by James Ellroy
Front room/kitchen/bedroom. Three rooms in a row.
He walked to the kitchen. He opened the fridge. A cat rubbed his legs. He tossed him some fish. The cat scarfed it up. Pete scarfed some Cheez Whiz.
He toured the pad. The cat followed him. He paced the front room. He pulled the drapes. He pulled up a chair and sat by the door.
The cat hopped in his lap. The cat clawed the calzone box. The room was cold. The chair was soft. The walls torqued him back.
Memory Lane. L.A.—12/14/49.
He’s a cop. He breaks County strikes. He works goooood sidelines. He pulls shakedowns. He extorts queers. He raids the Swish Alps.
He’s a card-game guard. He’s a scrape procurer. He’s Quebecois French. He fought the war. He got green-card Americanized.
Late ’48—his brother Frank hits L.A.
Frank was a doctor. Frank had bad habits. Frank made bad friends. Frank whored. Frank gambled. Frank lost money.
Frank did scrapes. Frank scraped Rita Hayworth. Frank was Abortionist to the Stars. Frank played cards. Frank lost money. Frank dug Mickey Cohen’s regular game.
Frank partied with scrape folks. Frank met Ruth Mildred Cressmeyer. Ruth did scrapes. Ruth loved her son Huey. Huey did heists.
Huey robbed Mickey’s game. Huey’s face mask slipped. The players ID’d him. Pete had the flu. Pete took the night off. Mickey told Pete to kill Huey.
Huey laid low. Pete found his pad: An ex-brothel in El Segundo.
Pete torched the pad. Pete stood in the backyard. Pete watched the house flames. Four shapes ran out. Pete shot them. Pete let them scream and burn.
It was dark. Their hair plumed. Smoke blitzed their faces. The papers played it up—FOUR DEAD IN BEACH TORCH—the papers ID’d the vics:
Ruth. Huey. Huey’s girlfriend.
And:
One Canuck doctor—François Bondurant.
Someone called their dad. Someone snitched Pete off. His dad called him. His dad begged: Say NO. Say it wasn’t YOU.
Pete stammered. Pete tried. Pete failed. His parents grieved. His parents sucked tailpipe fumes. His parents decomped in their car.
The cat fell asleep. Pete stroked him. Time schizzed. He dug on the dark.
He dozed. He stirred. He heard something. The door opened. Light shot straight in.
Pete jumped up. The cat tumbled. The calzone box flew.
There’s Betty Mac.
She’s got blond hair. She’s got curves. She’s got harlequin shades.
She saw Pete. She yelled. Pete grabbed her. Pete kicked the door shut.
She scratched. She yelled. She clawed his neck. He covered her mouth. She drew her lips back. She bit him.
He stumbled. He kicked the calzone box. He tripped a wall switch. A light went on. The cash fell out.
Betty looked down. Betty saw the money. Pete let his hand go. Pete rubbed his bite wound.
“There, Jesus Christ. Just get out before someone hurts you.”
She eased up. He eased up. She turned around. She saw his face.
Pete hit the wall switch. The room light died. They stood close. They caught their breath. They leaned on the door.
Pete said, “Arden?”
Betty coughed—a smoker’s hack—Pete smelled her last reefer.
“I’m not going to hurt her. Come on, you know what we’ve got—”
She touched his lips. “Don’t say it. Don’t put a name—”
“Then tell me where—”
“Arden Burke. I think she’s at the Glenwood Apartments.”
Pete brushed by her. Her hair caught his face. Her perfume stuck to his clothes. He got outside. His hand throbbed. The sun killed his eyes.
Traffic was bad. Pete knew why.
Dealey Plaza was close. Let’s take the kids. Let’s dig on history and hot dogs.
He split Oak Cliff. He found Arden’s building. It ran forty units plus. He parked outside. He checked access routes. The courtyard ruled B&Es out.
He checked the mail slots—no Arden Burke listed—Arden Smith in 2-D.
Pete toured the courtyard. Pete scanned doorplates: 2-A/B/C—
Stop right—
He made the suit. He made the build. He made the thin hair. He stepped back. He crouched. He looked.
Right there—
Ward Littell and a tall woman. Talking close and closing out the world.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/23/63. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: “Recorded at the Director’s Request”/“Classified Confidential 1-A: Director’s Eyes Only.” Speaking: Director Hoover, Ward J. Littell.
