Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The THE BIG NOWHERE

government couldn’t extradite and Mickey was too cheap to send men. He fretted on the last and craziest money-making scheme of his LA career, wondering if he’d survive to spend the proceeds. He listened to hillbilly music, and Hank Williams and Spade Cooley did terrible things to him. He missed Mal Considine wicked bad.

After the shootout, an LAPD army got the citizens quelled and the bodies removed. Four dead: Coleman, Loftis, Mal and the back door bouncer he shot.

Claire De Haven disappeared–she probably sent Reynolds on his lunatic mission, heard the shots, decided one redemption for the night was sufficient and calmly caught a cab home to plan more People’s Revolts, Beverly Hills style. He followed Mal to the morgue and gave a statement at the Seven-Seven squadroom, Side 187

Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The tying in the Healy/Loftis deaths to the homo snuffs and insisting the late Deputy Danny Upshaw get credit for cracking the case. His statement glossed the illegalities he and Mal pulled; he didn’t mention Felix Gordean, Chaz Minear, Dudley Smith or Mike Breuning at all. Let fruitfly Chaz live to enjoy his redemption; crazy Dud was too large to tap for the José Diaz kill or Charles Hartshorn’s “suicide.”

Reading between newspaper lines, you could follow the upshot: the Gordean killing unsolved, no suspects; the shootout explained as Mal and himself

“following up a lead on an old case”; the dead boogie attributed to Coleman. No Commie or queer homicide angle on it at all–Ellis Loew had beaucoup press connections and hated complications. Reynolds and his son-lover were dismissed as “old enemies settling a grudge”–the howler to top all howlers.

Mal Considine got a hero’s funeral. Mayor Bowron attended, as did the entire LA City Council, Board of Supervisors and selected LAPD brass. Dudley Smith gave a moving eulogy, citing Mal’s “grand crusade” against Communism. The _Herald_ ran a picture of Dudley chucking Mal’s kid Stefan under the chin, exhorting him to “be a trouper.”

Johnny Stomp was his conduit for dope on the grand jury, Ellis Loew to Mickey to him–and it looked like 24-karat stuff on all fronts: Loew would begin his presentation of evidence next week–perfect timing–the UAES was still bearing the brunt of radio and newspaper editorials blaming them for the Gower Gulch bloodshed. Herman Gerstein, Howard Hughes and two other studio heads had told Loew they would oust UAES the day the grand jury convened–violating the union’s contract on the basis of fine-print clauses pertaining to expulsion for subversive activities.

Johnny’s other glad tidings: Terry Lux had suffered a stroke–the result of “prolonged oxygen deprivation” caused by a mouthful of money and a popped artery in his right hand. He was recuperating well, but ruined tendons in that hand would prevent him from performing plastic surgery again. Mickey Cohen had upped the ante on the Meeks contract to $20,000; Buzz jacked his payoff on the Minear job to $25,000 so Stompanato wouldn’t put a bullet in his head. The Mick was pulling his hair out over Audrey; he’d erected a shrine out of Audrey memorabilia: her stripper publicity pics, the costumes she wore when she headlined the Burbank in ’38. Mickey locked the stuff up in his bedroom at the hideaway and spent hours mooning over it. Sometimes you could hear him crying like a baby.

And Turner Meeks himself, holder of the Va Va Voom Girl’s real true love, was getting fat, fat, fatter on moo shu duck, sweet and sour pork, shrimp chop suey and beef kowloon–a shitload of condemned man’s last meals. And with his money shot a day away, he knew there were two things he wanted to know before he stuck his head in the noose: the whole story on Coleman and why the UAES hadn’t played its extortion scheme against the studios–whatever it was–yet. And he had a hunch he knew where to get the answers.

Buzz went to the motel office, changed a five into nickels and walked to the phone booth in the parking lot. He got out the list of rest homes he’d torn from the Yellow Pages the day of the shootout and started calling, impersonating a police officer. He figured Lesnick would be hiding under an alias, but he hit the flunkies he talked to with his real name anyway, along with “old,” “Jewish,”

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