James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (22 page)

Off that last syllab
—

They dropped the boxes. They aimed and fired down. They emptied their guns at their pre-assigned targets, all body mass and face.
The fucks just sat there
. The shots swallowed them up. They pitched and jerked and bounced and stayed in their seats.

The noise was loud overlap and reverb. The cordite stink was bad and the barrel smoke was thick. The music went inaudible. Blood blew out their backs and pooled on the sofas in one continuous sweep.

Gurgles, belches, neck-wound coughs, shudders and gasps. Seven dead in one twitching sweep.

Dwight tapped his watch—
go
.

They put on rubber gloves.

They pulled belt-concealed guns off the dead men and paper-bagged them. Dwight checked out the seventh man. He was unarmed. Dwight went through his wallet. Fourteen bucks and a New York driver's license: Thomas Frank Narduno, almost forty-six.

He put the wallet back. Wayne got out the liquid coke and syringes. Blood leaked on the floor. They all looked down and stepped way clear of the spill.

Dwight knocked over the table. The booze and food debris blended in with the spill.

Otash arranged the bodies: three on the floor, four on the sofas.

Mesplede planted the throwdown guns. Three in their hands, three near their bodies.

The blood spill expanded. They all kept looking down and stepping clear of it.

Dwight pulled off their shoes and socks.

Wayne injected them between their toes and cotton-swabbed the blood drips.

Otash pulled their socks back on. Mesplede relaced their shoes.

Fiddle music brayed and screeched. The walls absorbed the gunshot noise—Dwight knew it.

They stepped waaaaay back from the blood spill. Dwight framed the scene. Sofa springs exposed. Kling's missing finger. Booze, cocaine, a group tantrum. Pierce's coughed-out dentures. DeJohn's shattered glasses.

Dwight tapped his watch—
out
. Wayne looked at him. Dwight couldn't detect anything.

Otash grinned. Wayne poured powdered cocaine on the bar.

Mesplede grabbed some blood-free potato chips.

(Las Vegas, 9/6/68)

Y
ou look
through
him.

It subsumes the shock and diverts the titillation. It deflects the insanity. It was his sixth face-to-face meet with Dracula. Wayne just discovered the trick.

“It's a pleasure to see you, sir.”

Drac said, “Humphrey is very far behind in the polls. The hippies and yippies did him in.”

Farlan Brown coughed. “Wayne and I were there, sir. We gave them quite an assist.”

The trick worked with Drac himself. Castle Drac details remained. The condom-wrapped doorknobs, the Kleenex-box piles, the wall pix of Jane Russell's breasts.

Drac said, “On to November. Every Humphrey campaign stop must be a miniature Chicago. May I have your guarantee, Mr. Tedrow?”

“I'll try, sir.”

Brown coughed. “Wayne's being modest, sir. When he says, ‘I'll try,' he means ‘I'll succeed.' ”

Drac said, “Don't cough again, Mr. Brown. You're creating an unsanitary environment. If you cough again, I will terminate your employment and buy out your contract for five cents on the dollar.”

Brown got up and left the room, waving a handkerchief. Wayne looked through Drac. Fresh details: plates covered with leftover food. Bugs scattered on pizza-pie crusts.

“You've lost weight, Mr. Tedrow. Have you been ill?”

“I had extensive dental surgery, sir. I've been unable to eat solid food for three weeks.”

“Was the surgery performed under sanitary conditions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How old are you?”

“I'm thirty-four, sir.”

“I'm sixty-one, sixty-two or sixty-three. I've sustained head injuries from my numerous airplane crashes and have lost some memories.”

Wayne smiled. “You were born in 1905, sir. You're sixty-two years old.”

Drac coughed. “Did you look me up in the
Farmer's Almanac
?”

“
Encyclopedia Britannica
, sir.”

“Did it state how many women I have fucked?”

“It omitted that detail, sir.”

“I have fucked countless women. Ava Gardner gave me both tertiary syphilis and the bubonic plague. Between my head injuries and those other maladies, I suffer constant pain. I am thus very grateful for your adroit skills as a chemist.”

Wayne faux-beamed. “I'm very pleased that you feel that way, sir.”

“Gain some weight, though. It pains me to look at a young man so gaunt.”

“I'm going back on solid food tomorrow, sir.”

“Good.”

Wayne leaned in and stared
at
Drac. The filmy eyes and chancre sores got him this time.

