James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (64 page)

Crutch palpitated. A coyote ran across the road. He lost the wheel and almost plowed it.

The radio re-kicked. Mountains killed the signal forty miles back. Brenda Lee with “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Crutch checked the rearview. His pulse topped two hundred. Sonny was smack-back. His dentures had slipped halfway out.

Yule songs consoled him to Stateline. Diversion therapy meets memory lane.

Christmas, '54. Granny Woodard's in from Ortonville, Minnesota. She strokes out in March. His mother splits in June.

Christmas, '62. Paul McEachern kicks his ass. Christmas, '66. He steals Dana Lund's boyfriend's car and cherry-bombs the gas tank.

Sonny stirred. What dat needle doin' dere? Crutch kept it zipped. Vegas loomed thirty miles up.

Sonny said, “I ain't broke and I ain't no charity case.
Vegas Sun
runs some jive piece and some anonymous fucking fool sends me a green-ass emerald in the mail. Wraps the fucking thing up in the fucking newspaper, so's I get the fucking point.”

Body shot—Crutch went airless and double-visioned. The road dipped. He clipped a fence post. The moon did a hop, skip and jump.

Sonny gripped the door ledge. Crutch steadied the wheel. The moon halfway re-settled.

“Can I see the envelope and the emerald?”

“No, Peeper. You can't. You can get me to Vegas in one motherfucking piece and leave me the fuck alone.”

Emeralds, fruit squeeze, the Coon Cartel connection. It is all one
.

He dosed himself asleep in the Sands parking lot. He woke up and re-dosed with waffles and Bloody Marys. Redd Foxx sold Sonny four bags in
L.A. Sonny geezed one bag in the limo. Sonny should be comatose as we speaks.

Crutch staked his crib out. The Tiger stretch drew riveted looks. The crib was upscale by colored standards. The neighborhood was half ofay.

Now or never.

He had a wiggle shim and his lock picks. Sonny's road-hog Buick was parked out front. The door knocker was a brass boxing glove.

Raise the dead. You don't want errors here.

Crutch banged the knocker, rang the bell and kicked the door. He got no response and re-did the sequence. The dead air intensified. He wiggle-shimmed the door and walked straight in.

Snores hit him. Sonny was gaga on a Naugahyde couch. He used a bungee cord as a tourniquet. The spike was loose in his fist.

“Champ on skids?” Yeah. The crib was over-soiled and under-furnished. The ceiling leaked sawdust and freon juice. Dog dishes collected it.

Quick toss—no fuckups here
.

He pre-walked the pad. Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms. No bookshelves, no dressers, clothes paper-sacked. Hit the kitchen built-ins first.

He went through the trash. He found scorched TV-dinner tins and pint-vodka empties. He went through the kitchen drawers—eureka, that's it.

Plain white envelope, standard size, no return address. Sonny's name and address block-printed. L.A. postmark, the clipping inside, no greenass emerald.

Crutch grabbed the envelope by the edges. He dropped it in a plastic bag and put a scrawled envelope down in its place.

Sonny dog-yipped in his sleep.

Clyde wired him three grand, c/o the Dunes. He ran it up to five at the wheel. He had his Reggie Hazzard pic. He bought a Nevada-California road map. He called in sick at Tiger Kab. He tucked the Tiger stretch in a day garage so he wouldn't look like a geek.

He rented a Ford sedan. He dumped his tiger tux and bought a sport coat. He went out to grease shitkicker cops. Wayne should have done it at the get-go.

Tank towns. Border burgs and agri-dumps. Desert dots with six-, eight- and twelve-man PDs.

Rainbow Hill, Crescent Peak, Dyer, Daylight Peak. Woodford, Minden, Pahrump, Salisbury, Mid-Lockie. Fourteen towns with “Cal-Nev” in the mix.

He drove tank town to tank town. He flashed his photo attached to a
C-note. He lubed redneck cops, straw-boss cops and wetback smuggling freaks. He stressed December '63. He described Joan. He mentioned the bail jump—may I check your records, please?

Some cops blew him off. Most cops took the cash. Some cops said they shitcanned their skip sheets. Most cops cited turnovers and plain stonewalled him.

He worked it for three days. He went through $3,400. He slept in cheap motels and had Joan dreams. He hit nine-tenths of the road-map towns. He worked his way back to L.A.

