James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (71 page)

I'm holding back Reggie in Haiti and
the Woman
as Joan. She's Dwight Holly's lover. That makes her unapproachable. Dwight Holly fucked with could blow our deal sky-high.

Mindscapes: feints, jabs, withholdings and deceptions.

I'm holding back from Scotty. I've made stabs at getting
full
customs files on Reginald Hazzard and have failed. Access requires legal warrants. My hold-backs are motivated by pure hubris and pure race hate. I learned some things from
OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER
. Kudos to Mr. Holly: I did, in part, transcend my self-serving actor's pathology. I
did
become radicalized.

Scotty Bennett represents the white world out to level me with indifference. I cannot let that be. Scotty is the white oppressor, and I will not knuckle down to him. Scotty will not split the money and emeralds. I must get to them first and kill Scotty before he kills me.

I've made three trips to Haiti. I've synced them to Scotty's
boozy weeklong fishing trips with his cop pals. Sal had been to Haiti on a film shoot and shared his knowledge of that wondrous and atavistic place. I flew to Port-au-Prince. I toured Haiti as a middle-class, French-fluent black man. I displayed my Reggie Hazzard photograph and asked questions. I learned nothing substantive and smelled the obvious fact that Reginald had to be here.

Haiti was primitive and seductive. I felt like I was regressing. It was an actor's immersion process. I visited voodoo-sect taverns and drank klerin alcohol. I dreamt of armless men with wings. I attended a few voodoo ceremonies and ate handfuls of herbs. I came out of trances and found myself dancing with wooden-masked men. I awoke from an herb trip and saw that I had blood on my hands. The man in bed beside me said I had eaten a fresh-killed chicken.

My shape-shifting personality served me well in Haiti. I pretended to be a French tourist, which assisted me in my queries on Reginald. Nobody knew Reginald. Many people told me tales of the late Wayne Tedrow and his brave pro-Haitian acts. What would poor Wayne say to that? People walk around with photographs of him attached to their necks. I heard the story of Wayne's death twenty or thirty times. The details varied. Several people told me that winged men came for him. Wayne and I shared the dream-state concept. He related it to chemistry. It was all about fated souls in flux.

I've been to Haiti three times. I'll be back. Reginald Hazzard has to be there.

(Los Angeles, 3/15/71–11/18/71)

P
eeper
.

It's his old name and his new name re-discovered. Guys used to call him Dipshit and
pariguayo
. He asked Clyde about it. Clyde said, “You've been around awhile. People in The Life know you. There's rumors about you. Some guys believe them, some guys don't. If a handle sticks to you, you've got to figure there's some truth in it.”

He let it go. He didn't mention his JFK/MLK/RFK hit knowledge. He didn't mention his Commie kills or his case. He didn't mention his nightmares or the shit he saw and did on that island.

Peeper—sure, it's true. Peeper—it's okay for now.

He tail-jobbed for Clyde and Chick Weiss. He entrapped cheating spouses. He kicked in doors and peered in windows.

Peeper, sure. Reader, too. Part-time student—that fits.

He read some more chemistry books and left-wing-theory books. He mixed a sulfur paste and blew up a street sign at 1st and Oxford. He learned about the Wobblies and the
L.A. Times
bombing. He mixed fertilizer paste and blew up a
VIVA
VIETNAM
sign.

There was a dream movement inside of him. It was like he was becoming Reggie and Wayne.

He studied. He learned. He part-time Tiger-kabbed. He drove to Vegas and tried to find the Haitian herb man. The guy was gone. He asked around and found some other herb guys. None of them knew Reggie. They all knew how to cook herbs and induce wild shit.

They said they'd teach him. He spent two weeks in Vegas and learned tricks. They taught him how to mix toad organs and blowfish toxins.
They showed him how ferns and tree-frog livers caused heart attacks. He learned zombification. He mixed grand mal seizure potions. He learned some dope-trip formulas. He bought herbs, tubes and beakers. He learned some Kreole French.

