Shakedown (5 page)

“Ava Gardner’s Dusky Dee-lite.”

“Johnnie Ray’s Men’s Room Misadventure.”

“Bad Boy Bob Mitchum: Back in Reeferland AGAIN?”

I wired Harrison and confirmed the meet. I booked a boss bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I borrowed textbooks from Arthur Crowley’s library and studied libel, slander, and defamation of character. I learned to think and talk like a language-lucid lawyer.

Jimmy bagged back issues of
Peep
,
Lowdown, Whisper, Tattle,
and
Confidential
itself. I studied linguistic loopholes and cultivated codes of mitigation, equivocation, ambiguity. Innuendo, inference, implication. So many wicked ways to scandal-skin a cat.

I alter-egoed myself in a week’s time. I discovered
sin-
uendo and
scanda-
language. I moved into the bungalow a day early. That talking bug and I conferenced and concurred:
Confidential
was the grooved-out grail of this shook-up generation.
Disillusionment is enlightenment.
Confidential
trafficked truth and harpooned hypocrisy. It was a devoutly decorous document. It was the
meshuggener
Magna Carta of our hopped-up and fucked-up age.

It’s now 9/21/53. It’s now precisely 10 a.m. The doorbell rings.

Caviar, canapés—check. Martinis mixed
magnifico
—check. My dossier on Bondage Bob—malignantly memorized.

I opened the door. The Sultan of
Sin-
uendo: a nervous nebbish in a dreary drip-dry suit.

He said, “Mr. Otash.”

I said, “Mr. Harrison.”

He walked in and went
Ooh-la-la.
I poured two mighty martinis and pointed to the couch. We raised our glasses. I said, “To freedom of speech.”

“The First Amendment. What it hath wrought.”

We clicked glasses. I sat facing Bondage Bob. He made the you-and-me sign. He said, “Strange bedfellows.”

You’re
stranger,
dipshit.
You
wear women’s lingerie and love the lash.
You
published
Honeys in Heels,
pre-
Confidential.

“Get my attention, Mr. Otash. Open strong, baby. I’ve got a storefront called the ‘Hollywood Research Bureau.’ It’s been my primary source since we launched. We’ve floated the magazine on the few nuggets it’s panned, plus imagination. It’s been thin gruel, by and large. Hit me, sweetheart. Show me why the cognoscenti says, ‘Fred Otash is the man to see.’ ”

I pulled out my Marlon Brando snapshot. I passed it to Bondage Bob. He gasped and sprayed me with a mouthful of martini.

I let it drip-dry on my suit coat. Bondage Bob coughed and called up composure. He said, “Holy fucking shit.”

“May I give you a candid assessment of your situation and explain how I might best serve you?”

“Hit me, doll. I didn’t fly 3,000 miles for some namby-pamby chitchat.”

I shot my cuffs and showed off my Rolex. I buzz-bombed Bondage Bob with the Freon Fred stare.

“You publish what is rapidly becoming the premier scandal magazine in a very crowded field. You compete with
Whisper, Tattle, Peep, On the Q.T., Lowdown,
and others. Your competitors rely largely on true-crime exposés, reports of miracle cures for various diseases, and rehashes of your own articles on celebrity misbehavior. The specific strengths of
your
magazine are its staunch anti-Communist stance and
sex.
Frankly, I find your articles that play on the
greed
of your readers are both unbelievable and devoid of the
heat
that people turn to
Confidential
for. There are no emerald mines in Colorado and no Uruguayan herbs that triple the size of the male member in two weeks’ time. You’re
lying,
sir. You’re hoping that bilking your readers with stories like that will both boost your sales and help defray the costs of the libel suits that are being filed against you with greater and greater frequency in circuit courts all over America. My good friend, the esteemed jurist Arthur Cowley, has informed me that magazines that publish filler pieces chock-full of bold-faced lies create what he calls a ‘gap in credibility and verisimilitude.’ This calls into question the veracity of
all
the articles published in said magazines over time, leaving said magazines vulnerable to both individual lawsuits and the looming specter of what Mr. Crowley calls the ‘lynch-mob-like and Communistic specter of the emerging class action suit,’ wherein aggrieved parties band together under the aegis of left-wing Jewish lawyers in order to posit a common beef and destroy the First Amendment right of free speech that we hold so sacred here in America. The mitigating, equivocating, and temporizing language that runs through your groundbreaking articles on celebrity misconduct will
not
save you. You may use ‘alleged,’ ‘purported,’ and ‘rumored’ as much as you like, but they will
not
legally extricate you in the end. My first two salient points are these: you must dramatically boost your sexual content, and everything you publish in
Confidential
must be entirely true and verifiable.”