JEH: Mr. Littell?
WJL: Good afternoon, Sir. How are you?
JEH: Forgo the amenities and tell me about Dallas. The metaphysical dimensions of this alleged tragedy do not interest me. Get to the point.
WJL: I would call things encouraging, Sir. There has been a minimum of talk about a conspiracy, and a very strong consensus seems to have settled in, despite some ambiguous statements from the witnesses. I’ve spent a good deal of time at the PD, and I’ve been told that President Johnson has called both Chief Curry and the DA personally, and has expressed his wish that the consensus be confirmed.
JEH: Lyndon Johnson is a blunt and persuasive man, and he speaks a language those cowpokes understand. Now, continuing with the witnesses.
WJL: I would say that the contradictory ones could be intimidated, discredited and successfully debriefed.
JEH: You’ve read the witness logs, observed the interviews and have been through the inevitable glut of lunatic phone tips. Is that correct?
WJL: Yes, Sir. The phone tips were especially fanciful and vindictive. John Kennedy had engendered a good deal of resentment in Dallas.
JEH: Yes, and entirely justified. Continuing with the witnesses. Have you conducted any interviews yourself?
WJL: No, Sir.
JEH: You’ve turned up no witnesses with especially provocative stories?
WJL: No, Sir. What we have is an alternative consensus pertaining to the number of shots and their trajectories. It’s a confusing text, Sir. I don’t think it will stand up to the official version.
JEH: How would you rate the investigation to date?
WJL: As incompetent.
JEH: And how would you define it?
WJL: As chaotic.
JEH: How would you assess the efforts to protect Mr. Oswald?
WJL: As shoddy.
JEH: Does that disturb you?
WJL: No.
JEH: The Attorney General has requested periodic updates. What do you suggest that I tell him?
WJL: That a fatuous young psychopath killed his brother, and that he acted alone.
JEH: The Dark Prince is no cretin. He must suspect the factions that most insiders would.
WJL: Yes, Sir. And I’m sure he feels complicitous.
JEH: I hear an unseemly tug of compassion in your voice, Mr. Littell. I will not comment on your protractedly complex relationship with Robert F. Kennedy.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: I cannot help but think of your blowhard client, James Riddle Hoffa. The Prince is his bête noire.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: I’m sure Mr. Hoffa would like to know what the Prince really thinks of this gaudy homicide.
WJL: I would like to know myself, Sir.
JEH: I cannot help but think of your brutish client, Carlos Marcello. I suspect that he would enjoy access to Bobby’s troubled thoughts.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: It would be nice to have a source close to the Prince.
WJL: I’ll see what I can do.
JEH: Mr. Hoffa gloats in an unseemly manner. He told the New York Times, quote, Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now, unquote. It’s a felicitous sentiment, but I think there are those in the Italian aggregation who would appreciate more discretion on Mr. Hoffa’s part.
WJL: I’ll advise him to shut his mouth, Sir.
JEH: On a related topic. Did you know that the Burea
u has a file on Jefferson Davis Tippit?
WJL: No, Sir.
JEH: The man belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, National States’; Rights Party, National Renaissance Party and a dubious new splinter group called the Thunderbolt Legion. He was a close associate of a Dallas PD officer named Maynard Delbert Moore, a man of similar ideological beliefs and a reportedly puerile demeanor.
WJL: Did you get your information from a DPD source, Sir?
JEH: No. I have a correspondent in Nevada. He’s a conservative pamphleteer and mail-order solicitor with very deep and diverse connections on the right flank.
WJL: A Mormon, Sir?
JEH: Yes. All the Nevadan führer manqués are Mormons, and this man is arguably the most gifted.
WJL: He sounds interesting, Sir.
JEH: You’re leading me, Mr. Littell. I know full well that Howard Hughes wets his pants for Mormons and has two greedy eyes on Las Vegas. I’ll always share a discreet amount of information with you, if you broach the request in a manner that does not insult my intelligence.
WJL: I’m sorry, Sir. You understood my design, and the man does sound interesting.
JEH: He’s quite useful and diversified. For example, he runs a hate-tract press covertly. He’s planted a number of his subscribers as informants in Klan groups that the Bureau has targeted for mail-fraud indictments. He helps eliminate his hate-mail competition in that manner.
