Blood's a Rover

by James Ellroy

  Karen said, “I should be in Chicago. I shouldn’t be in a folding bed in an FBI drop-front.”

  She was fuller now. Her nipples were bigger. Her hipbones had disappeared.

  “It was bad. I’m glad you didn’t go.”

  “What’s-His-Name was at Lincoln Park. He called it a ‘massacre.’ ”

  Dwight grabbed his cigarettes. Karen looked tempted. Dwight put them back down.

  “Don’t make me jealous, or I’ll hang a sedition case on him.”

  Karen laughed. “Did it feel inevitable to you?”

  “If you mean preordained and mutually agreed upon, yes.”

  “You’re very religious, you know. You understand your personal responsibility to God, but you’re remiss and outright negligent in your secular practice.”

  Dwight smiled. “I rely on you for these perceptions. And I quoted you to a man in Chicago two days ago.”

  “How did you describe me?”

  “As very wise.”

  “Not as duplicitous and compromised in my affections?”

  “We didn’t get that far.”

  Karen kissed his shoulder. “Did you find your infiltrator?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then something’s wrong.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re tense, but you’re trying not to appear tense. You always do little things with your hands when you’re trying to convince me that things are all right.”

  Dwight flexed his hands. His law-school ring fit loose. He was missing meals and running on coffee. “Okay, you’re right.”

  “Is it some bad thing you’ve done or some bad thing you’re planning?”

  Dwight gave Karen the look—case closed on that. She rolled onto her back and cupped his hands on the swell of Eleanora.

  “I’ve got my infiltrator. He’s brilliantly good, but that’s all I can tell you right now.”

  “All right. And now you need an informant.”

  “Right. And you know that woman Joan.”

  Karen stretched. “I’ll have to ask around. I don’t know her personally. Someone will have to find her for me.”

  He felt a pulse on his hands. Soft—like Eleanora had moved more than kicked.

  Karen reached for his cigarettes. Dwight grabbed them and threw them on the floor. Karen laughed and made her belly jiggle. Then Eleanora kicked.

  Dwight said, “Do you love me?”

  Karen said, “I’ll think about it.”

  28

  (Las Vegas, 8/29/68)

  It was her. He knew it would be. He got the picture just to see her again.

  It was a Nevada DMV photo. Mary Beth Hazzard sat posed for her driver’s license shot. She was born 6/4/24. She was ten years, one month and fourteen days older than him.

  Wayne sat in his car, outside the DMV. He’d bribed a clerk for a copy of the woman’s driver file. License since 6/4/40. No moving violations. “Must wear corrective lenses to drive.”

  He read that newspaper piece. He saw her at the funeral. The widow Hazzard. The missing son. I got your husband—

  She ran the Hotel Workers’ Union. The union was fighting the Hotel Owners’ Council. The issue was segregation. Dracula owned a score of union-targeted hotels. Picketing was going down at a dozen locations. The LVPD was monitoring it.

  Wayne looked at the picture. He couldn’t peel his eyes back. He liked the shape of her face and the flow of her hair.

  29

  (Las Vegas, 8/30/68)

  The feed lines worked. The 307 to 308 wiring laid firm. Crutch bored a tiny spy hole through the wall yesterday. Sight and sound access, confirmed.

  The console faced the connecting wall. Crutch settled in with his headphones. Fred T. was back in L.A. This gig was his solo.

  The Frogman called him last night. Their talk calmed him down. Fuentes and Arredondo were rogue and Deep Red. The Chicago PD would short-shift their inquiry. The Frogman praised his balls and described a plan he was hatching.

  Sabotage runs. Island hops with flamethrowers and C-4 explosives. Raids on Castro militia camps. Propaganda-leaflet runs. A heroin biz to finance the operation.

  Froggy laid out the vile deeds of Fuentes and Arredondo. They were Red lice nesting in putain Fidel’s beard. Crutch started grooving on his Commo kills. He went to a seamstress and got little 2’s embroidered in his tartan bow tie.

  The 308 door opened. Click/thump—that’s the sound. Crutch checked the spy hole. On time: Fred Otash and Wayne Tedrow.

  They sat down. They chitchatted. They sat away from the lamp feed. Their voices were dim.

