Blood's a Rover

by James Ellroy

  A fuckload of cops charged the platform. Mesplede walked away. Crutch grabbed the discarded bra and sprinted.

  Back to L.A.

  Crutch killed time at the airport. The Frogman split to Miami on an earlier flight. The boarding gate featured a phone bank. Crutch called Clyde Duber Associates collect.

  The secretary put Buzz on. Buzz said, “We got a lead.”

  “What are you—”

  “That picture you drew. I got a make. PSA Airways, the fourth place I hit. The personnel director said, ‘Bingo, that’s Janet Joyce Sherbourne, and she was one all-time no-goodnik.’ ”

  Crutch got out his notepad. “Slow, now. Tell me the story.”

  “It’s some story, and it hooks in to the Dominican Republic. Remember? Gretchen Farr got those answering-service calls from the Dominican consulate.”

  Buzz knew that part. Buzz knew shit per Gretchen as Celia or Celia’s Dominican—

  “Hey, are you there?”

  “I’m here. Come on, tell—”

  “Okay, the Sherbourne cooze was a bilingual stewardess. She worked the L.A. to Santo Domingo run exclusively, right up until that fucked-up little war in ’65, when LBJ sent the marines in. Okay, so there’s a layover in Mexico City, and the Sherbourne cooze gets caught with a gun and a half-dozen fake passports. Okay, she fucking wiggles out of custody, and nobody knows how, and then she vanishes off the face of the earth. Now, here’s the good part, the part that is just so fucking perfectly Gretchie. It turns out that the cooze’s job application was a complete fake, her fucking address was some kind of Commie safe house, and her personnel file got snatched from the PSA office.”

  Crutch let the phone drop. Buzz talked to dead air. Things went haywire. He saw Joan kiss Gretchen/Celia in slow motion.

  The downtown library was near his file pad. The books were too big to steal. The Dominican Republic: maps, pix, history.

  Memo: the D.R. was close to Cuba. Memo: the mob grooved the D.R. as a would-be gambling site.

  Crutch lugged books over to a table. Dozing winos competed for space. He scoped out the map pages. He grokked the layout. The island of Hispaniola. The D.R. and Haiti on one slab of land. The Caribbean Sea, close to Cuba and Puerto Rico. Close to Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Dominican connection: all over his fucking case.

  The D.R. bordered Haiti eastbound. The Massacre River formed the dividing line. Inlets dotted the coasts of both countries. All the city names were spooky spic and frog.

  Crutch skimmed summary chapters. The race shit hit him quick. The Dominicans were light-skinned beaners. They grooved on their Spanish roots. Dark-skinned Dominicans were déclassé. It was like the U.S.: white is all right!

  Rafael Trujillo had long political legs. He ruled from ’30 to ’61. He quashed dissent. He oppressed Haitians and slaughtered the fuckers en masse. He was pro-U.S. and anti-Red. He fucked lots of women and tortured and suppressed his political rivals. A Commie group called the 6/14 Movement tried to oust his ass in ’59. Their “revolution” went pfft. Trujillo went schizo and veered out of line. He was sacking the country too overtly. JFK and the CIA thought he might go Red. The CIA whacked him in ’61. The Frogman allegedly assisted. A less garish despot named Juan Bosch took over. “Free elections” and all the standard spic-reform bullshit. It looked like Bosch was veering Red. LBJ sent some marines in and nipped that shit in the bud. The current despot was a pint-size punk named Joaquín Balaguer. The D.R. was nothing but coups, revolts, plots, intrigue, slaughter.

  Crutch hit a section on Haiti. Woooo!—baaad nigger juju! French-speaking spooks. Dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier—Godzilla to Trujillo’s Rodan. More oppression, coups, revolts, plots, intrigue, slaughter. Voodoo—oh, yeah!

  Voodoo rites, voodoo rituals, voodoo curses, voodoo priests. Mind-blowing voodoo liquor and voodoo herbs. American spooks ate fried chicken. Haitian spooks fucked chickens and drank their hot blood.

  Woooooo!

  Crutch flipped pages. This voodoo shit was a gas. He hit a photo section. Spooks were capering and bopping around in chicken-feather hats. Woooo, then there’s this—

  This photo. This light-skinned Negro guy. This weird tattoo on his right arm.

  Geometric patterns. Crosshatched. Like the tattoo on the dead woman in Horror House—

  40

  (Las Vegas, 9/26/68)

  The Boys sported golf shorts with high black socks. They wore their cleated golf shoes indoors.