Wooooooooo!
Bravura breath control and artful articulation! Bondage Bob: flabbergasted and flushed behind Beefeater’s gin.

He fidgeted. He licked his lips. He crossed his legs like a submissive sissy. I saw restraint-rope scars on his soft and sockless ankles.

“Nuisance suits are costing us 25 thou a month. Those Commie lawyers are coming out of the sewers like rats.”

I sailed into my second soliloquy:

“Informants must be both credible and coercible, as well as vulnerable to exposure of their own misdeeds. I served as an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for close to a decade. I have access to every crooked cop in this town, and they will rat out any celebrity, socialite, Communist, miscegenist, or alluring lowlife that they know of for a simple retainer. The scum that they rat out will rat out six others to stay out of your magazine, and the mathematical equation that I am positing will extend indefinitely. I can tell that you’re thinking,
Informants alone will not suffice,
and that assumption is correct. You may know that we are entering a bold new era of electronic surveillance. I propose that we install standing, full-time bugs in every high-class hotel in Los Angeles. I will bribe the managers and desk clerks of said hotels to steer celebrity adulterers and queers to specific rooms, where their sexual activities and conversation will be captured on tape. The best bug man on earth is a hebe named Bernie Spindel. I will meet with him soon. Mr. Spindel would love to enter your employ and has a gift for you. He bugged a bungalow at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica last week. The manager of the hotel is a masochistic child molester with a quite understandable urge to be punished for his aberrant behavior. I will physically chastise him on a monthly basis, which will deter him from hurting children as well as keep him under my thumb. He will have strict orders to place all celebs in bungalow number 9. Bernie’s gift is a tape of Senator John F. Kennedy fucking Ingrid Bergman and detailing his preposterous plans to run for president of the United States to her, while she yawns and prattles on about her kids. Be forewarned: the fucking is short-lived. I’ll be frank: Senator Kennedy is
a two-minute man.”

Bondage Bob: Ga-ga, goo-goo-eyed,
gone.

“So, we—”

I cut him off. “
So
we also bug all the fag bathhouses.
So
I have extortion wedges on the informants who supply the dirt for our most explosive pieces.
So
I polygraph-test them to assure their veracity.
So
I create a climate of fear in Hollywood, which is the most gorgeously perverted and cosmetically moralistic place on God’s green fucking earth.
Because
I have an unerring nose for human weakness and have sensed for some time that we have entered an era where the gilded and famous all secretly harbor a desire to be exposed.
Because
I am willing to burglarize any psychiatrist’s office in order to get the dirt on their celebrity patients.
Because
I am willing to quash lawsuits through the threat and application of physical force.”

Bondage Bob
guuuuuuuulped.
“What
won’t
you do?”

I saw Ralph Mitchell Horvath. I said, “Commit murder or work for Communists.”

Hold now. Hear that pin-drop silence. Let it linger
loooooong
.

“Would you consent to an audition? To test your inside knowledge?”

I nodded. Harrison hit me. I bopped to his beat, beatific.

“Senator Estes Kefauver?”

“Whorehound. Shacks with Filipino prosties at the downtown Statler when he visits L.A.”

“Sinatra. Give me the latest.”

“Caught his new girlfriend muff-diving Lana Turner at the Beverly Wilshire, went on a six-day bender with Jackie Gleason, and wound up with the DTs at Queen of Angels.”

“Otto Preminger?”

“Mud shark. Currently enthralled with a sepia seductress named Dorothy Dandridge.”

“Lawrence Tierney?”

“Brawling, psychopathic brother of noted grasshopper Scott Brady. Digs the boys at the Cockpit Lounge and the occasional girl who looks like a boy.”

“John Wayne?”

“Quasi drag queen. Fucks women and looks stunning in a size 52-long muumuu.”

“Johnny Weissmuller?”

“King Schlong. Well known to have fathered nine kids out of wedlock with nine different women. Current holder of the White Man’s World Record.”

“Duke Ellington?”

“Current holder of the Jigaboo World Record.”

“Van Johnson?”

“The Semen Demon. Sucks dick at the glory hole at the Wilshire May Company men’s room.”

“Burt Lancaster?”

“Sadist. Has a well-appointed torture den at his pad in Beverly Hills. Pays call girls top dollar to inflict pain on them.”

“Fritz Lang?”

“Known to film Burt’s torture sessions and screen them for a select clientele.”

“The Misty June Christy?”