  Click/thump—the door again. This time: a tall, gray-suited man. Crutch heard garbles and read lips. Fred O. and Wayne called the man Dwight.

  The console-to-spy-hole cord was stretched taut. Crutch pulled up a chair and got adjusted. Note: re-spackle the spy hole tomorrow.

  The doorbell rang. Fred O. opened up. Sacre Frog—there’s Jean-Philippe Mesplede.

  Confluence. Clyde Duber’s word. It’s who you know and who you blow and how you’re all linked.

  Wayne introduced Fred O. to the Frogman. They spewed some stat-icky talk. Fred O. introduced Dwight to the Frogman and spieled his last name as Holly.

  Confluence. Dwight Holly knew Clyde. Dwight Holly tapped Clyde to tail Marsh Bowen in Chicago.

  Crutch got situated. His headphones fit tight and the spy hole was there at eye level. The 308 crew pulled chairs up close to the lamp feed. Fred O. bopped to the wet bar and came back with highballs and chips. Dwight Holly declined the drink. The other guys dug in. Crutch got a vibe: this had nothing to do with his case.

  Clock it—3:18 p.m. Roll the tape, live.

  The guys settled in. Sentence fragments overlapped. Dwight and the Frogman lit cigarettes. Fred O. looked plump and sassy, back to his normal bulk. Wayne looked raggedy-ass and too thin.

  Fred O. said, “Enough bullshit,” pitch-perfect headphone sound.

  Dwight Holly said, “There’ll be six men. They always stay after hours. It’s always them and just them, and I don’t think they’ll vary the routine on the night we go in.”

  Wayne said, “When?”

  Fred O. said, “We’re set on my end. I’ve got the plant guns, Dwight’s got the dope. I think we can be in and out in five minutes.”

  Dwight Holly said, “Four. The takedown will be easy. They’ll be blitzed and they’ll be surprised. It’s all about rigging the forensic. St. Louis PD has a shit crime lab, but I still want the wound spill and trajectories to make some kind of sense.”

  Crutch started sweating. His earphones wetted up and produced crackle hiss. “Six men,” “plant guns,” “wound spill”—

  Mesplede said, “ ‘Grapevine.’ That is an American colloquialism, correct? It means ‘a source of information.’ So, it is idiomatic. And in that manner, it becomes the name of a hoodlum’s meeting place.”

  Fred O. yukked. Ditto Dwight. Wayne flinched. Crutch caught it late.

  June 20. THAT NIGHT. Talk fragments—grapevine/Tommy/plant—Joan and Gretchen/Celia.

  The headphones pooled sweat. Crutch whipped them off, wiped them dry and put them back on. He got four-way garbles, fuzz, bips, pops, line hiss. Sweat-clogged feeder lines, shit.

  More bips and line hiss. Food noise—Fred O. and the Frogman snarfed chips. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them dry and put them back on. He pressed up to the spy hole. He squinted. He tried to read lips and gestures and sync them to hiss. He got squeaks, he got crackle, he got words here and there in the mix.

  He heard “Memphis.” He saw Wayne twitch. He heard “patsy,” “King,” “Ray.” Dwight Holly and Wayne shared queasy looks. He heard food noise. He squinted harder. He breathed harder. He fogged up the spy hole. He lost a full minute to bip-bip-bips.

  He heard “witness.”

  He heard “grapevine” again.

  HE STARTED TO GET IT.

  Fred O. ran a monologue. His bass voice cut down line hiss. Crutch heard “
Sirhan.” Crutch heard “Bobby K.” Fred O. mimed a shooting—bam, bam, you’re dead. Wayne and Dwight H. shared a très queasy look.

  HE GOT MORE OF IT. His bladder almost blew. He clenched up, sucked up and kept it in.

  The spy hole was fogged. The bug line was clogged. Fucking potato chip–chomping noise fucked it up worse. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them and put them back on. Crutch spit on the spy-hole glass and shirt-wiped it clean.

  He got more sight. He got more sound. He saw the Frogman’s lips move. He heard incoherent yak-yak and “Dallas.” He heard Frenchy word cuisine, “Cuba,” “revenge.”

  The sound died altogether. Crutch shook his head. The phones cleared and the bug line re-fed. He got hiss, snap, crackle, pop, buzz, fuzz, bips. He heard “Le grand putain Jack.” He saw Jean-Philippe Mesplede assume a rifleman’s pose.

