James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03

by Blood's a Rover

  Black Cat Cab was followed by a visit to Jomo’s “crib” on East 89th Street. Many people, all black, were there. I heard six dozen hate-the-fuckin’-LAPD-pigs stories, told that many myself, and met two men whose armed-robber brothers were shot and killed by “King Pig” Scotty Bennett. Jomo tried to pass a shapely toffee-colored girl with a tinted Afro off on me, but I excused myself with something about my “main bitch.” Jomo ensconced me in a room festooned with revolutionary wall posters and filled with stacks of fatuous polemics, and I fell asleep for a very long time.

  My dreams were my standard ones and easily explained, given my life’s overweening fixation. There were the shapeless waves of green representing the emeralds and the odd spatial doublings and triplings of prone shapes, my persistently unconscious urge to discover what truly happed on 84th and Budlong that day. At one point, I thought I saw a white woman with dark, gray-streaked hair looking in on me, but she/it was just a wisp.

  Two dozen people were sitting in Jomo’s living room when I stumbled out however many hours later. They gave me a standing ovation. It was a superlative reward for my performance.

  I’ve moved to a dingy crib on the Watts border.

  I’ve started spending time at Black Cat Cab.

  My MMLF and/or BTA recruitment is imminent, but I am not rushing into anything.

  I want this performance to last. It’s my circuit back to February 24, 1964. Every disenfranchised part of me knows this to be true.

  49

  (Las Vegas, 11/5/68)

  Tricky Dick won. Close, but no squeaker. More than a rat’s-cunt-hair win.

  Carlos threw a bash. His mock-Roman suite, mobsters and Mormons, election returns on TV. Call girls told I-blew-JFK stories. Farlan Brown said Dick was no headman. He was more like an S&M slave. He’d get stinko and bomb some Third World shithole. He’d fry some little kids and get all misty then. He’d bring in a sick chick with a whip to retool him.

  Sober guests waved little flags. Drunk guests wore elephant hats. The Hughes hotels shot off fireworks: Viva Nixon! in red, white and blue.

  Wayne circulated. Farlan Brown showed him Dracula’s thanks note. Drac praised Wayne’s hard work and chemical assistance. He mentioned the Hughes charter flights to the foreign casino sites—let’s get started soon.

  More fireworks. The Landmark scrolled a neon Nixon face on their marquee. Farlan said, “The cocksucker still needs a shave.”

  Sam G. said, “The casino sites. We’ve got to send Mesplede down soon.”

  Santo T. said, “Nicaragua has this tendency to go Red.”

  Carlos said, “Dick will put a pro-U.S. puppet in place. He knows you need a strongman to put the quietus on the Reds.”

  Sam said, “The D.R.’s the ticket. They’ve had a stable government since the ’65 war. The new jefe is a fag midget. All he wants is some U.S. gelt and a nice pair of elevator shoes.”

  Santo said, “Sam’s got this Dominican girlfriend leading him around by the schvantz. She’s got him thinking Dominicans are white.”

  Carlos said, “Celia’s a coal burner. She crosses over into Haiti and gets that black stick.”

  Sam grabbed his crotch. “Italians are built bigger than the moolies.”

  Carlos said, “Where’d you get that?”

  Santo laughed. “Pope John the XXIII told him. They were hanging out at a cathouse with some nigger nuns.”

  Carlos handed Wayne a doughnut box. “Thanks for everything, paisan. Hughes, Nixon, the whole deal.”

  The ride back took forever. The hotels went Nixon-nuts and put dumb signs up. Traffic jams resulted. Tricky Dick was Mormoned-up and mobbed-up. He was good for biz. The Boys bought themselves four fat years.

  The Stardust was Nixon-numb. Legislators told I-know-Dick stories and puked into slot-machine cups. Wayne took the stairs up. He heard the phone ringing in the hallway. 3:00 a.m. calls—oh, shit.

  He ran and grabbed it. He heard Mary Beth in the bedroom.

  “Wayne Tedrow. Who’s this?”

  “Long-distance, sir. Will you hold for President-elect Nixon?”

  Wayne gulped. The line clicked twice. Wayne heard background hubbub and the Man’s voice.

  “Thank you for all your hard work. Be assured of my cooperation.”

