The Cold Six Thousand Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR JAMES ELLROY’S

  THE COLD SIX THOUSAND

  “Where Ellroy excels … is in the sheer stamina and Mailerlike nerve of his hypermasculine vision.… It’s impossible to imagine any other novelist generating so many pages focusing on so many levels of anger and betrayal.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Call it the Finnegan’s Wake of pulp fiction.… Ellroy makes you feel good. He makes you feel bad. He makes you feel worse.… Deceptively rich.”

  —Newsday

  “The Cold Six Thousand is besotted with detail, blurring fact and fiction to dizzying effect.… Ellroy knows what rocks to turn over.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “A twisted tour of our secret history. Ellroy takes us down every dark road possible.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Bold, electrifying.… Ellroy strips prose to its raw, gleaming bone.… James Ellroy is an American original, a sophisticated primitive as smooth as the snick-snick! of a pump shotgun and as subtle as the inevitable blast.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “James Ellroy might be fairly described as the Tolstoy of the conspiratorial mind.… [He] has assembled in one grand fiction all our worst fears about who and what motored events during that remarkable and appalling 15-year period of American history that began with the election of John Kennedy.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Ellroy does here exactly what he did in Tabloid—take the most overexamined era in 20th-century history, hand the story over to the bad men and the fixers, and make it feel completely new.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “An exercise in audacity.… Ellroy is either our greatest obsessive writer or our most obsessive great writer. Either way, he is turning the crime novel’s mean streets into superhighways.… A remarkable accomplishment.”

  —Financial Times

  “Garrote-tight prose.… [Ellroy is] a force of nature, stringing together words into barbed-wire lariats which he then uses to choke the bejeezus out of you.… A coherent, ultimately gorgeous and electrifying mess.”

  —The Austin Chronicle

  “A dazzling panorama of the ’60s as seen through the eyes of some colorful thugs.… Ellroy isn’t the first to argue that American history is written behind the scenes by violent brutes, but only a mad genius like him could make those monsters lovable.”

  —Us

  “Ambitious.… Ellroy is a unique American literary voice.”

  —USA Today

  “With riveting style and substance, The Cold Six Thousand is Ellroy’s biggest score.”

  —Playboy

  “An ambitious, extravagant book about history as obsession.… Richer and darker than ever, this story … reminds us how far ahead of his peers Ellroy is.”

  —New Statesman

  JAMES ELLROY

  THE COLD

  SIX THOUSAND

  James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international bestsellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. He lives in Kansas City.

  ALSO BY JAMES ELLROY

  Crime Wave

  My Dark Places

  American Tabloid Hollywood

  Nocturnes

  White Jazz

  L.A. Confidential

  The Big Nowhere

  The Black Dahlia

  Killer on the Road

  Suicide Hill

  Because the Night

  Blood on the Moon

  Clandestine

  Brown’s Requiem

  FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2002

  Copyright © 2001 by James Ellroy

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2001.

  Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

  Ellroy, James, 1948–

  The cold six thousand : a novel / by James Ellroy.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79845-9

  I. Title.

  2001088561

  www.vintagebooks.com

  Title page photograph by Mell Kilpatrick,

  courtesy of Jennifer Dumas

  v3.1

  To

  BILL STONER

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part 1 - Extradition Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part 2 - Extortion Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Part 3 - Subversion Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Part 4 - Coercion Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Part 5 - Incursion Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Ch
apter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Part 6 - Interdiction Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  November 22–25, 1963

  1

  Wayne Tedrow Jr.

  (Dallas, 11/22/63)

  They sent him to Dallas to kill a nigger pimp named Wendell Durfee. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

  The Casino Operators Council flew him. They supplied first-class fare. They tapped their slush fund. They greased him. They fed him six cold.

  Nobody said it:

  Kill that coon. Do it good. Take our hit fee.

  The flight ran smooth. A stew served drinks. She saw his gun. She played up. She asked dumb questions.

  He said he worked Vegas PD. He ran the intel squad. He built files and logged information.

  She loved it. She swooned.

  “Hon, what you doin’ in Dallas?”

  He told her.

  A Negro shivved a twenty-one dealer. The dealer lost an eye. The Negro booked to Big D. She loved it. She brought him highballs. He omitted details.

  The dealer provoked the attack. The council issued the contract—death for ADW Two.

