Buzz sighed. “Johnny, you’re a rich man.”
“What?”
Buzz said, “Meet me here tomorrow at noon,” and hung up. He dialed an East LA number and got, “Quien? Quien es?”
“Speak English, Chico, it’s Meeks.”
“Buzz! My Padrone!”
“I’m changin’ my order, Chico. No thirty-thirty, make it a sawed-off.”
“.12 gauge, Padrone?”
“Bigger, Chico. The biggest you got.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The shotgun was a .10 gauge pump with a foot-long barrel. The slugs held triple-aught buckshot. The five rounds in the breech were enough to turn Mickey Cohen’s haberdashery and the dope summit personnel into dog food. Buzz was carrying the weapon in a venetian blind container covered with Christmas wrapping paper.
His U-Drive clunker was at the curb a half block south of Sunset. The haberdashery lot was packed with Jew canoes and guinea gunboats; one sentry was stationed by the front door shooing away customers; the man by the back door looked half asleep, sitting in a chair catching a full blast of late-morning sun. Two neutral triggers accounted for—Dudley and the fourth man had to be inside with the action.
Buzz waved at the guy up on the corner—his prepaid accomplice recruited from a wine bar. The guy walked into the lot looking furtive, trying Caddy and Lincoln door handles, skirting the last row of cars by the fence. Buzz eased up slowly, waiting for the sentry to take note and pounce.
It took the sunbird almost half a minute to stir, get wise and tread over, a hand inside his jacket pocket. Buzz ran full speed, fat lightning on sneakered feet.
The sentry turned around at the last second; Buzz swung the Christmas box in his face and knocked him against the hood of a ’49 Continental. The man pulled his gun; Buzz kneed him in the nards, popped his nose with a flat palm and watched the .45 auto hit the blacktop. Another knee spear put him down and keening; Buzz kicked the gun away, whipped off the box and used the butt of his sawed-off to beat him quiet.
The accomplice was gone; the sentry was bleeding at the mouth and nose, deep off in dreamland—maybe for keeps. Buzz pocketed the loose cannon, walked over to the back door and let himself in.
Laughter and hail-fellow dialogue booming; a short corridor lined with dressing rooms. Buzz inched up to a curtain, pulled a corner back and looked.
The summit was in full swing. Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna were glad-handing each other, standing by a table laid out with cold cuts, bottles of beer and liquor. Davey Goldman, Mo Jahelka and Dudley Smith were knocking back highballs; a line of Dragna humps was standing by the front window curtains. Johnny Stompanato was nowhere to be seen because Johnny Stompanato was probably halfway to Pedro by now, hoping a certain fat man survived the morning. Over by the left wall, the real business was happening: two Mex National types counting a suitcase full of money while one Mickey guy and one Jack guy taste-tested the white-brown powder stuffed into reinforced paper bags in another suitcase. Their smiles said the stuff tasted good.
Buzz pulled the curtain aside and joined the party, sliding a round into the chamber to get some attention. The noise caused heads to turn, drinks and plates of food to drop; Dudley Smith smiled; Jack Dragna eyed the barrel. Buzz saw a cop type by the Mexes. Twenty to one he and Dudley were the only ones heeled; Dud was much too smart to try something. Mickey Cohen looked hurt. He said, “As God is my witness I will do you worse than I did the guy who did Hooky Rothman.”
Buzz felt his whole body floating away from him. The Mexes were starting to look scared; a rap on the window would bring the outside man. He stepped over to where he could see every face in the room and trained his muzzle for a blast spread: Jack and Mickey vaporized the second he pulled the trigger. “The money and the dope in one of your garment bags, Mick. Now and slow.”
Mickey said, “Davey, he’ll shoot. Do it.”
Buzz saw Davey Goldman cross his vision and start talking low Spanish to the Mexes. He caught a slant view of paper sacks and greenbacks being ladled into a zippered hanger bag, tan canvas with red piping and Mickey Cohen’s face embossed on the front. Mickey said, “If you send Audrey back to me I will not harm a hair on her head and I will not do you slow. If I find her with you, mercy I cannot promise. Send her back to me.”
A million-dollar deal blown—and all Mickey Cohen could think of was a woman. “No.”
The bag was zipped up; Goldman walked it over extra slow. Buzz held his left arm out straight; Mickey was shaking like a hophead dying for a fix. Buzz wondered what he’d say next; the little big man said, “Please.”
The garment bag settled; Buzz felt his arm buckling. Dudley Smith winked. Buzz said, “I’ll be back for you, lad. Diaz and Hartshorn.”
Dudley laughed. “You won’t live the day.”
Buzz backed into the curtains. “Don’t go out the rear door, it’s booby-trapped.”
Mickey Cohen said, “Please. You can’t run with her. Not a hair on her head will I hurt.”
Buzz getawayed.
* * *
Johnny Stompanato was waiting for him at the motel, lying on the bed listening to an opera on the radio. Buzz dropped the garment bag, unzipped it and pulled out ten ten-thousand-dollar bank stacks. Johnny’s jaw dropped; his cigarette hit his chest and burned a hole in his shirt. He snuffed the butt with a pillow and said, “You did it.”
