James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03

by Blood's a Rover

  Crutch read their files last night. They were mostly kids his age. They looked like kids. He didn’t. He had gray hair and posterior scarring. One non-kid exception: Esteban Sánchez, M.D. He looked battle-aged. Joan had called him “a seasoned Red Brigade warrior.”

  The callbacks hit: got them, got them, got them. Smith manned the radio. Crutch heard sputter and squawk. Some Reds resisted, some didn’t. We’re coming in now.

  Crutch walked outside and waited on the bridge. Crocs sunned and swam below. He tossed them handfuls of beef jerky. They snapped it off the water. Their teeth flashed. Their snouts veered toward the bridge.

  Joan.

  Every thought now. Cutting through his case and his idea. Cutting through to This.

  She raises her arms. He kisses her there. She says, “You’re insanely durable and persistent.” She harps on that. She talks about the gene of persistence. He asks her what she means. She says, “I’m not telling you.”

  Hours whizzed by. Crutch stayed in the Joan Zone. He ate dexies. He watched the crocs. He heard incoming calls on a loudspeaker. Yeah, we got Reds—but no Reggie or Celia.

  The squad cars showed. Muffler noise announced them. Whoosh—dual-court press—both riverbanks. It felt synchronized. Crutch had a two-river view.

  Eyes right—Tonton guys and black Commies. Eyes left—La Banda with Reds black and brown. Crutch stood on the bridge and head-counted. The D.R.: eighteen total. Haiti: nine of eleven. No Reginald Hazzard, no Celia Reyes.

  The comrades were handcuffed. Crutch counted twenty-four men and three women. The goons shoved and pushed them. A few dragged their feet. Little sap shots got them back going.

  They entered the jails. Two-river view. Out and in, instantaneous.

  Nothing showed through the windows. Crutch stood on the bridge and fed the crocs. He was weavy and dingy. Spots popped in front of his eyes. He’d been up since L.A.

  A croc leaped way high. Crutch reached down and scratched his nose. A man screamed in the D.R. jail, up close. A man screamed in the Haiti jail, faint.

  It went on for ten seconds. Crocs swarmed under the bridge. Feed me that shit now.

  Crutch tuned it all out. The crocs dispersed. Time dispersed. He popped more dexies, he got more dingy, he saw more spots. Joan takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. He kisses her arms. He yanks at her boots. She laughs and resists. He falls on his ass.

  A man screamed in the D.R. jail. Two men screamed in the Haiti jail, faint. It went on for half a minute and stopped.

  Crutch re-tuned it out. His arms tingled. He felt sunstroked. He saw spots. His pants felt slack. The spots started to look like bugs.

  A man screamed in the D.R. jail. It went on and didn’t stop. He conjured Joan harder. She touched Dwight’s clothes and cried. He told her he’d look after her. She said, “You can’t.”

  A woman screamed in the D.R. jail. It went on and didn’t stop. Crutch covered his ears. That didn’t stop it. He turned his back and got more distance. That made it worse. His ears hurt. The spots grew into grids and reframed everything. The screams got louder. He turned around and sprinted up.

  The front door was open. Kids were shackled to drainpipes and benches inside. The sound reverbed down a back hall.

  Crutch ran. The spots became figures. He knocked down a Tonton dude and a La Banda guy with a Sten gun. He hit a connecting corridor. He saw mirror-paned sweat rooms on both sides. Kids resisted poly tests. Goons cuffed kids to chair backs. Goons waved phone books and hose chunks.

  The woman screamed louder. Crutch nailed the sound and kicked in the door. She was chair-cuffed. Her arms were bloody. A Tonton fuck had a barbed-wire sap.

  She saw him and screamed louder. The Tonton guy stepped up. Oh, no, baby boy—this is mine.

  Crutch arm-barred him. His throat bones cracked. Crutch elbow-slammed his nose and broke it. The Tonton guy grabbed at his throat and convulsed. The woman screamed. Crutch pulled off his shirt and showed her his scar.

  Smith ran into the room. The Tonton fuck puked bone chips and blood. Crutch weaved and saw spots. The woman looked at his scar. Their heads converged. She said something in Spanish. Crutch thought he heard “Celia” and “Port-au—”

  Two Tonton guys drove him. Brundage and Smith frosted the dustup. You was over-zealous. You over-reacted. Thanks for the bread.

