James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (36 page)

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 1/12/69. Extract from the journal of Marshall E. Bowen.

January 12, 1969

I'm being courted. The pace is slower than Mr. Holly would like. Both the BTA and MMLF have found me, along with the Panthers and US. Eldridge Cleaver invited me to lunch. He brought with him a dubious literary agent, who wanted me to write a memoir entitled
Brother Pig: An Ex-Cop Tells It Like It Is Within the Genocidal LAPD
. I declined. Mr. Cleaver looked at me suspiciously. The ghetto rumor is that Mr. Cleaver is a very well-placed informant himself and reports to cutouts at various Federal crime commissions that no longer trust Mr. Hoover to rationally assess information. Brother Cleaver had the look of informant/arriviste, and I think he may have seen it in me.

I've nixed the Panthers and US. My relationship with Jomo Clarkson has me leaning toward the MMLF. Jomo is rumored to be heisting liquor stores; if I come across anything more specific on that, I'll report it to Mr. Holly.

The southside clubs are the chief recruiting arms of both organizations. If one spends time at Sultan Sam's Sandbox, Rae's Rugburn Room, Nat's Nest, Mr. Mitch's Another World, the Snooty Fox, Tommy Tucker's Playroom and the Carolina Pines on Imperial Highway, one will be approached by BTA/MMLF brothers, who will speak injudiciously, suck up a bit and urge you to attend rallies and other planned activities. These men love to talk and describe their criminal actions. I have met pimps, ticket scalpers, the burglars of pornographic bookstores. A BTA member fed me 190-proof liquor from his basement still and took me to a Lakers game with counterfeit tickets. BTA kingpin Ezzard Jones—replete with bogus divinity degree—solicits funds with limited success at southside churches and complains that his girlfriend is getting it on with that persistent white woman, Joan. Benny Boles cruised me at a BTA bar-b-q and pushed all my danger buttons. He has an armed robbery conviction ('64) and alledgedly killed a male-prostitute lover in '58. Leander Jackson is charming with his Haitian lilt, vexing with his voodoo talk and hard to picture as an arms dealer, former member of the Tonton Macoute Haitian secret
police and heavy conduit to leftist groups in the Caribbean. J. T. McCarver runs dice games for the MMLF, is a reputed pharmacy burglar and deals goofballs to Jordan High School students while Claude Cantrell Torrance, the MMLF's Minister of Finance and Minister of Extortion, deals to the Manual Arts student body. (Note: The MMLF are Manual Arts football fans; the BTA are Jordan High fans, and both groups push hate-whitey and kill-the-pigs pamphlets on and off the two campuses.)

Both groups front programs to feed wholesome breakfasts to impoverished ghetto children. White liberals find this fetching and donate money that the MMLF and BTA spends on hate-lit supplies, guns and dope. The breakfasts are homey affairs, often written up and photographed by a doting media. The breakfast food is extorted from local merchants and the children are fed sugar-packed concoctions like Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, Trix, Crispy Critters and Puff-and-Stuff Pals. Sunday breakfasts are often followed by “media mixers,” featuring Bloody Marys, soul food and reefer. These are hilarious, mixed-message, mixed-race moments. Yeah, we wants to kill all de pigs and destroy de white power structure, but we thinks
you
cool.

And these dumb white motherfuckers think they
are
cool. And these dumb white motherfuckers feel exalted in the presence of swinging black militants.

So, the BTA and MMLF are rivals, and I bop between both groups and keep my eyes open. Individuals are viciously bad within both groups, but I do not see a percolating or slowly assertive group viciousness in ascent. Both groups have guns stashed in safe houses (Joan Klein allegedly holds guns for BTA members), but both groups are primarily in love with guns for their implied statement of masculinity and rarely carry them, for fear of LAPD street rousts. There is much talk of dealing heroin to finance revolution, but “revolution” is a comic-book, racist-polemic pipe dream to these people, and I doubt if they could put together the seed money necessary to buy heroin in significant quantity.

