by James Ellroy
Dwight reread the pages. He skimmed and jumped and hopscotched the text. The printing blurred. The booze and pills kicked in late. He saw spots and ink wisps. The floor rolled. He lay down and shut his eyes.
The bed rolled. The floor dipped. He didn’t know if he was awake or asleep or someplace in between. He drifted. It was scary and peaceful. His head and limbs felt funny. He went blank for a while. He opened his eyes and saw Joan.
She sat on the bed. One leg was cocked. Her knee brushed his hip. She wore boots over black nylon stockings full of runs. Her hair was tied back.
“How did you find it?”
“The cartoons you had printed. You left an easy trail.”
“The cartoons were a bust. It won’t happen again.”
“Who drew them?”
“An old Freedom School student of mine.”
Dwight sat up. Dizziness slammed him down. Joan squeezed his knee. Dwight traced her stocking runs and found some bare leg to touch.
She said, “Heroin.”
“They can’t score it. They won’t be able to deal it for ten seconds without getting popped.”
“I could help them.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Joan laced up their fingers. Dwight tore out a stocking run and cupped her whole leg.
“How many of these places do you have?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“You left the diary out for me to find. Did you get the idea from Karen Sifakis?”
“Karen’s a mail-drop friend. I don’t actually know her.”
“Did you leave the diary out for me to find?”
Joan nodded. Dwight said, “Nobody dies.” Joan took his face in her hands.
The dizziness faded out. He felt his body again. Her hands steadied him.
Joan said, “What do you want?”
Dwight said, “I want to fall. And I want you to catch me on the way down.”
66
(Santo Domingo, 3/20/69)
His eyes hurt. He kept seeing word prisms. His fingers were paper-cut.
A month of code work. Maybe some progress. Making words out of numbers, letters and spaces.
Tiger Krew bombed up Autopisa Duarte. Ivar Smith sold them a Dominican army half-track. Saldívar and Canestel tiger-striped it. Morales painted on a big tiger paw. They headed for Piedra Blanca and Jarabacoa. Slave crews were breaking ground on their sites. The Midget sold them the two rural lots and two lots in Santo Domingo. La Banda recruited work crews from La Victoria prison. The jailbirds got sentence reductions if building deadlines were met.
Balaguer’s construction firm stood ready. La Banda evicted paupers from the out-of-town sites. The casino build was on. The PT boat was ordered. They were meeting a Tonton Macoute guy to discuss the dope biz later.
Crutch Murine-dosed his eyes. The half-track treads chewed up pavement. Froggy drove. The Cubans perched above the wheel wells. Crutch sat in the machine-gun nest. They passed through cane fields and glades. Crutch blasted tree stumps for kicks.
Wetback Haitians ducked across the road. Morales fired at their feet. Crutch yawned and stretched. The code work induced a boocoo sleep deficit.
Voodoo. The probable book of the dead. Letters, numbers, symbols and mathematics. It’s a Horror House murder lead. Book symbols match the Horror House symbols. It’s Gretchen/Celia’s book. Fuck—he still can’t see Joan and Gretchen/Celia as killers.
He’s giddy with it. He thinks Gretchen/Celia is in-country. He’s combed every records-check resource and can’t find her. Mesplede told him not to brace Sam G. “Your ‘case’ is all frivolity. We are here to move heroin and depose Fidel Castro.”
The terrain was steep. The half-track mulched fallen tree bark. Crutch practiced stitch shots. He aimed at trees and severed limbs with .30-caliber fire.
Wayne Tedrow was coming soon. The Boys told him to cinch the deal with the Midget. Geologists bagged soil at all four sites. They said it would sustain heavy building. Mesplede found a shore spot on the D.R.-Haiti border. It was near Cap-Haitïen. Their Tonton guy was Mr. Big around there.
Tiger Kart rolled into Piedra Blanca. Local peons saw the beast and hightailed it. The site rocked. Bulldozers plowed shacks. Policia Nacional guys detained the dispossessed. They spoke Spanish. Morales translated for Crutch. It was eminent domain. Jefe needs your house. You get forty bucks and a food chit.
Some evictees wept and glared. La Banda guys flanked the bulldozers. They stood at parade rest and carried carbines at port arms.
