Read The Cold Six Thousand Online
Authors: James Ellroy
The Cold Six Thousand (29 page)
Pete called Farlan Moss. Moss worked Sheriff’s Vice. Moss entrapped fruits and whores with panache. Pete hired him. The job: Sift dirt on Monarch Cab and Eldon Peavy.
Moss said he’d do it. Moss promised full disclosure. Moss promised results.
Carlos called Pete. Carlos eschewed Betty talk. Carlos made nice.
“Pete, I hope you swing Monarch. I’d love to buy in for some points.”
Pete said, “No.” Betty Mac hovered. Carlos said, “Let’s wait on Hank K.”
Pete said, “Okay.” Pete sat and waited. He shitcanned the scotch. His sleep improved. His nightmares lulled off.
He palled with Wayne. He palled with the cat. He spot-checked Monarch. He
drooled
. He called Fred Otash. He called his cop pals. They ran bulletin checks.
Wendell Durfee—where you be? Wendell be
nowhere
.
He got restless. He drove to Big D. Betty Mac hovered and laid down ghost tracks. He checked around. He checked the DPD file. He got no Durfee leads and no sightings.
Carlos called him. Carlos said, “Go. Clip Hank Killiam.”
Pete drove to Houston. Pete picked up Chuck Rogers. Chuck lived with his folks. They were dings. They wore Klan sheets to bed.
Pete and Chuck split eastward—Pensacola-bound.
They drove back roads. They dawdled. Chuck talked up Vietnam. John Stanton was there now. The CIA was in deep. Chuck knew a Saigon MP—a cat named Bob Relyea—ex-prison guard/ex-Klan.
Chuck talked to Bob. They enjoyed shortwave chats. Bob extolled Vietnam nonstop. It was
hot
. It was groovy. It was Cuba on Meth.
Chuck talked Cuba—
Viva la Causa!
—Pete ragged the De Ridder “troops.” They agreed—fuck Hank Hudspeth and Guy B. in the neck. They drank too much. They talked too much. They sold bad guns.
The South was wild—spring rains and big voodoo.
They drove through Louisiana. They bunked at exile camps. Chuck drilled the troops. Pete cleaned dirty guns.
The troops were substandard. The troops were spic trash. They split Cuba. They migrated. They scrounged right-wing welfare. They lacked balls. They lacked skills. They lacked savoir faire.
Chuck knew all the back roads. Chuck knew rib joints Dixiewide. They cut through Mississippi. They cut through Alabama. They dodged Fed cars. They hit cross burns. Chuck knew sheet boys statewide.
Nice kids—a bit dumb—a bit inbred.
They bunked at Klan kamps. They split at dawn. They passed torched churches. De-churched coons stood by.
Chuck laughed. Chuck waved. Chuck yelled, “Howdy, you-all!”
They hit Pensacola. They staked out Hank K. Hank K. stayed inside. They invaded his pad. They slit his throat. They drove his body around. They dawdled. They cruised to 3:00 a.m. They found a TV-store window.
They tossed Hank in. Hank broke the glass. Hank crashed Zeniths and RCAs.
The Pensacola
Trib
/third column/page 2:
BIZARRE SUICIDE. LOCAL MAN
dives to death.
Chuck flew to Houston. Pete drove to Vegas. Pete sloughed off Hank K. Hank was male. Hank knew the rules. Hank got no gender relief.
Pete killed time. Pete palled with the cat. Pete palled with Wayne. They caught Barb’s gigs. They sat ringside. Wayne dug on Barb. Wayne played it straight. Wayne honored women that way.
6/14/64: Guy Banister dies. It’s heart attack #4. Chuck calls. Chuck gloats. Chuck explicates.
Carlos said, “Kill him.” Chuck employed excess digitalis.
Chuck laughed. Chuck said, “Don’t be hurt. Carlos wanted to give you a rest.”
DOCUMENT INSERT:
6/30/64. Confidential Report. From: Farlan D. Moss. Submitted to: Pete Bondurant. Topic: “Criminal Activities of Eldon Lowell Peavy (White Male/46), the Monarch Cab Business & the Golden Cavern Hotel-Casino/with Index of Known Criminal Associates.”
Mr. Bondurant,
As promised, my report & attached rap sheet carbons on Subject Peavy’s KAs. As we discussed, please make no copies and destroy upon reading.
OWNERSHIP & LICENSE/TAX STATUS OF
LEGITIMATELY OWNED BUSINESSES
Subject PEAVY is the sole owner of the
Monarch Cab Company
(1st Clark County Licensed 9/1/55), the
Golden Cavern Hotel-Casino
(Nevada Gaming Commission licensed 6/8/57), the
“Sid the Surplus Sergeant” Store
(business license transferred to Subject PEAVY 12/16/60) & the
Cockpit Cocktail Lounge
in Reno (Nevada liquor license #6044/dated 2/12/58). (Note: Said lounge is a homosexual meeting place.) All of Subject PEAVY’s state & local operating licenses are up-to-date & in good standing, as are his Federal, state & county (Clark/Washoe) business taxes, personal taxes, property taxes, workers compensation fund taxes & his registering of ex-convicts in his employ. Subject PEAVY (no doubt eager to guard his reputation & retain his seats on the Nevada Gaming Control Board & Clark County Liquor & Control Board) is a scrupulous record keeper & observer of official business codes.
