“Not a forceful enough presence?”
“Right, with a hot-dog sensibility that makes it stand out worse, and itchy nerves like he’s raiding the dope vault at Narco. Where’s your husband?”
“Going over some blueprints for a building he’s designing. And while we’re on the subject…”
“Shit. Our buildings, right? Deadbeats? Skipouts?”
“We’re slumlords, so don’t act surprised. It’s the Compton place. Three units in arrears.”
“So advise me. You’re the real estate broker.”
“Two units are one month due, the other is two months behind. It takes ninety days to file an eviction notice, and that entails a court date. And _you’re_ the attorney.”
“Fuck, I hate litigation. And will you sit down?”
She sprawled–a green chair, the green dress. Green against her hair–black–a shade darker than mine. “You’re a good litigator, but I know you’ll just send some goons down with fake papers.”
“It’s easier that way. I’ll send Jack Woods or one of Mickey’s guys.”
“Armed?”
“Yeah, and fucking dangerous. Now tell me you love the dress again. Tell me so I can go home and get some sleep.”
Counting points–our old routine. “One, I love the dress. Two, I love my big brother, even though he got all the looks and more of the brains. Three, by way of amenities, I quit smoking again, I’m bored with my job and my husband and I’m considering sleeping around before I turn forty and lose the rest of my looks.
Four, if you knew any men who weren’t cops or thugs I’d ask you to fix me up.”
Points back: “I got the Hollywood looks, you got the real ones. Don’t sleep with Jack Woods, because people have this tendency to shoot at him, and the first time you and Jack tried shacking it didn’t last too long. I do know a few DAs, Side 14
Ellroy – White Jazz
but they’d bore you.”
“Who do I have left? I flopped as a gangster consort.”
The room swayed–frazzled time. “I don’t know. Come on, walk me out.”
Green silk–Meg stroked it. “I was thinking of that logic class we took undergrad. You know, cause and effect.”
“Yeah?”
“I . . . well, a hoodlum dies in the papers, and I get a gift.”
Swaying bad. “Let it go.”
“Trombino and Brancato, then Jack Dragna. Honey, I can live with what we did.”
“You don’t love me the way I love you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Reporters at my door, wolfing take-out.
I parked out back, jimmied a bedroom window. Noise-newsmen gabbing _my_ story.
Lights off, crack that window: talk to defuse Meg’s bomb.
Straight: I’m a kraut, not a Jew–the old man’s handle got clipped at Ellis Island. ’38–the LAPD; ’42–the Marines. Pacific duty, back to the Department
’45. Chief Horrall resigns; William Worton replaces him–a squeaky-clean Marine Corps major general. Semper Fi: he forms an exMarine goon squad. Espirit de Corps: we break strikes, beat uppity parolees back to prison.
Law school, freelance work–the GI Bill won’t cover USC. Repo man, Jack Woods’
collector–“the Enforcer.” Work for Mickey C: union disputes settled strongarm.
Hollywood beckons–I’m tall, handsome.
Nix, but it leads to _real_ work. I break up a squeeze on Liberace-two well-hung shines, blackmail pix. I’m in with Hollywood and Mickey C. I make the Bureau, make sergeant. I pass the bar, make lieutenant.
All true.
I topped my twenty last month–true. My Enforcer take bought slum pads–true. I shacked with Anita Ekberg and the redhead on “The Spade Cooley Show”–false.
Bullshit took over; talk moved to Chavez Ravine. I shut the window and tried to sleep.
No go.
Lift that window–no newsmen. TV: strictly test patterns. Turn it off, run the string out–MEG.
It was always there scary wrong–and we touched each other too long to say it. I kept the old man’s fists off her; she kept me from killing him. College together, the war, letters. Other men and other women fizzled.
Rowdy postwar years–“the Enforcer.” Meg–pal, repo sidekick. A fling with Jack Woods–I let it go. Study ate up my time-Meg ran wild solo. She met two hoods: Tony Trombino, Tony Brancato.
June ’51–our parents dead in a car wreck.
The guts, the will–
A motel room–Franz and Hilda Klein fresh buried. Naked just to see. On each other–every taste half recoil.