James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03

by Blood's a Rover

  Crutch fired. He saw two heads explode. He saw one guy’s ribs blow out of his chest and blood-blast a sandbag. Froggy cut through some low trees. Fronds buffeted the airplane and blocked their frontal view. Crutch fired behind him. Stitch shots, very precise. He got four guys standing together. He saw a tall guy’s glasses shatter as his head pitched off.

  Froggy pulled the stick back. Crutch saw Cuba upside down and held in his cookies. They flew backward over the ocean. He saw his eight new kills and that guy’s head rolling toward the surf line.

  Hangover. Blackout.

  He didn’t remember the flight back or the ride to the hotel. He woke up in his bed. Mesplede was still asleep. He walked down to the restaurant and sat outside. He ordered pancakes and a Bloody Mary and kept it all down. He re-wired his head and grooved the awe of it. He killed two Cuban Reds in Chicago. He’d just killed eight more. Two plus eight was ten. He was moving toward Scotty Bennett’s toll.

  A shade tree loomed over his table. Lovers had carved initials and honeymoon dates on it. Crutch got out his pocketknife and stabbed in “D.C.” and “10.”

  He walked back upstairs. His bedroom door was open. Mesplede was sitting on the bed. His briefcase had been pried open. The summary report on his case was out in plain view. Mesplede was on page 43.

  Froggy had his gun out. Crutch gulped and brain-stalled for some lies. Froggy said, “You’ve withheld information twice. Your fixation on the Dominican Republic was a non sequitur that aroused my suspicion, so now you must tell me everything.”

  So he did.

  He started with the Dr. Fred/thieving girlfriend caper. He layered in Farlan Brown, Gretchen/Celia and Joan. Add Horror House. Add all his futile cop work. Add Celia’s Dominican roots and Haiti. Add the dead woman’s tattoo and the tattoo on the voodoo guy in the picture book.

  Mesplede pulled out Crutch’s pocket atlas. It was open to the Caribbean page. He said, “Our agendas merge.” He drew a straight line between the D.R. and Cuba.

  46

  (Los Angeles, 10/25/68)

  Black Cat Cab featured black velvet walls and a black-history tribute. The time line spanned the Black Jesus to the Black LBJ. The flocked-on icons were peeling. The air conditioning ran twenty-four hours and messed with the motif. The boss weighed 428 pounds. The hut was stalactite-cold, per his orders.

  Cordell “Junior” Jefferson: entrepreneur, Teamster-loan defaulter.

  Wayne said, “The Boys are calling in their paper, Mr. Jefferson. There’s some good news within that context.”

  Jefferson squirmed in his chair. It was triple-wide. The room ran 50°. He was sweating.

  “You’re tellin’ me I’m about two months behind, so I gots to take this?”

  Wayne shivered. “You’re three years behind, sir. Three years, but my news is not all bad.”

  Jefferson spooned ice cream from a half-gallon drum. Some Panther types walked through the hut and evil-eyed Wayne. A big white man followed them. He radiated Cop. He wore a gray suit and a plaid bow tie.

  Jefferson waved his spoon. “What’s all this motherfuckin’ good news you talkin’ about, while you tryin’ to pull the motherfuckin’ rug out from under me?”

  Wayne opened his briefcase and tossed ten grand in Jefferson’s lap. Jefferson fondled it, smelled it and rubbed his face on it.

  He snapped the rubber band holding it. He squeezed it into the world’s fattest flash roll.

  Wayne said, “You hold the deed on the biz. We bring in a white guy named Milt Chargin to help you run things, you help some cop friends of mine out with information and dry-clean some cash, for which you get 7% of the action.”

  “Suppose I says no?”

  “Sir, you’re smarter than that.”

  Jefferson ate ice cream and ruffled the roll. Wayne checked out the wall icons. He recognized the Black FDR and nobody else. A man with a triple-wide Afro walked in. He sneered at Wayne and went to the switchboard. Wayne pulled out a snapshot of Reginald Hazzard and flashed it at Fats. Fats shook his head no.

  The Afro man tossed Fats a fresh tub of ice cream. Fats said, “Big Boy Cab is crowding my business. If my business is our business, then I could use some of your help.”

  Wayne smiled.

  Mary Beth was asleep. The covers were up over her back. One leg was exposed.

  Wayne watched her. She always fell asleep before he did. She kissed him and burrowed off by herself and gave him something to see.

  He pulled a chair up to the bed and touched her knee. He waited. He liked to see her turn her head on the pillow.