ILLEGAL ON-SITE ACTIVITIES (PER ABOVE BUSINESSES)
Subject PEAVY’s four businesses sustain criminal enterprises & serve as gathering spots for known criminals & homosexuals. All four are police-agency protected, which should serve to hinder you in your takeover strategy. The Cockpit Lounge (protected by
Washoe County Sheriff’s Dept.) is a distribution point for homosexual pornography (films & photographs), Mexican-made fetish paraphernalia & amyl nitrite vials pilfered from the Washoe County Medical Center. Male prostitutes congregate on the premises & the pay phones are used as contact points for a “Date-A-Boy” service run by
Cockpit
bartenders RAYMOND “GAY RAY” BIRNBAUM (white male/39/see rap sheet index) & GARY DE HAVEN (white male/28/see index). Subject PEAVY allegedly receives a percentage of all profits accrued from felonious enterprises conducted on the
Cockpit
premises.
The
“Sid the Surplus Sergeant” Store
(521 E. Fremont) serves as a pick-up point for male prostitutes working out of the
Glo-Ann Motel
(604 E. Fremont) and as a contact point for “Chicken Hawks” (older or married homosexual men who prey on young boys) attempting to instigate assignations. Losing gamblers & male UNLV students anxious to earn money congregate in the parking lot & sleep in their cars there in hope of promoting “dates.” The store manager, SAMMY “SILK” FERRER (white male/44/also a Monarch cab driver/see rap sheet index), permits said “dates” to occur in back rooms on the store premises & often surreptitiously films them thru hidden wall peeks. FERRER compiles film footage, edits it into pornographic “loops” & sells said “loops” out of the
Hunky Monkey Bar,
a notorious establishment catering to “rough trade” homosexuals. FERRER & Subject PEAVY also screen pornographic films (homosexual & heterosexual content) in back rooms on the premises. This is a recreational activity for Monarch Cab personnel & their favored customers. (Note: Actors ROCK HUDSON & SAL MINEO & ex-heavyweight champ SONNY LISTON are Monarch Cab/Golden Cavern habitues & frequently view films at
“Sid the Surplus Sergeant.”)
The
Monarch Cab Company
& its office/dispatch hut (919 Tilden St., N. Las Vegas) is the hub of Subject PEAVY’S illegal (albeit protected) enterprises. Subject PEAVY employs 14 full & part-time drivers, 6 of whom are presumed homosexuals with no criminal records & no outstanding Nevada State traffic warrants. The other 8 (all known homosexuals) are:
The prev. ment’d SAMMY “SILK” FERRER; HARVEY D. BRAMS; JOHN “CHAMP” BEAUCHAMP; WELTON V. ANSHUTZ; SALVATORE “SATIN SAL” SALDONE; DARYL EHMINTINGER; NATHAN WERSHOW & DOMINIC “DONKEY DOM” DELLACROCIO. All 8 drivers have extensive criminal records, with offenses inc. sodomy, armed
robbery, flim-flam, statutory rape, male prostitution, narcotics possession & dismissed homicide charges (see rap sheet index). DELLACROCIO, BEAUCHAMP, BRAMS & SALDONE also work out of the Golden Cavern Hotel-Casino as male prostitutes. DELLACROCIO (a part-time driver & dancer in the “Vegas A Go-Go” show at the New Frontier Hotel) is also a pornographic film actor. DELLACROCIO sometimes recruits other chorus dancers to work as male prostitutes.
Monarch Cab
maintains & services illegally placed slot machines in numerous West Las Vegas bars. The operation is overseen by MILTON H. (HERMAN) CHARGIN (white male/53/no criminal record), a non-homosexual & former scandal magazine writer
(Lowdown
&
Whisper
magazines), a part-time Monarch Cab dispatcher & Subject PEAVY’s on-site “Executive Officer,” i.e., the man who imposes order on Subject PEAVY’s crew.
All 14 drivers sell prescription pills (Seconal, Nembutal, Tuinal, Empirin-Codeine, Dexedrine, Dexamyl, Desoxyn, Biphetamine) supplied to them by Las Vegas-based doctors. (Said doctors are paying off gambling markers to local hotel-casinos, as part of a reciprocal agreement between casino pit bosses & Subject PEAVY. See Known Associates Index for list of doctors & casino personnel.)
The drivers sell largely to Negroes in W. Las Vegas, Mexicans & Nellis AFB enlisted men in N. Las Vegas, lounge entertainers & Los Angeles-based homosexual junketeers who use
Monarch Cab
limousines for airport pick-ups & reside at the
Golden Cavern.
Again, this operation is LVPD & CCSD-sanctioned.