So it's pamphlet sales, parties, pub crawls, rallies and big talk in great quantity. Both groups peddle bootleg editions of Mao's
Little Red Book
and Franz Fanon's
The Wretched of the Earth
. I've read both books. They both contain wisdom. Given my life in Los Angeles, my parents' horrible tales of life in the South, my own LAPD experience and my two auspicious beatings by LAPD, I empathize as much as my compartmentalized psyche and soul will let me. But
revolution? Accomplishing anything other than a
glancingly ephemeral social good
? These people are lost in the overall puerile, selfish, ride-the-zeitgeist game of it, things will go wrong in the end, and my efforts of suppression and interdiction may provide my own brand of glancingly ephemeral social good.

I can only allot “social good” a smidgen of ink. I'm here for the adventure and to solve the armored-car heist case and accrue all financial benefit.

I'm being courted. I'm listening, I'm learning. I think I'll be specifically recruited for criminal enterprises—based on misreadings of my ex-cop status—before too long.

I see Scotty Bennett out cruising sometimes. We always wink and wave at each other, because we're both addled by the notion of stoicism and acting cool while you harbor big emotion and hate. Scotty bought me the key to the ghetto, and I'm grateful to him for that.

I've got both beatings in perspective now, I think. I sense that they are bringing me closer to the money, the emeralds and the secrets of 2/24/64.

Mr. Holly and I continue to talk via phone drop every third or fourth day. He's looking for a cutout to work me on a more regular basis, while he continues to run the operation. I've indulged the Bent at Queen Anne Park a few times since Christmas, and I must remind myself to be more cautious and discreet. I had coffee with Joan on Christmas Eve. She seemed to be coming on to me—sorry, no sale—and working me on some level. I either dreamt of her or saw her that night I slept at Jomo's crib, which is odd in itself. Women are, by and large, difficult for me, and I find Joan unsettling and a little frightening. I may write up my perceptions and get them to Mr. Holly.

Mr. Holly continues to trouble me. I find myself thinking about him much more than I should.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 1/16/69. Extract from the privately held journal of Karen Sifakis.

January 16, 1969

Eleanora is squalling and keeping me up all night and I'm realizing that the joy of Dina as a full-fledged child and a developing moral being had blunted me to the debilitating regime of new motherhood, this time at age forty-three. I'm not sleeping, W.H.N.
is staying in L.A. full-time to help, his constant presence hinders my internal life and in no way compensates for the assistance he's giving me with Ella. I haven't seen Dwight since Ella was born; W.H.N.'s presence has effectively quashed that. Dina misses Dwight and asks about him when W.H.N. is out of earshot; I assure her that he'll be back soon, to tell her wonderfully sanitized tales of his adventures with the FBI.

She was asking me questions about J. Edgar Hoover last night. Her father had told her (too vividly) stories of Hoover's cowardly actions during the 1919–1920 Red Scare. Dina asked me (again, out of earshot of What's-His-Name) why her father hated Hoover so much, while Dwight held him in such high regard. I did not tell her that Dwight and Hoover share a complex moral history, that her father is an intractably aggrieved ideologue and that Dwight is punch-drunk behind all his conflicting notions of authority and considers it best to tell little children comforting tales. Dina wouldn't get it, and I wouldn't blame her. I keep wondering just how far Dwight has gone to appease Mr. Hoover in repayment of the debt he carries for the man.

I have brought Eleanora into a chaste and duplicitous marriage and into a troubled world, with Richard Nixon poised to assume the White House. Dwight will be buying her odd stuffed animals soon, like the alligators he bought Dina, and she will grow up thinking that predators (like Dwight!) are soft and cuddly. At some point she will point to me for confirmation of this. If I am the least bit candid, I will concede my great love for the man, which will in some small way explain why the teddy bears her father bought her hold no great emotional sway.

I miss Dwight. I'm going to boot What's-His-Name out of town soon, so we can spend time together and Dwight can meet Ella. He's fixated on Joan Klein—I can sense it. As always, I pray that my maneuverings and the connections that I facilitate cause more good than harm.