Buzz threw the money on the bed. “Fifty for you, fifty for Mrs. Celeste Considine, 641 South Gramercy, LA. You make the delivery, and tell her it’s for the kid’s education.”
Stompanato hoarded the money into a tight little pile and gloated over it. “How do you know I won’t keep it all?”
“You like my style too much to fuck me.”
* * *
Buzz drove up to Ventura, parked in front of Deputy Dave Kleckner’s house and rang the bell. Audrey answered. She was wearing an old Mickey shirt and dungarees, just like she was the first time he kissed her. She looked at the garment bag and said, “Planning to stay awhile?”
“Maybe. You look tired.”
“I was up all night thinking.”
Buzz put his hands to her face, smoothing a wisp of stray hair. “Dave home?”
“Dave’s on duty until late, and I think he’s in love with me.”
“Everybody’s in love with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you make them afraid to be alone.”
“Does that include you?”
“Me especially.”
Audrey jumped into his arms. Buzz let go of the garment bag and kicked it for luck. He carried his lioness into the front bedroom and made a swipe at the light switch; Audrey grabbed his hand. “Leave it on. I want to see you.”
Buzz got out of his clothes and sat on the edge of the bed; Audrey slow-grinded herself naked and leaped on him. They kissed ten times as long as they usually did and strung out everything else they’d ever done together. Buzz went into her fast, but moved extra slow; she pushed up with her hips harder than she did their first time. He couldn’t hold it and didn’t want to; she went crazy when he did. Like the first time, they thrashed the sheets off the bed and held each other, sweating. Buzz remembered how he’d hooked a finger around Audrey’s wrist so they’d still be touching while he caught his breath. He did it again, but this time she squeezed his whole hand like she didn’t know what the gesture meant.
They curled up, Audrey nuzzling. Buzz looked around the strange bedroom. Passport applications and stacks of South American tourist brochures were resting on the nightstand and boxes of women’s clothing were arrayed by the door next to a brand-new suitcase. Audrey yawned, kissed his chest like it was sleep time and yawned again. Buzz said, “Sweetie, did Mickey ever hit you?”
A drowsy head shake in answer. “Talk later. Lots of talk later.”
“Did he ever?”
“No, only men.” Another yawn. “No Mickey talk, remember our deal?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
Audrey
gave him a squeeze and settled into sleep. Buzz picked up the brochure closest to him, a huckster job for Rio de Janeiro. He flipped pages, saw that Audrey had circled listings for guest cottages offering newlywed rates and tried to picture an on-the-lam cop-killer and a thirty-seven-year-old ex-stripper basking in the South American sun. He couldn’t. He tried to picture Audrey waiting for him while he attempted to lay off twenty-five pounds of heroin to some renegade mob guy who hadn’t already heard of the heist and the contract that went with it. He couldn’t. He tried to picture Audrey with him when the LAPD closed in, hard-on glory cops holding their fire because the killer was with a woman. He couldn’t. He thought of Icepick Fritzie finding them together, going icepick crazy on Audrey’s face—and that picture was easy. Mickey saying “Please” and going mushy with forgiveness was even easier.
Buzz listened to Audrey’s breath; he felt her sweaty skin cooling. He tried to picture her getting some kind of bookkeeper’s job, going home to Mobile, Alabama, and meeting a nice insurance man looking for a Southern belle. He couldn’t. He made a big last try at the two of them buying their way out of the country with a nationwide cop-killer APB on his head. He tried extra, extra hard on that one—and couldn’t find a way to make it stick.
Audrey stirred and rolled away from him. Buzz saw Mickey tired of her in a few years, cutting her loose for some younger stuff, a nice cash money separation gift. He saw Sheriff’s, City cops, Feds and Cohen goons chasing his okie ass to the moon. He saw Ellis Loew and Ed Satterlee on easy street and old Doc Lesnick hounding him with, “And how will you fix that?”
Lesnick was the kicker. Buzz got up, walked into the living room, grabbed the phone and had the operator get him Los Angeles CR-4619. A voice answered, “Yeah?”
It was Mickey. Buzz said, “She’s at 1006 Montebello Drive in Ventura. You hurt her and I’ll do you slower than you ever thought of doin’ me.”
Mickey said, “Mazel tov. My friend, you are still dead, but you are dead very fast.”
Buzz let the receiver down gently, went back to the bedroom and dressed. Audrey was in the same position, her head buried in the pillow, no way to see her face. Buzz said, “You were the one,” and turned off the light. He grabbed his garment bag on the way out and left the door unlocked.
* * *
Dawdling on back roads got him to the San Fernando Valley just after 7:30—full evening, black and starry. Ellis Loew’s house was dark and there were no cars parked out front.
Buzz walked around to the garage, broke a clasp on the door and pushed it open. Moonlight picked out a roof bulb at the end of a string. He pulled the cord and saw what he wanted on a low shelf: two double-gallon cans of gasoline. He picked them up, found them near full, carried them to the front door and let himself in with his special-investigator’s key.
