“…it’s that party where Bette Davis, Stan Kenton, Joan Crawford, all the characters are in Kwan’s basement, passing around a picture of Cary Grant with a dick in his mouth; Clark Gable’s there too, and he’s got Salvador Dali’s pet leopard curled up with him, and the leopard’s got his paws up on the buffet eating spare ribs; and there’s Count Basie, this black guy, in with all these other people—that’s America to me. They’re drinking Benzedrine tea and Dudley Smith’s smoking opium with the chinks. Fuck. What a time.”
—James Ellroy (by Christopher Wallace)