James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (38 page)

Jomo started to get big-eyed. Say now, what's
this
? He scratched, he stretched, he bumped Leander's foot. Wayne nudged Marsh—
that's it
.

Marsh said, “Hey, Leander. I'm not sure I buy all that Tonton and voodoo shit you've been talking. Run that by me again.”

Jomo said, “That shit don't fly with me. All forms of mystical jive keep the black man enslaved. Haiti is a sissified, punk-ass place. Voodoo was invented by the French white man to keep the black man shackled up and fucking dead chickens.”

Leander lit a Kool king-size. He inhaled and torched it all the way down in one breath. He exhaled through his nostrils. The whole backseat smoked up.

“Voodoo give me the power to do that. Dragon breath. Papa Doc can do that, so could half my friends on the Tonton. You think 151 is strong? You try klerin liquor. You try herbs and blowfish toxin. You want to fuck with the white man? You get a
bokur
to zombify him.
Bokur
put a spell on that Dominican fuck Trujillo. CIA hit, bullshit. You slaughter Haitian people, zombies come for you. That is the pure truth, baby boy.”

Jomo lit a Kool king-size. He inhaled and coughed and dropped the cigarette in his lap. It burned his pants. He went
shitfuck
and swatted out the flame.

Leander laughed.

Leander said, “MMLF fucks dead chickens. BTA fucks beautiful black sisters.”

Jomo pulled his knife. Leander pulled his knife. They both reared back for more stab room. Their arms hit. They twisted clear. They stabbed simultaneous, chest-high, full-force.

Fabric ripped. The blades cut through overcoats and suitcoats and hit blunt. Jomo's blade snapped off. Leander's blade twisted sideways. It gouged Jomo's arm and stuck in the seat back.

They both went in clawing and gouging. Leander showed his teeth and snapped at Jomo's neck. Wayne gave it two more seconds. Marsh jumped in telepathic. Milt and Junior dozed on. Roscoe X ran the barge off the road.

(Los Angeles, 1/26/69)

P
icture spray:

Wayne Tedrow kissing a black woman. An ad-libbed FBI shot. A Vegas agent snapped it outside Wayne's hotel suite.

Photo #2: one-month-old Eleanora Sifakis. A future bomb maker in swaddle cloth. She looks like Karen—not her cashew-dick hubby.

Mr. Hoover
loved
the Wayne photo. Insane Wayne: the woman and cutout ascendance. An inter-group knife fight his first day.

Dwight kicked his chair back. The drop-front was musty. L.A. was rainy and warm. The air was thick. He was smoking more. His desk was cluttered. The Thomas Frank Narduno file was all over it.

The file was innocuous. Suspicion rousts, lefty leanings, no “Known Associates” list. Narduno—dead at the Grapevine. Narduno—the one
visible
name on Joan's KA list.

Thomas Frank Narduno: robbery suspect in New York and Ohio. No convictions, no Ohio or New York paperwork extant. Joan Klein: robbery suspect in New York and Ohio. No convictions, no Ohio or New York paperwork extant. No dates listed in Narduno's file. Ohio dates listed in Joan's file: both 1954. Also listed: two L.A. robbery rousts, '51 and '53. No DR numbers or other paperwork extant.

Dwight placed Joan's file by Narduno's file and read both files again. Nothing went Boo! He'd telexed every big-city and mid-city PD in New York and Ohio. He got zero on Joan Rosen Klein and Thomas Frank Narduno. Joan told him a cop beat on her in Dayton, Ohio. He'd queried Dayton PD on their unsolved heists, circa '54. There were two payroll jobs, netting sixty grand total. Masked men, no women, case closed. He'd had
the file telexed. There was no mention of Narduno, Joan or left-wing suspects. Joan's “random roundups” statement? Maybe true.

Dwight lit a cigarette and cracked the window. Wind and rain messed with his pages. He propped Eleanora up on his desk lamp.

Fuck—Joan Rosen Klein and Dwight Chalfont Holly
.

A month now. The Statler, the Ambassador, the Hollywood Roosevelt. Neutral spots. The drop-front was Karen's.

They talk and make love. They discuss the operation and avoid
What Do You Want
? It's informant protocol and implicit lovers' pact.

Joan was getting tight with the BTA. Marsh was BTA-
and
MMLF-friendly. They were both torqued on those cartoons flooding the Congo. Joan made the FBI for it,
BAAAAAD BROTHER
–adjunct. She was wrong. Most of the cartoons defamed the Panthers and US. Some defamed BTA and MMLF. He made it as amateur street art. It didn't play as planned provocation.

