James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (79 page)

Sedation. No nightmares. No Zombie Zone flashbacks.

Bird noise de-comatized him. He lurch-walked out to the back porch.

There's the cheese and a dead rat. A minuscule nip chilled his rodent ass flat out.

(Los Angeles, 3/28/72)

“W
ho killed Scotty Bennett?”

“I'm not telling you.”

“I remember the first time you said that.”

“It was 1944. You asked me if I was sleeping with the boy from the Young Socialists' Alliance.”

“Were you?”

“I'm not telling you.”

They sat in Jack's car. Elysian Park was still rain-wet. She met Dwight there early on. Stone's throw: the LAPD Academy. Dwight's intimidation spot.

Jack said, “Did you destroy the file?”

“Karen and I burned it yesterday.”

“Had she read it?”

Joan lit a cigarette. “She didn't have to. She knew it couldn't be anything else.”

A black & white rolled by. Joan watched it. Jack said, “We could have leaked some pages on Bowen and BAAAAD BROTHER.”

“Not without hurting Dwight.”

“Dead's dead. Lost comrades serve the Cause from the grave routinely. ‘Don't mourn. Organize!' Don't tell me you haven't heard that one.”

“Things have shifted.”

“You and the ‘Enforcer.' ”

“ ‘Some people you wait your whole life for.' Wayne Tedrow told me that.”

Jack lit a cigarette. The sun hit his eyes. He pulled the visor down.

“IA's buried Scotty. They found his file, with Bowen all over it. They
made Scotty and Bowen for the Thornton job, belatedly. We weren't in the file. I'd have heard if we were.”

Joan cleaned her glasses on her shirttail. Jack did the same thing. She remembered the first time: Brooklyn, '46.

“We have seven million dollars.”

“I know.”

“I miss Celia. I'm too well known to go back to find her.”

Jack said, “She knew the risks. You instilled them in her. She told you not to find her if this happened. You have to respect that. It's how our world works.”

Joan tossed her cigarette. “You could go back.”

“I'm not going to.”

“On principle?”

“Yes.”

“Solely on principle?”

Jack squeezed her arm. It hurt. It was a jilted comrade/lover's move, '46.

“
You
called off the Operation.
I
did not.
You
had a sentimental lapse.
You
put a personal relationship before a duty, and
I
did not.”

Joan looked out her window. A young cop waved to her. She waved back.

Jack said, “I picked up a tip.”

“I'm listening.”

“Dwight put a black-bag team together for Nixon. We could capitalize on it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I'm not telling you.”

Jack laughed. Joan dry-popped two pills.

“We should have had a child together.”

Jack squeezed her arm, soft. “I remember the first time you said that.”

“When was it?”

“Fall '54. The Army-McCarthy hearings were on TV.”

“Why do we remember things that way?”

“Pure arrogance. We're self-absorbed and confuse our lives with History.”

Joan smiled. Jack opened his briefcase.

“I've got a file on your new friend. It was in Dwight's desk. Clyde Duber built it. He thought the kid might get out of line one day.”

• • •

DONALD LINSCOTT CRUTCHFIELD
. Born Los Angeles, 3/2/45. Brown hair, brown eyes, 5′9″/158.

Joan read at the fallback. The clothes nest smelled like her now. She caught less and less of Dwight.

Clyde Duber cribbed from PD reports and typed in his own notes. A Fed CBI carbon was clipped at the back. The persistent blur takes shape.

The racetrack-bum father. The missing mother. The boy at age ten. She sends him five dollars and a card every Christmas. The boy investigates.

Clyde Duber's postscript:

He located Margaret Woodard Crutchfield, May '65. She drank herself to death in Beaumont, Texas. He couldn't break the kid's heart. He tapped old pals nationwide. They continued the Christmas-gift tradition. The search gave the kid a non-perv task.

The kid was deft. “Voyeurs make good wheelmen and sometimes good investigators.” Clyde got the kid out of trouble and gave him work. He noted his intransigence and invisibility. He feared his “weird tendencies.” He noted the Dr. Fred Hiltz/Gretchen Farr case.

So it started then. You found me there
.