  The preflight pep talk. Lieutenant Buddy Fritsch:

  “I don’t have to tell you what we expect, son. And I don’t have to add that your father expects it, too.”

  The stew played geisha girl. The stew fluffed her beehive.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Wayne Tedrow.”

  She whooped. “You just have to be Junior!”

  He looked through her. He doodled. He yawned. She fawned.

  She just loooooved his daddy. He flew with her oodles. She knew he was a Mormon wheel. She’d looove to know more.

  Wayne laid out Wayne Senior.

  He ran a kitchen-help union. He rigged low pay. He had coin. He had pull. He pushed right-wing tracts. He hobnobbed with fat cats. He knew J. Edgar Hoover.

  The pilot hit the intercom. Dallas—on time.

  The stew fluffed her hair. “I’ll bet you’re staying at the Adolphus.”

  Wayne cinched his seat belt. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, your daddy told me he always stays there.”

  “I’m staying there. Nobody consulted me, but that’s where they’ve got me booked.”

  The stew hunkered down. Her skirt slid. Her garter belt gapped.

  “Your daddy told me they’ve got a nice little restaurant right there in the hotel, and, well …”

  The plane hit rough air. Wayne caught it low. He broke a sweat. He shut his eyes. He saw Wendell Durfee.

  The stew touched him. Wayne opened his eyes.

  He saw her hickeys.

  He saw her bad teeth. He smelled her shampoo.

  “You were looking a little scared there, Wayne Junior.”

  “Junior” tore it.

  “Leave me alone. I’m not what you want, and I don’t cheat on my wife.”

  1:50 p.m.

  They touched down. Wayne got off first. Wayne stamped blood back into his legs.

  He walked to the terminal. Schoolgirls blocked the gate. One girl cried. One girl fucked with prayer beads.

  He stepped around them. He followed baggage signs. People walked past him. They looked sucker-punched.

  Red eyes. Boo-hoo. Women with Kleenex.

  Wayne stopped at baggage claim. Kids whizzed by. They shot cap pistols. They laughed.

  A man walked up—Joe Redneck—tall and fat. He wore a Stetson. He wore big boots. He wore a mother-of-pearl .45.

  “If you’re Sergeant Tedrow, I’m Officer Maynard D. Moore of the Dallas Police Department.”

  They shook hands. Moore chewed tobacco. Moore wore cheap cologne. A woman walked by—boo-hoo-hoo—one big red nose.

  Wayne said, “What’s wrong?”

  Moore smiled. “Some kook shot the President.”

  Most shops closed early. State flags flew low. Some folks flew rebel flags upright.

  Moore drove Wayne in. Moore had a plan: Run by the hotel/get you set in/find us that jigaboo.

  John F. Kennedy—dead.

  His wife’s crush. His stepmom’s fixation. JFK got Janice wet. Janice told Wayne Senior. Janice paid. Janice limped. Janice showed off the welts on her thighs.

  Dead was dead. He couldn’t grab it. He fumbled the rebounds.

  Moore chewed Red Man. Moore shot juice out his window. Gunshots overlapped. Joyous shit in the boonies.

  Moore said, “Some people ain’t so sad.”

  Wayne shrugged. They passed a billboard—JFK and the UN.

  “You sure ain’t sayin’ much. I got to say that so far, you ain’t the most lively extradition partner I ever had.”

  A gun went off. Close. Wayne grabbed his holster.

  “Whoo! You got a case of the yips, boy!”

  Wayne futzed with his necktie. “I just want to get this over with.”

  Moore ran a red light. “In good time. I don’t doubt that Mr. Durfee’ll be sayin’ hi to our fallen hero before too long.”

  Wayne rolled up his window. Wayne trapped in Moore’s cologne.

  Moore said, “I been to Lost Wages quite a few times. In fact, I owe a big marker at the Dunes this very moment.”

  Wayne shrugged. They passed a bus bench. A colored girl sobbed.

  “I heard of your daddy, too. I heard he’s quite the boy in Nevada.”

  A truck ran a red. The driver waved a beer and revolver.

  “Lots of people know my father. They all tell me they know him, and it gets old pretty quick.”

  Moore smiled. “Hey, I think I detect a pulse there.”