He blew up a Nixon sign in East L.A. He popped herbs, drove around and peeped windows. He tried leapfrogging Dwight Holly again. Dwight lost him three times running. He lucked out on tail #4.

Dwight drove to a bungalow in Silver Lake. He perched and peeped. Dwight stayed inside for long stretches. Dwight took breaks and walked to a house down the street. A tall woman and two little girls lived there. A part-time hubby showed on occasion. He checked house-sale records and got the woman's name: Karen Sifakis.

He did more checking. He stiffed a call to Clyde. Clyde said Karen S. was a college prof and a Fed snitch. She was Big Dwight's lover. Big Dwight back-doored the hubby. It was going on five or six years.

He popped herbs and surveilled the bungalow. It was file-packed, like his pads. He thought about breaking in. He couldn't do it. The thought immobilized him. He'd learned all this new shit. It made him sit still and just
look
.

Then she was there.

She was older and more gray and even more fierce. Her glasses still fit crooked. Her slouchy walk was the same. He perched out of sight and watched her arrive for twenty days straight. He anticipated what she'd wear. Some days he saw her knife scar, some days he didn't. He still had the 6/14 scar on his back.

He watched her come and go. He started to get a sense of what it all meant.

He's the nexus of great and startling events. Nobody knows and nobody cares. He has linked a series of baffling crimes. Nobody knows and nobody cares. Scotty Bennett and Marsh Bowen killed Lionel Thornton and are chasing the armored-car swag. He knows this. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

Scotty distrusts Marsh. Scotty is levying a fruit squeeze. Sal cannot seduce Marsh. He knows this. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

Jack Leahy redacted Joan Rosen Klein's file. Nobody knows and nobody cares. He tailed Joan to Jack and surveilled three of their lunch dates. He hovered close by. He heard them discuss Celia, lost in the D.R. He heard the word
Haiti
. Reggie was living in Haiti. He sensed it quite strongly. Reggie sends out the emeralds. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

He's alone in his quests. Joan and Jack were in on the heist. He accepts that conclusion as fact. Marsh and Scotty know more and less than he
does. He has worked this case for a very long time. It is all unprovable. His paper trials are logically inviolate and specious. It is all in his head.

The island terrifies him. He's afraid to go back. He might become that monster child again and lose everything he has.

He's a kid chemist and a kid Red now. He reads files and books and passes out in paper. His mother's file, Wayne's file, the file on “Tattoo.” He gets lost in logical surety and inconsistency. Nobody knows how hard he works and nobody cares.

Tattoo wanted to meet film-biz men. He didn't know
who
she met. His suspect pool was large. Joan did not kill Tattoo. It consoled him. It allowed him to track her and live that much more with her.

Joan has lunch with Karen Sifakis. He observes them. He knows they share a love for Dwight Holly. They never mention Dwight. He's the third party hovering. Only peepers know how this works.

He follows Joan. He lives in the hope that she will lead him somewhere. It must justify all the time he has spent with her. She must do something or say something that will let him rest and give this all up.

I have been following you for three years, four months and twenty-nine days. I know you have a story you can only tell to me
.

November 18, 1971–March 26, 1972

(Puckett, 11/18/71)

“S
o, who'm I gonna kill?”

“You'll know him when you see him.”

“You picked a date yet?”

“Next summer's our best shot. It has to happen in L.A.”

“These political hits stir up lots of shit. Various patriotic groups get scrutinized pretty good.”

The kampground was krowded.
Mi kasa es su kasa
. The Exalted Knights invited some kolleagues. Sleepover kamp. Klan klods, Cuban exiles, South American
fascistas
.

The bunkhouse was full. The gun range did brisk biz. The county sheriff dressed a four-point elk. His deputies built a cook pit.

Bob said, “You
want
the conspiracy talk. I'm just afraid my name'll pop up on the suspect list.”

Dwight shook his head. “It won't. The fall guy's taking all the bows on this one. Nobody will want to look past him. We've built him from the ground up. The more you look, the more you'll want to keep looking.”

