by James Ellroy
Dwight smiled. “Early forties, dark, gray-streaked hair, glasses. A knife scar on one arm.”
The kids slack-jawed him. Dwight said, “Tell me her name.” The girl said, “Joan.”
The neighborhood was hilly and semi-low-rent. You got some big vistas and snaked freeway views. White stiffs and beaners co-existed. WALLACE FOR PRESIDENT bumper stickers and taco wagons chopped low.
The address was a bungalow court with a mottled paint job. Some hun-yuck had raped white stucco for a tie-dye effect. Eight apartments with built-in mail slots. Snooze-quiet at 3:00 p.m.
Dwight rang the door buzzer. It was wake-the-dead shrill. He put his ear to the hinge crack and heard empty-room air. He waited thirty seconds and wedged his pocket shim in the lock jamb. The door popped easy.
Too easy, un-Joan.
He walked in and chain-locked the door. He turned on the ceiling light and got the whole pad in a glance. A living room–bedroom, a bathroom-kitchenette. A pop-up wall bed unfolded.
A runner’s roost—not a safe house. A short-term place—a fugitive’s stopgap.
Dwight walked through. He knew he’d find canned goods in the kitchen. He knew he’d find cheapo toilet gear in the can. He knew he’d find clothes he’d never seen her in. He saved the dresser for last.
Faded jeans, boots, summer dresses styled to offset her bare arms.
He touched everything. He’d black-bagged Karen’s place a dozen times. He never touched her softer things.
Dwight sat on the bed. Two pillows were placed against the railing. The rain kicked up again. The roof leaked a few feet from him. He tossed the pillows. Of course: a Magnum and a diary underneath.
The gun had rubber-band grips. They were non-print-sustaining and steadied your aim. The diary was black leather and almost weightless. That implied new pages.
He opened it. A Polaroid snapshot fell out. It was him, sleeping. The backdrop was their Statler room. He was curled toward Joan’s side of the bed.
He put the photo down. His hand trembled. He gripped it calm again on the bedrail. He pulled the one page out. It was handwritten—Joan Rosen Klein’s slashing block print.
WE ARE DETERMINED TO ACHIEVE THE SAME RESULTS AND ARE DRIVEN BY A NEAR-IDENTICAL UTILITY. OUR SHARED GOAL IS TO PERPETRATE A CONTAINABLE CHAOS. DWIGHT IS COMMITTED TO FURTHERING THE FBI’S SHORT-TERM ENDS. I WANT TO CREATE THE ILLUSION THAT THE OPERATION HAS REACHED ITS LOGICAL AND SUCCESSFUL POINT OF TERMINATION. DWIGHT BELIEVES THAT THIS CONCLUSION WILL DERAIL THE BLACK-NATIONALIST MOVEMENT. I BELIEVE THAT THE BLACK-NATIONALIST MOVEMENT WILL BE ONLY MOMENTARILY DISCREDITED. DWIGHT WILL HAVE DONE HIS JOB AND WILL HAVE SEEN HIS ASSIGNMENT THROUGH TO A COSMETICALLY VOUCHED END. THE REBUTTAL TO THAT NON-END WILL BE A CONTINUOUS AND CONTINUOUSLY GROWING LEVEL OF DISBELIEF, MORAL HORROR AND UNOFFICIAL CENSURE THAT WILL LEAD IN TIME TO AN AS-YET-UNIMAGINABLE PLANE OF LIBERATION. THE FBI WANTS THE BTA AND MMFL TO MOVE HEROIN. THEY BELIEVE THAT IT WILL EXPOSE BLACK NATIONALISM AS INHERENTLY CRIMINAL AND REVEAL BLACK PEOPLE AT LARGE TO BE INHERENTLY DEPRAVED. THE FBI’S SHORT-TERM GOAL IS A SEDATED BLACK POPULACE; ITS LONG-TERM GOAL IS THE PERPETUATION OF RACIAL SERVITUDE. I WANT THE BTA AND MMLF TO MOVE HEROIN. I WILL RISK THE SHORT-TERM PROBABILITY OF SQUALOR IN FERVENT HOPE