by James Ellroy
Commie beefs. Heists. No attached mug shots. Crutch ran to the photo lab—
His new file room was cramped already. File boxes, file stacks, the big wall graph. He had two pads in one city. He slept in them both. He kept his mother’s file at the Vivian Apartments. He kept his case file at the Elm Hotel. He kept hot-plate chow and shaving gear at both locations.
Crutch split to the Elm. The graph drew him first thing. He’d Scotch-taped masking paper up at eye level. He doodled on it. He drew lines and arrows and wrote daily progress and summary reports.
He got out his grease pen and found a fresh spot. He wrote “Joan” and circled it. He drew some arrows with black feathers and sharp little points, leading to:
“Farlan Brown leads going nowhere to (8/10/68) date. Brown meet at Golden Cavern (8/23/68). F.T. to wire suite.”
“Gretchen Farr/Celia Reyes: all records checks negative to (8/10/68) date.”
“ ‘Grapevine,’ ‘Tommy’ & ‘plant’: what do they mean?”
“Tattoo ID, wall markings & powder on body parts: no make as of this (8/10/68) date.”
“Bootleg phone #: phone co. trace in progress.”
Crutch scanned the graph. Crutch drew arrows pointing to “Joan.” Crutch circled the name with big question marks.
He flopped on the bed. He studied the photo-lab pix. A single mug-shot strip. One full-face shot, two profiles. Joan Rosen Klein wearing a neck board.
The board numbers supplied a date: 7/12/63. He knew the booking-number prefix. It meant “detained for suspicion.” That probably meant a street roust or wrong-place-at-wrong-time grief. Joan was a Commie and a two-time robbery suspect—she’d attract heat.
She was thirty-six then. She looked the same now. She wore glasses. She smiled into flashbulb glare. That near-black hair with the gray streaks. That wide and harsh jawline. That composed set to her face.
Crutch shut his eyes, opened his eyes and studied the pictures again. He saw gray streaks that he’d missed the first bunch of times.
The bed was covered with library books. He’d checked them out post-Miami. They covered one topic: Cuba.
He kept in touch with Jean-Philippe Mesplede. The Frogman was his friend now. They talked long-distance, L.A. to Miami. The Frogman liked him. The Frogman thought he was a punk kid in over his head and refused to take his case seriously. Fuck him on that—let him think it. The Frogman thought it was just a thieving-girlfriend caper. Crutch held back the wild-ass dimensions.
Wayne Tedrow Jr. wanted Donald Linscott Crutchfield dead, but Jean-Philippe Mesplede relented. The Frogman called Wayne Junior “unstable and politically suspect.” Wayne Junior sustained right-wing alliances and suppressed his left-wing tendencies. Froggy could not commit murder for such a compromised man.
So Crutch got to live and work his case and magnetize all his magical shit.
Their phone calls were all Cuba. A gorgeous island. A tourist mecca. A paradise raped by the Reds. Jack Kennedy betrayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. LBJ appeased Castro. The next prez would ditto his rat-fink policies. The Frogman raged to ravage Reds and reclaim the Caribbean cornucopia. White sands. Swank casinos “nationalized” and turned to Third World troughs. Brown women in pink bikinis.
Crutch skimmed library books and ripped out key photos. Dig it: Fulgencio Batista draped all over Jane Russell. Dig it: the roof pool at the Capri. Dig it: peons pulling fat cats in rickshaws.
He taped the pix to the wall. He ripped out a pic of Fidel Castro fomenting. The Frogman called Castro “The Beard.” His facial hair harbored nests of Red lice.
Crutch taped the Castro pic to the wall and tossed his pocketknife at it. He nailed The Beard four times out of six. The picture started to shred.
The phone rang. Crutch jugged the receiver and caught it. He said, “¿Hola? ¿Qué tal?” The caller went, “Huh?”
The knife fell off the wall. Fidel was now mucho tattered. The caller said, “It’s Larry from P.C. Bell. Buzz Duber said I should call you. I got a trace on that bootleg number.”
Crutch grabbed his scratch pad. “Shoot.”
“It’s a house on Carmina Perdido in Santa Barbara. The renter’s name is Sam Flood. That’s all I’ve got.”
It was plenty. “Sam Flood” was Sam Giancana’s squarejohn name. Clyde told him that. Sam G. called Gretchen/Celia at Bev’s Switchboard.