Bob got sulky. He scooched low in his chair. His sheet brushed the dirt. It was mid-fall hot. Dusk came on. Exiles propped up arc lights. Some beat-on Klan frau prepped a buffet.

Dwight shut his eyes. It cued Bob to split. You're a loser assassin, please go away.

Bob meandered. Dwight opened his eyes. The kampsite was deklassé. His daddy's Klan was high-swank compared to this. Indiana, the '20s. Nativist gabfests and pyramid schemes. Eugenics readings. A ladies' string kwartet.

Full night hit. Bugs bombed the arc lights. The roast elk smelled good. The nuts hit the snack buffet for sour mash and Cheetos.

Dwight walked away from the party. The arc lights glowed wide and hot. The kampsite was dirt-floored. The Klan klowns mingled. Their sheets were soiled to the knees.

Joan worried him. She was haggard. She was chain-smoking and knocking back double scotches at night. She was vicious per Mr. Hoover. It was un-utilitarian and very un-Joan. She refused to explain her invective. She stonewalled his queries with looks and “I'm not telling you.” It was frustrating. Their time frame was “insanely protracted.” She knew Mr. Hoover was elderly and traveled far less. He had been somewhat discredited. He did fewer public gigs. Doctor's visits preempted his recent jaunts. The White House was telexing an updated schedule. Joan was worried about Celia. He stiffed an unscheduled call to the prez and requested help. Nixon rebuffed him. “You've been to that well, kid. You can't keep coming back.”

Odd things moved her. Lionel Thornton's death stuck and held. She refused to say
why
. Scotty Bennett worked the case and closed the case, toot sweet. Scotty vaguely troubled him. Scotty had a tweaky friendship going with Marsh. Peeper Crutchfield reported it before the “Blastout.” Marsh's life would be fine-tooth-combed postmortem. It begged a question: should they insert Scotty in the fake diary?

Flying bugs bombed the arc lights. The nuts ate, drank and ignored him. They knew he was FBI. Their bias was misdirected. They were punk punsters. FBI: Federal Bureau of
Integration
.

The diary defined the Operation. He worked on it while Joan or Karen slept. He utilized Marsh's verbal style and emphasized a political language he'd evolved in his head. He attributed his own childhood memories to Marsh. Alchemy and transposition. He was a sand-kicking Klan kid. Marsh was a sand-kicked-in-the-face black boy. He was building a sympathetic portrait. He was creating Marsh's non-existent crush on Agent Holly himself. It was distorting Marsh's work on OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER. He knew nothing of the Marsh-Scotty relationship. The diary must etch Scotty with verismo. The Scotty sections must withstand public scrutiny and Scotty's bellicose rebuttals. The theme should be authority. Marsh hates it ideologically, but cannot let it ago. He's like his old chum Mr. Holly that way.

The Klanfest picked up steam. Story fragments drifted over. Emmett Till was a Commie agent. Rosa Parks turned tricks for a Zionist cabal. Dr. King was a hermaphrodite.

A Klan tot brought Dwight food and a Jax lager. He thanked her and watched her skip off. Fat spritzed off the elk meat and killed his appetite. He lit a cigarette.

Joan kept taking the fertility pills. He never told her that he'd had them analyzed. She turned forty-five last month. It couldn't happen. He fucked with the notion, despite that. It was a pipe dream. It felt good for a while. It ran in shorter and shorter arcs. It reminded him what his life was. It took him to Karen's kids and dropped him somewhere cold in the rain.

Klan kliques pulled chairs up nearby him. They balanced paper plates and told tales. A guy sold Che Guevara's dick to Josef Mengele. The Fourth Reich would rise from Paraguay. A guy told a story of right-wing coups and mystic emeralds.

Joan drank tea in bed. The herbs flushed through her skin, bitter. He noticed new gray in her eyebrows.

Her robe was open. The herbs made her sweat. Dwight kissed the sheen off her breasts.