The Cold Six Thousand: Underworld USA 2

by James Ellroy

  Ward said he saw Barb. Barb was lonely. Barb was good. Wayne wrote.

  Wayne said we’re on go: 1/9/65.

  Fred Otash wrote. Fred had no Arden dope. Fred had no dope on D. Bruvick. Queries out/will continue/will update as told.

  Barb wrote. Barb wrote vignettes. Her thoughts jumped. Her handwriting jerked.

  I’m up. I’m down. I sleep odd hours.

  “Not our odd hours. Not where we met & made love going & coming to bed.”

  She saw Ward. “He’s hot for Wayne’s stepmom.” The cat missed him. “He sleeps on your pillow now.”

  She hung out at Tiger. “Milt kills me. He auditions all his shticks.

  “Donkey Dom drives me to work. He wonders why he can’t keep boyfriends, esp. considering his ‘equipment.’ I said, ‘Maybe it’s because you’re a male prostitute.’ ”

  The cat bit a maid. The cat clawed a couch. The cat bit her drummer.

  “I miss you … I miss you … I get crazy when you’re gone because you’re the only one who knows what I do & so I go up & down & get a little crazy pretending I’m talking to you & wondering where I’ll be in 5 yrs., when my regulars trade me in for a newer model & I’m not so useful. Have you ever thought about that?”

  Pete read the letter. Pete smeared the ink. He smelled Barb. He felt Barb. “Up & down” fucked him up.

  The camp soared. Pete jeeped through. Pete toured.

  Kall it one kamp now. Straight acres—marked by fence posts and huts.

  Forested borders. Clay underbrush. Bulb rows/furrows/walkways. Refinery huts and guard huts. Slave jails and ops huts.

  Magic beasts roamed the forest. White tigers prowled boocoo.

  Pete dug cats. Pete dug tigers. Pete dug nifty names. Pete konkokted “Tiger Kamp.”

  Flash sketched for kicks. Flash dug on tigers. Flash tigerized the huts. Flash painted tiger fangs and tiger stripes.

  Pete cruised the walkways. Pete cruised the bulb rows. Pete watched.

  Slaves raked. Slaves tilled. Slaves pulled rickshaws. Shackle lines—twelve slaves per—slaves fueled by meth.

  Slaves worked. Slaves paused too long. Guards popped rubber rounds.

  Laurent waved. Flash waved. Mesplède waved. Laurent urged speed—di thi di—Mesplède flexed his tattoos.

  Pete counted stalks. Pete multiplied: bulbs per stalk/yield per bulb/sap-to-M-base. Stalks blew by. Pete blew the count. Pete mismultiplied.

  He hit Ops North. The Congs took his jeep. He walked in. He saw Chuck and Bob. He saw their canned smorgasbord:

  Chili and kraut. Franks and beans. Tokay/T-Bird/white port.

  Chuck said, “We’re losing Bob.”

  Pete grabbed a chair. “Why?”

  “It’s not like we’re losing him altogether, it’s more like he’s relocating to help out a kindred soul.”

  Bob sipped T-Bird. “Chuck set me up with Wayne’s daddy, unbe-fucking-knownst to Wayne, of course. His people offered me a chance to take over a snitch-Klan in Mississippi when the Army cuts me loose.”

  Chuck sipped Tokay. “The Feds are bankrolling his klavern. That means official sanction and discretionary leeway as to how much rowdy shit he can pull.”

  Pete cracked his knuckles. “It’s bullshit. You’d give up our thing for the chance to torch a few churches?”

  Chuck noshed beans. “Pete’s got these gaps in his political education. He don’t think much past Cuba.”

  Bob belched. “I like the discretionary part and the leadership part. I get to recruit my own Kluxers, pull my own shit and get me some mail-fraud indictments that can’t be traced back to me.”

  Chuck snarfed franks. “How far can you go?”

  “That’s the $64,000 Question, so I gotta assume that ‘discretionary’ means according to the guidelines my handler sets up, along with shit he don’t know about. Wayne Senior said I’m supposed to start with a show of force, you know, to establish my rep, which suits me just fine.”

  Pete lit a cigarette. “Don’t let Wayne know that you’re in touch with his father, and don’t talk that Klan shit in front of him. He’s off the deep end on niggers, and that kind of talk scares him.”

