The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy

Author:James Ellroy
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery, Detective, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective - Hard-Boiled, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Hard-Boiled, Crime, Los Angeles (Calif.), General, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Thrillers, Fiction, Mystery and detective stories
ISBN: 9780445408326
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Published: 1989-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

o o o

Eisler’s last known address was 11681 Presidio, a short run from the UCLA campus. Dudley hummed show tunes as he drove; Mal kept seeing his hand about to hit, the niece cowering from her genial uncle’s touch. 11681 was a small pink prefab at the end of a long prefab block; Dudley double-parked, Mal jammed facts from Satterlee’s report:

Nathan Eisler. Forty-nine years old. A German Jew who fled Hitler and company in ‘34; CP member ‘36 to ‘40, then member of a half dozen Commie front organizations. Co-scenarist on a string of pro-Russki turkeys, his writing partner Chaz Minear; poker buddies with Morton Ziffkin and Reynolds Loftis. Wrote under pseudonyms to guard his professional privacy; slipped through the HUAC investigators’ hands; currently living under the alias Michael Kaukenen, the name of the hero of Storm Over Leningrad. Currently scripting RKO B westerns, under yet another monicker, the work fronted by a politically acceptable hack writer who glommed a 35 percent cut. Best pals with Lenny Rolff, fellow writer expatriate, today’s second interrogee.

Former lover of Claire De Haven.

They took a toy-littered walkway up to the porch; Mal looked through a screen door into the perfect prefab living room: plastic furniture, linoleum floor, spangly pink wallpaper. Children squealed inside; Dudley winked and rang the buzzer.

A tall, unshaven man walked up to the screen, flanked by a toddler boy and girl. Dudley smiled; Mal watched the little boy pop a thumb in his mouth, and spoke first. “Mr. Kaukenen, we’re with the District Attorney’s Office and we’d like to talk to you. Alone, please.”

The kids pressed themselves into the man’s legs; Mal saw scared slant eyes--two little half-breeds spooked by two big boogeymen. Eisler/Kaukenen called out, “Michiko!”; a Japanese woman materialized and whisked the children away. Dudley opened the door uninvited; Eisler said, “You are three years late.”

Mal walked in behind Dudley, amazed at how cheap the place looked--a white trash flop--the home of a man who made three grand a week during the Depression. He heard the kids bawling behind wafer-thin walls; he wondered if Eisler had to put up with the same foreign language shit he did--then popped that he probably dug it on general Commie principles. Dudley said, “This is a charming house, Mr. Kaukenen. The color motif especially.”

Eisler/Kaukenen ignored the comment and pointed them to a door off the living room. Mal walked in and saw a small square space that looked warm and habitable: floor-to-ceiling books, chairs around an ornate coffee table and a large desk dominated by a class A typewriter. He took the seat furthest from the squeal of little voices; Dudley sat across from him. Eisler shut the door and said, “I am Nathan Eisler, as if you did not already know.”

Mal thought: no nice guy, no “I loved your picture Branding Iron.” “Then you know why we’re here.”

Eisler locked the door and took the remaining chair. “The bitch is in heat again, despite reports that she had a miscarriage.”

Dudley said, “You are to tell no one that we questioned you.

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