He hooked off I-15 at McKendrick. The PD was a Quonset hut upside a lettuce field. Jail trustees did stoop labor. The motor pool was four old Fords and sixteen horses. The lettuce pickers wore stenciled denims. The cops drove golf carts and quaffed brews.

Crutch parked beside a tethered roan. A sunburned cop walked up. He had malignant sores like Crutch Senior.

“Help you, young man?”

“I had a few questions, if you'd be so kind.”

The cop stuck his hand out. “Kindness costs money. Let's not pretend that it don't.”

Crutch threw him fifty. “A vag and gun-possession bust. December '63. A black kid got popped and a white woman with dark, gray-streaked hair bailed him.”

The cop stuck his hand out. Crutch shook his head. The cop said, “I was there that day. Kindness ain't for free.”

Crutch forked over two fifties. The cop snapped his fingers. Crutch re-forked two more.

The cop picked a nose scab. “Nigger boy and a Jew broad. Absconders. Don't ask to see records, because there ain't any. The kid left some Commie books and chemistry books in his cell, might still be in Property.”

Tools:

Print powders and brushes. Print-transparency tape. A magnifying glass and Joan Rosen Klein's print card.

Targets:

Sonny Liston's envelope. Magruder's
Basic Chemistry
. Franz Fanon's
The Wretched of the Earth
.

He worked at the Vivian. He set aside desk space and laid it all out. His big gooseneck lamp supplied light.

The book pages were porous. They wouldn't sustain prints. The dust jackets were glossy and would. The envelope was slick and smooth-surfaced. The print-lift odds were good.

Crutch dipped a brush in red powder. The dust jackets were white and light beige.

He put on rubber gloves. He folded the books open with the jackets in place. He got near-flat planes: front covers, back covers, spines. He placed the envelope to one side.

Deep breath now
.

He light-dusted the books and the envelope. He got smudges, swirls and smears. He added a second dust coat. He got two viable prints on the Commie book. He got two viable prints on the envelope.

Deep breath now
.

He grabbed the magnifying glass. He studied the book prints and Joan's print card. One print looked good straight off.

Whorls, swirls and inversions. Comparison points: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9—

Match
.

Joan touched the Fanon book with her right-hand forefinger. It occurred 12/63 or before. The book was held by McKendrick PD since then.

Crutch studied the second book print. Do it—brain-stamp every bit.

He memorized it. He studied Joan's print card and ran the magnifying glass back and forth. No—no second print match.

He laid down the transparency tape. He lifted the unknown print clean. He reinforced it with a black plastic strip. The print showed in exact detail, white on black.

Deep breath—one to go
.

He switched to the envelope. He studied the two prints. He memorized them. He re-studied Joan's print card. He squinted through the magnifying glass. No—no match.

He laid down two strips of transparency tape. He lifted the unknown prints clean. He reinforced them with black plastic strips. The prints showed in exact detail, white on black.

He laid the two envelope strips beside the one book strip. He ran the magnifying glass back and forth. One print strip was markedly different. One print strip matched perfectly.

That meant this:

Joan touched the Commie book in 1963. A second person touched the book then. The same person touched Sonny's envelope, late 1970.

It couldn't be the McKendrick cops. Wild guess: Reggie Hazzard.

Reggie had no rap sheet. That meant no print file extant. Reggie had a Nevada driver's license. The Nevada DMV did not require fingerprints.

The envelope was L.A.-postmarked. Was the emerald sent from there? Was it
sent
to L.A. to send?

It's not a
real
print make. It's all suppositional. There's still that second envelope print.

Deep breath now—more fucking work
.

Christmas came and went. New Year's blurred by in rainstorms. Sonny Liston OD'd a week later. The Tiger Kab wake was a happening.

Redd Foxx and Milt C. performed.
Blak-O-Rama
gave it feature ink. Fred O. supplied booze. Chick Weiss supplied dope and island-bred hookers. The Duber boys showed up. The drivers formed a kab kortege and bombed through darktown. Panthers and pigs noshed “Q” in perfect peace. Lenny Bernstein quoted Krishnamurti. Scotty Bennett sparred with Jerry Quarry. They traded for real. It almost got ugly.

The fruit squeeze was on hold. Freddy wanted fifteen grand. Scotty tried to Jew him down to ten and got nowhere. Scotty was hustling the gelt. Freddy told Crutch not to brace Sassy Sal just yet.

He did divorce jobs for Clyde. He sent Mary Beth Hazzard queries: did Wayne leave more paperwork? He part-time Tiger-kabbed. He studied print cards every night at the downtown DMV.

