Destination (14 page)

But—

The land's faulty. It's fucking toxic. It's environmentally fucked. Taxpayer millions—gone already. It's a city contract. It reeks of collusion. It howls and stirs questions up.

Where's the truth? Where's Gil Garcetti?

Cooley extrapolated. Cooley ran fact patterns and flowcharts. Cooley countered current controversies in his head. Cooley got this idea. It was quixotic and Jimmy Carter-esque.

I'll run for D.A. I'll defeat the incumbent. I'll win.

He gauged the public mood. He sensed truth fiends out there. He sniffed shit in the
spiritus mundi.

O.J. walks. Clinton walks. Rampart rages. Belmont Hi is Jack Webb's alma mater. Jack ran for class prez. Jack won insurgent. Time trucks then to now. Circa '38 meets 2000. Insurgency runs in waves. It's yesterday once more.

He talked to his family. They said GO. He talked to aides and colleagues. They concurred.

He started early. He leaked word in spring '99. He put up a Web site. He hired a consultant. He beat potential candidates timewise. He glommed key-opponent status fast.

The media scoffed. Cooley hammered Gil Garcetti.

Garcetti sets up a Trademark Infringement Unit. Garcetti gets campaign cash from Guess? jeans first. A Garcetti backer's son hits the shitter. Garcetti reduces the beef.

The Life. Dig the traditions. Challenge your boss. Hold your job concurrent.

More challengers cliqued up. Cooley quashed their momentum. They came and went. Barry Groveman stayed. Formal announcements/fund-raisers/media brouhaha. '99 hits 2000.

March 7—the runoff election. A 50% plurality chills it. If Gil gets 50, Steve's fucked.

Cooley's a Republican. Garcetti's a Democrat. L.A. runs Democrat
biiiiig.
Garcetti paints Cooley as a manic malcontent. Garcetti infers right-wing nut and gun freak. Cooley brings up Lockheed.

Dig:

It's '96. Garcetti runs for reelection. The D.A.'s Office taps the County supervisors. Let's pay Lockheed 2.5 million. Let
them
run our child-support computer system.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc:

Lockheed lobs Garcetti campaign cash. The envelope arrives a month on.

The clock clicked. Tick, tock to March 7. Cooley picked up endorsements. Garcetti and Cooley culled campaign cash. Garcetti looks like a Latin lover. Cooley's the “blue collar” call. It's disingenuously dunned—but it works.

Cooley hammered Gilded Gil.

Guess? jeans. Lockheed. The O.J. malaise as subversive subtext. Belmont. The Three Strikes Law—noxious nightmare. Garcetti supports it. Garcetti hurls hypocrisy. Garcetti has a supporter. His grandson stands on strike 3. Garcetti shoots him 16 months. That's inconsistent. It's
mandatory
life per strike 3.

Garcetti denied Lockheed. Garcetti tried to trim the timeline in his favor. Garcetti spoke through a consultant. The consultant called Cooley “a traditional disgruntled-employee candidate.” Such people “always make a mistake of thinking the public wants to hear their laundry list of exaggerated attacks.”

Laundry list, shit. No tickee, no washee. I'm no Chinaman, but I'm a Cooley.

The list lurked and lingered. Cooley complemented it. He sent off salvos of solutions. He launched them lawyerly. They were complex
and
commonsensical. Mr. Blue Collar blurred into Policy Pete.

It's March 7. L.A. County votes. Groveman: 330,429/25%. Garcetti: 504,098/37%. Cooley: 509,750/38%.

No plurality. We fight to November.

They did. Cooley
had
the momentum. Cooley
built
more momentum. Cooley
grew
from burly to stately.

Garcetti's attacks atrophied. Cooley opposes Three Strikes. Bullshit—I want proportionality. I'm
not
passive on public scandals—Gil, don't shit me.

Cooley got the endorsements. The
L.A. Times
/the cop unions/ the
L.A. Weekly.
Ex-D.A.s stumped for Steve. The constituency confounded. Cooley wrapped up the right and lured in the left. Grassroots gravitas grabbed them. The man magnetized.

Garcetti got desperate. He did ethnic shtick.
Amigos y amigas,
love me Latinate—my blood blends with you. He placed smear ads. They kicked off with “Republican Steve Cooley.” The “Republican” rip rolled no ripples. Cooley rode a nonpartisan roll.

He debated Garcetti. They fought fifteen times. They jabbed. They inveighed invective. Cooley's record—deconstructed/distorted /revised. Gun control/Three Strikes/Guess? jeans/Lockheed. Slick versus burly cum stately. You're soft on crime/no,
you
are— middle-aged malice and a sandbox-shenanigan show.