THAT THE SUSTAINED DEPRAVITY OF HEROIN WILL LEAD TO A RICH EXPRESSION OF RACIAL IDENTITY AND ULTIMATELY TO POLITICAL REVELATION AND REVOLT. IN THAT SENSE, I SEE HONOR, HOPE AND BEAUTY WHERE DWIGHT DOES NOT. OUR GOALS ARE BOTH INIMICAL AND FULLY SYNCHRONOUS. WE DIVERGE AND COHERE IN EQUAL MEASURE. WE ARE DEVOUT UNION AND MISALLIANCE. I HAVE BEGUN A POWERFUL PATH WITH A RACIST PROVOCATEUR WHO HAS GIVEN ME SOMETHING UNFATHOMABLE AND PRECIOUS. I WILL PUT MY GOALS ABOVE HIS AT ALL TIMES AND WILL CONCEDE THAT I CANNOT FORESEE THE SPECIFIC DETAILS OF OUR JOURNEY.
A gust hit the window screen. The pages blew out of his hand.
The word comrade roared through his head.
63
(Santo Domingo, 2/26/69)
Drac flew them down. El Jefe sent a stretch. The runways were fresh-poured blacktop. Peons toiled up through the landing.
Aeropuerto de las Américas—strictly bush league. Bienvenidos: cardboard cutouts of Joaquin Balaguer beside the customs hut.
Crutch and Froggy de-planed. It was smack-your-head hot. Two Policía Nacional cops lugged their luggage to the limo. Four Harleys rumbled over. The stretch was ’56-vintage. The choppers pre-dated it. The cops wore puffed jodhpurs and stormtrooper boots. The D.R., Take 1: We’re low-rent, but we try. Don’t fuck with us. We’ll kill you or suck up to you, according to whim.
The escort pulled out. The backseat was pre-cooled. Flags snapped off giant whip antennas. Crosses, ribbons, “Dios Patria Libertad.” Canned cocktails poked out of an ice chest. Crutch and Froggy popped daiquiris and worked up a buzz. Balaguer was throwing a lunch bash in their honor. The Presidential Palace, upcoming.
Crutch looked out his window. Some fucking island. The beach was no beach. Bare rocks dropped off at the surf line. The Malecón was a downmarket palisades. The bluffs were rocky and brown-grassed. The boulevard was half pavement, half gravel. Froggy said, “We are needed here. We will further our personal agenda and revitalize the economy.”
Slums. Lots of spooks and spook-spic hybrids. Tin-roof buildings: ancient and cracker box–new. Boing-your-eyes paint jobs: hot pink, lime green, canary yellow.
They de-limo’d at the El Embajador. It was a cut-rate Fontainebleau upside a cut-rate Miami. A polo field adjoined it. Light-toned beaners rode white horses and banged around white balls. Light-toned women scoped the action from golf carts. They wore summer dresses and slathered on suntan oil.
Hotel slaves fawned and whooshed them up to their rooms. They were full bar- and goody basket–equipped. Crutch had a view: pastel pads, sludgy rivers, dilapidation. Statues and droopy power lines.
Pinch me—I’m here.
He changed into a seersucker suit. He was going for that Ivy League/white kahuna effect. He walked back down. Mesplede was black-suit spiffy. Ivar Smith met them in the lobby. He was slurping a liquor-laced sno-cone. It smelled like crème de menthe.
They re-limo’d and took off. Crutch and Mesplede switched to canned martinis. The streets were narrow and ground down to soil. Foot traffic was two-thirds light spic and mulatto. The real darkies had a voodoo vibe. Crutch re-spun his head tape to Managua.
That codebook, that address book, the voodoo symbols crisscrossed. Twenty-odd days of code work. No make on Gretchen/Celia’s numbers and letters.
