James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03

by Blood's a Rover

  Jump cut: we’re in a bedroom now. There’s an uncovered water bed, jiggling. The actors mill around. They talk to someone offscreen. Their lips move soundless.

  Crutch stared at Tattoo. She’s beautiful, she’s alive. She betrayed 6/14 in ’59 and reconciled later. “It was a wild time.” Celia said that. He couldn’t reconcile the Cause with a fuck flick. It offended him.

  The men trembled and shook. They fell on the bed. Their backs arched. Their legs spasmed. The potions took hold. They were early-stage zombified. They dumped their masks and gasped for air. They sweated the voodoo paint off their bodies.

  Tattoo whipped them. Soft shots, for show. The two white girls started trembling. Their movements were puppet-string jerky. They got on the bed and stroked the guys hard. They all seized and thrashed. They all did grand mal shit, out of body. The men thrashed prone. Their movements slowed. The white girls straddled them and pulled them inside. The camera got insertion-close.

  Different herbs. The women contorted at a hyper-pace. They pinned down the men. Their hips and arms moved in counterpoint. Their heads moved on some spazzy axis. The camera caught the men close. Their eyes were open and dead. Tattoo soft-whipped the women. Their contortions accelerated.

  Tattoo stepped out of sight and stepped back in the frame. She held a fireplace tool, shaped like a phallus. The cock tip glowed. It was near white-hot. She touched the carpet with it and got combustion. The women thrashed and opened their mouths. She fed them the cock head. They sucked it and displayed no pain. They removed their mouths and pressed the cock head to the bedstead. The fabric sizzled and burned down to the springs.

  The men were zombified. The women voodoo-fucked them. Tattoo grabbed the burning cock and burn-carved the wall. Crutch got it. He knew the markings. Tattoo drew them at Horror House. Tattoo drew them in fire on a fuck film–set wall.

  The sprocket holes jammed. The screen went all white. The film died at just that spot.

  Convergence. Connection. Confluence. Clyde’s line: It’s who you know and who you blow and how you’re all linked.

  Warning click: something’s missing. You don’t know who killed Tattoo. You don’t know who glued all this up.

  Crutch drove up Beachwood Canyon. It was all tight. There’s Horror House. There’s the house Joan and Celia rented. There’s Arnie Moffett’s other pads. Your four-years-back memory holds.

  He zigzagged side streets. He calibrated the view out the fuck-film window. There it is, intact. The same palm trees and driveway across the street. A Moffett Realty sign.

  Still all tight. Stone’s throw here, stone’s dribble there. Who/what started it and made it all cohere?

  Celia said Arnie Moffett ran an import-export biz. Click—we’re back there again.

  Confluence. It’s who you know and who you—

  Crutch drove downtown. Clyde had pull at the L.A. License Bureau. File access cost you fifty clams and a wink.

  The duty clerk recognized him. Import-export from a while back? The boxes in Room 12.

  The room was a musty paper swamp. The boxes were marked by years. No pull tabs, no alphabetizing. Real paper digs.

  He started at ’66 and worked backward. He hit at ’63.

  Arnie had a low-rent biz going. “Arnie’s Island Exotics, Limited.” Curios, knickknacks, connection. Imports from: Jamaica, Haiti, the D.R. closer now. Where’s that little link-it-all click?

  The same office. The same next-door deli. “The Home of the Hebrew Hero.”

  He brought a pint of Jim Beam. Arnie was a lush. The booze softened the beating then. It might work now.

  Crutch walked in. A bell jingled. Arnie sat at the same desk. His bowling shirt was green today. He picked his nose and read Car Craft.

  Crutch took the client’s chair. Arnie ignored him. Crutch placed the jug on his blotter.

  Arnie glanced at it. Crutch said, “Summer ’68. What’s the first thing you think of?”

  Eyes on the jug. He considers, re-considers and re-cogitates. Aaah, he gets it.

  “The first thing I think of is all that political tsuris. The second thing I think of is you.”

  Crutch cracked the jug and passed it over. Arnie chugalugged.

  “The third thing I’m thinking is that you look a lot older. The fourth is that I hope you ain’t still on that crusade. If it pertains to my houses, Gretchen Farr, Farlan Brown or Howard Hughes, you heard everything I got.”

  Crutch said, “Leander James Jackson.”