  Carlos set the trend. It was his mock-Roman suite. He paced and punctured the carpets. Sam G. had dull cleats. He did minor damage. Santo T. had sharp cleats. His spikes raped the rugs.

  Wayne stood by a covered easel. The Boys sat with 10:00 a.m. Kahlúas. Carlos twirled a five-iron. Wayne caught the Wayne Senior subtext.

  Sam said, “We’ve got a 10:40 tee time.”

  Santo said, “Carlos, put the club down. Do not drag Wayne through memory lane in a way that might tend to torment him.”

  Carlos said, “I have no such intention. I’m just loosening up my fibular bones.”

  Sam said, “Have two more drinks. You’ll leave your swing on the driving range and a grand a hole in my pocket.”

  Santo said, “Chop, chop, Wayne. You’ve got this tendency to perch, like there’s a dark cloud over your head at all times.”

  Sam said, “There is. As much as I admire his rough edges, Wayne is a shit magnet.”

  Carlos twirled his club. “Go, Wayne. We came to listen.”

  Wayne cleared his throat. “The fall is going our way. Nixon’s ahead in the polls, our dirty-tricks squad is doing good work, Mr. Hughes is pleased with his hotel purchases and is waiting for Mr. Nixon’s Justice Department to loosen up a few anti-trust statutes, so that he can buy some more. Jean-Philippe Mesplede is ready to start scouting casino sites, so we’re on-go there.”

  Sam said, “My friend Celia keeps lobbying for the D.R. She’s relentless on the topic.”

  Carlos said, “Sam’s relentless on the topic of that island-bred snatch.”

  Santo said, “Sam’s relentlessly pussy-whipped. It’s a disease of the weak mind and spirit.”

  Sam grabbed his crotch. “I got your disease hanging ten inches.”

  Wayne undraped the easel. The graph was cross-columned. It listed buyout businesses linked to profit projections.

  “Three supermarket chains, all in the Midwest, all owned by the in-laws of made men and Teamster stewards. We purchase at five cents on the dollar and sell the land to mall developers. I think we’ll realize fifteen million in profit.”

  Sam clapped. Santo clapped. Carlos twirled his golf club.

  Wayne said, “The Peoples’ Bank of South Los Angeles. They’re way in arrears, but I think we should let them continue to operate, while we take a greatly enhanced profit percentage. One, it’s a money-laundering front. Two, they can launder our money. Three, Lionel Thornton, the president, is mobbed up all over the map, and I think we can control him. Four, it’s close to the hub for the Hughes flights to our casino sites, so we can fly cash straight in, unimpeded.”

  Carlos said, “I like it.”

  Santo said, “I like it, but I don’t like the jungle-bunny aspect.”

  Sam said, “I like it, with a proviso. We keep Wayne off the premises, so he don’t shoot all the customers.”

  Wayne flushed. Santo and Sam laughed. Carlos twirled his golf club.

  Wayne tapped the easel. “Two more South L.A. businesses, with on-site illegal gambling that we can take at least 50% of, while resuming ownership of both enterprises. The first one is a nightclub named Sultan Sam’s Sandbox. The second is a lesbian bar named Rae’s Rugburn Room.”

  Sam yukked. Santo yukked with “nigger something” mixed in. Carlos poked him with the golf club. Santo shut up.

  Wayne picked up a pointer and tapped the column lines. A toga fool brought in three fresh Kahlúas. The Boys imbibed. Carlos poked the toga fool with the golf club. The toga fool vamoosed.

  The boo
ze smell made Wayne queasy. Sweat pooled on his shirt.

  “Black Cat Cab. South L.A., as well. Tiger Kab served us handsomely in Miami and Vegas, and Pete B. sold the Vegas end to Milt Chargin last summer. We’ll use it for cash flow, cook the books and launder low-end skim through it. I think I can talk Milt into coming to L.A. to run the place. Beyond that, I’ve got a friend on the Feds who’s running a Cointelpro in the area, and we’ll have Milt log tips and feed them to him, which will keep Mr. Hoover on our side.”

  Sam said, “I know your friend.”

  Santo shuddered. “Dwight ‘the Enforcer’ Holly.”

  Carlos sipped Kahlúa. “A man with coon-hunter credentials of his own.”

  Sam said, “Yeah, which is not to say that he’s in Wayne’s league.”

  Santo sipped Kahlúa. “Nobody’s in Wayne’s league.”

  Carlos said, “Dwight’s a white man.”