Tin-roof shantytowns and heat-wilted lowlifes. Calles and avenidas named for sugarcane kings. Streets named for dates, à la Managua.
Mucho vacant lots. Potential casino sites all. Two on Avenida Máximo Gómez, two on Calle 27 de Febrero. The escort was an onslaught of muscle. The choppers were un-mufflered. Their motors revved loud.
Smith said, “I’m lining up the work crews. They’ll sleep in tents on the sites and work twelve-hour shifts. The Cubans will meet you at the hotel tonight. They want to drive up to the north shore and look at staging points for your other business.”
They cut down Avenida San Carlos. The street was full-paved. The Palacio Nacional loomed. It was high-domed and built from roseate marble. It was a mini–White House, peach ice cream–colored.
Some ragtag kids loitered across the street. They held placards topped with red flags. They were mostly spook-spic crossbreeds, à la Harry Belafonte.
The palace gates opened. The limo braked and slowed. Smith cracked his window and pointed. It unleashed a rout.
There’s a parked van near the kids. On cue—four hard boys roll out. They’re all light-skinners. They’ve got piano-wire saps.
They charged. The kids ran. They caught them and trampled them and truncheoned their legs raw. The kids were too wire-whipped and bloody to stand up. They knee-walked and crawled to an alleyway. It took ten seconds tops.
Smith slurped his sno-cone. “The good guys are La Banda. They’re Jefe’s personal guys who work with my guys. The bad guys are 6/14. They have yet
to figure out that dissent comes with a price.”
El Jefe was a midget. He ran five-one maximum. He mi casa es su casa’d them with no sincerity.
Balaguer knew their names in advance. He called them Señor Mesplede and Señor Crutchfield. He sent his regards to Señor Tedrow and his investors’ group. He did not say “the Boys,” “the mob,” “the Outfit.” Smith called Balaguer “Jefe.” Balaguer scaaaared him. Jefe sniffed his breath and smirked. Smith popped Clorets on the sly.
A palace tour followed. Smith slipped a Jefe stooge a satchel. Crutch knew the contents: fifty G’s U.S. The tour was all statues and jingoist oils. Recent Führer Trujillo was omitted. Froggy was in on the Trujillo hit. The Midget was clueless. Crutch dug on that.
Lunch was seafood salad and paella. Three light-skinned women and the local CIA boss showed up. The chiquitas were courtesans brought in to un-stag things. Crutch sat down in eyeball range. The CIA guy and the Midget flanked him.
He kept it zipped and peeped cleavage. Mesplede amused the women with his pit-bull tattoos. The CIA guy’s name was Terry Brundage. He boozed and talked at Ivar Smith’s gasbag pace. He was a kidder. He joked at Mesplede’s expense. Your buddy wants to buy a PT boat. Did he serve with JFK? Has he ever been to Dallas? You’re not dope-peddlers and anti-Castro brigands, are you?
Crutch kept it zipped. The term open secret bonked him. A woman nailed his peeper act. She waved her napkin—shoo, you.
The Midget bloviated in English. He announced his spiels with little coughs that amounted to ACHTUNG! He talked up his Rural Development Plan. He told a joke about Papa Doc Duvalier and a chicken. He extolled his Urban Development Plan. Let’s build some pre-fab shacks to house the poor and lower the crime rate. Let’s build high rises to shield them from view.
Dessert was rainbow sorbet. The Midget spoke straight at Crutch.
“What is the intended meaning of your lapel pin?”
“I’ve killed fifteen Cuban Communists, sir.”
The Midget weaved a hand—comme ci, comme ça. Crutch froze with his spoon raised. Sorbet dripped on his suit.
“There is a term for young men like you, Mr. Crutchfield. It is pariguayo. The literal meaning is ‘party-watcher.’ It derives from the time the United States Marines interdicted the spread of communism in my country. It describes the young marines’ reluctance to ask our girls to dance.”