It was overkill. It delayed and postponed. It fucked with the foregone conclusion.

People loved Steve Cooley. It was genuflectingly genuine. He hit the clear chord of
you and me.
He did it honestly and naturally and effortlessly.

He won huge. Pinch me—you're the D.A.

THAT WAS NOVEMBER 2000. Cut to now—1/2002.

Cooley trekked floor 18. He touched wall cracks. He turf-marked. He rehashed recent rebop.

The
Times
tainted him. Reformer's first year—few highs, few lows. Joe Scott prestaged them. Joe released a memo. It ran 31 bullet points. It ran down Year One in detail.

Cold cases to hate crimes. Belmont to Rampart. Anticorruption to immigrant fraud.

The
Times
piece hit first. The memo stats ran piecemeal. The
Times
got more cluck for the buck.

The truth was a
game.
Politics taught him. The truth was a moral must and a shuck.

The Blake job—unresolved. The Cold Case Squad—looking tuff. That Armenian hit job promised progress. Rick Jackson and Tim Marcia rode it rough.

Rampart rang on rancorous. The conspiracy nuts won't give up. The Public Integrity Division blew a case. Conflict of interest—you're out of the box.

The truth gets trashed sometimes. You're the Man now. You take the shots.

The truth plays schizzy. Learn from it. Light some candles. Light one for Gilded Gil Garcetti.

Cooley touched wall cracks. Subordinates said hi. They
all
called him “Boss” and “Steve.”

He crashed at his orgy desk. There's the view. Sip coffee and put your feet up.

The truth liberates. The truth vindicates. The truth kicks in late.

Sacramento moved on Carmichael. Then to now—26 years plus.

The Feds linked shotgun pellets to shells. The link led to an SLA hideout. Forensic confirmation
—waaaay
overdue.

The Sacramento cops moved. It's 1/16/02. It's synced to gnat'sdick-hair margin.

Emily Harris—popped at 8:02 a.m. Her ex Bill and Michael Bortin—popped at 8:18.

Tight spread—16 minutes/shotgun sharp.

Olson-Soliah slinked to her lawyer. She spent 1/18 in court.

She got sentenced. Bam—the car-bomb caper/20 to life. She got arraigned for Carmichael—211 and Murder One.

She pled not guilty. It didn't matter. She was karmically crucified, french-fried, and fucked.

There's the view. All crime all the time. Courtrooms and lockups.

Cooley gawked. Sometimes there's justice. Sometimes the plain truth works out.

Myrna Opsahl, God bless you—I'm glad I could help. We're all here on the Good Lord's dime. Someday we'll hook up.

Little Sleazer and the Mail-Sex Mama

The snuff vibed '70s. The slime factor, the cheap angst, the Valley mall bit. It should have been then. The Victim was
young. The Suspect had a career.

The
Herald
flourished then. L.A.'s tattling tabloid as
broadsheet. The
Herald
flew low. Crime reportage sans condescension. Bright flashbulb pix.

There's the Victim. She's ripe in acrylic tops and buckskin
skirts. The Suspect's short. Short was in then. He's smug and
cool. He's tall on TV. There's a bird perched on his cue-stick.

The tale demands a two-name title. The '70s ran rife with
such. They lauded larcenous losers. They deified disaffection.
They freeze-framed the freon cool as the System ate them up.

Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins. Freebie and the Bean. The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox.

Lascivious lovers. Furious fuzz. Hell-hurtling heroes and
the fabulously fucked up.

Boffo box-office then. Mainstream moviemaking masquerading as maverick art. A prattling prophecy of “Nicole
and O.J.” and tabloid tell-all TV.

Then was then. Hindsight hinders and perverts perspective. Deconstruction de-hinders. Nab some noxious nostalgia.
Move with the movie-biz metaphor.

It's a Hollywood story. The title crawls change. The same
shit applies then to now.

They might indict the Suspect. They might discard assumption of guilt. Leads might tweak them elsewhere. Clues could cull collectively and radically ratify thinking. New suspects could slide in.

It's a mid-sized celebrity murder. It's the first L.A. job post-O.J. Victim and Suspect lack Simpson-Goldman sizzle. They reign rancorous and raggedy-ass. They won't mount a media Matterhorn. They define despair and ladle on lowlife ennui. Simpson-Goldman bid you to vulture and voyeurize. It was filthy and fitness-crazed and fittingly fitted with money and sex. It set a prosecutorial precedent that juliennes justice and trashes the truth to this day.

