by James Ellroy
His case was deactivated somewhere in his head. It was there, back burner boiling. Leander James Jackson was Laurent-Jean Jacqueau, but both guys were dead. Gretchen/Celia was somewhere. It hurt to think about Joan.
The rain came down zigzagged. Crutch saw two fender benders. Radio news blah-blah’d: Hanoi Jane Fonda and James Earl Ray.
Crutch doused it. A black chick walked down Beverly. The hex backfired—he thought about Wayne.
You tried to tell me, I didn’t listen, I ratted you out. You’re dead inside days and I’m here. Fucker, you re-hexed me. I can’t keep food down. I’m afraid to be alone and I schiz around people. I went to church this morning. I wanted to revoke the hex. The pastor kicked my peeper ass off the pew.
Pariguayo in English: “party-watcher.”
Clyde took him to a big LAPD bash. Jack Webb served as emcee. Marsh Bowen got the Medal of Valor.
Marsh was a fruit. Who knew and who didn’t? Who did and didn’t care? Marsh posed for pix with Scotty Bennett. They were salt-and-pepper pals now. The “Black-Militant Blastout”?—a righteous Fed snafu. Big Dwight’s operation backfires and the fuzz make hay. Dwight was off somewhere. He called the drop-front a bunch of times and got no answer.
Thunder and lightning cracked. The sky went flamethrower red. Crutch got a fear jolt. He ran to the service bay and stood under the roof.
Two mechanics worked on a ’62 Olds. Crutch watched them pull the flywheel and re-fit the clutch. A newspaper was creased flat on the workbench. Crutch checked it out.
The Vegas Sun. A piece on Wayne’s funeral. A photo of Mary Beth Hazzard, black-veiled.
She wept. She believed what he told her and grieved nonetheless.
The Stardust was mid-Strip. Wayne’s suite had an easy-shim door. He’d read a book on voodoo. Hex removal was a snap. You touched the victim’s belongings and retrieved your thoughts. He didn’t believe it. It was Lutheran text removed a million heartbeats. He figured he owed Wayne.
The drive took six hours. The rain never let up. Faces came and went with the radio music. He parked underground and elevatored to Wayne’s floor. Nobody answered his door knock. He shimmed the door and got in.
The suite looked the same. The same furniture, the same caustic stink. The place looked preserved.
He walked back to the lab. A file space was built right beside it. Paper stacks, boxes, wall graph. A replay of his file nooks.
The arrows, the connecting lines. The neat handwritten notes.
He followed lines and arrows. Facts, logic, conjecture. It all made perfect sense.
Mary Beth’s missing son. Emeralds. Haiti and Leander James Jackson. The woman with the dark, gray-streaked hair.
Celia, leftist firebrand. A hint of Joan and Dwight Holly in love.
His case and Wayne’s—indivisible.
Dear God, that little red flag.
87
(Silver Hill, 4/5/70–12/4/70)
The bed, the lawn. The white buildings, the injected sleep.
Coercion got him in. He spent thirty days then. He stayed eight months now. Thirteen years of penance tithes formed his time between stays. His first visit was happenstance. The context was drunken neglect. The issues raised were guilt payments and abstinence. This stay resulted from reckless intent and cruel political thinking. The death toll was uncountable. The mind-set that created the actions mandated a conscious address.
He was here. She was wherever she went when she vanished. She knew she was complicit. Her heedlessness had spawned chaos on other occasions. She went away to build the will to return.
Silver Hill was beautiful. His stay covered three seasons. He got spring blaze, summer glow and snow.
He sent Mr. Hoover a telex. It stated his need for a long rest and did not state his location. Mr. Hoover knew he’d be here. A card arrived a month later.
Take as much time as you need. I have a new job for you. It’s in Los Angeles. You’d start in January.
“File superintendent.” “Dirt-digger,” euphemized. Hoard gossip and scandal skank. Feed the old girl’s private stash.
Low-risk work. A non-death-causing assignment.
L.A. was L.A. He might feel safe north of the southside. Karen was there. Joan might surface and find him.
