Blood's a Rover Read online

  BY JAMES ELLROY

  THE UNDERWORLD U.S.A. TRILOGY

  American Tabloid

  The Cold Six Thousand

  Blood’s A Rover

  THE L.A. QUARTET

  The Black Dahlia

  The Big Nowhere

  L.A. Confidential

  White Jazz

  MEMOIR

  My Dark Places

  SHORT STORIES

  Hollywood Nocturnes

  JOURNALISM/SHORT FICTION

  Crime Wave

  Destination: Morgue!

  EARLY NOVELS

  Brown’s Requiem

  Clandestine

  Blood on the Moon

  Because the Night

  Suicide Hill

  Killer on the Road

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2009 by James Ellroy

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  A portion of this work originally appeared in Playboy.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ellroy, James, [date]

  Blood’s a rover / by James Ellroy.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-27303-1

  1. Nineteen sixties—Fiction. 2. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. 3. Noir fiction. 4. Political fiction. I. Title.

  PS3555.L6274B57 2009

  813’.54—dc22 2009024460

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  v3.1

  To

  J.M.

  Comrade: For Everything You Gave Me

  Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;

  Breath’s a ware that will not keep.

  Up, lad: when the journey’s over

  There’ll be time enough to sleep.

  A. E. Housman

  THEN

  Los Angeles, 2/24/64

  SUDDENLY:

  The milk truck cut a sharp right turn and grazed the curb. The driver lost the wheel. He panic-popped the brakes. He induced a rear-end skid. A Wells Fargo armored car clipped the milk truck side/head-on.

  Mark it now:

  7:16 a.m. South L.A., 84th and Budlong. Residential darktown. Shit shacks with dirt front yards.

  The jolt stalled out both vehicles. The milk truck driver hit the dash. The driver’s side door blew wide. The driver keeled and hit the sidewalk. He was a fortyish male Negro.

  The armored car notched some hood dents. Three guards got out and scoped the damage. They were white men in tight khakis. They wore Sam Browne belts with buttoned pistol flaps.

  They knelt beside the milk truck driver. The guy twitched and gasped. The dashboard bounce gouged his forehead. Blood dripped into his eyes.

  Mark it now:

  7:17 a.m. Winter overcast. This quiet street. No foot traffic. No car-crash hubbub yet.

  The milk truck heaved. The radiator blew. Steam hissed and spread wide. The guards coughed and wiped their eyes. Three men got out of a ’62 Ford parked two curb lengths back.

  They wore masks. They wore gloves and crepe-soled shoes. They wore utility belts with gas bombs in pouches. They were long-sleeved and buttoned up. Their skin color was obscured.

  Steam covered them. They walked up and pulled silencered pieces. The guards coughed. It supplied sound cover. The milk truck driver pulled a silencered piece and shot the nearest guard in the face.

  The noise was a thud. The guard’s forehead exploded. The two other guards fumble-grabbed at their holsters. The masked men shot them in the back. They buckled and pitched foreword. The masked men shot them in the head point-blank. The thuds and skull crack muffle-echoed.

  It’s 7:19 a.m. It’s still quiet. There’s no foot traffic and car-crash hubbub yet.

  Noise now—two gunshots plus loud echoes. Muzzle flare, weird-shaped, blasts from the armored car’s gun slit.

  The shots ricocheted off the pavement. The masked men and the milk truck driver threw themselves prone. They rolled toward the armored car. It blitzed firing range. Four more shots popped. Four plus two—one revolver load.

  Masked Man #1 was tall and thin. Masked Man #2 was midsized. Masked Man #3 was heavyset. It’s 7:20 a.m. There’s still no foot traffic. This big blimp up in the sky trailed department-store banners.

  Masked Man #1 stood up and crouched under the gun slit. He pulled a gas bomb from his pouch and yanked the top. Fumes sputtered. He stuffed the bomb in the gun slit. The guard inside shrieked and retched very loud. The back door crashed outward. The guard jumped and hit the pavement on his knees. He bled from the nose and the mouth. Masked Man #2 shot him twice in the head.

  The milk truck driver put on a gas mask. The masked men put gas masks on over their face masks. Gas whooshed out the back door. Masked Man #1 popped gas bomb #2 and lobbed it inside.

  The fumes flared and settled into acid mist—red, pink, transparent. A street hubbub started perking. There’s some window peeps, some open doors, some colored folks on their porches.