WJL: And he knew the late Officer Tippit.
JEH: Knew or knew of. Judged or did not judge as ideologically unsound and outré. I’m always amusingly surprised by who knows who in which overall contexts. For example, the Dallas SAC told me that a former Bureau man named Guy Williams Banister is in town this weekend. Another agent told me, independently, that he’s seen your friend Pierre Bondurant. Imaginative people might point to this confluence and try to link men like that to your mutual chum Carlos Marcello and his hatred of the Royal Family, but I am not disposed to such flights of fancy.
WJL: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Your tone tells me that you wish to ask a favor. For Mr. Hughes, perhaps?
WJL: Yes, Sir. I’d like to see the main Bureau file on the Las Vegas hotel-casino owners, along with the files on the Nevada Gaming Commission, Gaming Control Board, and the Clark County Liquor Board.
JEH: The answer is yes. Quid pro quo?
WJL: Certainly, Sir.
JEH: I would like to forestall potential talk on Mr. Tippit. If the Dallas Office has a separate file on him, I would like it to disappear before my less trusted colleagues get an urge to take the information public.
WJL: I’ll take care of it tonight, Sir.
JEH: Do you think the single-gunman consensus will hold?
WJL: I’ll do everything I can to insure it.
JEH: Good day, Mr. Littell.
WJL: Good day, Sir.
7
(Dallas, 11/23/63)
Glut. Waste. Bullshit.
The hotel copped pleas. The hotel blamed Lee Oswald.
The joint bulged—capacity-plus—newsmen shared rooms. They hogged the phone lines. They sapped the hot water. They swamped the room-service crew.
The hotel copped pleas. The hotel blamed Lee Oswald.
Our guests mourn. Our guests weep. Our guests watch TV. They stay in. They call home. They hash out The Show.
Wayne paced his suite. Wayne nursed an earache—that muzzle boom stuck.
Room service called. They said we’re sorry—we’re running late. Maynard Moore didn’t call. Durfee escaped. Moore let it ride.
Moore didn’t issue warrants. Moore didn’t issue holds. Moore wrote up the crap-game snafu. One guy lost a kneecap. One guy lost two pints of blood. One guy lost a toe.
Mr. Bowers lost a thumb. Wayne nursed the picture—all-nite reruns.
He tossed all night. He watched TV. He made phone calls. He called the Border Patrol. He issued crossing holds. Four units grabbed look-alikes and called him.
Wendell Durfee had knife scars—too fucking bad—the look-alikes had none.
He called Lynette. He called Wayne Senior. Lynette mourned JFK. Lynette said trite shit. Wayne Senior cracked jokes.
Jack’s last word was “pussy.” Jack groped a nurse and a nun.
Janice came on. Janice extolled Jack’s style. Janice mourned Jack’s hair. Wayne laughed. Wayne Senior was bald. Janice Tedrow—touché!
Room service called. They said we’re sorry. We know your supper’s late.
Wayne watched TV. Wayne goosed the sound. Wayne caught a press gig.
Newsmen lobbed questions. One cop went wild. Oswald was a “lethal loner!” Wayne saw Jack Ruby. He carried his dog. He passed out dick pens and French ticklers.
The cop calmed down. He said we’ll move Oswald tomorrow—late morning looks good.
The phone rang. Wayne killed the sound.
He picked up. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Buddy Fritsch, and it took me all day to get a call in to you.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Things are a bit crazy here.”
“So I gathered. I also gathered that you had a run-in with Wendell Durfee, and you let him get away.”
Wayne made fists. “Who told you?”
“The Border Patrol. They were checking on your fugitive warrant.”
“Do you want to hear my version?”
“I don’t want to hear excuses. I don’t want to know why you’re enjoying your luxury hotel suite when you should be out shaking the trees.”
Wayne kicked a footrest. It hit the TV.
“Do you know how big the border is? Do you know how many crossing posts there are?”
Fritsch coughed. “I know you’re sitting on your keester waiting for callbacks that won’t come if that nigger went to ground in Dallas, and for all I know you’re living it up with that six thousand dollars the casino boys gave you, without doing the job that they paid you for.”
Wayne kicked a rug. “I didn’t ask for that money.”