  The car was a voodoo barge. A ’63 Impala, lowered and chopped. Bizango-sect flags. Cheater slicks and baby-moon hubcaps. Dashboard pix of dogs in pointed hats.

  Crutch weaved in the backseat. Those spots kept swirling. He broke his L.A. record for staying hot-wired awake. The Tonton guys dug him. The torture guy fucked the driver guy’s wife. That be bad juju. You a righteous white boy.

  The barge was air-cooled. Tinted windows shaded all the pauvre shit outside. Little villages and big signs extolling Papa Doc. Blood-marked trees ubiquitous and geeks in chicken-head hats.

  The people faded into spots and vice versa. The Tonton guys spoke half English, half French. The roundup made them each a C-note. La Banda skirmished with some Reds in Santo Domingo. That be bad gre-gre.

  Port-au-Prince was Shitsville with a Sea Breeze. Rocky beaches, stucco cubes and eroded buildings older than God. The barge stopped at a lime green pad raised off the street on pylons. Crutch said bye-bye and lurched up the steps.

  He knocked. The door opened. Celia Reyes leaned on the jamb. She said, “I’ve seen you before.” He said, “Everyone has.” The spots cohered and made everything black.

  Lieutenant Maggie Woodard, USNR.

  She wore the winter blues and the summer khakis. Her name tag read WOODARD. She never married Crutch Senior. She drank too much and got pissy or effusive. She stayed in the reserves after the Big War.

  She wore her uniform on weekends. He watched from doorways. She tipped highballs and played Brahms on a scratchy phonograph. She chain-smoked. She dangled her brown uniform shoe off her left foot. She dangled her black uniform shoe off her right. She caught him lurking and laughed. She fed him maraschino cherries out of her glass.

  Fading in and dispersing. Blackout sketches into spots.

  We’re in Ensenada. You’ve got an earache. I can’t stand your hurt. I hit a farmacia and shoot you up.

  We’re in L.A. Your father blows our money. We scrounge empty pop bottles and splurge at Bob’s Big Boy.

  We’re in San Diego. Your father is elsewhere. You’re out roving, as you always are. You come back unexpectedly. You catch me with a lover at the El Cortez Hotel.

  You’re always watching me. I leave that day. You stand at the window, waiting. I never saw it, but I know.

  • • •

  “You undressed me.”

  “You were delirious. You weren’t making sense at all.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Two full days.”

  “Jesus. Everything looks different.”

  “Then maybe it is.”

  The robe was too big. He’d lost twenty pounds, easy. She cooked a big breakfast. The smell repulsed him. The kitchen was cramped. Everything was off-scale. Dishes covered the table and sent weird fumes up.

  Celia said, “Joan sent you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I found a picture of her in with your clothes.”

  “What else did you find?”

  “A Saint Christopher medal, a .45 automatic and a list of meticulously prepared questions.”

  Crutch re-focused. Four years, then to now. Hollywood to Haiti. She hadn’t changed. Everything else had.

  “I hope you’ll be willing to answer them.”

  Celia sipped coffee. “I don’t think I care like you do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She smiled. “I’m saying I’ve changed. My beliefs have solidified. I’m not that reckless and vindictive person so determined to avenge Tattoo.”

  Crutch weaved. The off-scale room contracted. He felt kitchen heat and started to sweat.

  “I’d appreciate it if you c
ould tell me what you know and what you remember.”

  Celia buttered her toast. She wore a knee-length shift. Her hair was cinched tight by a barrette.

  “Tattoo was a voodoo priestess. I held to her beliefs much more then than I do now. She was wild and I was wild, and I was trying to manipulate a man who worked for Howard Hughes. I wanted to see those casinos built in my country. Joan and I thought we could shape that event to benefit the Cause.”

  Crutch poured coffee. “I know that part. I know about the hex you placed on Tattoo and how you wanted to revoke it. What concerns me is the specific details of that sum—”

  “I was wild. She was wild. We were caught up in large things together. I had summoned a curse on her because I believed in those things then. We reconnected that summer. It was a dangerous time in the world. I wanted to hurt Tattoo and save her, all at once. She had made a pornographic film with a voodoo theme. A sleazy realtor arranged for screenings of it around the time Tattoo disappeared. Things connected. The realtor knew the man who worked for Howard Hughes. It all felt mystical. Joan humored me and allowed me to rent a house from the man. Tattoo was crashing in a house nearby. Joan had told her about the place. It stayed vacant for long periods. Joan and some comrades had used it as a safe house years before.”