  Sam sipped Kahlúa. “So’s Milt Chargin, for a fucking Jew.”

  Carlos sipped Kahlúa. “Milt’s an amateur comedian. He’ll be hobknobbing with the shines and having a high old time.”

  Sam said, “Milt told me a good one. ‘What do you call a naked nigger sitting alone in a tree?’ ”

  Santo sipped Kahlúa. “So tell us the punch line, dickhead.”

  Sam said, “The branch manager.”

  Santo howled.

  Carlos twirled his golf club. “What’s the matter, Wayne? You’re not laughing.”

  Morty Sidwell had an office at 2nd and Fremont. He did bail bonds, divorce, missing persons. LVPD considered him kosher.

  Wayne drove over. He was tracking Reginald Hazzard part-time now. A cop pal ran a fifty-state dead-body check. It hit negative. Ditto for arrest reports. Ditto for male Negro John Does, late ’63.

  Reginald was bookish. Mary Beth told him that. Wayne combed the checkout files of all the Vegas libraries. Bam—the kid checked out twenty-nine books in fall ’63.

  Advanced-chemistry texts. Books on left-wing political theory. Odd books on Haitian voodoo herbs.

  Sidwell’s office was above a topless joint. Wayne parked out back and took the exterior stairs. The club noise was brutal. Amplifier hum shook the walls. Bass thumps pulsed the floorboards.

  Morty was sprawled on the couch. The office was hot. Morty wore a washcloth on his forehead. He saw Wayne and went oy vey. The walls featured Morty-and-friends art. There’s Morty with Dino, Morty with Lawrence Welk, Morty with the late JFK.

  Wayne straddled a chair. Reverb wobbled the slats. It was a social-protest song with a sexy dance beat.

  Morty adjusted his washcloth. “Earplugs don’t help, so I tried acoustical baffling. The owner and I settled on a compromise. Once a week, he sends one of the girls up. I get a sponge bath and a header. It’s beneficial to my overall health.”

  Wayne said, “My name is—”

  “I know who you are. Your daddy hired me to run a schvartze bongo player out of town in ’58. He was a one-hit wonder. ‘Bongo in the Congo’ and no more. He was shtupping your stepmom, Janice, at the Golden Gorge Motel.”

  Wayne laughed. Morty said, “Condolences, though. I know they both passed away last summer.”

  Wayne shut his eyes and popped two aspirin. The chair slats rattled. The floorboards jumped.

  Morty said, “Normally, I’d say ‘How’s tricks,’ but with you I know they’re always tricky. This tempts me to say, ‘What do you want?’ ”

  Wayne opened his eyes. “Reginald Hazzard. It was almost five years ago. The kid disappeared, the parents hired you to find him.”

  Morty yawned. “Yeah, I remember. Nice colored folks. Cedric and Mary Beth. Cedric got offed by a shvoogie hump named Pappy Dawkins. It’s a real load of joy you’re bringing me, I got to say.”

  “What happened with the investigation?”

  “It went nowhere and my clients ran out of money. I ran some DB checks and told them that, to the best of my knowledge, the kid was still alive. That’s it, over and out.”

  Tick, tick, tick—his old cop shit detector.

  Wayne said, “There’s more.”

  Morty said, “Nix.”

  “There’s more, you know there’s more, I know it, I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

  Morty pulled the washcloth over his eyes and held up three fingers. Wayne dropped three C-notes on his chest. The amplifier hum accelerated. The JFK picture shook.

  Morty said, “The Hazzard kid hitchhiked out of Vegas. I’m talking like Christmas ’63 or into the new year. He gets popped for vag at some little pissant shitkicker town on the California border, and don’t ask me the name, because there’s a zillion little bumfuck towns like that and I really can’t remember. Sooo, Reggie’s got a gun on him. Sooo, the cops book him for vag and a gun charge and beat the piss out of him. Soooo, this white woman shows up and bails him out, and Reggie and the white woman abscond, never to be seen again. It was a cash bail and a fake ID, and the case went cold and Cedric and Mary Beth ran out of coin. I told Cedric this, but he said, “Don’t you tell Mary Beth, ‘cause all of this would just kill her.’ ”

  Wayne said, “More details.” Morty held up two fingers. Wayne dropped two yards on his chest.

  Morty chewed a hangnail. “Soooo, it’s a fucked-up little redneck PD. They don’t keep records. The cops come and go and run wetback fruit-picking crews on the side. They live to drink home brew and beat up beaners and coloreds, and whatever paperwork they had got lost, misplaced or stolen. Those cops comprised a grim experience for me, and that’s all the news that’s fit to print.”