THE EYE.
He hears “Scalp them.” He can’t do it. He’s hurled in the sand. The dead man’s face is powder-burned. A skin flap is loose. His knife slips into the eye socket. His grip falters. The blade severs the eyeball. He shuts his eyes. He can’t look. A two-handed thrust cracks ocular bones. He puts a foot on the dead man’s neck and steadies his work plane. His knife blade is serrated. He saws through to the scalp flap. Foot pressure forces blood from a neck wound. It soaks his boots. He’s a pump station now. The scalp removal takes ten minutes. Foot pressure re-routes the blood through the nostrils, eye sockets and ears.
Then crackle sounds and smoke and—
That’s wrong. I always get the scalp and wave it. Froggy always applauds me.
Crutch woke up. He was steam-room wet. Smoke poured from the air conditioner. He grabbed a soda siphon and spritzed out the fire. Sparks crackled and fizzed. The smoke dissipated and left a muck residue.
The room was broiling. He opened the windows and let air in. He stripped the bed and soaked the sheets in cold bathtub water. He rigged a wall-to-wall clothesline with some mason’s cord from his suitcase. He hung the sheets up and turned on a desk fan. It created a cool breeze.
The Eye, The Dream. His sixth or seventh re-run.
He got out his codebook and work sheets. He got out Gretchen/Celia’s address book. He started counting letters, numbers and the spaces between assumed words. A month’s work. Substitution code. The letters K and S identified. Gobbledygook. No make on full-length words.
Crutch studied and drew theoretical lines. The sheets puffed. The fan rearranged grit in the air.
The phone rang. Crutch picked up. Mesplede said, “The Cubans are here.”
Partners now—the drugstore killers.
The Brylcreem guy was Wilton Morales. The Ipana guy was Chic Canestel. The Clearasil guy—Cruz Saldívar. Vick’s VapoRub—Felipe Gómez-Sloan.
Everybody swapped handshakes and backslaps. The guys looked similar and blurred into one spic. Four mid-sized men. All fortyish, all fit. All bulged up from concealed weaponry.
It was 8:00. The mandate was night ride. Mesplede mentioned coffee. Canestel proposed speed.
Saldívar pulled out six vials. Morales said they’d clouted a Rexall in Miami. Look: Mollencroft liquid methedrine, a potion for narcolepsy.
They fueled up in the parking lot. The dope was acidic. Pepsi chasers kept it down. Gómez-Sloan had a ’62 Impala. It had Jeep tires and an off-road transaxle. They piled in and drove north.
They hit the Autopista Duarte. It was two lanes, undivided. The city dissolved into scrubland and cane fields fast. Darkies cut cane under arc lights. Pale-skinned guys on horseback bossed them around. The lights made whole rural sweeps glow.
Signs announced the Plaine du Massacre. The river divided the D.R. and Haiti in the northwest. “Massacre” meant more than carnage in pure French. Froggy dug the irony. Trujillo massacred boocoo Haitians up to ’60.
The meth hit home. Crutch went head-to-toe orgasmic. It hit the other guys. They talked blue streaks verging on purple. It was all French and Spanish. Crutch tuned it out and brain-screened womens’ faces. Closed loop: Dana Lund, Gretchen/Celia, Joan.
There was no other traffic. It was jungle-dark. Gómez-Sloan ran his brights full-time. The terrain shifted. They went up over hills. Mountain ranges hemmed them in—the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera Oriental. They climbed steady and strong. The Chevy had a giant tank full of high-test gas. They cut through towns: Bonao, Abajo, Jarabacoa. They saw scroungers combing garbage dumps. They were all black. Mesplede called them “Haitian arrivisites.” They had voodoo amulets around their necks. One guy wore a bird-wing headdress. One guy had a blood-painted face. Froggy switched to English and laid out his Trujillo hit tale.
