James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (21 page)

Wayne balled the paper up and tossed it. A dykey nun with a peace-dove button scowled at him. He was trashed. The Golden Cavern meet was two days out. The Grapevine felt imminent.

Cabs dumped outgoing passengers and snagged incoming meat. Wayne glanced around. This one kid looked familiar—the dumb bow tie and crew cut.

Wayne made him. The Miami tail kid, looking raw now. He told Mesplede to clip him.

He didn't see Wayne. The dykey nun got aggressive. She motioned two Negro nuns to cut in front of him.

Wayne let it go.

(Las Vegas, 8/29/68)

B
utterfingers. The wires kept slipping and missing the holes. His hands were that trembly. His brain was that cooked.

Fred Turentine said, “You got the yips, son.”

Crutch tried to re-concentrate. Bug work: suite 307 at the Golden Cavern Hotel. The Otash/Tedrow meet was tomorrow. This was their final spot check.

He pushed wires up the lamp base and crimped them. The pliers slipped. The lamp jiggled and almost toppled. Fred T. went whoa, son.

He killed two men. He wasn't quite straight with it. The Frogman was back in Miami now. He kept calling him. The phone just rang and rang. The dead spics were Commies and Cuban Cause traitors. They took lives and he took theirs, and that part didn't hurt. The picture replay hurt. He was zorched then. The replay ran in VistaVision and Cinerama. His world was double-imaged. The pictures re-ran with double clarity and at half the speed.

Fred caught a loose wire and re-taped it. Crutch fumbled the toolbox.

He couldn't sleep. He couldn't think about his case. He kept looking at the pictures of Joan.

(Los Angeles, 8/29/68)

T
he ceiling fan fluttered the sheets. The cool air gave them goose bumps. Dwight felt a contraction. He knew why—Eleanora just kicked.

Karen said, “I should be in Chicago. I shouldn't be in a folding bed in an FBI drop-front.”

She was fuller now. Her nipples were bigger. Her hipbones had disappeared.

“It was bad. I'm glad you didn't go.”

“What's-His-Name was at Lincoln Park. He called it a ‘massacre.' ”

Dwight grabbed his cigarettes. Karen looked tempted. Dwight put them back down.

“Don't make me jealous, or I'll hang a sedition case on him.”

Karen laughed. “Did it feel inevitable to you?”

“If you mean preordained and mutually agreed upon, yes.”

“You're very religious, you know. You understand your personal responsibility to God, but you're remiss and outright negligent in your secular practice.”

Dwight smiled. “I rely on you for these perceptions. And I quoted you to a man in Chicago two days ago.”

“How did you describe me?”

“As very wise.”

“Not as duplicitous and compromised in my affections?”

“We didn't get that far.”

Karen kissed his shoulder. “Did you find your infiltrator?”

“Yes.”

“Then something's wrong.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You're tense, but you're trying not to appear tense. You always do little things with your hands when you're trying to convince me that things are all right.”

Dwight flexed his hands. His law-school ring fit loose. He was missing meals and running on coffee. “Okay, you're right.”

“Is it some bad thing you've done or some bad thing you're planning?”

Dwight gave Karen the look—case closed on that. She rolled onto her back and cupped his hands on the swell of Eleanora.

“I've got my infiltrator. He's brilliantly good, but that's all I can tell you right now.”

“All right. And now you need an informant.”

“Right. And you know that woman Joan.”

Karen stretched. “I'll have to ask around. I don't know her personally. Someone will have to find her for me.”

He felt a pulse on his hands. Soft—like Eleanora had moved more than kicked.

Karen reached for his cigarettes. Dwight grabbed them and threw them on the floor. Karen laughed and made her belly jiggle.
Then
Eleanora kicked.

Dwight said, “Do you love me?”

Karen said, “I'll think about it.”

(Las Vegas, 8/29/68)

I
t was her. He knew it would be. He got the picture just to see her again.

It was a Nevada DMV photo. Mary Beth Hazzard sat posed for her driver's license shot. She was born 6/4/24. She was ten years, one month and fourteen days older than him.

Wayne sat in his car, outside the DMV. He'd bribed a clerk for a copy of the woman's driver file. License since 6/4/40. No moving violations. “Must wear corrective lenses to drive.”