  Chuck laughed. “Why? He’s a coon killer.”

  Pete laughed. “He’s afraid he’ll start liking your crazy shit too much.”

  Chuck snarfed chili. “Statements like that are politically suspect. I think you been spending too much time with Victor Charlie.”

  Rain hit. Bob shut the window.

  “Here’s why all this don’t mean goodbye to the kadre. One, Mississippi runs down to the Gulf Coast. Two, you got lots of Cubans down there. Three, I could work liaison with Chuck, funnel our profits into guns, and shoot them down to the Gulf.”

  Pete said, “I like it. If you can get a hands-off policy going with the cops and Feds down there.”

  Thunder hit. Chuck cracked the window. Pete looked out. Slaves whooped. Slaves danced. Slaves did the Methedrine Mambo.

  Chuck said, “This fucking ‘cleanup’ intrigues me. You got troops coming in, and Stanton says Khanh wants Saigon to look like Disneyland for all the fucking journalists and hotshots.”

  Slaves shook their chains. Slaves did the Shackle Shimmy-Shake.

  Bob said, “I want to build up a roll for Mississippi. Maybe I can sell some surplus shit to the troops coming in.”

  Pete turned around. “No one sells to our troops. I’ll kill anyone who does.”

  Chuck laughed. “Pete’s got that World War II thing. Semper fi, Boss.”

  Bob laughed. “He dinky dau. He get too sentimental.”

  Pete pulled his piece. Pete dumped three rounds. Pete spun the chamber. Chuck laughed. Bob made the jack-off sign.

  Pete aimed. Pete pulled the trigger. He shot Bob three times. The hammer clicked three times. He hit three blank chambers.

  Bob screamed. Bob puked. Bob hurled franks and beans.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 11/30/64. 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: Good afternoon, Mr. Littell.

  WJL: Good afternoon, Sir.

  JEH: Let’s discuss Southeast Asia.

  WJL: I’m afraid I’m not informed on the topic, Sir.

  JEH: I was informed that Pierre Bondurant and Wayne Tedrow Junior have gone on covert contract status with a stellar spy agency. Little birdies tell me things, and I would be remiss not to share them with you.

  WJL: I was aware of that, Sir.

  JEH: They are stationed in Vietnam, no less.

  WJL: Yes, Sir.

  JEH: Would you care to expand your answers?

  WJL: I’d rather not be too specific. I think you know enough about Pete’s past dealings and Wayne Junior’s chemistry background to be able to extrapolate.

  JEH: I am extrapolating at warp speed. I must conclude that our Italian friends have revised their fatuously conceived “Clean-Town Policy” in Las Vegas.

  WJL: Yes, but the distribution will be rigorously localized.

  JEH: I see a salutary convergence. The distribution will accommodate Count Dracula’s prejudices and facilitate our Italian friends’ desire to bilk him.

  WJL: It’s an astute observation, Sir.

  JEH: Our friends must bristle at the thought of Jimmy Hoffa’s forthcoming doom.

  WJL: They know he’s finished, Sir. They know the appeals process will terminate within two years.

  JEH: The attendant irony has not escaped me. A gaudy homicide served to neutralize the Dark Prince, yet the Dark Prince toppled his bete noire in the end.

  WJL: I have often considered that irony, Sir.

  JEH: The Prince is now a senator-elect. Have you considered how he’ll fare?

  WJL: I haven’t given it much thought.

  JEH: A barefaced lie, Mr. Littell, and wholly unworthy of you.

  WJL: I’ll concede, Sir.

  JEH: Do you think he wi
ll sponsor anti-organized crime legislation?

  WJL: I would hope not.

  JEH: Do you think he will attack organized crime from the Senate floor?

  WJL: I would hope not.

  JEH: Do you think he learned an enduring lesson from that gaudy homicide?

  WJL: I would hope so.

  JEH: I will not comment on your complex relationship with Robert F. Kennedy.

  WJL: Your comments to date are most eloquent, Sir.

  JEH: Let’s jump from the frying pan to the fire. I’m meeting with Martin Lucifer King tomorrow.

  WJL: The purpose of the meeting, Sir?