  Click. What? Was it real?

  Wayne walked into the bedroom. Mary Beth was watching TV. The Man did V-for-victory. A shirt button popped.

  She killed the sound. “Who called so late?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  She smiled and pointed to the doughnut box. Wayne dumped it on the bed. Fifty grand fell out. Mary Beth whooped and covered her mouth.

  “That’s my find-your-son fund.”

  That lovely emerald was there on her pillow. Mary Beth threw it in with the cash.

  50

  (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., 11/6/68–12/24/68)

  Nerves, brain loops, sleep on and off. Memphis kaleidoscopes mixed in.

  One drink and one pill ran on-and-off insufficient. The Lorraine Motel shape-shifted. Hate cartoons transmogrified. Black gargoyles wearing Klan hoods.

  Karen was concerned. She saw him running raw and couldn’t stop it. What’s-His-Name kept passing through and blitzing their time. Her pregnancy was advancing, she had more doctors’ visits, she took her family back east for Christmas. She was tweaked on his tweak on Joan Klein.

  Wayne was working on Joan’s file redactions. The kid was a genius—maybe he could burn through black ink. He showed Joan the snapshot of the kicked-to-shit pedophile. Joan quid-pro-quo’d him à la Karen Sifakis. She gave up a Cleveland mail-bomb gang, a multi-indictment chart topper. He said, “Thank you, Miss Klein.” She said, “You’re welcome, Mr. Holly.”

  The snitch-out thrilled Mr. Hoover for six seconds. His attention span had shrunk to comic-strip dimensions. His monomania had grown to Russian novel–size. He hated black militants like he hated Reds in 1919. He talked black-militant woe real and largely imagined. He sent himself into coughing fits and fey tizzies. Dr. King was laughing his saintly black ass off in heaven. The boss nigger got resurrected as all niggers real and imagined and the old girl was powerless.

  But he was still dangerous. But he still had dirt files on the whole fucking world—Dwight “the Enforcer” Holly included.

  Mr. Hoover was pleased with OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER. Dwight told him that Marsh Bowen was being courted by BTA and MMLF. He did not tell Mr. Hoover that he paid two cops to kick Bowen’s black ass. Bowen did not tell him about the beating and avoided face-to-face meetings until his injuries had healed. Vanity was the key to Brother Marshall E. Bowen. Contempt defined Brother Bowen secondarily. He was the diva with the abject need for an audience and the commensurate disregard. He was a brilliant and brilliantly complex actor. He would seduce, betray and entrap with insolence and show-must-go-on savoir faire.

  The beating seemed to fracture his ego and instill a greater circumspection. The beating brought Brother Bowen some soulful southside strut. Now needed: a cutout to work Brother Bowen on a daily basis. He pulled Don Crutchfield’s spot tails—Brother Bowen was toeing the line. The current boding question: will Brother Bowen cross paths with Comrade Joan Klein?

  He called her “Miss Klein.” He thought of her as “Joan.” She possessed an eponymous quality. The gaps in her file and her reluctance to discuss her past enhanced his curiosity. She had traveled extensively. She facilitated left-wing woo-woo worldwide. Organizer, facilitator, armed-robbery suspect. Pamphleteer, informant, renegade academic.

  Tell me what I want to know.

  I don’t know why I need it.

  He gave Joan a scrambler phone. It let her call him untraced. She called him most nights. They observed informant-operator protocol while discussing their personal lives. He did not describe the full extent of his relationship with Karen Sifakis. Joan did not mention Karen at all. They did not talk business. They saved those discussions for their phone-drop chats. Joan told him that she
had some money for him. He said, “What money?” She told him that Leander Jackson made a profit on Agent Holly’s cocaine. Comrade Klein felt that she should return her percentage. He told her to keep the money. She thanked him. It was all so fucking gorgeously decorous.

  They sparred and talked politics. He paved roundabout queries on her past life and associations. Joan rebuffed them with occasional brusqueness and a harsh humor. The cop part of him was all over her. The rest of him was a faltering half step behind. Joan had run safe houses. They had to have been upscale and well camouflaged. She had avoided prison time. There should be more police paperwork on her. He scoured for paperwork on her left-wing ancestors and found none.