Larry blathered—Hey, fool, where’s my bread? Crutch hung up and wrote “Bootleg #/Giancana” on his wall graph.
The words vibrated. Crutch drew little question marks around them. He got the urge to draw Joan. He taped her mug-shot strip to the graph paper and cut loose with paper and pen.
He got her hardness and her softness in alternating portraits. He never got the full her in one take. He gave her different hairdos. He de-swirled and re-swirled the lovely gray streaks every time.
18
(Las Vegas, 8/19/68)
The service was brief. The minister rushed. Storm clouds meant rain any second. The eulogy featured heaven–golf course metaphors.
Janice Hartnett Lukens Tedrow: 1921–1968.
Carlos Marcello and Dwight Holly attended. Farlan Brown was there. Dracula sent five grand in flowers. Half the caddy crews from the Dunes and the Sands showed up.
Wayne stood at the back. The dry air started seeping. The cemetery was segregated. A road bisected the white and Negro sections. White diggers worked the white side. Negro diggers worked the Negro side. The Tedrow-service diggers were off-duty blackjack dealers. They wore red vests, bow ties and eyeshades. The rain threat made them fidget.
The heaven–golf course shtick was protracted. Wayne looked across the road. A large service was beginning. Limousines, a hearse, a flatbed truck filled with roses. Scores of black people in black.
Wayne walked over. The people paid him no-nevermind. He saw a sign affixed to an easel. It stated the date and the name of the decedent: the Reverend Cedric D. Hazzard.
The hearse was parked nearby. Four men removed a casket. A minister walked up and opened the passenger door. A Negro woman got out. The minister fawned over her. She put him off with small smiles and gestures.
She wore a black crepe dress, a pillbox hat and no veil. She glanced at the road and saw Wayne. They shared a look for one second.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/20/68. Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline and subhead:
NIXON SURGES IN POST-CONVENTION POLLS
EX-VEEP LENGTHENS LEAD OVER PROBABLE DEM CANDIDATE HUMPHREY
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/20/68. Milwaukee Sentinel headline and subhead:
1st BALLOT NOD FOR HUMPHREY PREDICTED
“EXPECT HIPPIE TROUBLE AT CONVENTION,” TOP CHICAGO COP TELLS ROTARY
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/21/68. Des Moines Register subhead:
“HIPPIES,” “YIPPIES,” “SCHMIPPIES”: BEAT COPS SAY THEY’RE PREPARED
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/21/68. Las Vegas Sun article:
GREAT GOLFER, GREAT LADY
Janice Tedrow was laid to rest at Wisteria Cemetery Monday morning. The flags at every country club in Las Vegas were lowered to half-staff in honor of the woman who was the Thunder-bird ladies’ club champion 9 times, the Sands ladies’ club champion 6 times, the Riviera ladies’ club champion 14 times and the winner of the Clark County Polio Drive Scramble every year from 1954 on.
“Janice Tedrow played near-scratch golf even as she suffered from terminal cancer,” her physician, Dr. Steve Mandel, said. “That’s talent and willpower.” And when the mourning ranks at her funeral service swelled to the seams with local caddies, you know that they came because the woman was a true champion with the common touch.
Janice Lukens hailed from small-town Indiana. She married investor/real estate entrepreneur Wayne Tedrow in 1947 and soon made her way to the Queen City of the Desert, where she served on numerous charitable committees and played the meanest woman’s golf game the state of Nevada has ever seen. 1968 has been a tragic year for the Tedrow clan. Wayne Tedrow died of a heart attack in June, and now the 46
-year-old Janice’s untimely death.
“God works in mysterious ways,” the Reverend G. Davis Kaltenborn told this reporter after the funeral service. “That’s why I chose golf as the central theme of my tribute. Life is an unpredictable trek toward an uncertain conclusion. I shared this insight with Mrs. Tedrow’s stepson after the service, and he told me he understood that very well.”
R.I.P., Janice. The starter at the Dunes told me you got six birdies the very last time you played golf on this earth. I see lots of sub-par rounds up there in the clouds for you, as well.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/21/68. Las Vegas Sun article
MURDER-SUICIDE SHOCKS NEGRO COMMUNITY
Sylvester “Pappy” Dawkins was 48 years old, a two-time convicted burglar and a reputed drug addict. The Reverend Cedric D. Hazzard was 52 years old and was the pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in North Las Vegas. A stalwart of the Negro community in the Queen City of the Desert, he was as respected as Pappy Dawkins was disdained.