  JEH: Lucifer requested it. He wants to discuss my attacks in the press. Lyle Holly has informed me that Lucifer has correctly added two and two and has determined that I’ve run black-bag operations against him, which must vex him as well.

  WJL: How did he learn? Do you suspect a leak?

  JEH: No. I publicly referred to information that Lucifer disseminated in private and betrayed bug and tap placements in that manner. Those references were, of course, deliberate.

  WJL: I concluded that, Sir.

  JEH: Lucifer, Rustin and the others now shut their mouths in hotel rooms. Lucifer has confined his sexual antics to beds outside my electronic range.

  WJL: You’re implying a larger design here, Sir.

  JEH: You are correct. I am going to drastically upscale my operations against Lucifer and the SCLC. You are to stop donating organized-crime money to the organization, but to continue to meet with Bayard Rustin. You will continue to portray yourself as an ardent supporter whose Mob pilfering source has run dry. You will wear wires to your meetings with Rustin. You will wheedle him into suggesting meetings. You will exploit his homosexuality and susceptibility to sincere and politically unstable men.

  WJL: Yes, Sir.

  JEH: This endeavor will be Stage-1 Covert. I have dubbed it OPERATION BLACK RABBIT. The title bows to the sex drive, prowess and heedlessly puerile demeanor of our long-eared friends. You will receive copies of most memoranda, because you are a deft extrapolator of complex data. Code names have been assigned to the key personnel. You will use them in place of real names. They derive from the rabbit motif and hint at the inherent psyches of the subjects.

  WJL: You’ve whetted my appetite, Sir.

  JEH: Martin Luther King will be RED RABBIT. Bayard Rustin will be PINK RABBIT. Lyle Holly will be WHITE RABBIT. You will be most appropriately known as CRUSADER RABBIT.

  WJL: It’s a witty touch, Sir.

  JEH: I want you to learn what King has planned in the south. Your data will supplant Lyle Holly’s. I’m going to launch a White-Hate Cointelpro in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, and I want information to complement that incursion.

  WJL: You’ve targeted the Klan, Sir? For mail-fraud indictments?

  JEH: I’ve targeted the most violent, inept, felony-prone and altogether outlandish Klan groups in that three-state vector. God will punish them for lynchings and castrations, should He lapse on the side of compassion and find them unjustified. I will punish them for Federal Mail Fraud.

  WJL: You’ve divided the punishment well, Sir.

  JEH: The Cointelpro will begin in June, ’65. Your old chum Wayne Senior has recruited a man to form his own splinter Klan. The man will return from Army service and begin his assignment in May.

  WJL: Will Wayne Senior run—

  JEH: Wayne Senior will be code-named FATHER RABBIT. The Klan runner will be named WILD RABBIT. I have withdrawn the funding for all of Wayne Senior’s long-standing informant Klans, with his approval. I want to consolidate my anti-Klan broadside under the banner of WILD RABBIT’s stalwart group, the Regal Knights of the KKK.

  WJL: The name packs a punch, Sir.

  JEH: You’re being egregiously flip, Mr. Littell. I know you are delighted, and I know you disapprove as well. Do not underline the latter.

  WJL: I apologize, Sir.

  JEH: To continue. Both operations will be run by Dwight Holly, who will be code-named BLUE RABBIT. Dwight has resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and has transferred back to the Bureau. I chose him because he is a brilliant operative. He is also Lyle Holly’s brother, and Lyle knows the SCLC better than any white man alive.

  WJL: I’m confused, Sir. I thought Dwight was estranged from Wayne Senior.

  JEH: Estrangement comes and goes. Dwight and Wayne Senior have reconciled. The Negroes that Wayne Junior killed were simply a temporary roadblock. Wayne Senior is estranged from Wayne Junior now, in the manner of the patriarchy worldwide.

  WJL: Will I need to deal with Wayne Sen—

  JEH: Not directly. You trumped him on your courier arrangement, and he’s sustained a simmering grudge.

  WJL: Dwight Holly has never been a friend to me, Sir.

  JEH: Dwight acknowledges your gifts, however reluctantly. You saved him face on the dead-Negro front, which indebted him to you. That said, I must observe that Dwight Chalfont Holly hates indebtedness and was having you spot-tailed by agents of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, as part of an ill-conceived plan to build a derogatory profile against you. He considered you a dangerous presence in Nevada.