It was early ’61. The Goat was drinking at the Red Trough and nipping at Russia’s Red Tit. JFK said enough. Likewise the Dominican army boss and the D.R. gentry. Terry Brundage hired the crew. Two crash cars, one escape car, four shooters. It was a pincer movement/auto wreck outside Santo Domingo. The Goat and his bodyguards came out blazing. The inclose shooters killed the bodyguards. Mesplede sniped the Goat from an off-road perch.
The Chevy climbed. The air got thin. They cut west at Moca. The Río Yaque del Norte was due west. Haitian wetbacks ran across the road with squishy tennis shoes and soaked trousers. One guy was handcuffed. A cop on horseback chased him. More horse cops popped out of the brush. The darky weaved and ran straight into a dog pack trailing leashes. The dogs leaped and went at his face. The Chevy topped a hill. Crutch heard howls and screams and no more.
They cut back north. Dawn came up. They hit the shoreline outside Puerto Plata. Still: no fucking beaches, just rocks to the surf. Mesplede said they needed a safe inlet. We stash our boat there. It must be Haiti-close and thus Cuba-accessible. The Windward Passage separates Cuba from Haiti. The Mona Passage separates Puerto Rico from the D.R. We score heroin in Puerto Rico and sell it in Haiti. We stage Cuban coastal runs off the north shore. We are south of U.S. Coast Guard patrols. The Haitian and Dominican navies are moored on the Caribbean. We have the north-shore Atlantic to roam.
They got out, stood on the rocks and pissed in the ocean. They were speeding at six thousand rpm. The tri-lingual chatter was parrot squawk. Crutch kept it zipped.
Morales said, “The Crutchfield boy never speaks.”
Mesplede said, “No, but he is competent and persistent.”
Canestel zipped his fly. “He is a pariguayo.”
Crutch laughed. The other guys laughed. They stood on the rocks and bullshitted. The Cu
bans told Bay of Pigs stories. Crutch talked up his wayward-spouse gigs. Mesplede riffed on the Tiger Mystique.
The origin: Tiger Kab in Miami. Garishly painted taxis and anti-Castro ops. The mob’s Saigon-to-Vegas dope funnel. Tiger Kadre/Tiger Krew, arriba! Cuban runs off the Florida Keys in the vessel Tiger Klaw.
Tiger Kab was in L.A. now. It washed casino-build money. Tigers were fierce and beautiful creatures. We must honor their impeccable dignity and our symbiosis with them.
Saldívar tiger-growled and batted Gómez-Sloan. Morales and Canestel tiger-hissed.
Mesplede said, “We are the new Tiger Krew. Our PT boat will be the new Tiger Klaw. We will paint tiger stripes on the hull and fly Castroite scalps from the radio antenna. The numerical designation will be PT-109, to ironically defame the man I killed in Dallas.”
64
(Las Vegas, 3/3/69)
Wayne cooked herbs. Tree-frog glands and alkaline solutions. Ocimum basilicum. Tetrodoxin poisons—all Haitian strains. Lizard powder and a polychaete worm.
He juggled vats and boiled powder into paste. The Haitian man gave him herb packets. He trapped some lizards in the desert and dissected them. He removed their gallbladders and salivary glands.
He was retracing Reginald Hazzard. Reginald braced the Haitian man, late ’63. He had minor knowledge of Haitian herbs. He had queries on their pain-killing and flame-retardant potential. The man gave Wayne the same advice he gave Reginald. Wayne followed the man’s instructions, with nil results.
He created the paste. It enhanced pain and jump-started small fires. It burned through treated fabric quickly. That might mean flawed advice and overall specious knowledge. Reginald might have worked to the same chemical end or might have fully succeeded. The Haitian man might be a loony. He was a mystic. He believed in zombificaton. He held that voodoo enhanced chemical efficacy.
Wayne poured the paste in a jar and went back to reading. He borrowed the library books that Reginald borrowed, fall ’63.