Hate
.

The Dr. Fred snuff—still unsolved and stonewalled by Jack Leahy. Hate and
dope
—the jungle was “H”-dry. Marsh Bowen
dryly
credited black-power consciousness.

Wind toppled Eleanora. Dwight shut the window and put her picture back up. He missed Karen. Eleanora devoured her time. What's-His-Name was back in L.A. to assist. Karen didn't know the whole Joan story. She might sense it. He didn't feel guilty. He felt stretched. It was one more seeping compartment.

He grabbed the wastebasket and pulled out the Wayne photo. He did some DMV research and ID'd the woman last week. Mary Beth Hazzard. Wayne's West Vegas snafu. The widow of the dead preacher.

He got her DMV file. He compared her driver's license photo to the kiss shot. It was a drop-dead all-time moment. It brought him back to Joan in a rush.

“What are you thinking about?”

“A friend of mine and the woman he's with.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He's in The Life reluctantly. He's brilliantly skilled and competent and prone to catastrophe.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you comfortable with telling me more?”

“No.”

“You're usually the one asking me all the questions.”

“I know, that's true.”

A trade show full-booked the Statler. Doors slammed down the corridor. Loud revelry persisted.

It was raining hard. They kept the windows open for the breeze. The room heat kicked in at odd intervals. They pulled the sheets on and off.

“Leander Jackson and Jomo Clarkson had an altercation.”

“I know. I picked Leander up at the hospital.”

“He called you?”

“Yes.”

“You're strictly BTA now.”

“Not entirely.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I'm not going to.”

“
Yet
?”

“Yes, yet. I need a moment to work something out. I'll let you know when it's settled.”

Dwight yawned. His pill/drink quota hit him early. Joan said, “You should try to sleep.”

He turned off the lights. He kicked his feet out of the sheets for some coolness. Joan tossed her hair and draped a leg over him. Her head fit snug on his shoulder. He reached around and cupped her knife scar.

Four hours, dreamless. A record these days.

Joan was gone. She never left good-bye notes—just lipstick prints. This one: on their spare pillow.

He picked up the nightstand phone. He needed room-service coffee and a line to D.C.

He heard receiver clicks. He pushed the disconnect button and got three more, faint.

Dwight smiled. Bug-and-tap skills. Her curriculum vitae expanded.

He walked to the window and looked down. The porte cochere was busy. He saw a shadow dissolve. He saw smoke rings drift above the awning.

(Managua, 1/28/69)

T
his beaner bin on a lake. Statues of notable führers. Peasants, urban spics and cops with Sten guns. Threadbare overall.

No Hughes flights in. They took La Nica Air to Xolotlán Airport. It was winter muggy. Kids swarmed the cab and hawked baseball cards. Parrots swerved and shit-bombed monuments.

Traffic was slow. Exhaust fumes were thick. The cars ran to pre-'60s belchers. Most street names noted dates: Calle 27 de Mayo to Calle 15 de Septiembre. Froggy said it all pertained to quashed revolution.

Side show, getaway, breather. Nicaragua was a no-sale deal and a sterile stopover. The D.R. was next.

One bright spot loomed. Froggy had a line on an ex–marine colonel. The guy was here now. He lived in the D.R full-time. He'd been in Santo Domingo since the '65 war. Froggy's merc network set up a meeting later.

The guy's name was Ivar Smith. He agreed to write the pro-D.R. report to Wayne and the wops. Smith called the Frogman yesterday. He said he knew four anti-Castro Cubans. They were
eeeeevil
. They'd
looooove
to do wet work out of the D.R.

The cab swerved around a peon with an oxcart. Froggy picked his nose and tossed chump change at beggars. Crutch fingered his lapel pin and re-ran some recent head tapes.

D.C., inauguration night, the Hay-Adams. There's Sam G. and Gretchen/Celia. Mesplede knows Sam. Mesplede does
not
know her. Two-second intros,
auf wiedersehen
.

He told Froggy later:
it's that thieving babe
. Froggy shrugged and said the one word: “Cuba.”

A parrot zoomed down and landed on the window ledge. Crutch fed him Fritos out of the bag. He re-punched his replay button and spooled back to Christmas Eve.

Horror House, the hidey-hole, the Commie meeting ledger. The date: 12/6/62. The names: Bergeron, Narduno,
Joan
.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce owned the house then. Three Commies got access. He went by the Chamber and chatted up a clerk. Bum news: the house went unrented in fall/winter '62.

