James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (61 page)

“Ali is a sissified draft dodger. Islam is a gutter religion. Ali takes it up the shit chute from Gamal Abdel Nasser and the dishonorable Elijah Muhammad.”

Redd Foxx howled. White powder and snot flew. Fred O. yukked. Crutch haw-hawed.

Sonny unwrapped a morphine suppository. Quick hands: he dug into his pants and popped it up his ass.

“Come on, kid. You're driving me to Vegas.”

The champ nodded out at San Berdoo and passed out at Barstow. Crutch Dexedrine-all-nightered. I-15 was dead. Crutch drove 105. The desert was dead cold. Six zillion stars burned.

The radio hummed low. Mountain ranges broke up reception. Crutch caught an oldie string. Circa '60 prom songs. The Peeper Magical Mystery Tour.

The music re-sputtered. Crutch flicked off the dial. Sonny yipped like a dog in a dream.

Crutch checked the rearview. Sonny was prone, with his feet out the window. Sand blew into the car. Sonny said, “Shit.”

“Are you okay, champ?”

“Don't call me ‘champ.' ‘Champ's' what you call all them stumblebum sparring partners you see on skid row.”

“Okay, boss.”

Sonny lit a cigarette. He torched the filter, dropped the match and tried again. Six more swipes got him combustion.

Crutch said, “I saw you fight Wayne Bethea. You kicked his fucking ass.”

Sonny dog-yawned. “I knew a cat named Wayne. He kept killing black guys he didn't want to. That boy just didn't have no hate for anybody, but shit kept finding him. He kept trying to find niggers to kill and niggers to save, and this woman of his thought it was all the same goddamn thing.”

They hit a rise. The Vegas Strip emanated. Colored lights compressed by darkness.

Sonny said, “Drop me at the Sands. I'm meeting some people.”

Crutch goosed the gas. He felt re-hexed and de-hexed. Sonny dropped three RDs in his tux pocket. His tiger koat was all pilled—fur balls up the wazoo.

“Don't deadhead back. Park somewhere and rest up.”

It was 4:00 a.m. The Strip was a-go-go. Lots of cabs and golf-cart travel. The carts were wet bar–fitted. The passengers quaffed cocktails, the drivers swerved.

Crutch pulled up to the Sands. Sonny laid a C-note on him and ruffled his hair. The coffee shop was glass-fronted. People saw the crazy limo and howled.

Sonny got out. People waved. He weaved into the coffee shop. Mary Beth Hazzard walked over and hugged him.

The dexies fought off the RDs. He parked the limo under the Stardust and thrashed until noon. His tiger tux shed. Fur threads tickled his snout. He felt full-force-fucked in the soul.

He gave up on sleep and opted for pancakes. A short stack and coffee re-vivified him. Do it, fucker. You'll get re-zombified if you don't.

He drove to the Hotel Workers' Union. The limo took up two parking slots. He got some pissy looks. They turned to yuks quick. His tiger tux was a roar.

A janitor gave him directions. He was all pins and needles. Her office door was open. She looked up from her desk.

He said, “I'm sorry about Wayne.”

She put down her pen.

He said, “He tried to warn me about some things.”

She straightened her desk blotter.

He said, “I see things that other people don't see. I know how to find people.”

She opened her purse and pulled out a key ring.

(Los Angeles, 12/11/70)

T
he girls chased a neighbor's dog. He watched from two houses down.

Dina had speed. Ella had a toddler's gait. The dog ran in elusive circles. Ella charged, fell and got back up. The front yard contained them. His stuffed animals were there on the porch.

Dwight pushed his seat back. The car was packed: tinctures, solvents and brushes. Notepaper of varied stock.

He left Silver Hill early. He started his Bureau work next month. Joan understood his plan. She signed on with blood-deep support—belief works that way.

Nixon called him yesterday. How was your rest? Welcome back—and, by the way …

The prez was building an ops squad—four black-bag men. Dwight declined. The prez acted hurt. Dwight recommended Howard Hunt at CIA.

Ella caught the dog. He pushed her down with his paws and licked her. Ella grinned and laughed.

Karen got in the car. They knocked up their arms embracing sideways. They kept banging their legs.

They found a fit and stayed with it. The girls looked over and waved.

Karen held his face. “You look the same.”

“You look better.”