“Mr. Hughes, may I ask a favor of you?”

“Yes. I rarely grant favors, but I'll permit you to ask.”

“Sir, I'd like you to reinstate the Hotel Workers' Union at all your Las Vegas locations. I would also request that you brusquely tell the Hotel Owners' Council that they should drop the implicitly enforced employment color line that they have long adhered to.”

Fresh details: tremors and puffs of dry spit.

“How firm a request is this?”

“It's a polite request, sir.”

“Is it an ultimatum?”

“No, but it's a vouchsafe on my future as your business intermediary and chemist.”

Drac shuddered. His jaw dropped. He had for-real fangs.

“Very well. I'll grant your request.”

At least they were vicious.
At least they were white
.

It was his post-Grapevine mantra. He employed it along with opiate compounds. It got him through the flight back and the Hughes meet.

He was tapering off. He was sleeping better. Dwight called last night. St. Louis PD tagged the Grapevine their way.

Spontaneous combustion. Toxic booze/dope levels cited. A quickie coroner's inquest stamped it case closed.

He was feeling better. His appetite was returning. The throbs and kinks all over his body were starting to abate.

Wayne cruised the Strip. It was dusk and too hot to live. He saw heat-dazed picketers outside the Dunes and the Sands. He saw picketers waving their signs outside the Frontier. Most were black, some were white, all were plain thrilled.

He parked and walked to the picket line. He caught snippets of a joyous gobbledygook.

The Hotel Council caved. It was sudden—who knows why—it allegedly came from Howard Hughes.

Wayne stood there. The picketers ignored him. An LVPD goon squad lounged at the curb. They wore helmets and twirled their nightsticks. They plain seethed. Buddy Fritsch kicked at scattered cigarette butts and seethed the worst.

The picketers whooped and leaped and tore the tops off their signs. Wayne saw Mary Beth Hazzard raise one fist.

Buddy Fritsch saw him and teetered on over. He reeked of afternoon vodka and breath mints.

“Hey, killer. Want to smoke a few jungle bunnies while you're here?”

Wayne winked at him. Buddy winked back. The picketers looked over. They started nudging each other. Wayne smiled at Buddy and let the moment build.

“Times like this make me wish you were back on the 'ole LVPD. We could use a coon kill—”

Wayne gut-punched him. Buddy gasped and folded and went green in the face. The other cops froze. The picketers froze. Wayne grabbed Buddy's necktie, pulled him close and elbow-slammed his face. Wayne ripped his badge off his shirt and hurled it.

Buddy wobbled and stayed up. His face was all blood. Wayne let go of his tie. Buddy hit the pavement face-first. A bunch of the picketers cheered.

The cops stayed frozen. Wayne looked at the picketers. Mary Beth Hazzard stared dead at him. Wayne blew her a kiss.

(Los Angeles, 9/8/68)

C
rutch Senior lived behind Santa Anita. He ruled a cardboard-box encampment. Winos and racetrack bums. Hooverville updated. Bet all day, booze all night. The California Lifestyle Supreme.

Crutch came with gifts: a good-bye C-note and a Reuben sandwich. Hey, Dad—I'm a dead man. I know all this top secret shit.

Fred Turentine called him yesterday. Fred Otash found some bug-tap debris in suite 307 and traced it back to him. Fred O. leaned on Fred T. Fred T. gave Crutch up for the bug job. Fred T. convinced Fred O. that
he
wasn't there, it was only doofus Crutchfield. Fred T. showed Crutch his broken fingers. “Kid, I don't know
what
you heard, but you better run.”

He read the St. Louis papers. Seven dead at the Grapevine. Tavern “Hoodlum brawl escalates.” He did some checking. James Earl Ray's brother was part owner. Killers. His Frogman pal on the grassy knoll. Bug talk: Sirhan & King, Memphis & Dallas.

The campground was behind the parking lot. The geezers lived in stereo boxes rain-treated with shellac. A big tarp covered twenty-odd Magnavox Mansions. Empty bottles covered the common yard.

Crutch knocked on Crutch Senior's box. Crutch Senior crawled out with a racing form and a short dog. Crutch gave him some room. Crutch Senior stood up, whipped it out and took a big piss. He aimed straight at Crutch's shoes.

“Hello, Dad.”

Crutch Senior squinted. “Donald, right?”

