Shakedown (6 page)

The market was 2 a.m. quiet. Jimmy and I quaffed Old Crow. I was spritzed with Johnnie Ray’s blood.

Jimmy said, “I’m up for the lead in
East of Eden.
Elia Kazan’s waffling. It could go either way.”

“I’ll lean on Kazan. He’s susceptible. There’s some pinkos he didn’t rat to HUAC.”

Jimmy walked to the mirror and pointed down at the floor. My hands hurt. My signet ring was missing stones.

“That kid’s down there, Freddy. You know, the one with the wagon.”

I got up and looked. The kid off-loaded magazines. The wagon was positioned sideways.
red ryder
was painted on it.

“Jimmy, do you know why you’re a freak?”

“I don’t know, Freddy. Do you know why
you
are?”

I thought about it.

I said, “I don’t know.”

I’m perched in purgatory. I’ve purged the most perverted part of my hellacious history. My brain waves broiled in seditious sync with James Ellroy’s. It was a carcinogenic collaboration. We collided over commas, colons, and alluring alliteration. Ellroy
finally
dumped his Otash TV show on a cable network. He’ll get
more
rich and famous. Did he do a deal with the devil? Has my heartfelt hope of heaven gone
pffft
?

It has.

My keepers have convened a kangaroo court. My transfer to heaven has been stamped “still pending.”

I’m deep in the dumps. They took my old body back. I’m perpetually 70 years old and
dead.

My ass hurts. Johnnie Ray pitchforked me an hour ago. Kate Hepburn was next. Sweetie, you
did
do Rex the Rottweiler—all I wanted was ten grand for the pics!

Aaaaaah
—I’ve got third-degree burns!!!!

I’ve petitioned my head keeper for a heaven day pass. A conjugal visit with Liz Taylor would put me up on my paws. More malignant memories are crawling through my cranium. I’m jumping Joan Crawford and socking it to Simone Signoret. Jerk-off James Ellroy would be digging
this
shit.

Where’s Ellroy when I
really
need him? Fuck—my ass hurts!

My head keeper just passed on the word: no heaven day pass. Consolation prize: I’ll have an hour in my cell with an earthly “old flame.”

I put on a spiffy sweat suit. I spritzed on Lucky Tiger cologne. I prepped some withering one-liners—L.A. in the ’50s,
ring-a-ding-ding!!!!!

A tall woman approached the bars.
Oooooooh
—blasphemous-blond and boss-built! She got closer. She boded
biiiiig
and seemed fatalistically familiar. She wore stewardess blues, replete with pillbox hat. She smiled.
What’s that bulge in her skirt?
Holy Homo Hannah—it’s Barb Bonvillain, pre–sex change!

I screeched and screamed.

I cringed and crapped my pants.

I cried out for my keepers.

Am I hurtling to hell? Did this memoir make the prince of darkness send up for me?

Barb’s outside my cell now. Call it karmic comeuppance. You get what you pay for. I sure as shit learned it late.

James Ellroy
is the author of the groundbreaking Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy—
American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand,
and
Blood’s A Rover.
The novels of his L.A. Quartet—
The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential,
and
White Jazz
—were international bestsellers.
My Dark Places,
a memoir, was a
Time
Best Book of the Year and a
New York Times
Notable Book.
The Cold Six Thousand
was a
New York Times
Notable Book and a
Los Angeles Times
Best Book for 2001. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

Read more of
James Ellroy’s best stories
at Byliner.com

Photograph by Marion Ettlinger

Byliner
publishes compelling works of original fiction and nonfiction written to be read in a single sitting.

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features curated archives of the best fiction and nonfiction writing, and allows readers to easily find, share, and buy new and classic works by their favorite authors.

To discover more great reads by great writers, please visit us at
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