  Arnie re-chugged. “Say what?”

  “The other guy who came around asking questions. That woman ‘Tattoo,’ your fuck-film set, the house you rented out for the screenings.”

  Arnie picked his snout. “We got two different agendas here. Where they connect, I don’t know. You had your Gretchie crusade, he had his thing for Tattoo. He’s dead, by the way. He got offed in that ‘Black-Militant Blastout.’ And, by the way, I didn’t hold nothing back from you. I told you I rented my cribs as porno-film sets, but you didn’t ask me no questions about Tattoo.”

  Re-convergence, de-convergence. So far, Arnie played kosher. Shit hovered close.

  “Tell me about Tattoo.”

  “What’s to tell? I knew somebody who knew somebody who knew her. I heard she was on the skids. She heard I used to run an import biz out of her shitty country. She wanted to make some farkakte voodoo-smut film, and she needed a place to screen it. We talked on the phone. I gave her some leads. They were all pervy-type guys off my old import-customer list. She cold-called them, which ended our brief and borderline profitable encounter.”

  Crutch rubbed his eyes. “Were you there for the film shoot?”

  “No.”

  “Did you meet the camera crew or the other actors?”

  “No.”

  “Have you seen the film?”

  “Nyet. Porno ain’t my bag. I like the real thing there in the sack with me. I’m an in-and-out kind of guy. Ten minutes of bliss and I’m back watching Bowling for Dollars on Channel 13.”

  Crutch rubbed his neck. He was all knots and kinks.

  “Who went to the screenings? Give me some names.”

  Arnie sucked on the jug. “I don’t know. I sent Tattoo a mimeograph copy of my list.”

  “She was murdered that summer. How does that sit with you?”

  Arnie made the jackoff sign. “It don’t sit with me one way or the other. That Haitian guy thought she’d been clipped, so I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. Bobby the K. and that civil rights macher just bought it, so it’s not like some stray piece of island gash carries all that much weight with me.”

  Crutch saw RED. Just like then. No, don’t do it.

  “Where’s the fucking customer list?”

  Arnie popped a zit on his neck. “It’s in my garage, if it’s anywhere. The key’s on the hook by the john. Have fun, but don’t come back in another four years and put me through this shit again.”

  Dust, mildew, cobwebs, spiders’ nests, mice. Oil cans, dead batteries, a cracked engine block. Car Craft back to ’52. Forty forged Sandy Koufax baseballs.

  Arnie Moffett’s garage, Mar Vista.

  Stolen prescription pads. The full run of Food Service Monthly. A photo of Marlon Brando with a dick in his mouth. Four BB guns, two defunct lawn mowers, the skeletal remains of a cat.

  Crutch worked. He dug through pack-rat shit to get at a pile of boxes. He hit the first box row. Arnie’s résumé expanded. He sold French ticklers, he sold rosaries, he sold the Donkey Dan Dong Extender. He sold counterfeit football tix. He ran the Debra Paget Fan Club. He mail-ordered JFK and Jackie K. dolls. He drop-shipped amyl-nitrate poppers to fag bars. He owned an employment agency for wetback kitchen help.

  There—“Arnie’s Island Exotics.”

  He ripped the box open. An invoice stack popped out. He dumped the box on the floor. Gotcha—“Customers/’59–’63.”

  Four stapled pages. A fuckload of names.

  Crutch scanned alphabetic. The names and addres
ses meant greek. He got to the last page. He scanned the Ts to Zs. He stopped dead at:

  “Weiss, Charles. 1482 North Roxbury, Beverly Hills.”

  Chick: divorce lawyer. Chick: wheelman consort. Chick: Phil Irwin’s best pal. Phil: hired and fired by Dr. Fred Hiltz—find me Gretchen Farr. Chick: dope fiend and mud shark.

  And …

  There’s …

  The …

  CLICK.

  Chick’s office. Rope-job strategy. The three-phallus statue. The open-legged Negress. Imports—all voodoo vile.

  He needed a throwdown. The fallback was close. Cold pieces. Dwight might have left some.

  It was dusk. He floored it northeast. He looped by Karen’s place en route. Window view: Karen and Joan in the living room. The girls acting rambunctious.

  The fallback lights were on. Crutch snagged the key under the mat and let himself in. A file was propped up on the desk. Joan had left him a note.