“Right.”

“The kid I had with Maggie Woodard.”

“That's me.”

“I remember Maggie. She was from Bumfuck, Wisconsin.”

“Yeah, she's the one.”

“She was a good lay.”

“Come on, Dad. That's not nice.”

Crutch Senior re-zipped. He was fifty-four. He wore a sweat-soaked Beatle suit and a Beatle wig. He was half-dead from open-sore cancers.

“You're in the shit and you need a touch. Sorry, but I'm tapped.”

Crutch displayed the C-note and Reuben. Crutch Senior grabbed the bill and ignored the sandwich. He killed the short dog and tossed it on the empty pile. He swung the racing form and swatted Crutch in the face.

“You never found Maggie. You told me you would, and you didn't. I laid her the first time on Pearl Harbor day, and you never found her.”

Bluff.

He worked out the plan yesterday. It predicted the knock on his door and the death sentence. Yeah, he put it all together. But, it was all instinct. Bug sputter, squelch, static and some words mixed in. He knew. They knew he knew. Fred O. would tell the others. Wayne would be pissed at the Frogman. Froggy let him live. It would blow up from there.

It was too big and played too preposterous. Clyde wouldn't believe him. Scotty Bennett wouldn't believe him. He could go on
The Joe Pyne Show
and air his inside scoop from the Beef Box. Joe Pyne would scoff at him. Some left-wing Jews and paranoid hippies
might
believe him. The hebes would turn on him in a hot tick. He was pro–Cuban Freedom Cause. The hippies would scoff at his crew cut and Scotty Bennett tie. No hippie girls would shoot him some trim.

Bluff.

He put the fail-safes in place yesterday. He devised the plan off his one ray of hope.
They didn't know his bug gear was defective. They knew they talked assassination. They would not recall exactly what they said. They did not know how credible his testimony would play
.

Crutch waited at the Vivian. The pad was near-empty. He moved his mother's file and his personal shit to the Elm Hotel yesterday. His case file was there. Buzz knew the location. He'd find the files and pursue or not pursue all relevant leads.

He waited. He skimmed old
Car Crafts
and
Playboys
. He went to I. Magnin's yesterday. He bought Dana Lund a beautiful cashmere sweater. He had it gift-wrapped and placed a valentine card in the box. He didn't sign his name. He told Dana that he'd always loved her. He had to run now. He killed two men and knew some things that he shouldn't.

Magnin's delivered the gift. He parked across the street. He watched Dana open the box and read the card. The sweater delighted her. The note seemed to scare her. She looked around and slammed her door in a rush.

Joan Rosen Klein was out in the ether. He couldn't get her a good-bye gift. It broke his fucking heart.

Crutch skimmed the November '67
Playboy
. Kaya Christian smiled from the foldout. She was his aptly named sweetheart. He knew her from Trinity Lutheran Church a million years back.

The southbound view beckoned. Crutch walked to the window and looked out. He saw Sandy Danner's house and Barb Cathcart's house and Gail Miller on Lon Ecklund's front porch.

All those shrubs that served as his perch spots. New shrubs blocking windows he'd peeped.

He leaned out the window. He caught smog in the air. He leaned too far. He started to drop. He heard noise behind him. A force slammed him down and pulled him back up.

He was on the floor. He was foot-pinned. He was blurry-eyed, half there and half not. He smelled oil on metal and knew they'd greased the door lock.

The half there expanded. The blur decreased. A full there came on. He saw Wayne Tedrow with a silencered gun and the Frogman holding a pillow. He clutched his Saint Christopher medal and prayed the Gloria Patria.

Their feet were dug in. The Frogman sweat-oozed nicotine. Wayne said, “You dipshit cocksucker.”

Froggy dropped the pillow on his head. Crutch thrashed it off and gulped in air to say it.

“I've got four tape copies, plus depositions. Four bank safe-deposit boxes. I show up in person, six-month intervals. They verify me at the sites with photo and fingerprint checks. If I don't show, you know what.”

Wayne looked at Mesplede. Mesplede looked at Wayne. Wayne picked up the pillow and foot-mashed it down on his head. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. No voices, no gunshot, no pain or white clouds. Breath spurts and heartbeats—dear God, am I dead?

Then light and air and the model airplane dangling from his ceiling. Then some breath. Then Wayne's gun with the silencer untapped.