The construction boss moseyed over. He told Gómez-Sloan the land was sound. La Banda would bring some prisoners up to clear brush. His crew would build a pre-fab bunkhouse. The prisoners would sleep shackled. Cop crews with bullwhips would oversee their work.
On to Jarabacoa.
Crutch got road-sick. Tiger Kart tread-crunched everything in its path. It was 2:00 p.m. and hell-hot. Suntan oil dripped down his neck. His head was back in Santo Domingo. His torch for Joan and Gretchen/Celia burned strong. He saw them as Commies. He didn’t see them as killers. The matching symbols might not mean Murder One.
Santo Domingo was on-the-whole shitsville. The Gazcue section was Hancock Park for spics. It was a light-skin zone. He started peeping there last week. He looked for Joan and Gretchen/Celia. He settled for random women. He followed them from parks to restaurants. He followed them home. He peeped bathroom and bedroom windows.
Tiger Kart rolled into Jarabacoa. The town was full of tin-roof huts and jungle plumage. The site was two roads down. Crutch heard bulldozer crunch. Three kids ran out of the brush. They wore masks and Uncle Ho shirts and carried flame-topped bottles. Get it? Molotov cocktails.
They hurled them. The bombs hit Tiger Kart and made pissant explosions. Crutch swiveled his machine gun and fired their way. He cut down some cane stalks and missed the fuckers.
The kids got away. Jungle brush covered them. Tiger Kart rolled to the site. Shackled-up workers lugged debris. Bulldozers blitzed foundations. A four-jailbird crew hauled discarded-roof sections and cut up their hands. A cop on horseback whipped a slow guy.
The straw boss waved. The Krew tiger-growled back. Crutch heard three gunshots on the Autopista.
Tiger Kart cut back and rolled northbound. They saw the Molotov kids, dead in a ditch. They were head-shot point-blank. Their Uncle Ho shirts were slashed. Their hands and feet were severed.
A La Banda guy stepped out of the brush and waved.
Ivar Smith stashed a Jeep for them. Tiger Kart was too big for the border river crossings. The Plaine du Massacre was close by. Morales sniffed the air. He said he smelled the Goat and the soul husks of slaughtered Haitians. Crutch saw blood drawings on tree trunks. He got a vile voodoo vibe.
The Jeep was full-gassed. A canvas top beat the sun out. Dirt roads got them to the river. Tonton guys perched by the bridge. They wore stovepipe suits, wraparound shades and straw porkpies. They waved the Jeep across. They exuded French savoir faire and black hipster cool.
The river was muddy and eighty yards wide. Spades popped out of the water holding crawfish. They crossed and took dirt roads to the Cordillera Central. The ride was all swerves and plows through fallen brush. Morales puked in a paper bag. Froggy cranked it in low gear, forty mph–plus.
Pauper pads whizzed by. Tin-roof shacks plaster-laced with giant rhinestones. Wood shacks with pix of voodoo priests on the doors. Tree branches hung over the roadway. Lynched chickens dangled from them. A few leaked fresh blood.
They hit the peak and descended. Flat roads led to the north shore. A spook in a dead-bird hat hexed them from the roadside. Gómez-Sloan shot at him and missed.
The terrain was tropical forest. The air smelled like salt water and dirt. Every half-ass tree was blood-marked. Beware the Zombie Zone.
They hit the shore. The salt air heated up. Froggy consulted a map and slalomed on rock-strewn sand. Crutch saw an inlet. A wild-ass jigaboo popped out of nowhere and stepped in front of the Jeep.
&nbs
p; He was six-eight. He ran 140. He had a Fu Manchu stash. He wore a purple porkpie and a madras suit. Two .45’s, two emerald rings, a crystal neck pendant filled with blood.
Froggy braked. The jig beamed and tossed rose petals in the Jeep. They were scented. They drifted down and perfumed up the Krew.
“I am Luc Duhamel. Welcome to my kingdom, baby boys.”
His palace was a stone hut with a BAR placement and a barbed-wire fence. A speedboat was moored in the water. A golf cart was tethered to a flagpole. Three voodoo-sect flags flew. The yard was strewn with dead rodents. Carnivore birds swooped and gorged.
Luc sat them down inside. The walls were sequined. Everyone got their own faux-mink chair. Luc served klerin liquor in rhinestone goblets. Everyone sipped hesitant and swallowed it intact.