A flick of the overhead light; the living room jarring white—walls, tables, cartons, shelves and odd mounds of paper—Loew and company’s once-in-a-lifetime shot at the political moon. Graphs and charts and thousands of pages of coerced testimony. Boxes of photographs with linked faces to prove treason. A big fuckload of lies glued together to prove a single theory that was easy to believe because believing was easier than wading through the glut of horseshit to say, “Wrong.”
Buzz doused the walls and shelves and tables and stacks of paper with gasoline. He soaked the Sleepy Lagoon Committee photos. He ripped down Ed Satterlee’s graphs, emptied the cans on the floor and made a gas trail out to the porch. He lit a match, dropped it and watched the white whoosh into red and explode.
The fire spread back and upward; the house became a giant sheet of flame. Buzz got in his car and drove away, red glow lighting up the windshield. He took back streets northbound until the glow disappeared and he heard sirens whirring in the opposite direction. When the noise died, he was climbing into the foothills, Los Angeles just a neon smear in his rear-view mirror. He touched his future there on the seat: sawed-off, heroin, a hundred and fifty grand. It didn’t feel right, so he turned on the radio and found a hillbilly station. The music was too soft and too sad, like a lament for a time when it all came cheap. He listened anyway. The songs made him think of himself and Mal and poor Danny Upshaw. Hardcases, rogue cops and Red chasers. Three dangerous men gone for parts unknown.
Also by James Ellroy
MY DARK PLACES
AMERICAN TABLOID
HOLLYWOOD NOCTURNES
WHITE JAZZ
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
THE BLACK DAHLIA
SUICIDE HILL
KILLER ON THE ROAD
BECAUSE THE NIGHT
BLOOD ON THE MOON
CLANDESTINE
BROWN’S REQUIEM
Raves for The Big Nowhere
“James Ellroy is the first original to appear in American detective fiction since the late Ross Macdonald.”
—California
“THE BIG NOWHERE is a stunner…It’s a huge, sprawling canvas of postwar Los Angeles as a black hole. It’s Hieronymous Bosch between hard covers, taking up where film noir left off as it introduces a trio of warped, cynical cops hopping aboard the Red Scare bandwagon.”
—Detroit News
“For something in the classic vein written by a man alive and in full noir-lit vigor, the strong of heart will want to read James Ellroy’s THE BIG NOWHERE…He makes you feel as if you really are in the Hollywood of 1950.”
—Wall Street Journal
“His characters are drawn with a firm brush, he has an excellent line in flinty, sardonic dialogue, and you terribly want to know how the whole thing is going to work out in the end.”
—New York Times
“THE BIG NOWHERE is an engrossing, compelling novel of power and perversion in America. The Red Scare, crime, love, politics, cops, gangsters…This book has it all. You don’t read THE BIG NOWHERE; you fall into it, and its gravity pulls you in ways you’ve never been touched.”
—James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor
“Ellroy is not imitation noir, but neo-noir, proving that the golden age of hard-boiled detective fiction can be a laboratory for a new kind of mystery.”
—Chicago Tribune
“James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia rocked the literary world last year. Now he’s back with an even more powerful and compelling novel of greed, dark passion, and murder…James Ellroy has gone from one of the most impressive crime writers of the 1980s to a major literary voice of the twentieth century. THE BIG NOWHERE is a masterpiece–a powerful and disturbing novel no one should miss.”
—Rave Reviews
“THE BIG NOWHERE is a startling panorama of Los Angeles in the fifties. Through the eyes of some unforgettable, two-fisted cops we are taken from the Katydid Club to the Sunset Strip where the legendary crimelord Mickey Cohen buys the drinks…and the D.A. This is a compelling piece.”
—Gerald Petievich, author of To Live and Die in L.A.
“THE BIG NOWHERE is a monumental achievement in storytelling. Ellroy has hit his stride, and I can’t imagine a crime novel any better than this one…THE BIG NOWHERE is the stuff legends are made of.”
—Jackson Daily News
“All good fiction is good social history. Ellroy’s L.A. is not only convincing; he has made it his L.A.”
—Matthew J. Bruccoli, publisher, biographer, critic
“Five stars!”
—South Boston Tribune
“Ellroy brings alive the prejudices, fear, corruption, and political ambitions that fed the Red Scare.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“My favorite entertainment of the year is James Ellroy’s THE BIG NOWHERE…what is most impressive is its total unpredictability.”
—Worcester Evening Gazette
“An ambitious, enthralling melodrama painted on a broad, dark canvas…at once taut and densely detailed, this is a mystery with the grim, inexorable pull of a film noir.”
—Publishers Weekly
Thank you for buying this e-book, published by
Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest e-books and apps, sign up for our newsletter.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
Contents
The Big Nowhere
Welcome page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One: Red Crosscurrents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two: Upshaw, Considine, Meeks
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Part Three: Wolverine
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty