James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (75 page)

I'm staying. The Tonton men accept it with some reluctance—because Haiti is a dangerous place, I'm a black cop who speaks their language with no small flair and because they seem to like me. A Tonton man told me that LAPD had queried them about my whereabouts. The Tonton had not yet responded. It had to be a secondhand query initiated by Scotty. I gave the man some money and told him to rebuff the query. He told me he would.

I am always jaunting about Port-au-Prince, the larger nearby towns and more remote villages. I drink klerin and trip on all manner of Haitian herbs. I herb-tripped and retraced Wayne's last day on earth. A
bokur
mixed me a potion named after Wayne. It is the most breathless mindscape. I often see faces out of my past in entirely altered forms. I think of my life as a middle-class black kid, a left-wing poseur, a policeman, a homosexual, a faux black militant and a killer. I live in a contemplative and unburdened state. February 24, 1964, and everything I have done to claim profit from it feels entirely irrelevant.

I occasionally think of Scotty. I think of Wayne frequently and Mr. Holly most of all. I loved him in the manner that the morally afflicted love those people who most exemplify their complex will to assert and to survive. I think we knew each other. In the end, it led to nothing more than that. Given who I am, he is and we are, it was a bond of some solvency—and, on my part, affection. I am oddly nurtured by it now.

Rural Haiti compels me. It is akin to a rough-trade zone in East Hollywood. I have attended a number of voodoo ceremonies. I have seen men and women zombified. Groups of men follow me sometimes, but I never feel threatened. I think of Wayne and our discourses on the dream state. I want to be physically immobilized so that I can be utterly still and devoid of the will to summon conscious thought and reaction. I have a stash of wildly powerful herbs and blowfish toxin that I've been saving for a special occasion. I carry it with me at all times. I seek stimulation and stimulation seeks me. I want to be chemically prepared to enhance any state of revelation that I may find myself in. I often recall my first conversation with Mr. Holly. It was during the Chicago police riot
of summer '68. I was in a southside lockup, a racist-cop casualty who also happened to be a cop. Mr. Holly was in the early stages of entrapping me for
OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER
. He quoted “a very wise woman,” whom I later learned was his Quaker leftist girlfriend. “ ‘Take note of what you are seeking, for it is seeking you,' “Mr. Holly said to me. It was an immediate recognition of my life to date and a spellbinding prophecy of my future. I was sitting on the bench at Cayes-Jacmel yesterday. I was mindscaping that very thought and looking out at the Caribbean. It was sunny and not quite hot. A vendor had sold me a shaved-ice treat laced with klerin liqueur. It was fruit-sweetened, with a bitter aftertaste. Reginald Hazzard walked up and sat down next to me.

I recognized him from that day nearly eight years before. Wayne's photograph was a flat, pre-disfigured image. This man was the man my doctor neighbor and I rescued from the robbery and the vicious police aftermath.

We said hello to each other. Reginald's burn scars had faded and had left his dark skin blotched pink-white. He thanked me for saving him and told me he had heard rumors that a policeman had been asking questions. I was pointed out to him three weeks earlier. He had been following me since that time. He knew who I was at once. It took a long period of study for him to determine that I meant him no harm.

He had a bottle of klerin. We passed it back and forth. I did not press him for details on the robbery; he did not press me for details on my police career or my recent hometown celebrity. He knew a great deal about me. I sensed it readily and knew it would be ungracious to seek affirmation or in any way pry.

I asked Reginald if he felt safe in Haiti. Reginald said that he did, but added that he missed his mother a great deal. I did not mention his father's death in the summer of '68, with Wayne Tedrow very much in its orbit. I did not mention Wayne as Haitian folk hero. I did not mention Wayne's union with Mary Beth Hazzard or his quest to find the boy who so easily found me. He knew all of it, none of it, part of it or most of it. I understood that and again behaved decorously.

The sun fell low on the water. We sat silently much more than we talked. Reginald asked me if I had met Joan. I said that I had. Reginald placed an emerald in my hand and told me it was the very last one. I thanked him. He got up and walked away from me.

• • •

I bicycled into the Haitian interior. Villages were scattered along low mountain ridges and brush-covered plains. Fallen branches and sharp rocks shredded my tires. I continued on foot. The night grew darker. I sensed groups of men following me.

The moon gave me sight at odd moments. I got glimpses of far-ranging crocodiles and blood-marked trees. I felt the groups behind me expanding. I came up to a small village with a very small hotel. Car lights strafed me. I waved to the driver. He was wearing a white wooden mask.

I swallowed my special stash of herbs and entered the village. A dog wearing a pointed hat ran up and bit me. I walked into the hotel and spoke French to the desk clerk. He rented me a second-floor, street-facing room.

It was low-ceilinged and narrow, with just a sink, a chair and a bed. I turned the lights off. I held Reginald's emerald and stood in front of the window. The herbs took effect. The moon made the green stone a prism. People passed in and out of the rays and said astonishing things to me.

A group of men is forming outside now. They are looking up at me. There are three of them. They are carrying machetes in scabbards. They have left arms and wings where their right arms should be.

I'm becoming immobilized. My thoughts are dispersing as I start to form them. I will drop the pen I am writing with in a moment. The winged men are entering the hotel now. I have left the door unlocked for them.

(Los Angeles, 1/22/72–3/18/72)

H
e got the word late. It knocked him down. It sent him sideways.

He'd spent weeks running one way. It sent him running back and running out and sitting still to think. He missed him more than anything. He had a friend in this. The friend fucked him and ran. He missed him anyway.

Marsh got snuffed in Haiti. He knew that he'd fled there. He stiffed an LAPD query and got a late response.
He
couldn't go there. His white-pig status would deep-six him. Extradition was out. Marsh was AWOL, but Marsh was clean. IA cops searched his house. They found fruit-bar listings in his address book. They interviewed Scotty. You and Marsh clashed in '68—tell us about it.

He tattled Marsh's Fed-plant deal. The IA guys jumped on it and braced Dwight Holly. Dwight told them Marsh did an outstanding job. The IA guys laid out dumb-ass theories. Marsh ratted black militants. It might be belated revenge.

Scotty pooh-poohed it. Haiti—who cares. Let it go. Call it a fag junket. Don't reveal his fruitness. Don't soil LAPD. Don't shit on his elderly dad.

Marsh might have left a diary. That prospect gored him. He tossed his crib and found a stash hole in a ceiling beam. It reeked of leather and paper. Obvious—Marsh took the diary with him. IA decided to drop the case. It was best all around. The “Black-Militant Blastout” cop's a swish. He won the Medal of Valor—go figure
that
.

The news curveballed him. He'd been hamstrung and schizzed all the preceding weeks. He brooded in his den. He worked stakeouts. He took Ann and the kids to Disneyland. He took four of his girlfriends to Vegas on
consecutive weekends. He spread tip cash around darktown and waited for callbacks. Who's the Commie woman?

Marsh was always secretive. They pulled outrageous shit together. Marsh rabbited
and
held his mud. He respected him for it.
He
walked on their shit. Marsh died behind it. Fucking Haiti—flying centipedes and voodoo. Marsh was a closet mystic. He talked that jive sometimes. Reggie and the emeralds—a dead-issue bust. The money was another thing.

Somebody tipped Marsh. The fruit summit had just ended. Suspects: Sal M., Fred O., Peeper C. Sal and Fred had no motive. That left Peeper. He spent weeks thinking it through.

Peeper was ubiquitous. He drove around and peeped and kept his yap zipped. Fred O. implied that he
knew
things. He's
seen
shit and
done
shit—don't short-shrift that kid.

Peeper lived in his head. So did he, lately. The heist lived all in his head now. Marsh was
there
that day. So was he.
They
knew what it meant and why they had to have it. No one else did.

He postponed the Peeper issue. He cruised by the wheelman lot and induced fear. Pieces fell together at the summit. It came down to this:

Jack Leahy worked the heist. The details didn't matter. He went in with the bank team. He got the money out first.

It's a soft confrontation. He'll see the light and okay the split.

He saturated the southside. Mr. Scotty
spreeeeads
that long green. He got big consensus leads last week.

The probable call: Joan Rosen Klein. She's got a hard-Left pedigree. There's missing cop files. There's 211 rumors. She's a Federal informant. She might be Big Dwight's squeeze.

He tallied all his tip sheets. He chewed breath mints and worried it. It felt kosher. She's Red, she's wrong. She's been margin-hopping black-militant shit since '68.

She mandates a rogue-cop summit. One order of business: the extended cash split.

It supersedes all agendas. It's essentially left-wing. Let's share the wealth. I don't want to cause pain.

He taps Dwight. Dwight taps Jack and Joan. The dollar count depletes. It's big coin just the same.

He missed Marsh. It stuck with him. He did this grand-gesture thing.

The fruit gig went kaput. Fred O. returned half of his money. He cut a check and sent it to Marsh's dad in Chi-town.

Hey, pops. Our deal went south, but I was fond of your kid.

(Los Angeles, 1/22/72–3/18/72)

S
afe House
.

It's a radical term. It's Joan Zone nomenclature. He's got his own variation on it.

He needed a safe house. He was a half-assed Red. He had spooky knowledge and a chemistry set. He had some new ideas. He had a right-wing white man out for payback.

Scotty came by the wheelman lot and winked at him. Scotty got his bruiser sons part-time Tiger Kab jobs. Bruiser One and Bruiser Two were Scotty-sized. They winked
and
smirked.

Dipshit, Peeper,
pariguayo
. Add “snitch” to that. Scotty knew he'd tipped Marsh Bowen. The winks meant you're dead—but not yet.

Safe House
.

He rented a shack in the Hollywood Hills. He stored his files, books, herbs and chemical gear there. It's
safe
there. He's not
safe
there. He flops at the Vivian and his downtown pad sporadic. He sleeps in his car. He rents motel rooms ad hoc. He does rope gigs for Clyde and Chick. He feels
safe
when he's following people. He feels
un-safe
when he stops.

Marsh went somewhere. He cruised Baldwin Hills all winter and saw surveillance traffic galore. Scotty staked out Marsh's house. Dwight staked out Marsh's house. Some IA cops scoured the crib in late January. Dwight warned him: Do nothing, Dipshit. Dwight knew most of what he knew. Dwight might or might not kill him. Scotty sure as shit would.

Safe House
.

Deferred execution
.

He couldn't run. L.A. was L.A. He only felt
safe
here. His case was
here
. He kabbed people and followed people
here
. He blew up right-wing street
signs
here
. He knew how to live
here
. He couldn't run anywhere else. L.A. always gave him urgent shit to do.

Gretchen/Celia tried to track Tattoo's killer. The late Leander James Jackson helped her. He found four of Jackson's known associates. They said Leander was hipped on the case. They said he kept no records. A chick named “Celia” shared his fixation. They phone drop–communicated. The Tattoo deal commenced with bad Haitian
gre-gre
.

Safe House
.

His gear is safe there. He's not. It's funny and fucked-up. He just turned twenty-seven. He looks way older. He's got gray-streaked hair and a Commie brand on his back. He can't talk to the people he cares for. He follows them instead.

He follows Dwight Holly. Joan seems to have left him. Dwight sits in the pad near Karen's house, for days at a stretch. The boxes and gear are gone. Dwight waits by the phone. He picks up the receiver every half hour. He watches Karen's house with binoculars. He lights up on her little girls.

Dwight stays immobile. He's got to stay moving. He follows Karen sometimes. She's led him to lunch dates with Joan.

Following was easy. Mobility was his strong suit. Cars were camouflage. His zhlubby kid look supplied cover. Bug-tap jobs were easy. He knew how to drill, bore and thread. Eavesdropping was tough. People could see you and sense your intent.

He got close to Joan and Karen. They sipped coffee and chain-smoked at a joint on Hillhurst. Joan said she had “the money.” That encouraged her. She was worried. Celia was lost in Haiti or the D.R. Joan had severed ties with Dwight. It pertained to “the Operation.” The phrase made Karen wince. Joan said “safe house” twice. Joan said Dwight would never be able to find her.

They were such good friends. He heard New York in their voices. Karen was red-haired and didn't look Greek. It was cold lately. Joan wore sweaters. He couldn't see her knife scar.

He snapped a sneak photo. Joan was forty-five years, four months and seventeen days of age.

He taped it to his dashboard. He's always moving. All of his pictures are safe.