Perfidia

Zusatztext 52224923 Informationen zum Autor James Ellroy Klappentext NATIONAL BESTSELLER AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Los Angeles. December, 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. War fever and racial hatred grip the city. The hellish murder of a Japanese family summons three men and one woman. LAPD captain William H. Parker is superbly gifted, corrosively ambitious, liquored-up, and consumed by dubious ideology. He is bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith-Irish émigré, ex-IRA killer, fledgling war profiteer. Hideo Ashida is a police chemist and the only Japanese on the L.A. cop payroll. Kay Lake is a twenty-one-year-old dilettante looking for adventure. The investigation throws them together and rips them apart. The crime becomes a political storm center that brilliantly illuminates these four driven souls-comrades, rivals, lovers, history's pawns. Here, Ellroy gives us the party at the edge of the abyss and the precipice of America's ascendance. Perfidia is that moment, spellbindingly captured. CHAPTER 14 KAY LAKE’S DIARY Los Angeles, December 7, 1941 Sunday brunch with Elmer and Brenda. Decorous, save for the talk. Brenda owns a lovely home in Laurel Canyon. The furnishings can be seen in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Harry Cohn enjoys Brenda’s girls and gave her free run of the Columbia warehouse. A Mexican maid laid out huevos rancheros. Elmer mixed gin fizzes. Gary Cooper fucked Barbara Stanwyck on the couch I was perched on. Brenda swore that the rumor was true. I felt disembodied. It was lack of sleep more than shock over what I’d heard at City Hall. Lee Blanchard, Ben Siegel and Abe Reles. Captain William H. Parker’s belief that I would now be ripe for entrapment. He held me to be a woman who would stand up for her man and do anything to cover his misdeeds. He was gravely mistaken there. Elmer said, “Lee caught a squawk with the Dudster. It’s all over the air. Four Japs in Highland Park.” Brenda dosed her eggs with hot sauce. “You go straight to shop- talk.” Elmer said, “A good host plays to his guests, honey. Shoptalk is the only sort of talk that Miss Katherine Lake enjoys.” I laughed and picked at my food. Brenda and Elmer were nearly ten years older than I. They were professionals; I was a cop’s quasi- girlfriend. The disparity rankled. We all went back to Bobby De Witt and the Boulevard-Citizens job. Open secrets and unspoken truths began germinating there. I wanted to peddle myself to wash the stink of Bobby off of me; Brenda refused to let me do it. She said, “You live by these crazy-girl notions you get from books and movies. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I let you take that nonsense too far.” Elmer handed me a cocktail. I wondered how up-to-date he was on Lee and Ben Siegel. “Bugsy” is now ensconced in a “penthouse” suite at the Hall of Justice jail. Sheriff’s deputies serve as valets, flunkies and chauffeurs for visiting starlets. Velvet curtains provide privacy for Ben and his overnight guests. His release is imminent. Abe Reles’ “swan dive” scotched the prosecution’s case against him. Elmer smiled and waggled his cigar stub. We possess an odd telepathy and often seem to know what the other is thinking. It always pertains to “shoptalk.” He said, “Lee paid off his chit with Benny Siegel.” I said, “Yes, I figured it out.” Brenda crushed her cigarette on a bread plate. “Tell all, honey. Don’t be a C.T.” I said, “No, your lover goes first.” Elmer sprawled in a chair and grabbed Brenda. She fell into his lap and went Whoops! He said, “Thad Brown drove Dudley Smith and Lee to Union Station. He read the papers a few days later and put it together.” Brenda said, “How’d you figure it out?” I made that zip-the-lips gesture. Elmer said, “Give, sister.” Brenda said, “Don’t be a C.T....

Product details

• Authors: James Ellroy
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 07.07.2015
• EAN: 9780307946676
• ISBN: 978-0-307-94667-6
• No. of pages: 720
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 205 mm x 33 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature