Shakedown: Freddy Otash Confesses

2

James Ellroy’s journal

7/12/92

Freddy, I hardly knew ye.

I dug you — but didn’t respect you. There’s a distinction. How’s the afterlife, fuckhead? Repent, you reptile. Yeah, I ripped off your raucous way with words. But I’m not you — you homo hater, dyke defamer, and racist raconteur.

The obits ran tripartite. The prime gist: ex-cop Otash hires on with Confidential. He runs an intelligence network and gathers information on celebrity hijinks. Part two was more pithy: Freddy was a longtime extortionist. His intelligence network supplied the dirt for his shakedown racket. Part three jazzed me. The scandal-rag era bellied up in ’59. Confidential — kaput. Desperate Freddy pulled a racetrack caper. He doped a nag named Wonder Boy and lost his PI’s license. He became a mob lapdog. Jimmy Hoffa hired him to get the goods on JFK shtupping Marilyn Monroe. His aging Marine Corps goons spilled the tale to reporters. Freddy bugged Peter Lawford’s beachfront fuck pad and caught Jack in the sack. Ooooooooooooh, daddy-o: my pulsatingly possible TV show could run indefinitely!!!!!

I got the word on Freddy’s death and flew back to L.A. quicksville. The papers were full of Otash lore. Yawn: his adversarial relationship with LAPD chief William H. Parker. His ’57 interview with TV ham Mike Wallace. His relationship with Confidential’s pervo publisher, Bondage Bob Harrison. Snore: “Fred Otash was the founding father of the tabloid-TV era.” Snooze: “Otash defined the paranoiac horrors of the Red-Scare Decade.” An ex-Liberace bun boy dropped a pearl in with the dross: “I know that Freddy got Lee out of a jam in the early ’50s, but he damn well got paid for it.”

Freddy owned a condo off the Sunset Strip. My first task: intercept his FBI Freedom of Information Act file. I talked to Freddy on the day he died. The file hadn’t arrived. I’ve called the building’s manager every day since. I impersonated Freddy’s lawyer and said I was expecting some files from the feds. The man called me as I left for the airport. Sir, that box just arrived.

I rented a car at LAX. I drove to Chez Otash and snatched the file posthaste. A small UPS box held all the material. I carried the box to my car and tore into it.

Every page was heavily ink-redacted. Odd lines were untouched. Sixteen pages of blacked-out lines and this:

“Accused of extortion,” “accused of bribery,” “accused of harassment,” “accused of suborning perjury,” “accused of jury tampering.”

Please — give me some shit I don’t know.

A photo ID sheet was included. I recognized pics of Freddy’s squeeze, Joi Lansing, and Freddy’s snitch-pal, ’50s-cool James Dean. Bob Harrison — mucho snapshots. Liberace — of course. Liz Taylor — sure. Her ex-hubby Michael Wilding? Yeah, I get it. Ward Wardell, Race Rockwell, Donkey Don Eversall? Freddy mentioned them. They were fruit hustlers in his stable.

The file was a bust.

That left Freddy’s secret diaries.

Freddy said they did not exist.

They might be locked in a bank vault and thus out of reach. They might be packed in a box in that condo across the street.

Do it, dipshit. Life itself is the Big Shakedown, and you can’t let this one go.

I broke in that night.

It wasn’t hard. I threw my weight at a loose stretch of the door-doorjamb juncture. The door popped easy. I carried a penlight and prowled in the dark.

I tossed the cabinets. I eyeballed the shelves. I displaced 10,000 leisure sweatsuits. Freddy’s scrapbooks were useless. His gold Rolex was a fake. I found a Nazi Luger in the sock drawer. I found a stack of porn vids under the sink. I hit pay dirt in a hall closet.

Photos: plastic-sheathed and lovingly preserved.

Marlon Brando with a dick in his mouth.

Lena Horne muff-diving Lady Bird Johnson.

And—

A box full of bookies’ flash paper.

I skimmed a few pages. Freddy block-printed legibly. He deployed a calendar-page motif to encapsulate anecdotes. It was lurid lightning in a bottle. It was the Hellacious Holy Grail and the Demonic Dead Sea Scrolls.

The entire TV series and a corresponding run of novellas came to me rápidamente.

A photo fell out of the box. Holy shit — Rin Tin Tin fucking Katharine Hepburn.

I grabbed the box and put the photo in my pocket. My wife Helen was a big Hepburn fan.