(Washington, D.C., 1/20/69)

“W
e have endured a long night of the American spirit. But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark. Let us gather the light.”

They had boxed seats for the big speech. They had preferred paraderoute passes. They had tickets for six inaugural balls.

The new prez soaked up applause. Froggy said, “He is a bland man. We must circumvent his lack of commitment to the Cuban Cause.”

Crutch touched his lapel pin—a solid gold 15. He took the scalps and kept his lunch down. Froggy bought him the pin. It honored his close-range-killer status. He still had nightmares per that eye socket.

“Our destiny offers, not the cup of despair, but the chalice of opportunity. So let us seize it, not in fear, but in gladness—”

There's LBJ—exhausted and vicious. There's Earl Warren, there's Dick's frau, Pat, there's ex-Veep Humphrey. Hey, Baldy—Froggy and I keestered you!

Nixon shut it down to cheers and a standing ovation. Froggy mimicked snores. Senator Charles H. Percy scowled at him.

Everybody stayed standing and milked the moment. Crutch memorized details. LBJ's heifer daughters. Some stray Kennedys. Hey, fuckers—Froggy shot your Uncle Jack!

Crutch stood there, clapping. People walked by him. He thought of his mother and Dana Lund. He touched his lapel pin. He thought of Joan. He thought of his case and the D.R. upcoming. The Nixster walked past. He'd shaved close this morning. Nixey sat out World War II on some Jap-free
atoll.
He
killed Commies close range. Jack the K. killed Japs on PT-109. It was a shuck. Boats didn't count. Jack was no close-range killer.

The crowd thinned out. Crutch re-memorized. Mesplede said, “Enjoy your extremely minor role in this, Donald. But remember that our destiny lies south of here.”

“Tell me again, Froggy. I dig the repetition of it.”

“What is that?”

“Tell me how we're going to make the money to buy the guns to kill the Castro guys.”

“We are going to sell heroin.”

They ball-hopped. D.C. was all limos and floodlit monuments. The air was gunpowdered. Fireworks caused most of it. The rest was coons shooting guns off in coontown.

Yippies in Nixon masks weaved in and out of traffic. Crutch saw a mugging by the Lincoln Monument. They shared a limo with some GOP stiffs and Ronald Reagan. Crutch told Reagan he dug
Hellcats of the Navy
. Governor Ronnie grooved on Crutch and called him “young fellow.”

The ball-to-ball action was blurry. Crutch saw a million famous faces. Mickey Mantle, Floyd Patterson, some TV-show babes. Mummylike J. Edgar Hoover.

They got a tip on a bash at the Hay-Adams. They flagged down a gypsy cab and spent two hours driving six blocks. The driver was a Jamaican dinge with braided hair and a crocheted beanie. He said he was Pat Nixon's lover. He had some homegrown
ganga
. They toked up and listened to a long travelogue. The dinge extolled the fine Dominican gash and warned them about Haiti. Voodoo be real. You got to bring good
gre-gre
. You put a virgin's snatch hair in a locket and dangle it on your dick. You swear fealty to Baron Samedi.

They got to the Hay-Adams. The bill was two C-notes. The hotel looked familiar. Crutch got the gist: the dinge drove them in circles.

The lobby was plush. Mesplede saluted General Curtis LeMay. LeMay waved his cigar back. Crutch
re
-re-memorized. Open doorways/loud music/Lucy Baines Johnson and a stone swish actor doing the dirty-dog Twist.

The bash was in 1014. The doorway was open, the noise was big, the census was mob guys and pols. Crutch looked left and saw Bill Scranton and Carlos Marcello. Crutch looked right and saw Sam Giancana, snaked up with a tall brunette.

She turned their way. It was oh-my-fucking-God Gretchen Farr/Celia Reyes.

January 24, 1969–December 4, 1970

(Los Angeles, 1/24/69)

B
lack Cat bopped. It was redecorated and biracial now. Black personnel, white co-boss Milt Chargin. Scratch the velvet walls. Dig the orange-and-black striping.