  It’s 7:22 a.m. The fumes have dispersed. There’s no second guard inside.

  Now they go in.

  They fit tight. It was a cramped space. Cash bags and attaché cases were stacked in wall racks. Masked Man #1 made the count: sixteen bags and fourteen cases.

  They grabbed. Masked Man #2 had a burlap bag stuffed down his pants. He pulled it out and held it open.

  They grabbed. They stuffed the bag. One attaché case snapped open. They saw mounds of plastic-wrapped emeralds.

  Masked Man #3 opened a cash bag. A C-note roll poked out. He tugged on the bank tab. Ink jets sprayed him and hit his mask holes. He got ink in his mouth and ink in his eyes.

  He gasped, he spit ink, he rubbed his eyes and tripped out the door. He shit in his pants and stood around flailing. Masked Man #1 stepped clear of the door and shot him twice in the back.

  It’s 7:24 a.m. Now there’s hubbub. It’s a jungle din confined to porches.

  Masked Man #1 walked toward it. He pulled four gas bombs, popped the tops and lobbed them. He threw left and right. Fumes rose up red, pink and transparent. Acid sky, mini–storm front, rainbow. The porch fools whooped and coughed and ran inside their shacks.

  The milk truck driver and Masked Man #2 stuffed four burlap bags tight. They got the full load: all thirty cash sacks and cases. They walked to the ’62 Ford. Masked Man #1 opened the trunk. They dumped the bags in.

  7:26 a.m.

  A breeze kicked up. Wind swirled the gas clouds into wild fusing colors. The milk truck driver and Masked Man #2 gawked through their goggles.

  Masked Man #1 stepped in front of them. They got pissy—Say what?—don’t block the light show. Masked Man #1 shot them both in the face. Slugs blew up their goggle glass and gas-mask tubes and doused their lights in a second.

  Mark it now:

  7:27 a.m. Four dead guards, three dead heist men. Pink gas clouds. Acid fallout. Fumes turning shrubs gray-malignant.

  Masked Man #1 opened the driver’s side door and reached under the seat. Right there: a blowtorch and a brown bag stuffed with scald-on-contact pellets. The pellets looked like a bird feed/jelly bean hybrid.

  He worked slow.

  He walked to Masked Man #3. He dropped pellets on his back and stuffed pellets in his mouth. He tapped his blowtorch and blazed the body. He walked to the milk truck driver and Mas
ked Man #2. He dropped pellets on their backs and stuffed pellets in their mouths and blowtorched their bodies.

  The sun was way up now. The gas fumes caught rays and made a small stretch of sky one big prism. Masked Man #1 drove away, southbound.

  He got there first. He always did. He bootjacked niggertown robbery squawks off patrol frequencies. He packed his own multiband squawk box.

  He parked by the armored car and the milk truck. He looked down the street. He saw some coons eyeballing the carnage. The air stung. His first guess: gas bombs and a faked collision.

  The coons saw him. They evinced their standard “Oh shit” looks. He heard sirens. The overlap said six or seven units. Newton and 77th Street—two divisions rolling out. He had three minutes to look.

  He saw the four dead guards. He saw two scorched dead men near the east curb back a few car lengths.

  He ignored the guards. He checked out the burned men. They were deep-scorched down to crackle skin, with their clothes swirled in. His first guess: instant double cross. Let’s fuck up IDs on expendable partners.

  The sirens whirred closer. A kid down the street waved at him. He bowed and waved back.

  He had the gestalt already. Some shit you wait your whole life for. When it lands, you know.

  He was a big man. He wore a tweed suit and a tartan bow tie. Little 14’s were stitched into the silk. He’d shot and killed fourteen armed robbers.

  NOW

  AMERICA:

  I window-peeped four years of our History. It was one long mobile stakeout and kick-the-door-in shakedown. I had a license to steal and a ticket to ride.

  I followed people. I bugged and tapped and caught big events in ellipses. I remained unknown. My surveillance links the Then to the Now in a never-before-revealed manner. I was there. My reportage is buttressed by credible hearsay and insider tattle. Massive paper trails provide verification. This book derives from stolen public files and usurped private journals. It is the sum of personal adventure and forty years of scholarship. I am a literary executor and an agent provocateur. I did what I did and saw what I saw and learned my way through to the rest of the story.