Actor Robert Blake, second from left, portrayed murderer Perry Smith in the 1967 film
In Cold Blood
.
(Culver Pictures)

Then to now. Seven years. Brentwood '94 to the Valley 2001.

Then:

The prosecutors' duty: Secure the truth and win or lose accordingly. The defense attorneys' mandate: Win at all moral cost. The O.J. prosecutors damned O.J. with circumstantial facts and DNA. DNA is unassailably precise. DNA is boring science. The prosecutors overexposited it and put jurors to sleep. The O.J. defense team caught their blows and punched counterclockwise. They concocted conspiracy theories. They capitalized on a racist cop nailed by the word “nigger” and craftily crucified him. They synthesized a siren song of racial injustice and lashed logic with it.

The jurors dropped behind drama. The jurors reached out for racial grievance and ignored the inviolate truth.

O.J. walked. Dig the dysfunctional dynamic. Then to now, dig the dilemma.

Celebrity snuffs scare prosecutors shitless. The dramatic potential diminishes their shot to convict. Said potential is perennial. The O.J. case redefined it. It was a shivering shock. It was hellaciously Hollywood. Reason versus drama in
this
town—no way, Jose.

There's the truth. There's dramatic logic. There's age-old movie themes. There's the victim as killer and the killer as victim and the victimhood cult in L.A. The Victim's a sleazebag, the Suspect's an
actor—
oh shit, we're fucked in L.A.

MAYBE. MAYBE NOT.

The L.A. D.A.'s a reformer. The post-O.J. malaise helped make him. He'll follow the facts. He'll track the truth. He'll assess and scrutinize. He'll indict or bop off indictmentless.

Said facts:

It's Friday, May 4, 2001. Victim and Suspect are newlyweds. The marriage is six months in. She's 44. He's 67. They lack that newlywed glow.

She got pregnant. He got pissed. They considered a scrape. She slept around. A DNA test nailed his daddyhood. They got hitched and had a baby girl.

They shacked apart. They had two pads on his property. He made her sign a prenup. She swore off bunco schemes. She vowed to drop her known-felon buddies.

Said Friday:

8:30 p.m. Victim and Suspect nosh at Vitello's restaurant. It's a mid-range dago joint on Tujunga. The Suspect's a regular. There's a pasta dish named after him.

They live nearby. They drive up in his Stealth. They park a block away. Why dat???—there's spaces much closer in.

They eat. They split to the car. The Victim gets in. The Suspect unkinks a brain cramp. Fuck—I left my gun in the booth!

He packs a roscoe routinely. He's got a carry permit. The Victim is a larcenist. The Victim has enemies. You gots to protect yo bitch!!!

He hotfoots it back to Vitello's. He retrieves his rod.
He
recalls it vividly. No eyeball wits confirm it.

He bops back to the car. He sees the Victim. She's got a gunshot head wound. She's slumped in the seat.

Panic now—

The Suspect runs. The Suspect crosses the street. The Suspect bangs on Sean Stanek's door. Stanek knows the Suspect by sight and reputation. The cat's a local habitué.

The Suspect begs help. Stanek calls 911. They run to the car. The Victim gasps. Her eyes roll back. Her window is down. There's no shattered glass.

Panic City—

The Suspect runs to Vitello's. Eyewits recall
this
trip. The Suspect is frantic. He begs water and gulps it. His wife “got hurt or mugged or something.”

The restaurant boss wants to call 911 quicksville. The Suspect says it's redundant. He walks to the car. The victim is insensate. He starts vomiting in the street.

Paramedics arrive. The LAPD shows. Code 3 service—seven minutes to the scene.

The Victim expired. Cops braced the Suspect streetside. Cops braced him at his crib. Cops braced him for five hours straight.

He declined a polygraph. He took a gunshot residue test. Results: inconclusive. He'd handled his carry piece.

He denied all guilt. He detailed the Victim's bunco scams. He flung the fuzz a nebulous knot of her nameless enemies. His blood pressure pressed up
prestissimo.
He hospital-hid overnight. He hired a crack criminal lawyer. Said shyster shivved and sheared the Victim postmortem. The Suspect sulked submissive. The Suspect submitted to search warrants and gave up his guns. They passed ballistics tests
bellissimo.
Cops carted off cartons of the Victim's belongings. They cried out her criminality and signed in as sick souvenirs.

Days dipped by. A dumped Dumpster delivered the murder piece. The bin stood near the crime scene. The bin was deep with debris from May 4th and 5th. The roscoe reeked of gun oil. The roscoe was fingerprint-free. The roscoe's registration remained anonymous. No way to sully the Suspect. No way to hitch him to some hired hit man.