Celia was Gretchen that summer. She was near mad in that guise. She was bilking men and taking drugs and transporting cocaine in rented airplanes. She was off in a mystic phase. Revolution bored her. King's death and RFK's death produced vile hippie pranks. She was worried about Tattoo. She had hexed and de-hexed her. She devoutly believed that Tattoo was in jeopardy.
Summer '68. The boy sees you
.

The Duber typescript ended. Joan hit the CBI report. The boy knew a wheelman named Phil Irwin and a divorce lawyer named Charles Weiss. Irwin was an FBI informant. He snitched cheating spouses from his rope jobs. His FBI handler quoted him:

“Yeah, I'll admit it. My buddy Chick and I like to peep. We studied under the best, Crutch Crutchfield. There ain't a window in Hancock Park that that twisted cocksucker ain't put his snout up to. He never knew it, but Chick and I used to tail him and study his technique. Chick said he ‘scaled the Peeper Parthenon,' whatever the fuck that means.”

Three muni PD file notes were listed below. Santa Monica PD: Irwin and Weiss questioned for loitering, 9/67. Beverly Hills PD: Irwin and Weiss questioned for loitering, 4/68. LAPD file note, 5/68: Realtor Arnold D. Moffett questioned per “porno parties.”

She remembered the name. He rented “Gretchen” a house.

LAPD dropped the inquiry. Porno parties—so what? A KA list was footnoted:
four names, plus Charles Weiss. “Mr. Weiss shares Mr. Moffett's penchant for bizarre Negro art.”

Joan thought about the boy. Show him the file? Maybe, in part.

She found her pocketknife. She blade-redacted the lines on Margaret Woodard Crutchfield. The knife fit her hand precisely. She'd stabbed a picket-line goon with it in 1956.

(Los Angeles, 3/29/72)

R
edd Foxx said, “Scotty was fucking a porcupine. I gots to tell you motherfuckers that it was a
female
porcupine, so I don't see nothing perverted in it.”

Yuck, yuck—the crowd laffed, misty-eyed. Some coons offed Scotty—let's get zorched and mourn.

The wheelman lot. Early Christmas lights and plaid bunting. Booze and jelly bean–jar pharmaceuticals. You gots to love it.

Crutch, Clyde, Buzz, Phil Irwin and Chick Weiss. Milt C. onstage with Redd and Junkie Monkey. Ex-governor Pat Brown and numerous pigs. Fourteen Black Panthers. A colored heist guy turned TV evangelist. Frau Scotty and six of his girlfriends.

Junkie Monkey said, “Scotty popped my simian ass for a chump-change 211. I stole six moon pies, four bags of pork cracklings, a case of T-Bird and ten cartons of Kool king-size. Scotty saw that I had
soul
and let me live. We consumed all that motherfucking shit on the premises and went out lookin' for bitches.”

Yuck, yuck—we're grief-struck, but it's fun. Frau Scotty passed a joint to Girlfriend #4. Girlfriend #5 nibbled a hash brownie.

Redd Foxx said, “Scotty was out searchin' for this brother name of Cleofis. He was a stickup man and a booty bandit. He was robbing liquor stores with a sawed-off shotgun and banging Scotty's bitches with a piece of hard black steel ten times that size.”

Girlfriend #3 roared. Girlfriend #2 hugged Frau Scotty. Phil Irwin popped a Quaalude in the air. Chick Weiss caught it with his mouth. Pat Brown blinked—
Why am I here
?

The bash noise bashed him. He'd spent the day re-memorizing and phone calling. The parlay: D.R. safe houses and Hoover victims.

He re-memorized the CIA-safe-house list. He re-memorized the safe-house list from Joan's file. He got on the horn at pad #3 and called folks.

They vibed him as fuzz more than comrade. Joan's name got him some trust. It was name stew out of Joan's story and monologues. He ran phone checks and got numbers. He called and schmoozed the folks. He got updates and little tales back. J. Edgar fucked you—tell me about that.

They grapevined him. Jail terms, suicide, despondency. Early death and harassment. Lots of rat-out-your-pals barters—some succumbed to, some not.

He kept calling. The fuckers kept talking and feeding him numbers. He ran up his phone bill. The bad news avalanched him. Feds lurking at your window and your kids' school. You ragged Gay Edgar, loose chitchat,
now we'll get you
.

It got to him. It re-fueled
That Idea
. More suicides. More vanished loved ones. The grief had him earthquaked and tidal-waved.

