All heart and darkness, noise and nuance, Ellroy is a jocular soul, buoyant against all odds, whose writing comes from some place you and I don't want to go to, don't even want to think about. But we can't take our eyes away from the results: "L.A. Confidential," "The Black Dahlia," "Suicide Hill," "Blood on the Moon" and "My Dark Places," among many others. Ellroy's own mother -- who, he says, "majored in booze and minored in men" -- was the victim of an unsolved murder (that case is the subject of "My Dark Places"). In his youth Ellroy spun out big time -- "drinking, using drugs, breaking into houses to sniff women's undergarments, stealing" and doing a stretch in the county jail -- before deciding to write about his demons instead of becoming them. The type of people in his stories, he told Kalfrin, are "what I could have been if I didn't have a very strong will to be a happy human being ... if I hadn't shit-canned all my crummy behavior ... I go out of my way to treat people with kindness." Indeed, Ellroy's even generous toward his critics: "They can just kiss my ass," he barks.

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But Ellroy is not the only bad dog to come out of L.A. One of Snoop Dogg's dogs may have set up the rich rapper for a canine paternity suit. As reported by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Killer, one of Snoop's pit bulls, has impregnated a purebred Akita belonging to a neighbor who's none too pleased. (In Killer's defense, the Akita is rumored to be a saucy little minx given to parading around in her birthday suit.) Nor has the randy Killer limited himself to cattin' around -- he's also charged with chasing another of the Dog Father's neighbors up a tree.

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Fortunately, dogs can't drive and Killer doesn't live in Rome, where last Thursday Italy's highest court ruled that doing it in the road (to wit: sex in a car) is an "obscene act," punishable by as much as three years in prison. "A sexual act that is certainly not obscene in private," the court explained, "becomes so if it is done in a public road." A peculiar ruling, in a country where cars with papered-over windows rock violently night and day. Adding much-needed balance to the tempest, Riccardo Schicchi, manager of Cicciolina, the Italian porn star and former wife of artist Jeff Koons, opined that "making love in cars has its own history and dignity. Just think of drive-ins."

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Meanwhile, Chuck Jones (no relation to the famed Bugs Bunny director) -- the cwazy wascal who's got a woody for Marla Maples' shoes -- was back in court last week for a retrial in which he'll act as his own lawyer (do the words "Dr. Kevorkian" ring a bell?). As you'll recall, Jones, a former publicist for Maples, the estranged wife of Donald Trump, was convicted in 1994 of burglary and criminal possession of The Marla's footwear and other personal belongings. But that conviction was overturned in 1996 and now here we go again.

It may be a simple theft case, but it's not simply a theft case. No, Jones developed an, uh, relationship with Maples' shoes that some say disturbingly resembled the one that Snoop Dogg's Killer had with that Akita. To put it delicately, Jones wanted to hump her pumps (and did). In his April 8 opening statement to the jury, the New York Daily News reported, Jones said, "I'm not here to apologize for my lifestyle and you're not here to determine whether it's appropriate." Fear not, Sir Chuckles, we judge neither ye, nor your Jones!

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Oh, almost forgot, this week's Oleaginous Ogre award goes to Charles Keating Jr. Keating, who once railed against the immorality of Hustler honcho Larry Flynt, agreed to a plea bargain on April 7, and he will walk after serving less than five years for his part in a savings and loan junk bond scam that ripped off 23,000 investors -- many of them elderly -- to the tune of $285 million. Though he denies it, some claim that Keating, who says he can't pay restitution, has assets stashed abroad. Last week, in a Los Angeles Times article, reporter Jeffrey Gettleman told of one of the group who called themselves "The Losers." Anthony Elliot, 89, Gettleman wrote, committed suicide in 1990 "because he was distraught over losing $200,000 -- his life savings." Hey, way to go, Keating! See you in hell, or would you prefer the Cayman Islands?

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All in all, it's been a wack week for crime, especially the chuckleheaded variety, but the party's got to end sooner or later. There's just not room to fully discuss the parrot that was subpoenaed and questioned by a police trooper in a Stroudsburg, Pa., burglary case. We certainly can't get into why former teen idol Frankie Avalon was in Ventura, Calif., Superior Court testifying in support of Frankie "Can't Take My Eyes off of You" Valli's wife's broken bra strap. And one can only hope that Kwok Chi-hoi of Hong Kong will spend his next four years and eight months of imprisonment refining his MO. Last Friday, the South China Post reported that the klutzy Kwok was found guilty of stealing a taxi driver's mobile phone along with a pile of cash. Apprehending Kwok wasn't much of a challenge, however, being that he thoughtfully left his own phone in the taxi -- that would be the one with his home number and the picture of him and his girlfriend on it.

Until next week, remember: Before exiting a cab, always look around to be sure you have all your belongings with you.