  Karen shared her scant Joan knowledge with a distancing resentment. He was certain that Joan knew more about him than he knew about her. The disparity had him running breathless.

  He was making coontown inroads. Wayne brought Milt Chargin in to help Fatso run Black Cat Cab. The white shtickster and the black behemoth clicked as a business team. LAPD chilled out the Big Boy Cab bombing—the owner was a hot-car fence they wanted nullified. The Dr. Fred snuff faded to back-page status. Jack Leahy greased some reporters with Bureau cash and said, “Let this go, all right?” That L.A. Times piece was the last major mention. Wayne scheduled a meeting with the Peoples’ Bank prez. It might get ugly. The Boys wanted their bank back. The Feds wanted information.

  He cruised darktown some nights. It wired him up and induced exhaustion and occasional pre-dawn sleep. Late-night ghetto life was deadpan seductive. Vice cops donned rubber gloves to manhandle tranny whores. Record stores played Zulu music and sold LAPD pig dolls. Cops bought the bulk of them and stuck them on their car antennas. He listened to revolutionary radio. Bootleg-band stations were broadcasting out of bars and Muslim mosques. He told Joan that his favorite song was “Blue Genocide” by Muhammad Mao and the Pig Hunters. Joan said, “Comrade Dwight, you’re learning.”

  He saw Scotty Bennett out cruising sometimes. Scotty loved soul food. Sister Sylvia’s Kitchen fed him for free. Scotty always tipped lavishly.

  There must be a BTA and MMLF war. Marsh Bowen must facilitate it. Narcotics must figure prominently. It has to stay short of catastrophe, or Karen will not forgive him. It has to get fierce. It has to get him his mandated results and further Comrade Joan’s agenda. It has to take them both to the identical place—so that she will tell him where she’s been and what she knows.

  51

  (Los Angeles, 12/24/68)

  Merry Christmas.

  He got the standard card and five-spot from his mother. This one: postmarked Racine, Wisconsin. He brought his dad the standard C-note and Reuben sandwich. Dad did his fuck-off number and pissed on his shoes.

  Memo: work on your mother’s file. Query the Racine PD. Memo: your case file is updated. Your case is dead-stalled. Memo: get your ass to the rockin’ D.R. and voodoo-vamped Haiti.

  Christmas Eve, the wheelman lot, Clyde Duber’s yule bash. Deli food and keg beer. Cocktails by the gas pumps, free uppers from the quick-script pharmacy.

  Crutch circulated. He was amphetamized and holiday-lonely. Wayne sent Froggy to Panama. Fuck that place. All roads led to the D.R. All front-man reports would point there.

  Phil Irwin was poking a spade chick on the service lift. Scotty Bennett brought some go-go girls in to give snout. Buzz Duber’s car was Santa’s Blow Job Zone. Fred Otash dispensed free play chips for his Vegas dive. Bobby Gallard shot craps with Clyde and Chick Weiss. They used Scotty’s pissed-on Vietcong flag as a blanket.

  Crutch re-circulated and got re-blue. He was bored. Dwight Holly pulled him off the Marsh Bowen gig. He kept mum on Bowen’s fruitness and held it as a hole card. He kept up the spot tails anyway—they might go somewhere. Clyde had him working divorce gigs full-time. Buzz gave up on “the case.” He never had full-scale knowledge or full-on balls for the job. Buzz was a yuks & fucks guy. Donald Linscott Crutchfield killed ten Communists. Arland “Buzz” Duber extorted hookers for skull.

  Scotty drifted by. Bobby Gallard schmoozed him up. Hey, boss—that Bowen chump got famous off that shit he pulled with you.

  Scotty smiled and winked.

  Scotty pointed to the 18’s stitched on his tie.

  Scotty scrawled 19 in the air.

  Peeper Christmas.

  Crutch drove by Julie’s house, Peggy’s house and Kay’s house. The girls were his age. They always exchanged gifts after dinner. Dad rigged the same outside lights every year. Crutch knew the routine.

  Julie’s window view was better than last year. Julie’s folks gave her geek boyfriend some geek reindeer socks. He got that “Oh shit” look. Julie nudged him—be nice, now.