He read that newspaper piece. He saw her at the funeral. The widow Hazzard. The missing son. I got your husband—

She ran the Hotel Workers' Union. The union was fighting the Hotel Owners' Council. The issue was segregation. Dracula owned a score of union-targeted hotels. Picketing was going down at a dozen locations. The LVPD was monitoring it.

Wayne looked at the picture. He couldn't peel his eyes back. He liked the shape of her face and the flow of her hair.

(Las Vegas, 8/30/68)

T
he feed lines worked. The 307 to 308 wiring laid firm. Crutch bored a tiny spy hole through the wall yesterday. Sight and sound access, confirmed.

The console faced the connecting wall. Crutch settled in with his headphones. Fred T. was back in L.A. This gig was his solo.

The Frogman called him last night. Their talk calmed him down. Fuentes and Arredondo were rogue and Deep Red. The Chicago PD would short-shift their inquiry. The Frogman praised his balls and described a plan he was hatching.

Sabotage runs. Island hops with flamethrowers and C-4 explosives. Raids on Castro militia camps. Propaganda-leaflet runs. A heroin biz to finance the operation.

Froggy laid out the vile deeds of Fuentes and Arredondo. They were Red lice nesting in
putain
Fidel's beard. Crutch started grooving on his Commo kills. He went to a seamstress and got little 2's embroidered in his tartan bow tie.

The 308 door opened.
Click/thump
—that's the sound. Crutch checked the spy hole. On time: Fred Otash and Wayne Tedrow.

They sat down. They chitchatted. They sat away from the lamp feed. Their voices were dim.

Click/thump
—the door again. This time: a tall, gray-suited man. Crutch heard garbles and read lips. Fred O. and Wayne called the man Dwight.

The console-to-spy-hole cord was stretched taut. Crutch pulled up a chair and got adjusted. Note: re-spackle the spy hole tomorrow.

The doorbell rang. Fred O. opened up.
Sacre Frog
—there's Jean-Philippe Mesplede.

Confluence
. Clyde Duber's word. It's who you know and who you blow and how you're all linked.

Wayne introduced Fred O. to the Frogman. They spewed some stat-icky talk. Fred O. introduced Dwight to the Frogman and spieled his last name as Holly.

Confluence
. Dwight Holly knew Clyde. Dwight Holly tapped Clyde to tail Marsh Bowen in Chicago.

Crutch got situated. His headphones fit tight and the spy hole was there at eye level. The 308 crew pulled chairs up close to the lamp feed. Fred O. bopped to the wet bar and came back with highballs and chips. Dwight Holly declined the drink. The other guys dug in. Crutch got a vibe: this had nothing to do with his case.

Clock it—3:18 p.m. Roll the tape, live.

The guys settled in. Sentence fragments overlapped. Dwight and the Frogman lit cigarettes. Fred O. looked plump and sassy, back to his normal bulk. Wayne looked raggedy-ass and too thin.

Fred O. said, “Enough bullshit,” pitch-perfect headphone sound.

Dwight Holly said, “There'll be six men. They always stay after hours. It's always them and just them, and I don't think they'll vary the routine on the night we go in.”

Wayne said, “When?”

Fred O. said, “We're set on my end. I've got the plant guns, Dwight's got the dope. I think we can be in and out in five minutes.”

Dwight Holly said, “Four. The takedown will be easy. They'll be blitzed and they'll be surprised. It's all about rigging the forensic. St. Louis PD has a shit crime lab, but I still want the wound spill and trajectories to make some kind of sense.”

Crutch started sweating. His earphones wetted up and produced crackle hiss. “Six men,” “plant guns,” “wound spill”—

Mesplede said, “ ‘Grapevine.' That is an American colloquialism, correct? It means ‘a source of information.' So, it is idiomatic. And in that manner, it becomes the name of a hoodlum's meeting place.”

Fred O. yukked. Ditto Dwight. Wayne flinched. Crutch caught it late.

June 20. THAT NIGHT. Talk fragments—grapevine/Tommy/plant—Joan and Gretchen/Celia
.

The headphones
pooled
sweat. Crutch whipped them off, wiped them dry and put them back on. He got four-way garbles, fuzz, bips, pops, line hiss. Sweat-clogged feeder lines,
shit
.

More bips and line hiss. Food noise—Fred O. and the Frogman snarfed chips. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them dry and put them
back on. He pressed up to the spy hole. He squinted. He tried to read lips and gestures and sync them to hiss. He got squeaks, he got crackle, he got words here and there in the mix.

