Editor’s note: At this point in “Red Sheet,” author James Ellroy’s narrative arrives at a police lineup in the tense days after the Cuban missile crisis. Freddy Otash, an LAPD lieutenant leading an anti-communist investigation, describes the circus-like atmosphere.

4

(LOS ANGELES, 9:10 A.M., SATURDAY, 10/27/62)

The lineup.

It’s half intimidation foray, half publicity goof. Every aspect is steel- buffed controlled. It’s LAPD at their innovative and insensitive best.

The lineup room adjoined the PAB lobby. It featured sixty staggered seat rows with ten seats per. The seats faced an elevated stage. The back wall was painted matte black. The white height strips stood out bold. Floor lights beamed up and glare-blinded standing suspects.

The PD feigned civility today. Our suspects sat in hard-backed chairs. The Hats served them grand-jury subpoenas last night. They appear reluctantly—but voluntarily.

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They squirmed in their seats. The packed house glared down at them. Here they are, left to right:

Chair #1: Hollywood Ten poobah Dalton Trumbo. A small man with a big head. Dig his yachting threads. Navy blazer, white ducks, gold-braided cap. He’s florid and droopy-mustached. He oozes woe-is-me grievance and distress.

Chair #2: My snitch, John Howard Lawson. Jack’s dressed in tennis togs. He complements fellow blacklistee Trumbo. Jack called me. He begged for a shot to woo a hostile crowd and revamp his commie hatchet man image.

Chair #3: Henry Cathcart Wilkins. He’s ex-CP and the ex-Burgermeister of L.A.’s Negro Nazi League. I popped Henry for drunk driving fourteen times, circa ’51–’52. He’s sporting a “Nixon for Governor” lapel pin today.

Chair #4: Joseph Losey. Expatriate film director. He bugged out of his HUAC summons, back in the so-called “Plague Years.” He’s a tortured-artiste type. He chain-smokes Gauloises and quotes obscure frog intellectuals. He’s in town to cast his new picture.

Four fish in the fishbowl. Cops and handpicked press scowling down. Morrie Ryskind from the Examiner. Morty Bendish from the Mirror — the PD’s lapdog and chief public dispenser of misinformation. Radio/ TV gasbag George Putnam. KTTV rightist-centrist Tom Duggan. KTLA ham Hal Fishman. He screened a nightly “War-O-Meter” during the missile tiff. His “Nuke Holocaust” predictions topped out at 98 percent.

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Full house. I sat in the first row. Daryl Gates and D. J. Siemers flanked me. We exchanged nice-to-meet-yous.

Miss Siemers was rangy and too thin. I nailed her type. She subsists on gin and cigarettes. She exemplifies vigilance and runs on frayed nerves.

Down the row: H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. I hadn’t met them yet. Gates said a drinks date was set for tonight.

Eddie Chacõn stood at the back. Tom Bradley, Gilbert Lindsay, and W. B. Rumford sprawled in Row #2. A hubbub burbled through the crowd. Where’s Bill Parker? Where’s the Chief ?

He’s in the basement clinic at Kwan’s Chinese Pagoda. It’s tucked behind the opium den. He’s boiling it out. He’s hooked to a dope drip, he’s noshing chop suey, he’ll get his first blood transfusion at noon.

Gates tapped me. D. J. Siemers adjusted her lapel mike and winked. We stood up. I went ladies first. D.J. bowed. We walked onstage and faced the crowd. The pro-cop press gave up applause.

D.J. said, “Good morning, and thank you for joining us. As I do, I’m sure you must all feel a great sense of relief in knowing that the free world prevailed in the just-resolved crisis wherein Soviet missiles installed in Cuba and aimed at our shores have been removed. No fewer than a dozen automobiles parked behind this building bear bumper stickers which read ‘Cuba. Don’t worry, it’s still 90 miles away’ and ‘You can trust the Communists—to be Communists.’ Two boffo bumper stickers, popular sentiments, to be sure. The four men sitting behind us are former communists, strayed-from-the-pack communists, perhaps still communists in their heart of hearts. The programs you were issued at the door detail their résumés, thus I will not repeat them. These men have been peaceably detained by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, directed by LAPD lieutenant Daryl Gates and District Attorney’s Bureau lieutenant Fred Otash. Lieutenant Otash and I will be quizzing them on the status of the CPUSA today, and do they sense unrest within the Party since the craven Soviet retreat of just a few days ago? And, please remember. Cuba remains just ninety miles away, and you can trust the communists—to be communists.”

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Applause rocked the room. D.J. spoke firm and wrapped it fast. Her voice worked. Low-register contralto, smoker’s rasp, San Joaquin Valley drawl.