  The lab phone rang. Wayne got up and ran for it. He grabbed the call two rings in.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Dwight, Wayne.”

  “Yes, and at midnight.”

  “I’ve got a chemistry question.”

  “All right.”

  “Can redacted file paper be stripped to expose the typed words underneath?”

  Wayne leaned on a shelf. It was crammed with heroin components.

  “Maybe. I’ll try, if you get me some C-4 explosive.”

  47

  (Los Angeles, 10/26/68)

  Darktown—85th and Central. An Afro-pride strip. A night club, a hair salon, a mosque. Street loafers at 2:14 a.m.

  Among them: Jomo Kenyatta Clarkson.

  Male negro, age thirty-nine. MMLF stalwart. Black Cat Cab dispatcher. “Propaganda Minister.” Hate-lit scribe. Suspected rapist/armed robber.

  Jomo’s jiving with three male Negroes. They’re slurping peach liqueur and smoking Kool cigarettes. They just had their hair frizzed at Sister Simba’s shop.

  Dwight was three stories up and directly across Central. The building was empty. He climbed the fire stairs and crouched behind a signboard. He held binoculars and a Poloroid pic.

  The photo was Joan’s proof. He waylaid the pedophile gym teacher and did some sap work. Joan’s revenge or Joan’s deterrent. He didn’t care—it was the Joan Zone. Stray women were starting to look Joan-like. She was always Joan. She was never Confidential Informant #1189.

  Dwight looked southbound. There’s Marsh Bowen on his mandated late-night stroll. Dwight looked northbound. There’s unit 4-Adam-29, slow-cruising.

  Two white cops. Scotty Bennett idolaters. A C-note apiece.

  On cue:

  The cops sniff the Afro-pride strip. Jomo and the Jivehounds hide their jug. The cops cruise on. The jug reappears. Jomo and the Jigmeisters re-jungle-ize.

  The cops see the lone male Negro. Shit, it’s Marsh Bowen. That’s a good roust.

  The cops U-turn and pull over. The Afro-pride strip perks up. Party! Party! Let’s groove social outrage and hate up The Man!

  Sister Simba’s empties out. Likewise the Scorpio Lounge. Jomo and the Junkyardogs electrify. Their Brillo-pad hairdos sizzle.

  The cops exit their car. Marsh walks on by. One cop whistles, one cop yells, “Get back here.” The spectators start making pig sounds.

  Dwight’s view was good. His soundtrack was bad. It was pig-snorted past comprehension.

  Marsh walked back. Dwight saw the cops spread-search him and frisk him. He thought he heard “nigger” and “Scotty Bennett sends regards.” He heard overlapping oinks, snorts and bleats. The cops emptied out Marsh’s pockets. The cops goofed on his Afro comb. The spectators started chanting “Go, brother!” One cop shoved Marsh and jabbed at his chest. One cop yelled in his ear. The spectators cranked up their pig act. The verbal cop sprayed spit and goosed the volume. Dwight heard “nigger,” “traitor,” “nigger motherfucker” and “faggot.”

  Marsh lost it. He headlocked the verbal cop and ran him into a streetlight. The spectators clapped and Go, brothered. The pig noise went hi-fi. The verbal cop spun Marsh around and flipped him up on the patrol car. The other cop pulled his baton and started banging his head and his kneecaps. Marsh took a BAAAAAAD BROTHER beating. Jomo and the Junglejivers saw the whole thing.

  48

  (Los Angeles, 10/28/68)

 
Two dozen cabs. All bumper-locked, in rows. All with the Big Boy logo: a dinge in a fez like that dictator dude Sukarno.

  The dispatch hut was off-site. The lot was half a city block. An all-night guard patrolled the premises. He always drank his dinner at Sultan Sam’s Sandbox. Froggy slipped two yellowjackets into his last scotch. The guy was snoozing in a Dumpster behind Sultan Sam’s now.

  Wayne and Froggy called the shots. Crutch did the shitwork and took orders.

  Wayne molded the C-4 and placed it in the wheel wells. Froggy set up the detonator. Crutch rigged the cords cab-to-cab.

  The setup took hours. They worked from midnight to 4:00 a.m. Crutch got cramps from squatting down and duck-walking. They all sweated bad and carried towels to get some dryness. The C-4 looked like Play-Doh and smelled like burned oil. The cords abraded your hands.

  All done—4:11 a.m.

  They walked out to the street and toweled off. Wayne looked grim, per always. The Frogman was smiling. Crutch felt prom-date swoony.