“No, you sure didn’t. And you didn’t refuse it, either, ’cause you’re the type of boy who likes to have things both ways, so don’t—”
“Lieutenant—”
“Don’t interrupt me until you outrank me, and let me tell you this now. You can go either way in the Department. There’s boys who say Wayne Junior’s a white man, and there’s boys who say he’s a weak sister. Now, if you take care of this, you’ll shut the mouths on those latter boys and make everyone real proud of you.”
His eyes teared up. “Lieutenant …”
“That’s better. That’s the Wayne Junior I like to hear.”
Wayne wiped his eyes. “He’s down at the border. All my instincts tell me that.”
Fritsch laughed. “I think your instincts are telling you lots of things, so I’ll tell you this. That file I gave you was Sheriff’s, so you see if DPD has a file. That nigger’s got to know some other niggers in Dallas, or my name isn’t Byron B. Fritsch.”
Wayne grabbed his holster. His blocked ear popped.
“I’ll give it my best.”
“No. You find him and kill him.”
A door guard let him in. Some Shriners tagged along. The stairs were jammed. The halls were crammed. The lifts were sardine-packed.
People bumped. People chomped hot dogs. People spilled coffee and Cokes. The Shriners pushed through. They wore funny hats. They waved pens and autograph books.
Wayne followed them. They plowed camera guys. They pushed their way upstairs.
They made floor 3. They made the squadroom. It was double-packed.
Cops. Newsmen. Misdemeanants cuffed to chairs. Pinned-out ID: shields/stars/press cards.
Wayne pinned his badge on. The noise hurt. His blocked ear repopped. He looked around. He saw the squad bay. He saw cubicles and office doors.
Burglary/Bunco. Auto Theft/Forgery. Homicide/Arson/Theft.
He walked over. He tripped on a wino. A newsman laughed. The wino shook his cuff chain. The wino soliloquized.
Jackie needs t
he big braciole. Widows crave it. Playboy magazine says so.
Wayne hit a side hall. Wayne read door plates. Wayne saw Maynard Moore. Moore missed him. Moore stood in a storeroom. Moore cranked a mimeo press.
Wayne ducked by. Wayne passed a break room. Wayne heard a TV blare. A cop watched a press-room feed—live from downstairs.
Wayne checked doorways. Jack Ruby brushed by—leeched to a very big cat. He hung on him. He bugged him. He kvetched:
“Pete, Pete, pleeease.”
Wayne veered by a fish tank. Fish howled within. A perv stuck his dick through the mesh. He stroked it. He wiggled it. He sang “Some Enchanted Evening.”
Wayne doubled back. Wayne found the file room. A stand-up space with twelve drawers—two marked “KAs.”
He shut the door. He popped the “A to L” drawer. He found a blue sheet:
Durfee, Wendell (NMI).
He skimmed it. He got repeat shit and one new KA:
Rochelle Marie Freelon—DOB 10/3/39. Two kids by Whipout Wendell. 8819 Harvey Street/Dallas.
Two file notes:
12/8/56: Rochelle harbors Wendell/the Sheriff wants him/he’s got nine bench warrants due. 7/5/62: Rochelle violates her parole.
She leaves Texas. She drives to Vegas. She visits Wistful Wendell D. No vehicle stats/recent contact/two cubs by Wendell D.
Wayne copied the data. Wayne replaced the file. Wayne drawered loose sheets up. He walked out. He cruised hallways. He passed the break room.
The TV snagged him. He saw something weird. He stopped. He leaned in. He looked.
There’s a fat man. He’s facing a mike. One hand’s in a splint. One hand—tight gauze—no thumb.
A band ID’d him: “Witness Lee Bowers.”
Bowers talked. Bowers’ voice broke.
“I was in the tower right before he was shot … and … well … I sure didn’t see anything.”
Bowers blipped off. A cartoon ad blipped on. Bucky Beaver yap-yap-yapped. The fuck hawked Ipana toothpaste.
Wayne went cold—Popsicle chills—ice down his shorts.
A cop said, “You okay, hoss? You look a little green at the gills.”
Wayne borrowed a DPD car. Wayne went out alone.
He got directions. Harvey Street was Darktown. Cops called it the Congo and Coonecticut.
Bowers and Moore—reprise that—do it very slooow.