He collapsed in New Orleans. He chartered a Bureau plane and flew straight here. Doctors examined him and found him physically sound. They force-fed him big meals and put proper weight on his frame. They sedated him. He slept eighteen hours a day for six weeks running. He woke up startled. He saw his lost ones the moment he opened his eyes. He sobbed. He segued into panic jolts and threw himself at walls. Male nurses shot him up. He went back to sleep and did it all over again.
His bedroom walls were padded. The throws didn’t hurt. He wanted to cause pain. He thought it would blur the dead people’s faces.
He got through that part of it. Repetition burned it out. The docs decreased his sedation. He avoided the head-shrinkers and the other patients. He spent time with a flock of tame goats. They lived protected on the grounds. They were there to console the burnouts.
He fed them and petted them. He mail-ordered stuffed animals and sent them to Karen’s kids. He pretended that the kids were his kids and that he had a life where nobody got fucked over and hurt. Those thoughts killed him. He’d lose it and weep and get afraid that he could never go out in the world again.
His lost ones came at him. He’d sit still with them. He spent weeks listening to them and weeks talking to them. He got to where they could coexist.
They came and went. He started to see what they wanted and what he owed them. They gave him his mind back on a consignment basis.
Karen sent him notes full of Quaker prayers for peace. The girls sent thank-you cards for the stuffed animals. Karen sent a photo of all three of them. Their address and phone number were scrawled on the back. Dina wrote above it: “If this man is lost, please return him.”
He carried the photo. He spent hours with his goats. He thought all of it through and began to see it.
A detailed operation. A multicontext design. An explicative scenario. Tell it like it was then and how it is now.
Mr. Hoover’s racial lunacy. The FBI’s war on the civil rights movement. Its calamitous faux pas with black-militant groups.
A huge feat of exposition. A densely packed indictment. A treatise on the collusive mind-set. JFK, RFK and MLK are dead. Let me tell you how.
A big social document, with key players brightly lit. Marsh Bowen: a duplicitous homosexual and merciless provocateur. Mob figures with vile ghetto ties. Mr. Hoover’s orbit of hired guns. Special Agent Dwight C. Holly—called forth to confess.
An event of gravely stern measure. A grand idea culled from Mr. Hoover’s file mania. An epic of malign paperwork rendered banal by the staggering weight of its emptiness. A text so deep that it would defy all easy reading and inspire contentious study for all motherfucking time.
He saw it all. He wrote nothing down. He rested and nuzzled his goats.
Karen sent him a peach pie for Thanksgiving. He shared it with his goats. He got fretful about them. He braced an administrator.
The man said, “They’ll never be hurt, Mr. Holly. They’ll be here for life. They’re here for people like you.”
He rested. He slept. He had some peaceful dreams about Wayne. He revised and embellished his idea. He could tell her soon. He knew he couldn’t find her. He sensed that she’d find him in L.A.
He was wrong. It happened abruptly. She found him there with his goats.
He heard footsteps. He turned around and saw her. She looked more fierce and breathtaking than he had ever seen her. She had carried every bit of her weight.
He said, “Hello, comrade.” He pulled out the little red flag.
She said, “What are we going to do?”
He said, “Let me tell you.”
Part IV
COON CARTEL
December 5, 1970–November 18, 1971
DOCUMEN
T INSERT: 12/5/70. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: “Recorded at the Director’s Request/Classified Confidential 1-A: Director’s Eyes Only.” Speaking: Director Hoover, President Richard M. Nixon.
RMN: Good morning, Edgar.
JEH: Good morning, Mr. President.
RMN: How are you feeling? You looked a little under the weather at the American Legion brunch.
JEH: I assure you that I am fit as a fiddle, Mr. President. And, as you know, I am always “ready to sing.”
RMN: “Sing for your supper.” You understand that old saw when you run the goddamn country.
JEH: Yes, Sir. And, while we’re on the topic, let me state that I would devoutly hope that I would be able to sing well into your second term.
RMN: Edgar, you’re a rare old turd. Anyone who underestimates you should have their head examined.
JEH: Thank you, Mr. President. I would also add that we have been friends since 1914.
RMN: I was born in 1913, Edgar. We must have met at a party in my bassinet.
JEH: (Six seconds’ silence.) Well … er … yes, Sir.