He heard “Memphis.” He saw Wayne twitch. He heard “patsy,” “King,” “Ray.” Dwight Holly and Wayne shared queasy looks. He heard food noise. He squinted harder. He breathed harder. He fogged up the spy hole. He lost a full minute to
bip-bip-bips
.

He heard “witness.”

He heard “grapevine” again.

HE STARTED TO GET IT
.

Fred O. ran a monologue. His bass voice cut down line hiss. Crutch heard “Sirhan.” Crutch heard “Bobby K.” Fred O. mimed a shooting—bam, bam, you're dead. Wayne and Dwight H. shared a
très
queasy look.

HE GOT MORE OF IT
. His bladder almost blew. He clenched up, sucked up and kept it in.

The spy hole was fogged. The bug line was clogged. Fucking potato chip–chomping noise fucked it up worse. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them and put them back on. Crutch spit on the spy-hole glass and shirt-wiped it clean.

He got more sight. He got more sound. He saw the Frogman's lips move. He heard incoherent yak-yak and “Dallas.” He heard Frenchy word cuisine, “Cuba,” “revenge.”

The sound died altogether. Crutch shook his head. The phones cleared and the bug line re-fed. He got hiss, snap, crackle, pop, buzz, fuzz, bips. He heard “
Le grand putain
Jack.” He saw Jean-Philippe Mesplede assume a rifleman's pose.

And he pissed in his pants.

And he shit in his pants.

And he vomited and gasped.

He pulled off his headphones. He ran to the console, pulled the main wire and ripped Spackle out of the wall. He made a small through hole. It fed into 308, all wire-free. The Spackle blew back into his suite. He squinted and put his ear to the hole—God, please please please.

The meeting was done. The men stood at the door. Dwight Holly said, “One last thing.”

The other men nodded. Dwight Holly said, “No women. If there's women there, we pull out.”

Fred O. nodded reluctant. Mesplede rolled his eyes. Wayne Tedrow clutched Dwight Holly's wrist.

(St. Louis, 9/3/68)

T
hrowdown guns—check. Insulin needles—check. Liquid cocaine—check. One last mug shot–memorization look.

Brundage, Currie, Pierce. Kling, DeJohn, Luce.

They were all inside. They were all armed. They were all blitzed. They entered between 10:41 and 12:49. Dwight played inside man and observed them. He chatted up Pierce and laid some groundwork. I'm a Schenley's sales rep. I do the deliveries. Sometimes they go late.

It was 3:10 now. They were still in there. Otash made a wax fit of the back-door lock yesterday. It was a clean walk-in. The Schenley's man and his pals with booze. Hey, Tommy Pierce—long time no see.

They parked behind the Grapevine. They wore jeans and duck-blind windbreakers—Okie hunter gear. They had four Schenley's boxes.

Dwight had a vented .45. Wayne had a .38 snub. Otash had a Colt Python. Mesplede had a long-barrel .32.

The van was stolen. Mesplede clouted it. They wore gloves for the ride over. Dwight felt calm. Otash and Mesplede looked calm. Wayne looked
too
calm—Dwight figured he was on something.

Music inside—hee-haw/hoedown shit. A country fiddle brayed and screeched.

Dwight tapped his watch. They got out of the van. Mesplede leaned in and dispensed the boxes. Otash walked over, unlocked the back door and left it ajar. A storeroom light was on. Dwight saw canned goods on shelves. High-pitched fiddle chords scraped.

Dwight tapped his watch—
now
.

They pulled out their guns and held them under the boxes. They clumped and made he-man grunts and nonchalantly walked in.

The storeroom led to the tavern proper. Their big-boot clomps and macho groans pre-announced them. The six fucks were sitting on two dumb leather sofas. They faced each other. A plank table was plopped down between them. It was covered with bottles, glasses and junk-food debris.

Dwight yelled, “Hey there, Tommy.” Heads turned their way. Dwight head-counted and got seven, not six.

An extra man. Fortyish and curly-haired. Interloper/sorry, pal/it's just too late.

Looks traveled quick. Tommy Pierce cued the guys—this is okay. Dwight huffed and puffed over. Otash, Mesplede and Wayne were bunched behind him. It was a left-side, front-entry-wound, in-tight approach.
The seven fucks just sat there
. Dwight dropped the cue line: “Yeah, I know it's late.”