  Scripture-pure veracity and scandal-rag content. That conjunction gives it its sizzle. You carry the seed of belief within you already. You recall the time this narrative captures and sense conspiracy. I am here to tell you that it is all true and not at all what you think.

  You will read with some reluctance and capitulate in the end. The following pages will force you to succumb.

  I am going to tell you everything.

  THEN

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I - Cluster Fuck

  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

  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

  Part II - Shit Magnet

  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

  Part III - Zombie Zone

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  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

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Part IV - Coon Cartel

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Part V - Throwdown Gun

  Chapter 105

  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

  Part VI - Comrade Joan

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  A Note About the Author

  Part I

  CLUSTER FUCK

  June 14, 1968–September 11, 1968

  1

  Wayne Tedrow Jr.

  (Las Vegas, 6/14/68)

  HEROIN:

  He’d rigged a lab in his hotel suite. Beakers, vats and Bunsen burners filled up wall shelves. A three-burner hot plate juked small-batch conversions. He was cooking painkiller-grade product. He hadn’t cooked dope since Saigon.

  A comp suite at the Stardust, vouchered by Carlos Marcello. Carlos knew that Janice had terminal cancer and that he had chemistry skills.

  Wayne mixed morphine clay with ammonia. A two-minute heating loosened mica chips and silt. He boiled water to 182°. He added acetic anhydride and reduced the bond proportions. The boil sluiced out organic waste.

  Precipitants next—the slow-cook process—diacetyl morph and sodium carbonate.

  Wayne mixed, measured and ran two hot plates low. He glanced around the suite. The maid left a newspaper out. The headlines were all him.

  Wayne Senior’s death by “heart attack.” James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan in stir.

  His front-page ink. No mention of him. Carlos had chilled out Wayne Senior. Mr. Hoover chilled out the backwash on the King/Bobby hits.

  Wayne watched diacetyl mass build. His blend would semi-anesthetize Janice. He was bucking for a big job with Howard Hughes. Hughes was addicted to pharmaceutical narcotics. He could cook him up a private blend and
take it to his interview.

  The mass settled into cubes and rose out of the liquid. Wayne saw photos of Ray and Sirhan on page two. He’d worked on the King hit. He’d worked it high up. Freddy Otash ran fall guy Ray for King and fall guy Sirhan for Bobby.

  The phone rang. Wayne grabbed it. Scrambler clicks hit the line. It had to be a Fed safe phone and Dwight Holly.

  “It’s me, Dwight.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘Heart attack,’ shit. ‘Sudden stroke’ would have been better.”

  Wayne coughed. “Carlos is handling it personally. He can frost out anything around here.”

  “I do not want Mr. Hoover going into a tizzy over this.”

  “It’s chilled. The question is, ‘What about the others?’ ”

  Dwight said, “There’s always conspiracy talk. Bump off a public figure and that kind of shit tends to bubble. Freddy ran Ray covertly and Sirhan up front, but he lost weight and altered his appearance. All in all, I’d say we’re chilled on both of them.”

  Wayne watched his dope cook. Dwight spieled more news. Freddy O. bought the Golden Cavern Casino. Pete Bondurant sold it to him.

  “We’re chilled, Dwight. Tell me we’re chilled and convince me.”

  Dwight laughed. “You sound a little raw, kid.”

  “I’m stretched a bit thin, yeah. Patricide’s funny that way.”

  Dwight yukked. The dope pots started boiling. Wayne doused the heat and looked at his desk photo.

  It’s Janice Lukens Tedrow, lover/ex-stepmom. It’s ’61. She’s twisting at the Dunes. She’s sans partner, she’s lost a shoe, a dress seam has ripped.

  Dwight said, “Hey, are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. And I’m glad to hear we’re chilled on your end.”

  Wayne stared at the picture. “My father was your friend. You’re going in pretty light with the judgment.”

  “Shit, kid. He sent you to Dallas.”

  Big D. November ’63. He was there that Big Weekend. He caught the Big Moment and took this Big Ride.

  He was a sergeant on Vegas PD. He was married. He had a chemistry degree. His father was a big Mormon fat cat. Wayne Senior was jungled up all over the nut Right. He did Klan ops for Mr. Hoover and Dwight Holly. He pushed high-line hate tracts. He rode the far-Right zeitgeist and stayed in the know. He knew about the JFK hit. It was multi-faction: Cuban exiles, rogue CIA, mob. Senior bought Junior a ticket to ride.