The applause subsided. Dalton Trumbo piped in:

“I wasn’t ‘peaceably detained,’ Dor—four big storm troopers entered my backyard and hauled me away. I was reading Sartre and unwinding by the pool, and before I could blink, I was under the hot lights in a dark cubicle upstairs. If I were a Negro, like Mr. Wilkins, I would have been lynched in Griffith Park.”

Trumbo drew raspberries and low boos. The audience demographic disfavored him.

Henry Wilkins said, “I weigh three-twenty. Ain’t no rope can hold me.”

Henry glommed big yuks. I addressed Joe Losey.

“You fled to Europe when HUAC subpoenaed you back in ’51, Mr. Losey. You didn’t have the nards to appear before the committee and tough it out like Mr. Trumbo and Mr. Lawson did. Are you here to apologize and seek absolution?”

Losey went harrumph and plumped his silk ascot. His French-couture ensemble was shiny-elbowed and frayed.

“No. I’m here to cast my new film, The Assassination of Trotsky. The most beautiful actresses in this town hound me for roles, day and night. I remain a committed Trotskyite. Leon Trotsky was a herculean womanizer. He was the undisputed King of Swordsmen, and he only put the boots to stunningly beautiful women, the type who remain solely indigenous to L.A.”

I scoped the audience. Daryl Gates belly-laughed. W. B. Rumford roared. Haldeman and Ehrlichman seethed.

Dalton Trumbo slid a cigarette into an ivory holder. D.J. went at him. “Let’s discuss your fatuously celebrated refusal to testify, Dalton. As you will recall, I took you and your nine other comrades out on chaperoned dates to motels, as a reward when you were deposing to Federal agents. You were ensconced in the Federal pen, but were treated with great deference. You answered for attribution the questions you refused to answer during the radio-broadcast proceedings. Don’t you see a level of cowardice and duplicity there?”

Trumbo said, “You’re an old maid, Dor. You’ve made the cover of Spinster Turncoat magazine more times than I can count. I might add that you recruited the girls out of a lezbo bar you frequent, Linda’s Little Log Cabin.”

Wilkins said, “You supposed ex-commies sure are bitchy. Nobody offered me no fine foxes when I was in stir.”

Jack Lawson said, “That’s because you were a Nazi. Stalinists outscored Nazis ten to one in the young snatch department.”

Hound howls, dog bays, woof-woofs. The crowd gassed on the Jack and Henry Show. We’d get goooood late-edition ink and lead TV spots tonight.

I said, “What are you doing for a living now, Henry?”

Wilkins said, “I own a rib crib on East Slauson. And it’s integrated, baby. I support one hundred percent integration, including integration for camel fuckers like you. I support Tom Bradley and Gilbert Lindsay for those city council seats they got their eyes on, because Big Tom saved me from a whipping when two patrol units jammed me up for drunk driving, eons ago. You were looking to put some hurt on me, Freddy. I could see that little gleam in your camel-fucking eyes.”

I scanned the audience. Tom Bradley laughed and slapped his knees.

D.J. said, “I think this event has gotten out of hand.”

Wilkins shielded his eyes and pointed to the back rows. He went ooh-la-la and mimed a panting dog.

“That Channel 9 anchorwoman’s out there. Give me some ugambo, you fine motherfucker.”

Joe Losey said, “Young lady, I have a role in The Assassination of Trotsky that you would be just perfect for.”

The anchorwoman slid over to the center aisle. She curtsied and hiked her skirt over her knees. Epidemic hoots and wolf whistles ensued—

She called out, “I’ll consider the offer, if you’ll all link hands and sing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ”

A camera jockey slid from his seat and joined her. He hoisted his camera shoulder-high and aimed it at the stage. The onstage gang kicked their chairs back and milled around, in tight.

Trumbo, Lawson, Wilkins, Losey. They didn’t know what to say or what to do. D. J. Siemers walked over and joined them. It went telepathic. They shared looks. Nobody spoke. Everyone shrugged, everyone smiled, they spread out and linked hands, five across.

They sang “We Shall Overcome.” They knew all the words. TV cameras rolled. Flashbulb pops lit the lineup room, bright bright.

James Ellroy is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: “American Tabloid,” “The Cold Six Thousand” and “Blood’s A Rover” as well as the L.A. Quartet novels: “The Black Dahlia,” “The Big Nowhere,” “L.A. Confidential” and “White Jazz.” He is also the author of two other Freddy Otash novels, “Widespread Panic” and “The Enchanters.” He currently lives in Colorado.