RMN: You’ve probably got a file on it. You open a file every time some left-winger cuts a fart.
JEH: If I consider the person subversive, then, yes.
RMN: What’s shaking in the black-militant universe? My guys at Justice are saying that that foolishness is on the wane.
JEH: Perhaps so, Sir. The Panthers and US are heavily infiltrated and caught up in litigation, and the admittedly minor BTA and MMLF are kaput. Sixteen felony indictments, Sir. A small FBI operation, but a gem.
RMN: That “Blastout” was a home run.
JEH: Yes, Sir. And I would have called it a grand slam.
RMN: Hmmm.
JEH: (Coughing spell/eight seconds.)
RMN: Are you all right, Edgar?
JEH: I’m getting over a cold, Sir.
RMN: I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the congressionals last month. You lose a seat here, a seat there, and before you know it, they add up. I might ask you for a little help before the ’72 general rolls around. The Democrats will field a good team. I’d like to get some derogatory poop on them in a timely fashion.
JEH: Uh … what type of—
RMN: “Black-bag job,” Edgar. Don’t go coy on me. Don’t pretend you didn’t pull that shit with Lyndon Johnson.
JEH: Uh … yes, Sir.
RMN: Dwight Holly would be a good man for that.
JEH: Dwight proffered a bluff in our names, Sir. He advanced a no-foreign-casinos edict to our Italian friends. The notion is sound, but the very act itself was quite cheeky.
RMN: Dwight’s my main man. We jaw on the phone sometimes. You’re right, the plan is A-OK. I keep the Boys at arm’s length and pardon their guys out of jail at the proper intervals. It’ll all look kosher that way.
JEH: Yes, Sir. I agree.
RMN: Big Dwight’s a pisser. You said he’s taking some kind of rest cure, right?
JEH: That’s correct, Mr. President. He’ll be returning to the Los Angeles Office next month.
RMN: Dwight’s salty. I like that about him.
JEH: (Coughing spell/fourteen seconds.)
RMN: Are you all right?
JEH: Yes, Sir. I’m fine.
JEH: (Coughing spell/twelve seconds.)
RMN: Jesus, Edgar.
JEH: I assure you, Mr. President. I’m in the pink.
RMN: If you say so.
JEH: I should be run—
RMN: Bebe Rebozo told me a pisser of a story the other day. He was hobknobbing with some pols in Paraguay. They told it to him.
JEH: Uh, yes, Sir.
RMN: It’s some kind of myth. This secret stash of emeralds has been financing right-wing coups since God was a pup. Have you ever heard—
JEH: (Coughing spell and muffled comment/transcript ends here.)
88
Scotty Bennett
(Los Angeles, 12/7/70)
“Among the many things I learned during my time undercover is that inherent criminality is inherent criminality, regardless of the racial or political grievance that serves as its justification, regardless of the soundness or unsoundness of the ideology expressed.”
The spiel got applause. Mayor Yorty and Chief Davis clapped. Scotty clapped along. Marsh looked good. Sergeant’s stripes on new blues. A close-cut Afro.
Full house: the Academy gym, cops and politicians. No Feds—big surprise there.
“The LAPD has superbly interdicted the criminal aspects of black nationalism as it has honored the legal right of black-nationalist civil address, while concurrently opening its arms to a new generation of minority police officers.”
Scotty yukked internal. He hit up Marsh back in March. He let time simmer. Today was the day: the big heist summit.
The fucker could speak. He chose his words and rocked with the rhythm. He eschewed a homo aesthetic.
The chief dug him. Rank and filers resented him. Sam Yorty grooved his Uncle Tom act.
Marsh cranked it. Woooo, some crescendo! He stabbed the air like JFK. He hit the MLK note of redemption. He got a standing ovation.
The audience swarmed the lecturn. Marsh was Mr. Gracious. Scotty winked on his way out.
• • •
Armed Robbery—211 PC. His den treasure-troved it.
Eighteen wall pix. Eighteen kills documented. The twelve Panthers went unsung. You can’t photograph the dead-and-buried.
Liquor-store jobs and market rips. Sitting-duck ambushes and shoot-outs. Eighteen dead male Negroes.