  Wayne pushed the plunger. The fucking cabs exploded and jumped off the ground. The noise was immense. A dozen shades of red and pink erupted. Glass blew across the sky.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/29/68. Los Angeles Herald Express headline and subhead:

  NIXON-HUMPHREY RACE TIGHT

  EX-VEEP HOLDS LEAD IN KEY STATES

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/30/68. San Francisco Chronicle headline and subhead:

  NIXON VS. HUMPHREY: POTENTIAL SQUEAKER?

  PRANKSTERS DISRUPT HUMPHREY RALLIES;

  AIDES ACCUSE NIXON CAMPAIGN

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/1/68. Los Angeles Times article:

  MURDER OF HATE MERCHANT STILL UNSOLVED

  The victim himself called his palatial Beverly Hills home “the House That Hate Built,” so it’s no surprise to many that Dr. Fred T. Hiltz, 53, former dentist, former golf professional and alleged FBI informant, should come to a horrible end in that very place itself.

  On September 14 of this year, Dr. Hiltz was shotgunned in his backyard bomb shelter, and the crime has remained unsolved. There are suspects: a robbery gang who held wealthy families hostage in Brentwood and Newport Beach. But some local journalists and many assassination buffs take issue with that. Dr. Hiltz was a well-known purveyor of viciously worded hate pamphlets that attacked Caucasians as well as racial minorities, was rumored to have a backyard hidey-hole stuffed with cash, had been married numerous times and allegedly indulged in scores of liaisons with provocative women. Beverly Hills Police Captain Mike Gustodas told reporters, “Dr. Hiltz had volatile relationships, was in a dirty business and cut our work out for us, that’s for sure.”

  Yet, it’s the Los Angeles FBI Office that’s doing the bulk of the work on the Hiltz investigation, and that fact is what so intrigues certain journalists and conspiracy theorists. Captain Gustodas had no answer to address that issue; he simply stated that the FBI had usurped BHPD’s case for “national security reasons.”

  John Leahy, Special-Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Office, told reporters, “Yes, it’s a politically sensitive case, and there is a national security aspect, albeit a minor one. I’m not at liberty to divulge the details just yet, but there will be a full recounting when and if this agency makes an arrest.”

  An especially persistent rumor is that Dr. Hiltz was murdered by members of a black-militant group, as a political statement. SAC Leahy had no time for that theory. “I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “No black-militant groups have claimed credit, and I also think that the danger of black militancy has been grossly overreported by the press.”

  Meanwhile, the Hiltz investigation continues.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/2/68. Dallas Morning News headline:

  NIXON-HUMPHREY RACE DOWN TO WIRE

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/3/68. Hartford Courant headline:

  NIXON, HUMPHREY IN LAST BARNSTORMING EFFORT

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/4/68. Extract from the privately held journal of Karen Sifakis.

  Los Angeles,

  November 4, 1968

  Nixon’s going to win. Humphrey is saddled with the attenuated onslaught of LBJ’s war and the American people want a credible dialogue on the end of the war suffused with reactionary pap that will make them feel good about leaving (and, in fact, losing) the war, and Nixon is telling them exactly what they want to hear. Chicago was a disaster, not because it secured Nixon’s victory, but because it made the Left appear rancorous, petty, vicious, divisive and buffoonish. The sin of self-indulgence. I must take note of my self-indulgent tendencies, and I should begin by classifying them as misconduct and thus drawing a clear moral line to interdict their practice.

  Dina has started asking me the inevitable bright-little-girl questions about Dwight and W.H.N. and my relationship to the two men. Of course, I cannot tell her that W.H.N. and I are politically compatible, but not comrades, and we have never had a fully passionate relationship, but are friends in certain shared ideals and the business of parenthood. W.H.N. knows about Dwight, but never mentions him; the prescient and too-worldly Dina never mentions Dwight to W.H.N. because she knows it would hurt him and because she understands that it might adversely affect my relationship with Dwight. Dina will become a compartmentalizer (as I am) and may/will inherit my penchant for dramatic and dubious men. Dina likes Dwight more than she likes her father, because he is fierce with the world, but very soft with her, because he carries a gun, because I am demonstrative with Dwight in a way that I am not with her father and it makes her feel properly loved as a child and thus feel safe. And—brilliant girl—she understands something that I just figured out: that Dwight and I truly are comrades.

  It’s our lovers’ passion and the tender barter of our antithetical roles and ideals. It’s that we both want something (beyond each other) very deep and pure, and that I have a language for it, while he does not.

