Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The THE BIG NOWHERE

The LAPD Academy was already out–straight arrow youths with no spark for impersonation. The Sheriff’s Academy was unlikely–the Brenda Allen mess and the LASD sheltering Mickey Cohen made it unlikely that they would lend the City a smart young recruit. Their best bet was a rank-and-file City officer, smart, good-looking, adaptable and ambitious, mid to late twenties, a malleable young man without a hard-edged cop quality.

Where?

Hollywood Division was out–half the men had been implicated over Brenda Allen, had had their pictures in the paper, were running scared and angry and wild–there was even a rumor floating around that three men on the Hollywood Detective Squad had been behind last August’s shootout at Sherry’s–a botched snuff attempt on Mickey Cohen that wounded three and killed a Cohen utility trigger. _Out_.

And Central was packed with unqualified rookies who made the Department because of their war records; 77th Street, Newton and University featured outsized crackers hired on to keep the Negro citizenry in line. Hollenbeck might be a good place to look–but East LA was Mex, Benavides, Lopez and Duarte still had ties there, and that might blow their decoy’s cover. The various detective divisions were a possible stalking ground–if they could find a man who didn’t come off as irredeemably jaded.

Mal grabbed his LAPD station directory and started scanning it, one eye on the wall clock as it inched toward 3:00 and Stefan’s home-from-school time.

He was about to start calling CO’s for preliminary screening talks when he heard footsteps in the hall; he swiveled in his chair, dropped his arms and got ready to let his son dogpile him.

It was Celeste. She looked at Mal’s open arms until he dropped them; she said, “I told Stefan to stay late after school in order that I should talk to you.”

“Yes?”

“The look on your face does not to make this easy.”

“Spill it, goddamn you.”

Celeste clutched her beaded opera purse, a favored relic of Prague, 1935. “I am going to divorce you. I have met a nice man, a man who is cultured and will make Stefan and me a better home.”

Mal thought: perfect calm, she knows her effects. He said, “I won’t let you. Don’t hurt my boy or I’ll hurt you.”

“You cannot. To the mother the child belongs.”

Maim her, let her know he _is_ the law. “Is he rich, Celeste? If you have to fuck to survive, you should fuck rich men. Right, Fräulein? Or powerful men, like Kempflerr.”

“You always return to that because it is so ugly and because it excites you so.”

Match point; Mal felt his sense of gamesmanship go blooey. “I saved your wretched rich-girl ass. I killed the man who made you a whore. I gave you a home.”

Celeste smiled, her standard parting of thin lips over perfect teeth.

“You killed Kempflerr to prove yourself not a coward. You wanted to be like a real policeman, and you were willing to destroy yourself to do it. Only your dumb luck saved you. And you keep your secrets so badly.”

Mal stood up on punch-drunk legs. “I killed someone who deserved to die.”

Celeste fondled her purse, fingers over beadwork embroidery. Mal saw it as stage business, the buildup to a punch line. “No comeback for that one?”

Side 55

Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Celeste put on her deepest iceberg smile. “Herr Kempflerr was very kind to me, and I only made up his nasty sexuality to excite you. He was a gentle lover, and when the war was almost over, he sabotaged the ovens and saved thousands of lives. You are lucky that military governor liked you, Malcolm.

Kempflerr was going to help the Americans look for other Nazis. And I only married you because I felt very bad about the lies I seduced you with.”

Mal tried to say “No,” but couldn’t form the word; Celeste broadened her smile. Mal saw it as a target and ran to her. He grabbed her neck, held her to the doorway and aimed hard right hands at her mouth, teeth splintering up through her lips, cutting his knuckles. He hit her and hit her and hit her; he would have gone on hitting her, but “Mutti!” and tiny fists pummeling his legs made him stop and run out of the house, afraid of a little boy–his own.

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