  Convergence, confluence, coincidence. Arnie Moffett, Horror House, the Commie meeting notes. A time loop: ’68 to 12/6/62.

  “The realtor’s name was Arnold Moffett.”

  “Yes, that sounds right. He had a vague connection to the Caribbean. I think he was involved in Haitian import-export.”

  Re-convergence. Arnie Moffett in ’68: my pads are fuck-film sets.

  “You knew Sal Mineo. You asked him to set Tattoo up with some movie-business men. He’d referred you before. You wanted to revoke the curse. Tattoo had done penance and bought her way out of the book of the dead. She—”

  Celia clamped his hands. He was racy and sweaty. He let her anchor him.

  “Sal called it ‘fantasia’ then, and I’m calling it that now. Tattoo was wild, I was wild. We were wild like you’re wild now. Tattoo reconciled with the 6/14 people and did favors for Joan. Joan said, ‘Sweetie, stop this foolishness. Tattoo will be better served if you let all this go.’ ”

  Crutch pulled his hands free. “And you did? And you’re telling me that’s it?”

  Celia nodded. “I’ll grant you this. Tattoo disappeared, and I had a legitimate premonition that she had been killed that summer. For what it’s worth, I still have it. I had it later that year, and I talked to a friend about it, and—”

  “Leander James Jackson, who—”

  “Who is dead now himself. He asked around about Tattoo. He talked to the realtor, and he got nowhere.”

  Crutch rubbed his legs. His limbs felt numb. His brain re-spooled, re-started, re-stopped and re-fed.

  “You’re saying that’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re saying you don’t remember the men you set Tattoo up with?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re saying you don’t know who attended the screenings?”

  “Yes. I have a copy of the film, but Leander and I never identified the other actors.”

  “You’re saying that Jackson braced Arnie Moffett on the screenings and got nothing, and that from there you just let it all slide?”

  Celia touched his arm. “You’re resourceful and persistent, or you wouldn’t have found me. If you’re as anxious to please Joan as I think you are, you can find better ways to serve the Cause.”

  Re-feeding, re-spooling, stop/start, squelch/sputter/off.

  “Do you know where Reginald Hazzard is?”

  “Yes. He lives a mile from here.”

  Crutch laughed. “Just like that?”

  She took a napkin and wiped his face. Sweat trickled into his eyes.

  “I’m taking you back to Joan.”

  “No, you’re not. I’ll write a note to her.”

  The film can was heavy. The envelope was sealed. C.R./J.K. was printed on the back.

  He decided to walk and re-scale things. It didn’t work. He felt re-railed, not de-railed. He had the Arnie Moffett re-lead. He still had That Idea.

  He called Ivar Smith from Celia’s place. They made travel plans. Tonton shuttle to Santo Domingo. L.A. from there. Stiff the Vegas call and pray it plays out.

  His fingers were paper-cut. File reads did that sometimes. They tingled. His brain just re-signaled him the pain.

  Sea spray and humidity. Spice in the air. Black folks speaking French.

  He tossed Celia’s passport in a trash can. He swiped a banana from a fruit stand and snarked it. Some kids played a portable radio. Memory Lane: Archie Bell and the Drells with “The Tighten Up.”

  There’s chez Reggie. It’s Caribbean Day-Glo green.

  The door was open. A torn-up screen was stuck in place. Crutch reached through a hole and un-latched it.

  A lab and a file trove. Bottle rows and stacked folders. Chem texts, beakers, burners and pots. Some nifty molecular charts.

  His fingers stung. He scanned shelves and played a hunch. There’s ocimum basilicum. Sure, why not?

  He dipped his left-hand fingers in the bottle. They re-tingled and un-stung. He pulled them out. The cuts disappeared as the skin puckered up.

  “Do you believe in Haitian chemistry?”

  He turned around. Nix on Chubby Checker. Reggie looked like Harry Belafonte with white splotches and a Fu Manchu stash.

  Crutch said, “I believe in everything.”