  And he pissed in his pants.

  And he shit in his pants.

  And he vomited and gasped.

  He pulled off his headphones. He ran to the console, pulled the main wire and ripped Spackle out of the wall. He made a small through hole. It fed into 308, all wire-free. The Spackle blew back into his suite. He squinted and put his ear to the hole—God, please please please.

  The meeting was done. The men stood at the door. Dwight Holly said, “One last thing.”

  The other men nodded. Dwight Holly said, “No women. If there’s women there, we pull out.”

  Fred O. nodded reluctant. Mesplede rolled his eyes. Wayne Tedrow clutched Dwight Holly’s wrist.

  30

  (St. Louis, 9/3/68)

  Throwdown guns—check. Insulin needles—check. Liquid cocaine—check. One last mug shot–memorization look.

  Brundage, Currie, Pierce. Kling, DeJohn, Luce.

  They were all inside. They were all armed. They were all blitzed. They entered between 10:41 and 12:49. Dwight played inside man and observed them. He chatted up Pierce and laid some groundwork. I’m a Schenley’s sales rep. I do the deliveries. Sometimes they go late.

  It was 3:10 now. They were still in there. Otash made a wax fit of the back-door lock yesterday. It was a clean walk-in. The Schenley’s man and his pals with booze. Hey, Tommy Pierce—long time no see.

  They parked behind the Grapevine. They wore jeans and duck-blind windbreakers—Okie hunter gear. They had four Schenley’s boxes.

  Dwight had a vented .45. Wayne had a .38 snub. Otash had a Colt Python. Mesplede had a long-barrel .32.

  The van was stolen. Mesplede clouted it. They wore gloves for the ride over. Dwight felt calm. Otash and Mesplede looked calm. Wayne looked too calm—Dwight figured he was on something.

  Music inside—hee-haw/hoedown shit. A country fiddle brayed and screeched.

  Dwight tapped his watch. They got out of the van. Mesplede leaned in and dispensed the boxes. Otash walked over, unlocked the back door and left it ajar. A storeroom light was on. Dwight saw canned goods on shelves. High-pitched fiddle chords scraped.

  Dwight tapped his watch—now.

  They pulled out their guns and held them under the boxes. They clumped and made he-man grunts and nonchalantly walked in.

  The storeroom led to the tavern proper. Their big-boot clomps and macho groans pre-announced them. The six fucks were sitting on two dumb leather sofas. They faced each other. A plank table was plopped down between them. It was covered with bottles, glasses and junk-food debris.

  Dwight yelled, “Hey there, Tommy.” Heads turned their way. Dwight head-counted and got seven, not six.

  An extra man. Fortyish and curly-haired. Interloper/sorry, pal/it’s just too late.

  Looks traveled quick. Tommy Pierce cued the guys—this is okay. Dwight huffed and puffed over. Otash, Mesplede and Wayne were bunched behind him. It was a left-side, front-entry-wound, in-tight approach. The seven fucks just sat there. Dwight dropped the cue line: “Yeah, I know it’s late.”

  Off that last syllab—

  They dropped the boxes. They aimed and fired down. They emptied their guns at their pre-assigned targets, all body mass and face. The fucks just sat there. The shots swallowed them up. They pitched and jerked and bounced and stayed in their seats.

  The noise was loud overlap and reverb. The cordite stink was bad and the barrel smoke was thick. The music went inaudible. Blood blew out their backs and pooled on the sofas in one continuous sweep.

  Gurgles, belches, neck-wound coughs, shudders and gasps. Seven dead in one twitching sweep.

  Dwight tapped his watch—go.

  They put on rubber gloves.

  They pulled belt-concealed guns off the dead men and paper-bagged them. Dwight checked out the seventh man. He was unarmed. Dwight went through his wallet. Fourteen bucks and a New York driver’s license: Thomas Frank Narduno, almost forty-six.

  He put the wallet back. Wayne got out the liquid coke and syringes. Blood leaked on the floor. They all looked down and stepped way clear of the spill.

  Dwight knocked over the table. The booze and food debris blended in with the spill.

  Otash arranged the bodies: three on the floor, four on the sofas.