“Nympho size-queen. My shakedown bait Donkey Don Eversall gives her the big one on a regular basis. Donkey Don’s got a wall peek at his crib. My pal Jimmy Dean made an avant-garde
film of their last assignation. It’s called
The Stacked and the Hung.
The premiere is Friday night, in my living room. You’re cordially invited.”

“Alfred Hitchcock?”

“Peeper.”

“Natalie Wood?”

“Child actress in transition. Rumored to be ensconced at a dyke slave den near Hollywood High.”

“Alan Ladd?”

“Dramatically underhung cunt hound. A man on the horns of an existential dilemma worthy of those Communistic philosopher chumps.”

He’s ga-ga, goo-goo, pulled into putty. He’s martini-mangled and
mine.

“Mr. Otash, the job is yours.”

“Fifty grand a year and expenses. My operating costs will go at least double that.”

Now
he’s green at the gills.
Now
he knows there’s No Exit. It’s a felicitous fait accompli.

“Yes, Mr. Otash. We have a deal.”

We shook hands.

Bondage Bob said, “Jean-Paul Sartre’s a pal of mine. He’ll
love The Stacked and the Hung.”

That talking bug rocked across the rug and waved at me. I swear this is true.

Jimmy timed the fuck: 1:46. The fuckers: future prez and mick martyr JFK, Swedish sweetie Ingrid Bergman.

Pillow patter tapped the tape. Jack coughed and said, “Aaaaah, that was good.” Ingrid yawned and said, “Vell, for vun of us, perhaps.”

I roared. Jimmy howled. The market was 3 a.m. quiet. We passed the Old Crow back and forth.

Jimmy said, “We wrapped
GE Theater.
I invited Ronnie Reagan to the premiere.”

I said, “He hates the Reds. I’ll hit him up for some snitch-outs.”

The tape groaned and ground to squelch. Jimmy turned it off. I looked out the mirror. The kid with the red wagon was unloading
Confidential.
The wagon was white-print-emblazoned. I couldn’t quite read the words.

Jimmy said, “The kid gets to you.”

“He shouldn’t be out this late.”

“You’ve got the same employer now.”

“I know.”

“When I’m famous, keep me out of the magazine.”

“When you’re
in
it, you know you’ve arrived.”

The first check arrived. I retained Bernie “the Bug King” Spindel. He was an Orthodox Jew with eight kids and six
schvartze
girlfriends. We discussed the mud-shark metaphysic. Bernie said, “Once you’ve had black, you can’t go back.”

We spent a week whipping wires to wainscoting and laying mike mounts into mattresses. I bribed hotel honchos up the yammering ying-yang. We drilled, bored, spackled, threaded, planted, and wired all the high-end hotels. Regular retainers would result in records of sicko celebs sacking up in those rooms. Bondage Bob had bountiful bucks. We wire-whipped full-time listening posts at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Bel-Air Hotel, the Beverly Wilshire, the Miramar, the Biltmore, the downtown Statler. A Biltmore bellboy tipped us right off: Gary Cooper and a jailbait jill jumped into that bugged bedroom.
BAM!
—our system socks in sync. Bedsprings bounce, voices vibrate, mikes pick up tattle text and lay it to the listening post.
BAM!
—my Marine Corps mastiff retrieves the tape.
BAM!
—the babe is 16 and a Belmont High coed. Coop says, “You’re
built,
honey. Tell me your name again.” The girl gasps, “I’ve always loved your pictures, Mr. Cooper. And, wow, you’re really
big.
”

The dirt, the dish, the scandal skank, the lewd libels revealed as
real.
It was
all
starting to come to me and to
Confidential
.

Jimmy edited his movie and dubbed in a sizzling soundtrack. The priapic premiere was
the
L.A. moment of fall ’53. I served pizza, booze, and pills from a felonious pharmacy. My pad was packed with movie
machers
and Marines, stupid starlets, stars, and studs. Dig: Liz, Joi, Ward Wardell, Race Rockwell, Donkey Don. Ronnie Reagan, Harry Fremont, Arthur Crowley, Bondage Bob, and Jean-Paul Sartre—existentially seeking the scene. A six-foot-six drag queen, Rock Hudson, ex–U.S. senator Helen Gahagan Douglas. Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, nodding on Big H.

It’s the egalitarian epicenter of postwar America. It’s a colossal convergence of the gilded and gorgeous, the defiled and demented, the expatriots of exultant extremity. This seedy summit set the tone for the frazzled and fractured society that is our nation today.

I dimmed the lights. Race Rockwell ran the projector. The soundtrack hit: Bartók, Beethoven, bebop by way of Bird. There’s the opening titles: “
The Stacked and the Hung,
starring Donkey Don Eversall and June Christy.” “Photographed, Edited, Produced and Directed by James Dean.”