Yet the two men were friends of sorts. They would often meet at Dawkins’ unkempt little house in West Las Vegas and talk until the wee hours about all manner of things. Now, in its grief, Las Vegas Negroes are wondering what the topic of conversation was right before it all went so terribly wrong on the night of August 10.
“We don’t really know what precipitated this horrible tragedy,” Lieutenant Byron Fritsch of the Las Vegas Police Department told reporters. “We only know that Pappy shot the Reverend Hazzard and then turned the gun on himself.”
Horrible tragedy indeed. For many members of the Reverend Hazzard’s congregation have movingly described their late pastor’s diligent efforts to bring the word of God to Pappy Dawkins and to help him restore his moral equilibrium. “Ced was just that kind of a guy,” Kenneth S. Wilson, a deacon at New Bethel Baptist Church, said. “Ask anyone who knew him.”
“My late husband was a brave and true man who led with his heart,” the Reverend Hazzard’s widow, Mary Beth, said. “He was committed to goodness and social justice.” Mrs. Hazzard, 44, is the lead steward for the Las Vegas Hotel Workers’ Union, and has spearheaded many charitable drives in the local Negro community. She is doubly bereft now. In December of 1963, her son Reginald, then 19, vanished and was never seen again. Reginald was a former straight-A student at Seminole High School and had won science-fair awards in chemistry. The trials of Job have visited themselves upon Mrs. Hazzard, but she remains optimistic. “Yes, my son is long missing and my husband is dead,” she said. “I considered Cedric’s mission to reform Pappy Dawkins to be rash and imprudent, however heartfelt, but he died in the act of dispensing compassion. I revere him for that. As for me, no, I will not succumb to defeat or despair. I have duties to discharge, and I will not be deterred.”
The Reverend Hazzard’s funeral drew over 300 mourners. An estimated $10,000 in floral tributes was received at Wisteria Cemetery. Mrs. Hazzard and members of the New Bethel congregation distributed them to patients at local hospitals.
The Reverend Cedric Douglass Hazzard: 1916–1968. Rest in peace.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/22/68. Las Vegas Sun headline and subhead:
HUGHES EYES STARDUST
WILL ANTI-TRUST LAWS THWART THE KING O’ THE STRIP?
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/23/68. Las Vegas Sun headline and subhead:
BILLIONNAIRE RECLUSE TO CLARK COUNTY: “I WANT TO BUY YOU!”
HUGHES SEEKS TO CONTINUE HOTEL-BUYING SPREE
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/23/68. Telex communiqué. From: Supervisory Unit, St. Louis Office, Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. To: Field Unit #112, all personnel. Topic: Grapevine Tavern surveillance.
Gentlemen,
Continue 24-hour surveillance of location, per all precedingly filed directives.
Thomas T. Wiltsie, Agent-in-Charge.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/24/68. Office-filed memorandum. From: Fred Turentine. To: Clyde Duber Associates (Attn: Clyde Duber, Buzz Duber, Don Crutchfield). Topic: Electronic surveillance of Suite 308, Golden Cavern Hotel-Casino, Las Vegas (Ref: Dr. F. Hiltz–Gretchen Farr investigation).
C.D., B.D., D.C.,
I got almost nil from yesterday’s wire at the Cavern. I’ll be frank: it was nothing but rich Mormons & hookers & chitchat about the Dem. conv. in Chicago. Farlan Brown was talking up his plans to be there (the Hughes org. is covering their pol. bets by sucking up to the Humphrey org). Nothing pert. to Dr. Hiltz & G Farr was discussed. I picked up a 1-way partial of Fred Otash talking on phone about a 8/30/68 meet with Wayne Tedrow & “perhaps others,” but that was it. All in all, a bust. D.C. will be in Chi. for conv., so he can follow up there. The bug is now deactivated, but is still in place. I’ll pull it when I get a shot at the suite vacated.
Best,
F.T.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/25/68. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: “Recorded at the Director’s Request/Classified Confidential 1-A: Director’s Eyes Only.” Speaking: Director Hoover, Special Agent Dwight C. Holly.
JEH: Good morning, Dwight.
DH: Good morning, Sir.
JEH: It’s been too long.
DH: I agree, Sir.
JEH: Wayne Tedrow Jr. Give me the upshot of his latest Congolese misadventure.