  Wayne stood up. “Did you get a description of the white woman?”

  “That I can give you. She was supposedly pale and in her late thirties, she wore glasses, had long dark hair with gray streaks, and a cop said something about a bad scar on one of her arms.”

  41

  (Los Angeles, 10/1/68)

  Minstrel Show.

  Marsh Bowen worked. He owned Vince & Paul’s. The white cops’ bar done got BAAAAAAAAD BROTHERED.

  Marsh was seven nights in. He spawned racial tsuris with soulful aplomb. The white cops knew he was a cop. That got him in. That did not excuse his black-power stud behavior.

  Marsh with the muscle-man tank top. Marsh with the modest Afro. Marsh all over the white chicks—but no hard moves yet.

  Dwight watched.

  It was his seventh night. He perched near the bar and played tourist from Des Moines. No cops recognized him. Who’s that big goofball? He sure likes this place. He wears sandals and high-water pants.

  Hate was building. Dwight tracked it. Who dat bell-bottomed Mandingo? Scotty Bennett showed up every night. Scotty boozed, Scotty eyeballed Marsh, Scotty acted covetous and puerile. Scotty radar-tracked Marsh and his barmaid girlfriend every spare moment.

  Dwight picked at a cheese puff. Marsh chatted up two cop-groupie stews. He shagged hors d’oeuvres off their plates and sipped their drinks uninvited. The girls looooved it.

  Dwight watched. The Marsh Bowen gestalt intensified. Marsh was a preener and a player. Marsh might be duplicitous. Marsh should be preemptively spot-tailed. Tail-job prospect: that half-smart Crutchfield kid.

  Dwight yawned. His stomach growled back. Food fucked with his mental momentum. Niggertown was seething. Jack Leahy fed him gossip. All this militant shit gored the LAPD’s gonads. Off-duty cops were indulging klantics. Station-house tune-ups. Panthers waylaid and shit-kicked. Trumped-up dope busts, trumped-up drunk rousts, trumped-up warrant checks and—

  A woman walked into the bar. Dwight saw gray streaks and glasses and clenched up. It kept happening. Wisps, blips—and it’s never Her.

  Marsh walked toward Scotty’s girlfriend. He touched his chin—the signal/it’s now. Scotty was eye-locked: back and forth, his babe/the buck slave.

  Dwight got up and stood closer. Marsh swooped on the girlfriend. There, he’s nuzzling her neck. There, he’s licking her ear. There, he’s tugging her earring with his too-bright teeth.

 
Scotty ran up behind him and grabbed his hair. Scotty kidney-punched him, two-handed. Marsh doubled over and spun around with an arm bar raised. He caught Scotty moving in. The jolt knocked him into the bar. Scotty grabbed his neck and sucked air in. He kicked out. He missed Marsh. He flailed at the bar top and grabbed a steak knife. Marsh stepped directly in front of him. Marsh smashed his nose with one flat palm and sent blood pluming. Dwight heard bones break. Scotty dropped the knife, wiped his eyes and came at Marsh biting. A dozen white cops got to him first.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 10/16/68. Extract from the journal of Marshall E. Bowen.

  Los Angeles,

  October 16, 1968

  I’ve tasted Scotty Bennett’s blood now. It was a much-belated revenge for the whipping Scotty put on me in April of 1966, a year before I joined the LAPD. I provoked that beating by passing several ink-stained bills from the robbery, and I provoked this beating of Scotty and my subsequent beating by his LAPD comrades under the flag of Special Agent Dwight C. Holly. On both occasions I assumed the dual roles of victim and provocateur. Two events, with two and a half years between them. The defining event of the robbery-murders, now four years and eight months in the past. Two confrontations fueled by one motive: I want to solve the robbery-murder case anonymously and keep the remaining cache of money and emeralds for myself.

  I have never told a soul about my intention and have deliberately delayed the commitment of writing a journal. I was awaiting the fortuitous moment where my quest might appear truly feasible. That moment is now. I could have described my immersions in left-wing organizations for Clyde Duber, where I learned the acting skills, dissembling skills and poise that brought me to this point, but I’m pleased that I did not indulge that level of self-congratulation. I’ve always enjoyed being an underestimated black man, and now I’m a locally famous and somewhat over-praised and over-scrutinized black man. This is the adventure that I want to describe and dissect as I live it; this current confluence of events is surely the one story I have to tell.