Frau Scotty hopped onstage and got schmaltzy. It cued the Panthers to waltz. Junkie Monkey leered at Girlfriends #1 to #6. It cracked them up.

Crutch veered to the pay phone. It was still early. He could log more call-outs and more fuel. He coin-checked his pockets. Zilch on dimes and nickels. He pulled this sparkly emerald out.

His good-bye embrace. She slipped it to him then.

Babe, you didn't have to. You already sent me Red
.

Sills Tip-Top was North Vegas. The drive sapped him. She called it her lucky-charm place. If you have to come, meet me there.

It was a bum-fuck coffee shop near Nellis AFB. The a.m. crowd was enlisted geeks and lounge-act debris. He made it on time—snatch-hair margin.

She waited in a back booth. The joint was integrated. Minimal tension buzzed.

He sat down. Mary Beth said, “You always look like you're out of breath.”

A waitress poured him coffee. Crutch guzzled it and burned his mouth.

“I'm always running here to tell you something. I called ahead this time, though.”

Mary Beth sipped coffee. “You always look different. Maybe it's because I only see you at intervals and always in such distress.”

Crutch fumbled at his cup. Coffee spilled. Mary Beth wiped it up.

“You remind me of Wayne.”

“I'm so goddamn sorry for that.”

“Wayne made his bed. I was grateful to share it for a while, but it had to end the way it did.”

An air force chump evil-eyed them. Crutch hard-eyed him back.

Mary Beth said, “Don't. Look where big gestures took Wayne. Try to be more prudent. You'll be better served in the end.”

Crutch got a late road cramp. He stretched his legs and bumped Mary Beth. It jittered him. She sat still and let his fluster subside.

“I'm good at finding people.”

“You told me that last time.”

“I'm better now. I've learned some things.”

“You look different. I'll concede that.”

The waitress freshened their coffee. Mary Beth rolled up her blouse sleeves. She wore a silver bracelet with a single emerald inset.

“Your son sent you that stone.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm not telling you.”

Mary Beth looked out the window. Crutch tracked her eyes. She studied a
RE-ELECT NIXON
sign.

“I know where your son is.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm not telling you.”

She touched his hand. “I'm not going to ask you for it. You'll do whatever you're going to do, regardless of my wishes. The only thing I ask is that you don't attribute all your foolishness to some perceived debt to Wayne.”

The waitress walked up. Crutch jittered. Mary Beth laced their fingers. The waitress caught it and zoomed.

Mary Beth covered his hands and held them to the table. He saw the green flecks in her eyes.

“Why do you do these crazy things?”

Crutch thought about it.

Crutch said, “So women will love me.”

The herb guys lived close by. They shared lab space at this cat François' garage. Crutch showed up with beer and pizza. He caught a boil-and-sluice session in full swing.

The guys broke for a nosh-and-brew. Crutch said he had
An Idea
. I want to char-blacken paper short of combustion and flame.

Okay, baby boy. We work, you watch, you learn.

He explained Wayne's redaction work and his own mixed results. He
said he could carry liquids or powders, but no ray gizmos. He ran down all the molecule charts he'd just memorized. The guys jabbered in French and told him to watch.

Three boil plates ran overtime. He lost track of the proportions and the reduction process. François dumped piles of typing paper on the garage floor. The other guys filled Windex bottles with liquid. Crutch counted six bottles and paper piles. François walked pile to pile and spritzed.

Pile #1 sat there, wet. Pile #2 bubbled and dripped. Pile #3 exploded. Two guys stamped the fire out.

Pile #4 curdled and crackled and cut loose a black haze.

(Los Angeles, 4/1/72)

E
lla missed Dwight.

She told her stuffed animals. She didn't tell Karen. Plush
alligators
—Dwight's gifts to her.

Joan watched. Ella perched the gators on the picnic table and stage-whispered. She was three. She was developing stoic qualities and playing to adults. She'd learn to parcel information soon.

Dina darted into the house. Karen said, “I've decided to vanish. Too much has happened here. I'm going to take the girls and just go.”

Joan rubbed her wrists. They were healing. She removed the bandages last night. New scars were forming.

“Your husband?”

“I'll leave him a note. He's too self-interested to look for me. He'll miss the girls for a while and move on.”