DH: It’s covered, Sir. The coroner’s inquest ruled homicide-suicide, and the papers have reported it as such.
JEH: I’m gratified. And the Grapevine Tavern? Is it still a Pandora’s box of anti-Bureau chatter?
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: And ATF? Are they still perching?
DH: For now, Sir.
JEH: They cannot perch forever.
DH: I’m aware of that, Sir.
JEH: Let’s discuss OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER. Wayne Junior’s dead Negroes have whet my appetite.
DH: I’ve secured a copy of Fred Hiltz’s subscriber lists. I’m looking through them for leads on possible infiltrators.
JEH: And you paid him out of the cold funds I supplied you with to rescue Junior.
DH: Yes, Sir. Ten thousand cold and a pound of cocaine.
JEH: His poor sinuses. I shudder to think.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: And you’re still looking for an informant? Preferably a woman?
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: And informant number 4361 is pondering referrals?
DH: She is, Sir.
JEH: Aaah, Dwight. Your wistful inflection on the word she speaks puerile volumes.
DH: Some things can’t be disguised, Sir.
JEH: The Klansman’s son and the Quaker pacifist. God himself must marvel at your pillow talk.
DH: It’s lively, Sir.
JEH: Am I ever discussed?
DH: Contentiously, Sir.
JEH: Does it perturb you that she might record your dubious liaison for posterity? Her curriculum vitae lists her as a daily journal keeper. She may well have jotted notes on her suppression-minded lover.
DH: I’ve black-bagged her, Sir. Her notes to date have been laudatory.
JEH: And rightly so, I’m sure.
DH: Thank you, Sir.
JEH: I’m slipping, Dwight. I know it, and I know that you know it. I am a boxer who has been in the ring for a very long time, but I remain dangerous because of and not in spite of it.
DH: I understand that fully, Sir.
JEH: Good day, Dwight.
DH: Good day, Sir.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 8/25/68. Extract from the privately held journal of Karen Sifakis.
Los Angeles,
August 25, 1968
I should be in Chicago. What’s-His-Name is passing through en route to Philadelphia and will be calling me with reports. It’s going to be bad; everyone knows it; everyone knows that Nixon v. Humphrey is no choice at all and that the war will continue regardless of the outcome in November. This entry and any other entries I may write during the convention will be ascribed here in my second journal, the one I hide at school and that Dwight must never see. It’s the names I might record. Mr. Hoover (and Dwight by extension)
is file-happy and thinks that everyone in the movement knows everyone else and has thus colluded across a wide spectrum of political activity. Of course, that’s not true. Love affairs—usually brief and passionate and doomed by factional issues—may occur that pervasively, but not prosecutable political conspiracy. Paranoia defines the Right (although Dwight tends to eschew it and occasionally critiques it with sardonic humor) and the Left as well. Everyone knows everyone else and suspects everyone else and needs everyone else as well. Political agendas and personal agendas shift along those lines, which certainly defines the inimical worldviews, collusive agendas and deep comradeship of Dwight and me.
God, Dwight Chalfont Holly and “comrade” in a single sentence!
Chicago is going to be bad. Danny T. and Sid F. have called with advance news. They are Marxist Nixonites in their determination to fuck up Hubert Humphrey and elect the man who will instill greater repression and provide a clearer shot at revolution at some ambiguously perceived later point. Of course, lives will be shattered and lost in the process and only utilitarians like me (and dare I say it, D.H.) understand that purely destructive folly.
Dwight can talk me into almost anything if he can convince me that it will divert destruction and death in the moment. Chicago feels like a widely willed moment of sincere outrage and horrible hatred that is politically and spiritually mandated beyond all utilitarian considerations, which is what scares me.
The convention-hall fence is topped with barbed wire and 5,000 riot troops have been flown in, with 5,000 more on call. W.H.N. (who secretly and ghoulishly loves weaponry) said that Maury W. saw boxes of rocket launchers being unloaded at O’Hare. There’s a taxi-cab strike in progress; a large bus drivers’ local stands ready to strike; the IBEW began striking on May 8 and thus telephone service within the city and environs is a complete mess. W.H.N. predicts a radical or radical-aligned (largely fool mischief-makers of the counterculture and fatuous Left) presence of 100,000 people. It is going to be bad because it’s overdue to be bad and the statement needs to be made at a horrible and horribly attention-getting cost, which makes the whole thing all the more complexly deplorable to me.