  D.C.,

  A friend found this. The Feds have paper on you. I thought you might like to see it.

  J.K.

  CRUTCHFIELD, DONALD LINSCOTT.

  Clyde Duber–culled reports. Knife-redacted paragraphs. Clyde’s assessments: “Voyeurs make good wheelmen.” “Weird tendencies.” The kid was working the Farr case. He was too tweaked on it.

  A CBI report: Phil Irwin, Fed snitch.

  “My buddy Chick and I like to peep. We studied under the best, Crutch Crutchfield. There ain’t a window in Hancock Park that that twisted cocksucker ain’t put his snout up to. He never knew it, but Chick and I used to tail him and study his technique.”

  PD reports below: Phil and Chick popped for loitering. KA Arnie Moffett questioned per “porno parties.” Arnie shares Chick’s love of “bizarre Negro art.”

  He saw RED. He couldn’t breathe. He gulped sink water and coughed it out. He got some wind back.

  Dwight had left a goody basket in the closet. He found a throwdown, handcuffs and a roll of duct tape.

  Phil was a car-dweller. He crashed in his Tiger kab most nights. He usually parked in the wheelman lot, away from the street.

  Crutch drove over. The station was closed. A Tiger stretch was parked by the toolshed. Phil was sleepytimed in the backseat. His arms dangled out the window.

  Snores. Booze breath wafting. Phil’s head propped on the window ledge.

  Crutch parked and walked up. Phil dozed on. Crutch opened his cuffs and snapped Phil’s left wrist. Phil dream-yipped. Crutch cranked the ratchets and spare-cuffed the doorpost. Phil grimaced and snored.

  Crutch yanked the door wide. The cuff chain gouged Phil and pulled him up and out of the seat. He roused. He hit the world on his knees. He didn’t get it. I can’t move. My arm’s above my head and it hurts.

  He shrieked. He blinked and saw Crutch. He said, “Hey, Peep—”

  Crutch kicked him in the balls. Phil hurled booze laced with peanuts. He tried to stand and get some chain slack. Crutch re-kicked his balls. Phil re-hit his knees.

  He screamed. The cuff gouged him tight. Blood leaked down his arm. Crutch said, “Summer ’68. You got the Gretchen Farr gig first, I got it second. You went on a bender, I took over then.”

  Phil tried to sit down. The cuff chain dug tighter. Phil tried to stand up. Crutch kicked him in the balls. Phil hit his knees, harder.

  He screamed, he coughed, he dribbled puke. He lolled his head on his chest and panted.

  Crutch said, “You and Weiss. The peeping, Arnie Moffett, that voodoo film.”

  Phil lolled his head. Crutch slapped him. Phil ducked and tried to bite his hand. Crutch pulled the throwdown and held it out eye level.

  “I’ll run the radio. No one will hear the shot. You work Tiger Kab. You’re all over darktown. You’re fucking half the black chicks south of Washington Boulevard. How much time will LAPD give it?”

  Phil took some breaths. Phil scooched around on his knees. His eyes got snitch-darty. Blood ran down his arm and soaked his shirt.

  “So, we like to peep. You like it, I like it, Chick likes it. He knew this Arnie guy. Chick used to buy knickknacks and shit from him. Arnie owned party cribs and showed movies at them. Chick saw this weird-ass flick and got hipped on some babe in it. He heard she was living in some empty house around there, and my guess is he peeped her.”

  Crutch said, “And that’s it?”

  “You want more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, you’ve got it. We peeped you peeping, so we learned from the King. Whatever you’re in a lather over came straight from you.”

  Crutch pulled out his duct tape. Phil squirmed and thrashed his head. Crutch grabbed his hair and mummy-wrapped him. He left a nose hole open. He covered his mouth, his head, his ears. He pulled him off the ground and kicked him into the backseat. The cuff ratchets gouged him. His bones showed plain. The mock-tiger seat covers shed all over him.

  Hash smoke. Follow the trail. The wife’s car is gone. He’s tripping back by the pool.

  Crutch walked down the driveway. The backyard was dark. The pool supplied shimmer light.

  Olympic-size. Artful nudes scrolled on the bottom. Picasso on LSD.

  Chick sat by the deep end. He rocked his chair and toed the diving board. The fumes got stronger. He had a little mesh-spouted pipe.