The applause was apoplectic. There’s the establishing shot—a coontown motel room, shot surreptitiously through a hole-in-the-wall peek.

June Christy enters the room and drops her purse on the bed. She looks apprehensive. She lights a cigarette, she checks her watch, she taps her toes and paces. It’s soundless cinema. The camera stays static—the lens is lashed to that wall peek.

There—June hears something. She smiles, she walks offscreen, she walks back on with Donkey Don. Donkey winks at the wall peek—he’s in on it. June sits on the bed. Donkey Don whips it out and wags it. My pad shakes and shimmies. There’s gasps, wolf whistles, shrill shrieks.

I looked around for Jimmy. June devoured Donkey Don, tonsil-deep. Where’s Jimmy?
Fuck
—he’s jacking off by the pizza buffet!

Calendar pages flicked, flew, sheared, and shape-shifted. They’re sales graphs now.

’53 into ’54. Vertical lines in escalation.
Confidential
hits a million a month.
Confidential
makes a million and a half in rabid record time.

It’s all
ME
. I’m awash in the sicko secrets I’ve cruelly craved my whole life. I’ve got L.A. hot-wired. My city teems with tattle tipsters on my payroll. Hotel rooms are hot-sheet hives hooked up to my headset. I know everything sinful, sex-soiled, deeply dirty, and religiously wrong. It’s wrong, it’s real, and it’s
MINE
.

My Marines lived in listening posts. They caught Corrine Calvet cavorting with a car-park cat at the Crescendo. They caught Paul Robeson, ripped to the gills at a Red rally. They caught Jumping Johnnie Ray again. I verified all of it and fed it to
Confidential.
Gary Cooper and Miss Belmont High? Quashed for ten grand.

’53, ’54. A-bomb blast parties on Liz Taylor’s rooftop. Those cavalcades of color against the dim dawn. The camaraderie and opportunity. The sense that this march of magnificent moments would never stop.

Calendar pages, sales graphs,
Confidential
covers. Dipsos, nymphos, junkies, Commies, feckless fools all. That cover I regret, that ball I dropped, that
malignant
moment.
That
page in purgatory as I pause my pen.

May 16, 1954. I’m at my pad. I’m booking a threeski for the Landing Strip. I quashed a story on Marilyn Monroe’s secret Mexican marriage. Marilyn grovels, grateful. She knows a sapphic sister with a sometimes yen for men.

The phone rang. I picked up. Arthur Crowley said, “There’s trouble, Freddy.”

I said, “Hit me.”

“I got a tip. Johnnie Ray’s been to a libel lawyer. He’s suing the magazine. I know that you verified the story, but he’s going forward anyway. I strongly suggest that you nip this in the bud.”

Men’s Room
Mishegas
: Jittery Johnnie Strikes Again.

I verified the story.
Confidential
ran it. This was unprecedented grief.

“My Marines are on maneuvers, Arthur. There’s no one to handle it.”

“
You
handle it, Freddy. Take care of it before that tip gets back to Bob Harrison.”

I hung up. My nerves were nuked. I took three quick pops of Old Crow. Joi was tight with Johnnie. They girl-talked regular.
I
liked Johnnie. Jimmy screened
The Stacked and the Hung
for him personally.

I dropped three yellow jackets and obliterated the day. I woke up at midnight. Johnnie always hit Googie’s after his closing set. He always parked in the same spot.

A short stroll, spring heat, a brisk breeze. I walked over and leaned on Johnnie’s Packard Caribbean. Johnnie swished out at 1:15.

He saw me. He got the gestalt. He said, “Hi, Freddy.”

I said, “Don’t make me, kid. I’ll keep you out from now on, but you’ve got to stop it here.”

Johnnie said, “You’re a parasite, Freddy. You feed off the weak. I’m not backing off. I don’t see any of your goons around, so you’ll have to do it yourself.”

Parasite, parasite, parasite—

“Let it go, Johnnie. You can’t win this one.”

“
You’re
the weak one, Freddy. Joi told me that you cry out for your mother in your sleep.”

I trembled. “One more time. No lawsuit.”

“You’re a mama’s boy, Freddy. Joi told me you fucked a tranny, which makes you more queer than me.”

I saw red and black-red. I hit him. My signet ring slashed his cheek. He went down on his knees. I picked him up and tossed him into his car. I heard bones crack and teeth shear. The bumper ledge gouged his head at the hairline. I kicked him and tore a chunk of his scalp free.

He said, “Okay, okay, okay.” No whimper—strong.

I said, “I’m sorry, kid.”

Johnnie spit blood and twirled a fuck-you finger at me.