The Suspect was subsumed by sadness and wracked with regret. He doted on his daughter. His mouthpiece maligned her mother. The Victim's family shagged a shyster. A PR war waged. Cop PR dithered disingenuously. There's the Suspect suspended as a
non-
suspect—just like O.J. was at first.

The snuff vibed '80s. The heedlessness, the self-absorption, the
glut. Time-trip then to now and dig the disjuncture.

Little Sleazer at fifty. Pint-sized and pumped with allure.
The Mail-Sex Mama looking gooooood.

Robert Blake, left, covers his face as he arrives back at his Studio City home with his attorney, Harland W. Braun.
(Luis Sinco/L.A. Times)

Ron Reagan's in the White House. El Jefe hails from Hollywood. Cocaine comes to conquer. L.A. blurs in the blowout
and pounds with postnasal drip.

The era etched early earmarks. Plea bargains began
mounting up. I'm a victim/I'm an addict/don't judge me
cruel. All this excess engulfed me.

Dope delivered the deus ex machina. Dope molded mitigation pleas. The boom era boomeranged with furious forfeit.
There's Little Sleazer and the Mail-Sex Mama trapped back
in time. They're coked up. They writhe in relinquishment.
They're pouring out postnasal drip.

It's a Hollywood story. The title crawls change. The same
shit applies then to now.

Little Sleazer is an actor. All actors are fucked up. They
are
their art. Their gift is impersonation. It's nonmeditative art. The goal is to become something you're not. The goal entices narcissists. The cessation of self bodes warm. It's a riff on Woody Allen's line: “My one regret is that I'm not someone else.”

Good
actors impersonate across a wide character plane. Their mental gifts and neuroses mesh.
Bad
actors run with their egos unchecked. They rage effusive and grotesque.
Successful
bad actors tailor their personas to the media marketplace. They possess physical grace and/or outsized presence. Their need to impress manifests as dynamism. Their effusiveness stops short of desperation. Their grotesquerie seduces more than repels. They become themselves hyperbolized and repackaged for large and small screens. Successful bad actors push
one
creative envelope. Their drive is conscious and unconscious and ruled by casting-call nods. Successful bad actors find roles that allow them to
be
themselves and explicate their offscreen potential.

Little Sleazer plays killers. He plays them with hambone humanity and the requisite reptile rage. He chewed scenery as Perry Smith in
In Cold Blood.
Sawed-off serpent Smith had an abusive father. Little Sleazer copped to the same. His performance was silly symbiosis. It's all tics and mugs and squints and goofball grins. It recalls real-life rodent Charles Schmid, “the Pied Piper of Tucson.” Schmid killed teenage girls in the '60s. He was short, dark, and narcissistic. He wanted to be an actor. He wore eye shadow. He jammed tin cans in his boots and boosted his height.

Little Sleazer as Smith via Schmid. The four
In Cold Blood
victims plus the Pied Piper's three. Little Sleazer as current murder suspect. Little Sleazer's rap on murder in
People
magazine:

“A murderer only becomes a murderer after he or she kills somebody. But what are they before they're on death row? They're you or me.”

Jive wisdom. The universal-guilt chestnut. Nonjudgmentalism as actor's creed.

Little Sleazer on murder redux:

“I have played a lot of people who killed. I have been on death row. You know, I have never met a murderer in my life. That's because there ain't any. There are people who crossed the line. Some of us don't cross the line.”

Wooooo! Heavy shit. Sinatra might make it work. A shrug, a Pall Mall, a martini. A sharkskin suit from Sy Devore. The frail frame that boffed Ava G. The Chairman, maybe. He granted grace and gravity to the sheerest of shit and stung you with style. Little Sleazer—no,
nein,
and
nyet.

He's lachrymose killer Perry Smith—that crap-your-pants crybaby. He's funky führer Jimmy Hoffa toned down for TV. He's family slayer John List—he didn't kill no one, there ain't no killers, there's just you and me.

Little Sleazer played Baretta. He frappéed us frigid and fried us with that bird on his cue. He was fortyish. He was
cooool.

Cooool
is childish.
Cooool
is nonsense.
Cooool
is the pinnacle of male-gender jive. If you don't know it at forty plus, you never will.

Combine coolness and rage. Merge them maladroit. You get the psycho default mode of bad actors.

Who tend to indulge bad habits. Who tend to disdain inhibition. Who tend to confuse their lives with their roles.