  Motorcade confetti. A window sign: Big D loves Jack & Jackie.

  “I heard about you, too. I heard you got leanings your daddy don’t much care for.”

  “For instance?”

  “Let’s try nigger lover. Let’s try you chauffeur Sonny Liston around when he comes to Vegas, ’cause the PD’s afraid he’ll get himself in trouble with liquor and white women, and you like him, but you don’t like the nice Italian folks who keep your little town clean.”

  The car hit a pothole. Wayne hit the dash.

  Moore stared at Wayne. Wayne stared back. They held the stare. Moore ran a red. Wayne blinked first.

  Moore winked. “We’re gonna have big fun this weekend.”

  The lobby was swank. The carpets ran thick. Men snagged their boot heels.

  People pointed outside—look look look—the motorcade passed the hotel. JFK drove by. JFK waved. JFK bought it close by.

  People talked. Strangers braced strangers. The men wore western suits. The women dressed faux-Jackie.

  Check-ins swamped the desk. Moore ad-libbed. Moore walked Wayne to the bar.

  SRO—big barside numbers.

  A TV sat on a table. A barman goosed the sound. Moore shoved up to a phone booth. Wayne scoped the TV out.

  Folks jabbered. The men wore hats. Everyone wore boots and high heels. Wayne stood on his toes. Wayne popped over hat brims.

  The picture jumped and settled in. Sound static and confusion. Cops. A thin punk. Words: “Oswald”/“weapon”/“Red sympath—”

  A guy waved a rifle. Newsmen pressed in. A camera panned. There’s the punk. He’s showing fear and contusions.

  The noise was bad. The smoke was thick. Wayne lost his legs.

  A man raised a toast. “Oughta give Oswald a—”

  Wayne stood down. A woman jostled him—wet cheeks and runny mascara.

  Wayne walked to the phone
booth. Moore had the door cracked.

  He said, “Guy, listen now.”

  He said, “Wet-nursing some kid on some bullshit extradition—”

  “Bullshit” tore it.

  Wayne jabbed Moore. Moore swung around. His pant legs hiked up.

  Fuck—knives in his boot tops. Brass knucks in one sock. Wayne said,

  “Wendell Durfee, remember?”

  Moore stood up. Moore got magnetized. Wayne tracked his eyes.

  He caught the TV. He caught a caption. He caught a still shot: “Slain Officer J. D. Tippit.”

  Moore stared. Moore trembled. Moore shook.

  Wayne said, “Wendell Durf—”

  Moore shoved him. Moore ran outside.

  The council booked him a biggg suite. A bellboy supplied history. JFK loved the suite. JFK fucked women there. Ava Gardner blew him on the terrace.

  Two sitting rooms. Two bedrooms. Three TVs. Slush funds. Six cold. Kill that nigger, boy.

  Wayne toured the suite. History lives. JFK loved Dallas quail.

  He turned the TVs on. He tuned in three channels. He caught the show three ways. He walked between sets. He nailed the story.

  The punk was Lee Harvey Oswald. The punk shot JFK and Tippit. Tippit worked Dallas PD. DPD was tight-knit. Moore probably knew him.

  Oswald was pro-Red. Oswald loved Fidel. Oswald worked at a schoolbook plant. Oswald clipped the Prez on his lunch break.

  DPD had him. Their HQ teemed. Cops. Reporters. Camera hogs all.

  Wayne flopped on a couch. Wayne shut his eyes. Wayne saw Wendell Durfee. Wayne opened his eyes. Wayne saw Lee Oswald.

  He killed the sound. He pulled his wallet pix.

  There’s his mother—back in Peru, Indiana.

  She left Wayne Senior. Late ’47. Wayne Senior hit her. He broke bones sometimes.

  She asked Wayne who he loved most. He said, “My dad.” She slapped him. She cried. She apologized.

  The slap tore it. He went with Wayne Senior.

  He called his mother—May ’54—he called en route to the Army. She said, “Don’t fight in silly wars.” She said, “Don’t hate like Wayne Senior.”

  He cut her off. Binding/permanent/4-ever.

  There’s his stepmom.

  Wayne Senior ditched Wayne’s mom. Wayne Senior wooed Janice. Wayne Senior brought Wayne along. Wayne was thirteen. Wayne was horny. Wayne dug on Janice.