“I thought you'd be fat from all that pie I sent you.”

“My goats ate most of it.”

Karen tucked her knees up. “My husband's in the backyard. I'll have to go in a minute.”

“Later this week?”

“Yes.”

“The Beverly Wilshire?”

“I'll never say no to that.”

They laced hands on the steering wheel. Karen said, “Mr. Hoover's new dirt-hoarder. I'll be begging you to delete files inside of ten minutes.”

“What's wrong with five? You know I'll do it.”

Karen laughed. “You want something. This impromptu visit after so many months just isn't you.”

Dwight rubbed her knees. “I think you should put together a team. There's a Bureau Records Center in Media, Pennsylvania. I think you should tap it in early March. There's at least ten thousand surveillance files there. You could steal them and expose the Bureau's harassment policies in one go.”

Karen lit a cigarette. “I don't believe what I'm hearing.”

“You should.”

“And this is
your
idea? It didn't come from—”

“Not now, please.”

“No weapons, in and out.”

“That's right.”

“And you'll tell me more. ‘Need-to-know' basis?”

Dwight nodded. “Yes, and soon.”

Ella fell and scuffed her knees. She started crying. Karen said, “I have to go.”

Dwight said, “Do you love me?”

Karen said, “I'll think about it.”

Files:

The file room was back lot–size. High shelves, deep shelves, rolling-ladder access. Political files, criminal files, civil files. Informant files. Surveillance files, gossip files and general-sleaze files. 600,000 files total.

All indexed. Chained index binders at every shelf front.

Dwight walked the shelf banks. The ladders ran on greased casters. Twelve-foot-high, floor-bolted structures. Twelve shelves per bank. Twenty-four banks total.

“You're early. Almost a month, in fact.”

Dwight turned around. Jack Leahy leaned on a ladder.

“You'll hate the job. These files do not represent Mr. Hoover at his best.”

“The Bureau's most impolitic SAC. How have you lasted this long?”

“Lawyer's luck. And civil law compared to
this
? Come on.”

They shook hands. Jack sat on a ladder rung.

“I haven't seen you since the Hiltz case and the start-up of BAAAAD BROTHER.”

“Well, two times lucky, and two times unexposed.”

“Yeah, but at some goddamn price.” Dwight shook his head. “I'd rather not talk about it.”

“I don't blame you. The old girl, third-rate militants and Scotty Bennett in one go? I'd have called in a rest break before you did.”

“Can it, Jack. It's old news now.”

Jack coughed. “Well, shit, you know the drill. You monitor the general dirt files and supplant them with informant pieces. You've got cops, criminals who want favors, newsmen, bug men, waiters, doormen, wheelmen, repo men, hotel clerks, barflies and the aggrieved great unwashed of the universe. Try to
underpay
for your dirt. The old girl wants the shit, but she wants it at bargain-basement prices.”

Dwight sneezed. The file room was overcooled. Dry air fought off paper rot.

“Are you running standing bug posts?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “We've got bugged fuck pads and hotel suites. Duke Wayne blows into Chicago. The doorman at the Drake calls the Chicago SAC. Before you know it, the Duke's upgraded to the penthouse. Too bad it's hot-wired. The Duke's a cross-dresser, by the way. He wears a size-fifty-six extra-long muumuu.”

Dwight laughed. “Anything else I should know?”

“Half the fruit bathhouses in L.A. are wired. The old girl caught a city councilman at a joint on La Cienega once, so she's running nine listening posts full-time.”

Dwight plucked a file and skimmed it. Johnnie Ray sucks dick in Fern-dell Park. The suckee is an FBI informant. Lana Turner dives dark sisters, circa '54. A snitch calls from Sultan Sam's Sandbox.

Jack said, “How's the old girl's health? I saw her in D.C. last month. She looked positively spectral. I had an informant once named ‘Jean the Mean Queen.' She had to be the old girl's long-lost sister.”

Liberace's all-boy cathouse. Scopophile Danny Thomas, nympho Peggy Lee. Muff-diver Sol Hurok. Masochist James Dean—the “Human Ashtray.”

Dwight replaced the file. Margin notes lingered. Ava Gardner and Redd Foxx. Jean Seberg and half the Black Panthers.

“Have fun, Dwight. I told the old girl it's a swinging new world, but she didn't believe me.”