Luc took his coat off. His skinny arms were needle-tracked. Crutch got big-eyed. Mesplede and the Cubans deadpanned it.
Mesplede said, “En français?”
Luc shook his head. “English, baby boy. There is no challenge in speaking one’s native tongue.”
Saldívar said, “Heroin.” Gómez-Sloan said, “Smack.” Morales said, “The beast from the East.”
Canestel rubbed a fake beard—the kill-Castro code. Luc said, “Yes, Colonel Smith informed me. He said these men will become your bons frères.”
Froggy sipped klerin liquor. “We are purchasing a PT boat. It can do forty knots.”
Saldívar sipped klerin liquor. “Colonel Smith said you have a heroin source in Puerto Rico.”
Morales gagged on klerin. “It is a U.S. protectorate, but Tiger Klaw will be very fast.”
Gómez-Sloan said, “We understand that President Duvalier must be compensated.”
Canestel sniffed his klerin. “It is a three-island parlay. We will profit and Cuban Communists will die.”
Luc looked at Crutch and pointed to his goblet. Crutch guzzled the whole thing and saw stars.
“And you, baby boy? Have you anything to say?”
“Sir, I’m just happy to be here.”
The Krew ate dinner in Gazcue. Ivar Smith and Terry Brundage joined them. Dominicans dined late. It was pushing midnight. Crutch was achy from the ride back. He was amphetamized. He kept brain-screening the dead kids. Three gunshots, no hands and feet.
The restaurant was open-air and right off the Malecón. Salt air had the wallpaper withered down to strips. The other guys talked death shit and chowed with gusto. Crutch poked at a squid and eyed women.
They were dining upscale. It was light-skin turf. He had a good range of Spanish land-grant types. His daily rev was incessant. Late-night uppers weirdly re-volted him and put certain women in slow motion. His brain camera clicked for stills and panned for sensuous movement. Women ate, talked, laughed and touched their friends or escorts. He knew when to look and how to go with the swirl.
A La Banda dude dropped by the table. Ivar Smith palmed an envelope. The dude said, “From Bebe Rebozo.” Smith rubbed his fake beard. Crutch zoned them out. Morales nudged Gómez-Sloan. They said, “Pariguayo” in sync.
Crutch smiled and played with his food. The swirl re-adjusted peripherally. A woman crushed out a cigarette, tossed her head and exhaled. Her hair flew. A ceiling fan churned her smoke. She wore buckled high-heel shoes and a pale green dress. She raised her arms and tied her hair up. Dark stubble, beaded sweat. She was pale, with brown freckles. She wore a man’s wristwatch.
Crutch walked to the john. The woman adios’d her friends and went out the front door. Crutch ducked through the kitchen, cut down an alley and hit the street ten yards behind her.
She took Calle Pasteur to Avenida Independencia. She took Máximo Gómez to the Malecón bluffs. A sea breeze tossed her dress up. She pushed it down like it was funny. Crutch fell back to twenty yards and reframed his shot. She walked fast. His head processed it slow.
She turned back on a no-name street. The sea breeze evaporated. The turf went residential. She smoked. Window light caught her plumes on the updraft.
Crutch fell back five yards. The neighborhood was swank—ancient houses, eggshell white, no loud colors. She cut left on Avenida Bolívar. She unlocked the door of a slick two-story pad.
Crutch stood across the street and framed window lights. A blond woman tidied books on a shelf. His woman walked up behind her. The blond woman turned around. They smiled at the same moment and fell into a kiss.
The moment went fluid and held. Crutch watched. Their bodies merged and filled the window frame. Their hands went here and there and enhanced the embrace. The kiss held. They made it go faster, he made it go slow.
The light went off. His woman hit a switch. He strained to hear voices and heard none.
• • •
He called in sick. Froggy said, “Ça va” and “bad timing.” “Tiger Klaw is in dry dock at St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. You will miss her arrival.”
He laid in supplies: uppers, coffee, scratch pads and pens. He brought in three auxiliary fans. He attacked the code.
He started with the letters S and K. He gleaned them from CIA substitution-code study. Three-number designations announced each S and K. Each number required subtraction and multiplication tolls. Sums designated letters of the alphabet. It was arbitrary. The sum stages varied at different tabulation points. The code-breaker’s job: form words and letters from number gibberish.
Numbers, letters, symbols. Let’s assault the symbols first.