The parrot ate all the Fritos and squawked for more. Crutch tried to pet him. The cocksucker bit his hand and flew off.

He foot-tailed Sam and Gretchen/Celia to the Willard Hotel. They had separate suites there. He burgled Gretchen/Celia's suite the next day. He located her address book. He brought an evidence kit and dusted the cover right there. He got one Joan Rosen Klein latent.

The book pages were coded: weird letters, numbers and symbols. He Minox-photographed every page and put the book back where he found it. He took a
biiiiig
risk and told Froggy what he'd done. Froggy called a CIA pal in Virginia. A code-breaking manual should arrive in Managua this week. He checked outbound D.C. flights. Sam went back to Vegas. Celia Reyes: Santo Domingo–bound.

“Donald, your hand is bleeding.”

“A parrot bit me.”

“Was it red?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have killed it.”

The Hotel Lido Palace was lake-close. United Fruit guys hogged the bar and talked golf and oppression. The jukebox played the Chiquita banana song non-stop. UF ran Nicaragua and deployed their Somoza-family puppets. Dissent was a persistent woe akin to parrot shit. UF had a snitch network and a police force. Their mandate: rebuff Red revolt.

Crutch and Froggy settled in and moseyed down to the bar. The waitresses wore hoop skirts and banana-bunch hairdos. Froggy said the country was on Red Alert. Commies were bug-bombing fruit fields. Puppet Man Somoza had pledged reprisals soon.

They glommed an outside booth by a koi pond. Cats perched and drooled for fish dinners. They pawed and snapped and never got close. The koi had sonar and radar.

Ivar Smith was a tall guy in golf togs. He was a gasbag right-winger fueled on pre-noon Singapore Slings. He was the D.R.'s boastmaster general and welcome wagon. He ran a security firm. It assisted Bossman Balaguer's goon squads. Balaguer craved those U.S. casinos and ached for a fat tourist trade. Yeah, I'll write that report. The D.R. is ripe fruit.
Yanqui, sí, Commie, no
. We want your biz.

Pay me. I'm the conduit. I'll grease Balaguer. The CIA contingent—all boozed-up snatch hounds. Balaguer was a subtle
fascisto
. He raped pubescent tots in private and evinced public decorum. He was anti-Trujillo that way. The D.R. boded tourist bonanza. Smith's boys and the La Banda thugs ran pesky jigs back to Haiti routinely. Balaguer had a dual agenda: circumvent due process and eugenically bleach the country three shades lighter. The casinos would attract the swells. Smith's boys and La Banda would serve as street cleaners and dump trucks.

Yeah, Haiti was close. The Massacre River formed the aptly named dividing line. Smith riffed off Haiti and voodoo. Papa Doc Duvalier raped Haiti like Trujillo raped the D.R. They called Trujillo “the Goat.” He blitzkrieged Haitian settlements within the D.R. It was race shit. Pale-skinned Dominicans have Spanish roots. They hate ink-black Haitians, with their chicken-fucking religion and French affect. The Haitians have leftist allies. There's a Commie group called the 6/14 Movement. Smith and La Banda suppress it for kicks and grins.

Wooooo
—six Singapore Slings and still on!

There's a small town on the north D.R.-Haiti shore. A corrupt Tonton Macoute man runs it. It's a good Cuban-ops staging point. Secluded inlets up the wazoo.

Smith segued to those
eeeeevil
Cubans. They were in Managua now. They were all stone killers. They've got a boocoo heroin CV. They conduit stolen pharmacy dope through a group of UF stockholders in Miami. There's some ex-CIA in the group. A big member: Dick Nixon's pal, Bebe Rebozo.

Bad apples. They target pharmacies owned by comsymps. They pulled jobs in Guatemala and Honduras. They're allegedly ripping off a pharmacy here tonight.

Smith faded out talk-wise. His face went rumdum red. Mesplede took over.

I want to meet the Cubans. I can get them construction-boss jobs. I have heroin credentials. I want to stage anti-Castro ops.

Smith staggered out of the bar. He pulled a banana off a waitress's head and bit in, peel and all.

• • •

The phone book was
en español
. Crutch pulled out the page listing
farmacias
. Managua was Podunk-size. Six drugstores,
no más
. The city was laid out grid-style.
Calles
and
avenidas
crossed. He'd never seen a pharmacy rip-off. Froggy was snoozing. Let's check out the Cubans at work.