Danny shoved a line of blues aside and pulled the obscenity off the wall; he pivoted around, faced a full contingent of enemy cops and tore the piece of cardboard to shreds. The LAPD men gawked, simmered and plain stared; Gene Niles pushed through them and faced Danny down. He said, “I talked to a guy named Leo Bordoni. He wouldn’t blab outright, but I could tell he’d been questioned before. I think you rousted him, and I think it was inside Goines’
pad. When I described the place it was like he’d already fucking been there.”
Side 129
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Except for Niles, the room was a blur. Danny said, “Not now, Sergeant,”
brass, the voice of authority.
“Up your ass, not now. I think you B&E’d in my jurisdiction. I know you didn’t catch that squeal at the doughnut stand, and I’ve got a damn good lead where you did get it. If I can prove it, you’re–”
“_Niles not now_.”
“Up your ass, not now. I had a good robbery case going until you came along with your crazy homo shit. You’ve got a queer fix, you’re cuckoo on it and maybe you are a fucking queer!”
Danny lashed out, quick lefts and rights, short speed punches that caught Niles flush, ripped his face but didn’t move his body back one inch. The enemy cops dispersed; Danny launched a hook to the gut; Niles feinted and came in with a hard uppercut, slamming Danny into the wall. He hung there, a stationary target, pretending to be gone; Niles telegraphed a huge right hand at his midsection. Danny slid away just before contact; Niles’ fist hit the wall; he screeched into the sound of bones crunching. Danny sidestepped, swung Niles around and rolled sets at his stomach; Niles doubled over; Danny felt the enemy cops moving in. Somebody yelled, “Stop it!”; strong arms bearhugged and picked him up. Jack Shortell materialized, whispering, “Easy, easy,” in the bear hugger’s ear; the arms let go; another somebody yelled “Watch Commander walking!” Danny went limp and let the old-timer cop lead him out a side exit.
o
o
o
Krugman to Upshaw to Krugman.
Shortell got Danny back to his car, extracting a promise that he’d try to sleep. Danny drove home, woozy one second, all jitters the next. Finally pure exhaustion hit him and he employed Ted-Claire repartee to stay awake. The banter saw him straight to bed, a pass on Mal Considine’s bottle. With the Krugman leather jacket as his blanket, he fell asleep immediately.
And was joined by odd women and HIM.
The San Berdoo High senior hop, 1939. Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey on the PA system, Susan Leffert leading him out of the gym and into the boys’
locker room, a Mason jar of schnapps as bait. Inside, she fumbles at his shirt buttons, licking his chest, biting the hair. He tries to drum up enthusiasm by staring at his body in the dressing mirror, but keeps thinking of Tim; that feels good, but hurts, and finally having it both ways is just bad. He tells Susan he met an older woman he wants to be loyal to, she reminds him of Suicide Donna who bought him his nice bombardier jacket, a real war hero number. Susan says, “What war?”; the action fades because he knows something’s off, Pearl Harbor is still two years away. Then this tall, faceless man, silver-haired, naked, is there, all around him in a circle, and squinting to see his face makes him go soft in Susan’s mouth.
Then a whole corridor of mirrors, him chasing HIM, Karen Hiltscher, Roxy Beausoleil, Janice Modine and a bevy of Sunset Strip gash swooping down while he hurls excuses.
“I can’t today, I have to study.”
“I don’t dance, it makes me self-conscious.”
“Some other time, okay?”
“Sweetie, let’s keep this light. We work together.”
“I don’t want it.”
“No.”
“Claire, you’re the only real woman I’ve met since Donna.”
“Claire, I want to fuck you so bad just like I used to fuck Donna and all the others. They all loved it because I loved doing it so much.”
He was gaining ground on HIM, gaining focus on the gray man’s brick shithouse build. The apparition twirled around; he had no face, but Tim’s body and bigger stuff than Demon Don Eversall, who use to hang out in the shower, trap water in his jumbo foreskin, hold his thing out and croon, “Come drink from my cup of love.” Hard kissing; bodies mashed together, the two of them inside each other, Claire walking out of the mirror, saying, “That’s impossible.”