They were squiggles, stick figures and X marks. They dotted Gretchen/Celia’s address book at irregular intervals. The CIA codebook listed them as voodoo-derived. “The voodoo priest’s depiction of spiritual chaos while a victim is hexed.”
Symbols—go. Do not move on to letter numbers until you know.
He ate uppers, he drank coffee, he ran three fans plus the AC. He stared at the forty-nine symbols in Gretchen/Celia’s book. He poured sweat in an igloo.
Three symbols repeated: squiggle, stick figure, X mark. They had to have the same repeated meaning. He stared at the book for nine straight hours. His brain jumped to this:
Repetition meant banality. It meant boredom on Gretchen/Celia’s part. She spiced her narrative up to amuse herself and to confuse potential readers. The symbols did not bode portent. They were innocuous.
His second jump: they were abbreviations. His third jump: the explicated text would be coherent, but shorthanded. Gretchen/Celia’s cursive writing was fevered. She was anxious, she composed in haste, the code work absorbed her energy. His fourth jump: the symbols were substitutes for and, the and to.
He crossed the symbols out and added those words on his copy sheet. It felt coherent. The placement felt correct.
His chest hurt. His heart banged blood to his rib cage. He heard voices in his head. He saw THE EYE and the SEVERED HANDS AND FEET without conjuring them. He hemorrhaged weight and felt his trousers go slack.
Two days in. Additions, subtractions and multiplications brain-broiling. He passed out, despite the uppers. He woke up seeing numbers. He developed a tremor in his writing hand. He wasn’t sure of what he had. He decided to call repeated sums vowels. He thought he got L and T. He kept getting the sum 14. His world went tilt.
The Fourteenth of June Movement, aka 6/14. Castro-backed Reds invade the D.R.
And:
The preceded each 14. His code break was valid so far.
That gave him the O and the F. That gave him the J, the U and the N. Re-tilt: the vowel E was always in the right place.
He ate more uppers, he drank more coffee, his piss turned near brown. His skin hugged his bones like a junkie’s. He got six more number-letter sums that felt right on. He passed out for five hours. He woke up woozy and prayed. He forced himself to eat an apple. He chased it with a handful of ups. He got re-re-re-re-re-re-vitalized and started building words on code work and instinct.
It took eleven hours. It confirmed Managua. Yes, it’s a paper curse and a book of the dead. No, it’s much more.
Abbreviations, omitted w
ords, fractured text. Fully coherent despite it. The story of 6/14/59 inside out.
It’s 6/13/59. The movement is Castro-backed and based in the Beard’s captive Cuba. Two converted yachts sail the Windward Passage to the north D.R. shore. Two hundred rebels are aboard. They’ve got M1 Garands, bazookas and machine guns. It’s all men minus two: Joan Klein and Celia Reyes.
The force lands at Estero Hondo and Maimón. Dominican Army sharpshooters are waiting. All the rebels are captured or killed.
It’s 6/14/59. A DC-3 departs from Cuba’s Red Shore. Eighty armed men are poised. They wear the armbands of the Unión Patriótica Dominicana. The plane flies under-radar low and lands outside Constanza. The rebels kill soldiers guarding the airfield and steal their vehicles. They race into town, kill more soldiers, run to nearby mountain ravines and hide.
Army patrols scoured the hills and captured or killed the rebels. Seaborne and airborne rebels were held at the San Isidro Air Force Base and at Trujillo’s torture chamber, La Cuarenta. Trujillo’s personal goon squad hacked them with machetes and fried them in electric chairs. The Goat ordered huge roundups of suspected 6/14 sympathizers. Simpatico government figures were assassinated. Comsymps were tortured, killed, reluctantly released. The 6/14 Movement was truly born in the Goat’s prisons. The Beard brooded over the gone-bust invasion. Anti-Fidel sentiment swept the D.R. Right. The Goat was offed in ’61. The Beard staged a second invasion on 11/29/63. This group was formally called the Agrupación Política Catorce de Junio. The rebels numbered 125 this time. They landed at six north-shore locations, shot some soldiers and fled to the hills. Interim prez Juan Bosch ordered a “rabbit hunt.” Soldiers combed the hills and wiped out the rebels. A few survived. They infiltrated the D.R. Left and made revolutionary woo-woo anonymously.