  I keep thinking of troikas. Dwight, my largely absent husband and I are one. And, I now form the spark point of Dwight and Joan Klein. I’m not jealous, but Dwight is powerfully compelled by her. I have been less than truthful about my relationship with Joan, because I did not know how much of Joan’s various real and rumored histories I should reveal to a man who is, at day’s end, a police officer and a right-wing thug. Dwight told me early on: informants and operators withhold information to ensure their own safety and the safety of those close to them. That idea guides me in my lies by omission. Joan was an FBI informant at one time, but I don’t know her operator’s name or if he redacted her file. I have known Joan deeply for many years. Politically, I do not trust her any more than I trust Dwight.

  I’m somewhat worried about Dwight. He’s losing weight, is sleeping ever-more poorly and mumbles in his sleep. I keep jokingly asking him if I can blow up Mount Rushmore and he keeps half-jokingly telling me, “Yes.” He’s giving me too much latitude. Is it out of guilt? I keep thinking there must be some immeasurably horrible deed weighing on him that I must never know about, lest it destroy my love for him or make me love him that much more. I wonder how old Dina (and Ella inside me) will be when they discover that truth of women and men.

  Dwight and I have our barters. I wonder what form Dwight’s barters will take with Joan. Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good?

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/5/68. Extract from the journal of Marshall E. Bowen.

  South L.A.,

  November 5, 1968

  It was my second beating at the hands of my former—and future, once this operation has concluded—LAPD brethren. I fared better at my first one, for Mr. Holly’s script had prepared me. Mr. Holly failed to witness this second encounter, and my wounds will have healed by the next time we meet face-to-face. I may or may not tell him of the incident, critique my spontaneous performance and request that he not discipline the officers involved. I may or may not tell him that the incident resulted in my making some wonderful new friends.

  My u
nlikely rescuer was Jomo Kenyatta Clarkson, Propaganda Minister for the preposterously named Mau-Mau Liberation Front, along with his friends Shondell and Bobby. Jomo is garrulous and recognizably psychopathic and continues to break the world’s land speed record for use of the word “motherfucker” in a single sentence. His arms bear self-inflicted machete scars as a tribute to the real Jomo Kenyatta’s slaughter of British settlers in Kenya, circa 1947. Jomo and friends took me to Morningside Hospital, where a friendly white doctor, who treated Jomo for his most recent gunshot wound, treated my wounds and injected me with Demerol. The injection dulled my pain, lifted my spirits and allowed me to stop replaying the words “Scotty Bennett sends regards” in a near-continuous loop. I wanted to go home and rest then. Jomo wouldn’t hear of it. He decided we should go pub-crawling.

  We visited a series of after-hours clubs. I met numerous black males in the all-black attire that Mr. Holly has urged me to purchase, found it fetching on them, but decided that it wasn’t really my style. I witnessed a live lesbian sex show at Rae’s Rugburn Room and was generally shown off by Jomo at Sultan Sam’s Sandbox, Mr. Mitch’s Another World and Nat’s Nest. I geared up and performed; Mr. Holly would have been proud of me. I repeatedly described my beating by the “LAPD pigs” and never had to mention my ex-pig status, because I am a local celebrity and my former occupation subtextually pre-exists in the ghetto spiritus mundi. I kept saying ridiculous things like “Tell it like it is” and “Right on, brother” and never once burst out laughing. The rest of the night, following day and night are blurry. Jomo took me by his place of employment, the Black Cat Cab Company, where I watched the very fat owner eat an entire gallon of ice cream. I started to fall asleep at one point. Jomo force-fed me several spoonfuls of cocaine, which got me talking. It felt like an out-of-body experience spawned by alcohol, drugs, sustained shock and many weeks of barely controlled stress, excitement and wonderment, all filtered through what Mr. Holly has described as my “innate actor’s instinct and flair.” I critiqued the institutional racism of the LAPD specifically and white racist America in general and was conscious that I was shucking Jomo and his friends as I did it, as I concurrently believed it and did not believe it, as yet another part of me was off at another level of bifurcation, directing the performance and goofing on the whole thing. I can’t recall exactly what I said, but I do know that I was speaking at the limits of my mental capacity and powers of articulation. In retrospect, it felt like demagoguery, social analysis and apostalic fervor all rolled into one. And the amazing thing to me—that Mr. Holly would not find amazing at all—is that I don’t know whether or not I believe a word of it.