  Crutch pulled a chair up. Chick focused in on him.

  “You’re supposed to call first. Clyde knows that.”

  “Does Phil have to call first?”

  “Phil’s a special case. Clyde knows that, too.”

  Crutch flipped his chair and straddled it. The hash smoke burned his eyes. He smelled Hai Karate cologne.

  The pool water rippled. Chick took a hit and offered the pipe. Crutch shook his head.

  “I’ve put some things together. I’d appreciate your comments.”

  Chick re-lit the pipe. The little mesh glowed.

  “There’s something portentous about this visit of yours. It’s starting to bum me out.”

  “You killed a woman named María Rodríguez Fontonette. I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  Chick grinned and winked. It was practiced. Chick had studied the late Scotty B.

  “There’s not much to tell, although I have to credit you with an assist on that one.”

  “Have there been others?”

  “A few, here and there.”

  “You peep, you see something you like, and you kill them?”

  “More or less.”

  “Tell me about María.”

  Chick took a hit. His eyes were red, his pupils were dots.

  “I peeped her. She dug voodoo, I dug voodoo, we both dug voodoo art. We ate some herbs and rapped about Haiti. Everything’s cool, until she lays out this guilt trip about some Commie invasion she betrayed. It was a bummer. It brought me down, until I started thinking, you know, you’re here in this abandoned house, you’ve always wanted to do it, she’s a nigger fly-by-night that nobody will miss.”

  Crutch pulled his chair up. “So you did it.”

  “Yeah. I bisected the body and cut off her hands. She told me all these emerald stories, so I ground up some green glass and stuffed it in with her wounds. I started having these fantasies about five years earlier. I bought a set of surgical tools and kept them in the trunk of my car, but I never thought I’d have the nerve. Well, the moon was in Scorpio that night, and I guess I just did.”

  Crutch looked at the moon. It was slivered and half-eclipsed.

  “You’re vibing judgmental, Peeper. That cracks me up.”

  “Oh?”

  “I always thought you had a surfeit of balls and a shortage of brains. Now, I have to add ‘hypocritical mind-set’ to that.”

  Crutch reached in his pockets. Chick took a hit and blew smoke in his face.

  “You can’t put your nose to windows and come away blood-free. Inspiration’s inspiration. It’s like that guy King said. ‘I have a dream.’ You just never know who’s been watching you or who’s kicking around in your head.
”

  Crutch pulled out the capsules and displayed them. Chick said, “What have you got?”

  “They’re Haitian. It’s an up trip. You’ll fly for a day and a half.”

  Chick went May I? Crutch went Sure. Chick dry-swallowed the capsules and re-lit his pipe.

  Crutch leaned closer. “Tell me about the other ones.”

  “What’s to tell? They looked good, and I was bored.”

  “Just like that?”

  Chick took a hit. “Yeah, ‘Just like that.’ It’s the ’70s, baby. ‘Do your own thing.’ ”

  Crutch looked around. The pool, the moonlight, the moment. A bird flutter overhead.

  Chick looked at him. A few seconds passed. His gaze glazed. Green foam poured out his eyes, nose and mouth. His arms spasmed and constricted. Bones shattered. Crutch heard the breaks. Chick stood up and staggered. Foam bubbled out of his ears.

  Crutch stuck a leg out and tripped him. Chick fell into the pool. Crutch watched him thrash and float facedown.

  127

  (Los Angeles, 4/17/72)

  “Don’t give me a surname. There’s one I’m considering.”

  “Dare I guess?”

  “Let’s just say it honors the past several years, as well as runs from them.”

  The backyard was Ella’s gator farm. Clouds brewed and promised rain. Joan rounded the stuffed creatures up.

  Karen said, “Literary executor. What do you think? All our files, diaries, memoranda. Everything we’ve put together.”

  Joan looked up at the fallback. “He’d be good. He’s quite the hoarder.”

  “What would he do with it?”

  “He’d read through it and look for answers. He’d see things that no one else has seen and impose his own logic on it. If he grows up, he’ll understand what it all means.”

  The girls bombed around the house. Joan peered through windows. Dina watched TV cartoons. Ella snuck up, pulled the plug and laughed.

  Karen said, “I miss Dwight.”

  Joan said, “Something’s changing with my body.”