  The family knocked back eggnog. Dad got sclerotic-flushed. The geek shuffled his feet and displayed a wedding ring. Mom and Dad boo-hooed. Everybody hugged. Julie’s brother Kenny died at 1st and Arden. Two-car wipe-out, late ’62. Kenny was a glue-sniffer and a whip-out artiste. He whipped it out on Buzz’s girlfriend, Jane Hayes. Buzz and Crutch kicked his ass, circa ’61.

  The Julie Show bombed. You’ll be so happy, boo-hoo. Crutch drove by Peggy’s house and Kay’s house. The window curtains were drawn. Next stop: 2nd and Plymouth.

  Bright windows. No lawn manger—Dana Lund had taste. He killed his lights and waited. He shined his penlight on the dashboard and Christmas-lit Joan. He brain-tripped: Joan’s face and Dana’s story.

  Her husband, Bob, died in Korea. Chrissie was four then. Dana went back to nursing and sold real estate part-time. She was born in 1915. She’d be fifty-four in March. She dated rich stiffs intermittently. She started touching up her gray hair in mid-’64. Crutch noted it then.

  Chrissie walked through the living room. Dana followed her. Crutch choked tears back. Dana was wearing the sweater he bought her on the day he thought he would die.

  Options: Trinity Lutheran Church or Marsh Bowen’s new pad. Midnight services de-blued him sometimes. Nix that: the pastor knew his peeper rep and hated him. He was still wired. That meant Niggertown by default.

  Marsh Bowen was racially regressing. His pad on Denker was jig-upscale. His pad on East 86th was a coon cave. Cinder-block struts, window bars, spookedelic paint.

  Clock in: 12:51 a.m.

  Crutch parked and waited. The radio supplied distraction. He got Christmas carols and Brother Bobby X, live at Rae’s Rugburn Room. Brother Bobby ragged on the Jews and wished black folk an off-the-pigs New Year. Marsh Bowen walked out at 1:14 a.m. New vines: trim-cut and all blaaaaack.

  Bowen walked past his car and schlepped it down to Imperial Highway. Bright lights there: all-night gas stations and coffee shops.

  Cut him slack, he’s too close, he’ll see you.

  Crutch waited two minutes and jammed southbound. He hit the corner and looked both ways. No pedestrians. He slow-cruised Goody-Goody’s and the Carolina Pines, big windows at both locations. There’s Bowen in the Pines, drinking coffee solo.

  The place was semi-deserted. Crutch parked and ambled in slow. Fruit Alert: Bowen eyeball-trolled all the single men.

  Walk in, get close, within eavesdrop range.

  Crutch shagged a table two over. It provided a back view of Bowen. A waitress brought coffee. Aaaahhh, good—re-fuel those jets.

  Bowen fidgeted and checked his watch. Fruit Alert: a fat Mex smirky-eyed him. Bowen shuddered and looked down.

  Crutch checked the door. It popped open. He blinked. It can’t be. He rubbed his eyes—yes, no, yes.

  Joan Klein walked in and sat down with Bowen. She removed her overcoat. She smiled. She took off her beret and shook out her hair.

  She cleaned her glasses on a napkin. She looked older without them. She wore a black knit dress. Her knife scar was covered. Crutch went hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold.

  Joan and Bowen talked. It was sotto voce. Crutch peeled and re-peeled his ears and couldn’t hear shit. Bowen sipped coffee. Joan sipped coffee and smoked. A white couple gave them a pissy mixed-couple look. Joan touched Bowen’s
arm—one time, two times, three. Bowen three-time flinched. Crutch picked up sound waves. He got Joan’s husky voice. It burned straight through him.

  He kept his head down. Their eyes never clicked. Joan’s talking more, Joan’s on the make, Bowen’s homo-reluctant. Joan kissed Gretchen/Celia at the rental house that night.

  Crutch leaned closer. His ears throbbed. He couldn’t read Joan’s lips. Bowen coughed and said, “Weird dream of you.” Joan spoke a little louder. She said, “Safe house.”

  That’s it, no more, back to soft talk and—

  Crutch got un-wired and re-circuited and re-wired.

  Safe house, rent house, fake stewardess Gretchen/Celia. Fake address: “Some Commie safe house.”

  Crutch put a dollar down and walked out sloooooow.

  Safe house, rent house, death house. Confluence, proximity—