  Sleep found him and won. He wanted to see it all one more time and say good-bye to Wayne. He got a blackout curtain and cigarette backdraft.

  He smelled the airport. Jet fuel and scorched rubber. He heard chants right after that.

  “Muerto,” La Banda, “Raids” en español.

  He opened his eyes. He saw kids with black-bordered placards. A photo of a swarthy guy. ESTEBAN JORGE SÁNCHEZ, 1929–1972.

  He shut his eyes again. Reggie said, “Don’t go to sleep. We’re here.”

  The Midget flew them first-class. Reggie was tall. The legroom jazzed him. Crutch tried to conjure Joan and got Esteban Sánchez non-stop.

  Reggie was Mr. Quiet. It all oozed fait accompli. He didn’t niggle, question, protest. Reggie, the doofus genius with the hellbent past.

  Crutch stayed awake. The nightmare potential re-vitalized him and kept him up. Reggie read chemistry books and over-ate. His burn scars looked exotic. The stewardess dug on him. Reggie, the socially unkempt and angelic savant.

  Crutch got mad out of nowhere. The jet engine throb got lodged in him somehow. He got dizzy. Sleep fought him and won.

  “Sir, we’ve arrived.”

  The stewardess jostled him. First class had filed out. Reggie was gone. No, not yet. Please, God—let me see—

  He jumped up. He grabbed his bag and shoved people out of the way. His coat flapped. People saw his gun and got panicked. He shoved his way down the ramp. He elbowed some hippie fools and a nun. He made the runway. He saw Reggie and Mary Beth lock in an embrace.

  The kid was sobbing. Mary Beth held his head down. She looked up and saw Crutch. She gave him her green-flecked eyes for a moment and walked her son off.

  125

  (Los Angeles, 4/13/72)

  Joan built identities.

  She worked at Dwight’s desk. Klein and Sifakis were verboten now. Too much had happened. She’d overused Williamson, Goldenson, Broward and Faust.

  They needed birth certificates. Forest Lawn sent her a plot list. It included names, dates of birth and dates of death. She thumbed through it. The decedents were alphabetized. They needed two women. 1920s DOBs, one ethnic/one not. She was Jewish and looked it. Karen was Greek and did not.

  She scanned columns. The correct-age name selection was scant. They needed solitary women. Scant family or none. That required backup research. From there: driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, official file plants.

  Th
e names bored her. She sipped tea and lit a cigarette. Her wrist scars itched. She glanced around the fallback.

  An envelope by the door. Expensive paper. It barely fit under the crack.

  She got up and reached for it. She saw the set of initials on the back. She slit the top and read the note attached.

  Mi Amor,

  Me quedo. Por la Causa. Con respeto al regalo que eres tú.

  She’d kissed the page below her signature. Her lips had left an imprint bright red.

  126

  (Los Angeles, 4/14/72)

  Roll it.

  Clyde and Buzz were out. Crutch worked the briefing-room projector. He spooled in the film and matched the sprocket holes. He killed the lights and pulled down the wall screen. He centered the beam and got Action.

  Color footage, grainy stock. He jiggled dials. Better now—a clear image.

  Fade in. There’s a panning shot. There’s a living room. The camera catches a window. It’s light outside. The room is small and cheaply furnished. It’s not Horror House.

  A shot holds: the living room, close in. Five people walk into the frame. There’s three women, two men. They’re all naked and body-painted. Voodoo symbols, head to foot. The two men are black. Two women are white. They all wear wooden masks. The other woman is unmasked and wildly tattooed. She’s María Rodríguez Fontonette.

  Crutch straddled a chair. The camera swerved through the living room. There’s the window again. The street is visible, it’s Beachwood Canyon, we’re near Horror House.

  The camera re-centered. The actors swallowed brown capsules. Haitian herbs, yes. Cut to a close-up. There’s Maria. There’s the tattoo on her arm. The severing bisected the artwork soon after. She had lovely hands. They’d be severed. She moved gracefully. The killer cut inside of her. All that lithe movement, quashed.

  Crutch watched. He felt compressed. Summer ’68. Tattoo crashes in Horror House, Tattoo dies there. Arnie Moffett’s rental houses. Joan and Celia rent one. The rental-house screenings. It’s all compressed. He was close at the start of it and never since. Warning click: there’s something you missed.