Marsh thought he hated black folks. Marsh was wrong. He never said the word nigger. He hated killers, dope-pushers and heisters. Black militants were up there. His all-black kill sheet was luck and demographic. Shit played out that way.
Ann and the kids were in Fresno. The house was a stag-party zone. Scotty laid out booze, dip and Fritos. Scotty pulled all his files out.
Marsh Bowen tweaked him from the get-go. Marsh passed that ink-stained cash. Marsh worked at the Peoples’ Bank briefly. Marsh got on LAPD. All tweakers, but inconclusive.
Then Marsh goes Fed and fucks him. Then Marsh starts making heist queries. Then he runs a DMV check and gets 84th and Budlong.
Scotty snarfed Fritos and bean dip. The wall photos spoke.
Rydell Tyner said, “Jesus, Scotty.” He said, “Son, I warned you.”
Bobby Fisk bled out at All-American Liquor. He gave Bobby’s flash roll to his grandma.
Lamar Brown had a pencil neck. Triple-aught buck severed his head.
The basement bell rang. Scotty opened up. Marsh was back in civvies.
“Hello, partner.”
“Hello, Scotty.”
“Make yourself at home. If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Then to now: six years and ten months. Marsh kicked it off. He was there that day.
There was a third robber. He was black. The lead guy shot him, chemically scalded him and left him for dead. The third man crawled to an alley and hid. Marsh lived on that block then. He saw the third man. He saw his bulletproof vest and extra precautionary gauzing. He figured it saved the man’s life. LAPD was out bruuutal. Marsh was outraged. He took the man to a doctor neighbor’s house and hid him there. The doctor treated the man’s wounds and burns. The man refused to discuss the heist-killings and never revealed his identity. He left two days later. He gave the doctor twenty thousand dollars in ink-stained cash. The doctor deposited it in the Peoples’ Bank of South Los Angeles. He told Lionel Thornton to leak the cash back to the community. Charity donations: do it prudently. Small amounts of cash surfaced in the black community. Scotty leaned on the passers. The doctor died in ’65. Marsh got obsessed with the case. He got a job at the bank, learned zero and quit.
Scotty took over. He was there that day. He sensed the case as The Case from Jump Street. He beat the bluesuits to the crime scene. He found nicked shells from a jammed automatic and pocketed them. The armored-car guards fired revolvers. Likewise the
milk-truck driver, the lead guy and the two dead heist men. Thus: a third man had come and gone. He fired with the jammed automatic.
A third man—logic now physically confirmed.
Scotty walked the crime scene. He saw a blood trail leading away from it. The trail stopped near that alley. He blotted up a blood sample and got enough to type. He found some chemical-scalding pellets a few feet away. They were saliva-coated. He figured the third man spat them out.
They both knew that day: a third man escaped.
Scotty had the blood tested, covertly. The type: rare AB–. The other dead men had different blood types. The nicked shells: no go, brother. He jam-tested and test-fired every automatic in LAPD custody. Then to now: every booked-in mid-size auto. The results: all negative. He had the pellets tested. Shit—no chemical make.
Marsh jumped ahead. I’ve got a new lead. I’ll tell you at the wrap-up. I’ll drop some confirmation now. I checked the files at University and 77th. I discovered bogus routing numbers. I know you’ve got a private paper stash.
Scotty pointed to his file trove. Scotty refueled their drinks and took off.
He tracked the emerald shipment and made some progress. It started in the Dominican Republic, all government-vouched. The government stonewalled LAPD. Scotty tried everything. Other cops tried with less gusto. Nobody could track the stones’ provenance. Scotty’s take: the origin was dirty, the jewels were rogue. The senders decided against diplomatic-courier shipping. They chose Wells Fargo instead.
And:
The shipment records vanished from the Wells Fargo office a week after the heist. It was a pro B&E. The Wells Fargo execs went stonewall. They refused to talk to LAPD at all.
Marsh cut in. He’d heard rumors—black folks in need receive emeralds, anonymously. Scotty knew the rumors. Ghetto legend, who knows, I can’t verify it.
Scotty revved up to the good part. This is the glue. It all sticks together here.