  WJL: Given Dwight’s nature, that’s a compliment.

  JEH: It pained him to pull the tails. He gives up very badly. You share that trait.

  WJL: Thank you, Sir.

  JEH: Thank me with hard work on OPERATION BLACK RABBIT.

  WJL: I will, Sir. In the meantime, would you like me to pull any of the bugs you’ve placed against the SCLC?

  JEH: No. They might get careless and talk.

  WJL: That’s true, Sir.

  JEH: Lucifer has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It infuriates me as much as I’m sure it moves you.

  WJL: I’m moved, yes.

  JEH: Those three words define your value to me.

  WJL: Yes, Sir.

  JEH: Learn your rabbit codes.

  WJL: I will, Sir.

  JEH: Good afternoon, Mr. Littell.

  WJL: Good afternoon, Sir.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/2/64. Washington Post article.

  HOOVER MEETS WITH KING; AIDES DESCRIBE “TENSE

  CONFRONTATION”

  Washington, D.C., December 1.

  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach today met with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his aides Ralph Abernathy and Walter Fauntroy. The meeting took place in Hoover’s office at FBI Headquarters.

  A range of topics were discussed, including the alleged presence of Communists and Communist sympathizers within the civil-rights movement and the FBI’s handling of police brutality charges levied by Negroes and civil-rights workers in the south. King clarified recent statements he had made pertaining to the conduct of FBI agents in Mississippi and their alleged fraternizing with local law-enforcement officials. Hoover countered with a recitation of recent FBI successes in Mississippi and Alabama.

  It was expected that rumors of FBI bugs and wiretaps, allegedly deployed against King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, would be discussed. “This was not the case,” Dr. Abernathy said. “The dialogue was increasingly subsumed by Mr. Hoover’s monologues against Communists and his repeated contention that ‘in due time’ attitudes and practices in the south would change.”

  “Mr. Hoover encouraged Dr. King to ‘get out the Negro vote,’ ” Mr. Fauntroy said. “He did not offer a substantive pledge of support for civil-rights workers in great peril at this very moment.”

  Both aides described the meeting, which lasted one hour, as “tense.” Following the meeting, King met with reporters and stated he believed that he and Mr. Hoover had reached “new levels of understanding.”

  Hoover declined to comment. Assistant Director DeLoach issued a press release that covered the topics discussed.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/11/64. Los Angeles Times article.

  KING ACCEPTS PEACE PRIZE;

  EXPRESSES “ABIDING FAITH” IN U.S.

  Oslo University. Oslo,
Norway, December 10.

  With Norwegian royalty and members of the Norwegian Parliament in attendance, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped on stage to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

  The chairman of the Norwegian Parliament introduced Dr. King as “an undaunted champion of peace, the first person in the western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence.”

  Dr. King, visibly moved by the introduction, climbed on stage to accept the award. He said that he considered it “a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time, the need for man to overcome violence and oppression without resorting to violence and oppression.”

  Speaking into glaring television lights and a sea of rapt faces, Dr. King continued. “I refuse to accept the belief that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds him,” he said. “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daylight of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

  Citing the “tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo,” Dr. King said that the Nobel Prize was really for the “millions of Negroes on whose behalf he stood here today.”

  “Their names will never make Who’s Who,” Dr. King said. “Yet when the years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live, men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization, because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.”

  Thunderous applause greeted Dr. King’s address. Hundreds of students, carrying torches, surrounded a large Christmas tree and greeted Dr. King and his entourage as they departed.

  DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/16/64. Internal memorandum. Marked: “Stage-1 Covert”/“Director’s Eyes Only”/“Destroy After Reading.” To: Director Hoover. From: SA Dwight Holly.

  Sir,

  Per our phone conversation:

  I agree. In light of your recent meeting with SUBJECT KING, you should suspend all public attacks and derogatory references to him, which should serve to deepen the cover needed to mount the SCLC and WHITE-HATE arms of OPERATION BLACK RABBIT. I agree further that no memorandums should be filed by any participant and/or circulant, that a strict read-and-burn policy should be observed and that all telephone communiqués should be patched through Bureau scramblers.