The red line rested at midnight. My Timex tallied 11:59. Telepathy tapped us. We ignored ignominious screeches and screams.
We smiled at each other. We struck a style statement. It was ostentatious and Oscar-worthy. We bopped the bombs to the kitchen. We defused and dunked them in a barrel of bouillabaisse.
That’s how Donna Donahue and I saved Hollywood—and the world.
Tim and I tossed Casa de Suenos. We found plans to destroy major monuments and media magnets throughout Christendom and beyond. Disneyland, the Vatican, Grauman’s Chinese. The Taj Mahal, Dodger Stadium, the Eiffel Tower. The Dome of the Rock, the Flagship Sizzler Steak-house, the Dalai Lama’s pad. The world would have been full-on fucked without us.
We turned Devil Donny’s notebooks and computer disks over to the Feds. It resulted in boocoo busts. Homeland Security rounded up 16,492 murderous Muslims. They got trial-trounced in numerous kangaroo kourts.
L.A. owed Donna and me. L.A. dug deep and delivered. We spared lives at Spago. A horde of Hollywood Hebes helped us out.
The L.A. County Grand Jury called our killings justified. The shooting board cleared me on my shootouts. The media hailed Jenson and Donahue as “Sexy Secular Saviors.” Hollywood heaped us with a corporate carte blanche and a freewheeling free lunch.
We developed Homeland Heroes. Donna’s starred for sixteen seasons. I part-time produced and moonlighted on my moments off LAPD. Donna and I got righteously rich. Republicans ran me for governor. A demon Democrat defeated me in 2012. He was a half-A-rab/half-black fag fanatic. He delved into my dubious ties to the Enron Corporation. He ballyhooed me as a bagman for President Jeb Bush.
Donna and I pulsed as part-time lovers. We reconnected for rigorous rug rolls on Christmas and our birthdays. I stayed on LAPD until age 75. I never found Stephanie Gorman’s killer.
I described my death in Hollywood Fuck Pad. I detailed the second Rick-and-Donna cataclysm in Hot-Prowl Rape-O.
This true story concludes my memoirs of our messed-up and magnificent love.
I’m dead. Donna’s still alive. I telepathically tap her via Reggie Ridgeback 12. I often serve up summaries of my life on earth. I always tell her my last living thought was You Were The One.
James Ellroy
Destination: MORGUE!
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels —The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international bestsellers. American Tabloid was Time’s Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir My Dark Places was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996; his most recent novel, The Cold Six Thousand, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year for 2001. He lives on the California coast.
Also by James Ellroy
The Cold Six Thousand
Crime Wave
My Dark Places
American Tabloid
Hollywood Nocturnes
White Jazz
L.A. Confidential
The Big Nowhere
The Black Dahlia
Killer on the Road
Suicide Hill
Because the Night
Blood on the Moon
Clandestine
Brown’s Requiem
A VINTAGE ORIGINAL, SEPTEMBER 2004
Copyright © 2004 by James Ellroy
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
“The Trouble I Cause,” “Hollywood Fuck Pad,” “Hot-Prowl Rape-O,” and
“Jungletown Jihad” are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,
and incidents in those stories are the product of the author’s imagination or used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
The following pieces were published in GQ magazine in slightly different form:
“Balls to the Wall” (published under the title “Bloodsport,” July 2000), “Where I
Get My Weird Shit” (September 2002), “Stephanie” (January 2003), “Grave
Doubt” (June 2000), “My Life as a Creep” (October 1999), “The D.A.” (July
2002), “Little Sleazer and the Mail-Sex Mama” (March 2002), “I’ve Got the
Goods” (March 2000), and “The Trouble I Cause” (March 2000).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42554-6
v3.0
James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales
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