Insomnia and eye strain. Vials of Nembutal and vats of Visine. Handcheck print cards. Compare them to the two plastic strips.

He kept a head tally. He lost count at ten thousand. He kept a card-per-night tally. He lost track on January 6.

He showed up late on the seventh. He bribed the night clerk, SOP. He brought his print strips, his magnifying glass and his Visine.

He opened a new box. He went through eleven no-gos. He hit print card #12. The swirls talked to him.

Deep breath now. The second envelope print. No, yes, no—maybe
.

Points: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9—up to 14—good measure.

Perfect matchup.
Fuck—a name he knew
.

Lionel Darius Thornton, male Negro. Born 12/18/19.

The Peoples' Bank dude. Lionel the Laundryman. The Coon Cartel
consigliere
.

(Los Angeles, 1/9/71)

C
hez Marsh: cultured and nonmilitant.

He got in with tungsten bolt-tappers. Infrared shades induced night sight. Leave the lights off to de-saturate.

Baldwin Hills. A one-level ranch off Stocker. Black bourgeoisie. Tubular furnishings. A
coooooool
-school aesthetic.

Dwight moseyed through. It was 9:49 p.m. Marsh had a keynotespeech engagement. GOP heavies dug him. He was up-by-his-bootstraps. Governor Reagan got him the gigs.

It's a first walk-through. Let's learn the spread.

Dwight snapped pictures. His Minox shot bright-light flashless. The fallback had a darkroom. Joan could develop film there.

Rauschenberg and Rothko in brushed-steel frames. A severe space, overall. A metal womb.

He tapped wall panels. He went through shelves and file drawers. He saw art books, tax records and blank stationery. Marsh was a paper-hoarder. He thought that. Joan called him a “clandestine diarist.”

Dwight walked through the bedroom. The tube motif extended. Marsh loved brushed metal. It was functional and harsh. It exuded male odor and excluded feminine scent. Marsh was all refined obduracy.

Marsh was the all-new malcontent assassin. This was his psychopath's lair. It was cold and prim. It must go to
horrifying
from there.

Dwight examined the nightstand drawers. He went through Marsh's address book and snapped every page. He saw first-name-only men listed. He saw numbers for the Klondike, the 4-Star, the Tradesman, the Spike.
Marsh felt safe now. His ops pad was Actors Studio. This pad was fag reference–rich.

They needed plant spaces. Marsh, the queer pack rat with the chaste art-school taste. The house was a beautiful picture. Let's supply an eroding frame.

Plant fruit-bar matchbooks here. Plant sodomy pix there. Semen-streak the sheets pre–hit day. Hide shit-caked dildos in the bathroom.

The house would attract astounding scrutiny. The façade had to crumble slowly. The terror had to slowly accrete.

Dwight tapped wall panels. No telltale thunks perked yet.
Plant spaces
. Subversive lit and poli-sci porno. Joan's instinct: he keeps a diary, locate it, we'll pull it and insert ours pre-hit.

An Underwood electric. Typewriter paper stacked beside it.

Dwight rolled in a sheet and typed out all the letters, numbers and symbols. They looked naked eye–correct. He photo-snapped the keyboard and the strike pads. There might be strike-pad flaws. They would have to tool mark–duplicate them. Forensic teams would examine the machine. They had to create a sound verisimilitude.

He tapped more wall panels. He got no hollow sounds. It was a first prowl. He didn't trust his ears yet.

Hiding spots
. The forensic teams would tear up the place. Marsh must be pungently revealed postmortem. He was wildly ingenious and resourceful. The pad should explode with late-breaking finds.

Plant paper here. Plant paper there. It's
his
life refracted. He hoards paper for Mr. Hoover. He looks for paper-plant slots on the job.

He was a month in. Mr. Hoover gave him a pay-level raise. The file section was all scandal skank. Most of it was L.A.-based. Marsh was an L.A. native. Every L.A. Office file would be combed for mention after his death.

He skimmed files and looked for data-insert points. It was operational subtext. You hide age-yellowed data. It implies an emerging political imbalance and closet-queer pathology. The FBI's file mania indicts Marshall Bowen. Non sequitur files are combed diligently. Mr. Hoover is postmortem-indicted. The file compilation is prissy tedium and officially sanctioned scatology. Moral horror and titillation will war in the public arena. Special Agent D. C. Holly will state what it all means.