The Golden Cavern Hotel-Casino
(1289 Saturn St., N. Las Vegas) is a 35-room/60-table establishment of the “Grind Joint” variety. It is properly licensed & run & caters to “low-roller” tourists & gamblers. Subject PEAVY & his on-site manager, RICHARD “RAMROD RICK” RINCON (also a part-time pornographic film actor) retain six detached bungalows as “Party” or “Orgy Pads” for visiting homosexuals, who are supplied with male prostitutes, exotic liquors, take-out food, room projectors, pornographic films & the prev. ment’d illegal prescription pills, along with amyl nitrite and marijuana. Numerous movie & TV stars are frequent bungalow residents, inc. DANNY KAYE, JOHNNIE RAY, LIBERACE, WALTER PIDGEON, MONTGOMERY CLIFT, DAVE GARROWAY, BURT LANCASTER, LEONARD BERNSTEIN, SAL MINEO, RANDOLPH SCOTT & ROCK HUDSON. A favored male prostitute of the above is driver/dancer/pornographic film actor DOMINIC “DONKEY DOM”
DELLACROCIO.
The Golden Cavern
is well-known in the homosexual underworld & reservations are frequently secured through “Middlemen” who habituate local homosexual bar-tryst spots such as the
Klondike, the Hunky Monkey, the Risque Room & the Gay Caballero.
PORNOGRAPHIC FILM BUSINESS OF ELDON PEAVY
Subject PEAVY has placed himself in his greatest business-takeover jeopardy through his funding of and participation in a pornographic film racket with origins in Chula Vista, California (a border town) & Tijuana, Mexico. The racket is implemented by Tijuana policemen who employ & frequently coerce underaged girls to “act” in them, along with male actors (of adult age) & animals used in live Tijuana stage shows. The girls are primarily runaways from California & Arizona & I have identified six of them from viewings of the films & comparisons to photographs on Missing-Persons bulletins. The girls ID’d (MARILU FAYE JEANETTE/14; DONNA RAE DARNELL/16; ROSE SHARON PAOLUCCI/14; DANA LYNN CAFFERTY/13; LUCILLE MARIE SANCHEZ/16 & WANDA CLARICE KASTELMEYER/14) appear in a total of 87 films shot in Tijuana & sold via telephone mail-order by prev. ment’d PEAVY known-associate SAMMY “SILK” FERRER (Note: these are the films shown at the
“Sid the Surplus Sergeant” Store)
.
The films are both hetero & homosexual in content. Prev. ment’d known associate RICHARD “RAMROD RICK” RINCON appears in the homosexual films “Ramrod Man,” “Ramrod Boy,” “Ramrod King,” “Ramrod Stud,” “Naughty Ramrod” & “Ramrod Rams It Home.” Prev. ment’d KA DOMINIC “DONKEY DOM” DELLACROCIO appears in the homosexual films “Greek Man,” “BackDoor Man,” “Hung Man,” “Big Dick Man,” “12-Inch Man,” “Moby Dick Man,” “Moby Dick’s Delight,” “Moby Dick Misbehaves,” “Moby Dick’s Greek Vacation” & “Moby Dick Meets the 69 Boys.”
The films are shot on 8-millimeter film stock & shipped to “
Sid the Surplus Sergeant
” from the main Chula Vista post office. Prev. ment’d KA SAMMY “SILK” FERRER receives & stores the films at his apt. (10478 Arrow Highway, Henderson) & ships them from the Henderson P.O. (See index for list of films, Chula Vista & Henderson ship dates & names & addresses of recipients.)
In conclusion, I believe that ELDON LOWELL PEAVY is indictable on a total of 43 Nevada State, California State, Arizona
State & Federal charges pertaining to his suborning & exploitation of minor children, his transporting of pornographic material & his conspiring to distribute lewd & lascivious products. (See attached mimeograph copies of applicable penal code sections & Fed. statutes.)
Again, please read & destroy.
(Neshoba County, 6/30/64)
T
he AC died. Littell dipped his window.
He drove I-20. He passed Fed cars. He passed camera vans.
Klan kars tailed them. Said kars sported decals. “AYAK” meant “Are You A Klansman?” “AKIA” meant “A Klansman I Am.”
He’d called Mr. Hoover. He’d mentioned his trip. Mr. Hoover approved.
“A salutary idea. You can meet with Bayard Rustin and observe ‘Freedom Summer’ in the flesh. I would be delighted to hear your perceptions, minus your pro-Negro views.”
He brought twenty grand. Ten for Bayard Rustin/ten for some Cuban exiles. Pete scored on Clay-Liston. Pete had his own tithe.
It was hot. Bugs bombed the car. Klan kars blew by. Klan klods sneered at him. Klan kooks flipped him off.
He looked Fed. That made him a ten-ring. He brought his gun along—safety first.
Lyle Holly called him in Vegas. Lyle Holly stressed caution. Lyle Holly ragged his planned trip.
Don’t do it. You look Fed. The Klan hates you. The whites hate you. The lefties hate your guts.
Littell passed Bogue Chitto Swamp. Littell saw drag-line crews. The kids were dead. Lyle said so. Mr. Hoover said some Choctaws found their car.
It vibed Klan. Mr. Hoover was pissed. We’ll martyr the kids now. We’ll shit on states’ rights.
