improvising in his favor–or they’d have cracked his head open for real. The script had called for them to break up a fistfight, separating the combatants, some minor roughhouse before cutting them loose. They’d obviously played off his improvisation, the kicks and gutter dump their aside for his wailing on one of their own. Now the question was how hard “Call me Mal” would come down on him for the damage he’d done–he was an ex-LAPD man himself.
At the bar it was all questions, back to Ted Krugman, no time to think of repercussions.
Norm Kostenz took his photograph for a record of the assault and kissed his ass, a tough-guy worshiper; Danny moved into Ted, nursing a beer and double Side 117
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The shot, making like he rarely boozed, that it was just to ease his aching, fascist-thumped bones. The liquor did help–it took the bite off his aches and got him moving his shoulders, working out the kinks that would come later. The juice downed, he started feeling good, proud of his performance; Kostenz ran a riff on how Jukey Rosensweig used to talk about him and Donna Cantrell. Danny put out a sob number on Donna, using it to segue into his missing years: Prof Cantrell a vegetable, his beloved Donna dead, the fascists responsible, but him too numbed by grief to organize, protest or generally fight back. Kostenz pressed on what he had been doing since Donna’s suicide; Danny gave him an Upshaw/Krugman combo platter: real-life car thief stories under Red Ted’s aegis, phony East Coast venues. Friendly Norm ate it up, vicarious kicks on a platter; he called for a second round of drinks and asked questions about the garment district wars, the Robeson League, stuff Jukey had told him about. Danny winged it, flying high: names and pictures from Considine’s kit, long spiels extolling the virtues of various lefties, borrowing from the actual personalities of deputies and San Berdoo townies he’d known. Kostenz licked his plate and begged for more; Danny went sky high, all his aches lulled, kneading his jacket sleeves like they were his second skin. He spun tales out of thin air and Considine’s facts: a long schtick about his loss of political faith, his rapacious womanizing with the Commie quail from Mal’s surveillance pics, his long crosscountry odyssey and how self-hatred and a desire to scope the scene brought him to the Teamster picket line, but now he knew he could never be fascist muscle–he wanted to work, fight, organize and help UAES end the bloodsucking tyranny of the studio bosses. Almost breathless, Norm Kostenz took it in, got up and said, “Can you meet me and our member screener tomorrow? The El Coyote on Beverly at noon?”
Danny stood up, weaving, knowing it was more from his Academy Award acting than from booze and a beating. He said, “I’ll be there,” and saluted like Uncle Joe Stalin in a newsreel he’d seen.
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Danny drove home, checked to make sure his files and pictures were secure in their hiding place, hot-showered and daubed linament on the bruises that were starting to form on his back. Naked, he performed intro lines to Claire De Haven in front of the bathroom mirror, then dressed from his lefty wardrobe: wool slacks with a skinny belt, T-shirt, his workboots and the leather jacket. Ted Krugman but a cop, he admired himself in the mirror, then drove to the Strip.
Dusk was falling, twilight darkening over low rain clouds. Danny parked on Sunset across from the Felix Gordean Agency, hunkered down in the seat with binoculars and fixed on the building.
It was a one-story gray French Provincial, louvered windows and an arched doorway, deco lettering in brass above the mailbox. An enclosed autoport was built on, the entrance illuminated by roof lights. Three cars were parked inside; Danny squinted and wrote down three Cal ’49 license numbers: DB 6841, GX