  Mesplede planted the throwdown guns. Three in their hands, three near their bodies.

  The blood spill expanded. They all kept looking down and stepping clear of it.

  Dwight pulled off their shoes and socks.

  Wayne injected them between their toes and cotton-swabbed the blood drips.

  Otash pulled their socks back on. Mesplede relaced their shoes.

  Fiddle music brayed and screeched. The walls absorbed the gunshot noise—Dwight knew it.

  They stepped waaaaay back from the blood spill. Dwight framed the scene. Sofa springs exposed. Kling’s missing finger. Booze, cocaine, a group tantrum. Pierce’s coughed-out dentures. DeJohn’s shattered glasses.

  Dwight tapped his watch—out. Wayne looked at him. Dwight couldn’t detect anything.

  Otash grinned. Wayne poured powdered cocaine on the bar.

  Mesplede grabbed some blood-free potato chips.

  31

  (Las Vegas, 9/6/68)

  You look through him.

  It subsumes the shock and diverts the titillation. It deflects the insanity. It was his sixth face-to-face meet with Dracula. Wayne just discovered the trick.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you, sir.”

  Drac said, “Humphrey is very far behind in the polls. The hippies and yippies did him in.”

  Farlan Brown coughed. “Wayne and I were there, sir. We gave them quite an assist.”

  The trick worked with Drac himself. Castle Drac details remained. The condom-wrapped doorknobs, the Kleenex-box piles, the wall pix of Jane Russell’s breasts.

  Drac said, “On to November. Every Humphrey campaign stop must be a miniature Chicago. May I have your guarantee, Mr. Tedrow?”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  Brown coughed. “Wayne’s being modest, sir. When he says, ‘I’ll try,’ he means ‘I’ll succeed.’ ”

  Drac said, “Don’t cough again, Mr. Brown. You’re creating an unsanitary environment. If you cough again, I will terminate your employment and buy out your contract for five cents on the dollar.”

  Brown got up and left the room, waving a handkerchief. Wayne looked through Drac. Fresh details: plates covered with leftover food. Bugs scattered on pizza-pie crusts.

  “You’ve lost weight, Mr. Tedrow. Have you been ill?”

  “I had extensive dental surgery, sir. I’ve been unable to eat solid food for three weeks.”

  “Was the surgery performed under sanitary conditions?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty-four, sir.”

  “I’m sixty-one, sixty-two or sixty-three. I’ve sustained head injuries from my numerous airplane crashes and have lost some memories.”

  Wayne smiled. “You were born in 1905, sir. You’re sixty-two years old.”

  Drac coughed. “Did you look me up in the Farmer’s Almanac?”

&
nbsp; “Encyclopedia Britannica, sir.”

  “Did it state how many women I have fucked?”

  “It omitted that detail, sir.”

  “I have fucked countless women. Ava Gardner gave me both tertiary syphilis and the bubonic plague. Between my head injuries and those other maladies, I suffer constant pain. I am thus very grateful for your adroit skills as a chemist.”

  Wayne faux-beamed. “I’m very pleased that you feel that way, sir.”

  “Gain some weight, though. It pains me to look at a young man so gaunt.”

  “I’m going back on solid food tomorrow, sir.”

  “Good.”

  Wayne leaned in and stared at Drac. The filmy eyes and chancre sores got him this time.

  “Mr. Hughes, may I ask a favor of you?”

  “Yes. I rarely grant favors, but I’ll permit you to ask.”

  “Sir, I’d like you to reinstate the Hotel Workers’ Union at all your Las Vegas locations. I would also request that you brusquely tell the Hotel Owners’ Council that they should drop the implicitly enforced employment color line that they have long adhered to.”

  Fresh details: tremors and puffs of dry spit.

  “How firm a request is this?”

  “It’s a polite request, sir.”

  “Is it an ultimatum?”

  “No, but it’s a vouchsafe on my future as your business intermediary and chemist.”

  Drac shuddered. His jaw dropped. He had for-real fangs.

  “Very well. I’ll grant your request.”

  At least they were vicious. At least they were white.

  It was his post-Grapevine mantra. He employed it along with opiate compounds. It got him through the flight back and the Hughes meet.

  He was tapering off. He was sleeping better. Dwight called last night. St. Louis PD tagged the Grapevine their way.