• • •

He rented a fallback. It was a work space/crash pad. It was close to the drop-front and Karen's place. He and Joan had keys. They kept their gear there. The bungalow overlooked Karen's street. He could watch the girls play.

Baxter and Cove was close. Two blocks and binocular range.

Dwight parked and lugged in boxes. He had brooding time. He was meeting Joan at the Statler later. The fallback was a plotter's den. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, mattress for naps.

He pulled a chair out to the terrace. He pointed his Bausch & Lombs south. Karen walked across her yard. Dina and Ella chased cats.

Karen looked haggard. His offer stunned her. She knows it's an adjunct op. She knows the main op is big. He can't tell her the gist. We're going to kill Mr. Hoover and frame Marsh Bowen for it.

They'll manipulate a convergence. Marsh will be pre-indicted by forged document trails. They will lead back to the year zero and extend beyond 2000. They'll recruit a pro shooter. Bob Relyea shot MLK. He should shoot again. The assassin is a homosexual black policeman. He kills the era's prime symbol of white authority and ends his own life immediately. Planted paperwork reveals public policy gone bad. Marsh Bowen has been consumed by a politically incubated madness. The FBI suborns him and sends him undercover. He undergoes a radical transformation. He concurrently attempts to exploit his situation. He's beset by sexual demons that induce a harrowing shame. The “Black-Militant Blastout” leaves two children dead. Marsh Bowen resumes his police career with honors derived from innocence slaughtered. Mr. Hoover created the overall context. Special Agent Dwight C. Holly implemented it.

They will create a Marsh Bowen diary. It will detail a brilliant black man's rising tide of conversation and psychic disjuncture. Entries will describe his odd friendship with Special Agent Holly. Agent Holly unburdened himself to Marsh Bowen. He laid out the FBI's war on the civil rights movement and described Mr. Hoover's rabid racial animus.

The King hit plot would not be mentioned. It would eclipse the shock of Mr. Hoover's death and spawn apocalypse. The fictional Holly-Bowen friendship would be deeply etched. It would encompass a world of guilt and hope. The diary would form a syllabus. It would bring readers to a copious glut of pre-existent FBI paper. The paper would form a narrative of banal minutae that would attenuate into horror. Grand juries would indict Marsh postmortem. Conspiracy talk would engulf the body politic. Every real and concocted trail would lead back to Mr. Hoover and his legacy of hate.

Mr. Hoover was partially discredited now. His anti-King salvos had become public fare. They were negligible compared to this. They lacked
hardcore shock value. This would be a huge event. It would spawn waves of disbelief and tragically resigned acceptance.

He would be the trigger man. He would sit in committee rooms and grand-jury chambers. He would stand on the U.S. Senate floor. He would describe his exploitation of Marsh Bowen. He would detail his own lifetime of racial rancor, minutely outline his black-militant faux pas and chart the human cost. He would reveal his friendship with Marsh and paint a vivid picture of a white man and a black man as mirror-twinned souls in duress. He would embrace Marsh with forgiveness and the distanced love you feel for those you refract. He would tell the story of his crack-up. He would resign himself to an invasively scrutinized life.

Karen's house was a stone's throw. Dwight trained his binoculars. Ella threw building blocks at Dina. Big sister laughed and ran.

He told Joan the plan. They were in bed. They rented a guest house near Silver Hill. She trembled the way he trembled routinely. He struck the awe in her that she had always struck in him.

He'd go to prison. Four to six felt right. Protective custody, tennis courts, Fed-informant perks. There might be some animals he could care for.

Joan said, “Take these. They'll help you sleep.” Two brown herb capsules
.

They didn't put him out. They put him in between. Joan guided him places. She put her hands on his chest and made him breathe in sync. She started out in French and Spanish. He caught most of it.
Cap-Haïtien, Cotuí, Pico Duarte. Puerto Plata, Saint-Raphaël, El Guyabo
.

Breathe through, I'm here, you're safe now. I'll tell you what we did with Wayne's gifts
.

It was the Statler. He knew that. They had Bureau-vouchered digs. Joan covered his eyes and told him to go where she said.

Every dime went to the struggle. We refurbished four safe houses and bought black-market medicine. Celia painted the walls. Balaguer planned to turn Tiger Klaw into a pleasure yacht. Four comrades dynamited the hull in dry dock
.