James Ellroy - The cold six thousand

She scratched. She yelled. She clawed his neck. He covered her mouth. She drew her lips back. She bit him.

He stumbled. He kicked the calzone box. He tripped a wall switch. A light went on. The cash fell out.

Betty looked down. Betty saw the money. Pete let his hand go. Pete rubbed his bite wound.

"There, Jesus Christ. Just get out before someone hurts you."

She eased up. He eased up. She turned around. She saw his face.

Pete hit the wall switch. The room light died. They stood close. They caught their breath. They leaned on the door.

Pete said, "Arden?"

Betty coughed-a smoker's hack-Pete smelled her last reefer.

"I'm not going to hurt her. Come on, you know what we've got-"

She touched his lips. "Don't say it. Don't put a name-"

"Then tell me where-"

"Arden Burke. I think she's at the Glenwood Apartments."

Pete brushed by her. Her hair caught his face. Her perfume stuck to his clothes. He got outside. His hand throbbed. The sun killed his eyes.

o o o

Traffic was bad. Pete knew why.

Dealey Plaza was close. Let's take the kids. Let's dig on history and hot dogs.

He split Oak Cliff. He found Arden's building. It ran forty units plus. He parked outside. He checked access routes. The courtyard ruled B Es out.

He checked the mail slots-no Arden _Burke_ listed-Arden _Smith_ in 2-D.

Pete toured the courtyard. Pete scanned doorplates: 2-A/B/C-

Stop right-

He made the suit. He made the build. He made the thin hair. He stepped back. He crouched. He _looked_.

Right there-

Ward Littell and a tall woman. Talking close and closing out the world.

_DOCUMENT INSERT_: 11/23/63. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: "Recorded at the Director's Request" / "Classified Confidential 1-A: Director's Eyes Only." Speaking: Director Hoover, Ward J. Littell.

JEH: Mr. Littell?

WJL: Good afternoon, Sir. How are you?

JEH: Forgo the amenities and tell me about Dallas. The metapbysical dimensions of this alleged tragedy do not interest me. Get to the point.

WJL: I would call things encouraging, Sir. There has been a minimum of talk about a conspiracy, and a very strong consensus seems to have settled in, despite some ambiguous statements from the witnesses. I've spent a good deal of time at the PD, and I've been told that President Johnson has called both Chief Curry and the DA personally, and has expressed his wish that the consensus be confirmed.

JEH: Lyndon Johnson is a blunt and persuasive man, and he speaks a language those cowpokes understand. Now, continuing with the witnesses.

WJL: I would say that the contradictory ones could be intimidated, discredited and successfully debriefed.

JEH: You've read the witness logs, observed the interviews and have been through the inevitable glut of lunatic phone tips. Is that correct?

WJL: Yes, Sir. The phone tips were especially fanciful and vindictive. John Kennedy had engendered a good deal of resentment in Dallas.

JEH: Yes, and entirely justified. Continuing with the witnesses. Have you conducted any interviews yourself?

WJL: No, Sir.

JEH: You've turned up no witnesses with especially provocative stories?

WJL: No, Sir. What we have is an alternative consensus pertaining to the number of shots and their trajectories. It's a confusing text, Sir. I don't think it will stand up to the official version.

JEH: How would you rate the investigation to date?

WJL: As incompetent.

JEH: And how would you define it?

WJL: As chaotic.

JEH: How would you assess the efforts to protect Mr. Oswald?

WJL: As shoddy.

JEH: Does that disturb you?

WJL: No.

JEH: The Attorney General has requested periodic updates. What do you suggest that I tell him?

WJL: That a fatuous young psychopath killed his brother, and that he acted alone.

JEH: The Dark Prince is no cretin. He must suspect the factions that most insiders would.

WJL: Yes, Sir. And I'm sure he feels complicitous.

JEH: I hear an unseemly tug of compassion in your voice, Mr. Littell. I will not comment on your protractedly complex relationship with Robert F. Kennedy.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I cannot help but think of your blowhard client, James Riddle Hoffa. The Prince is his bкte noire.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I'm sure Mr. lloffa would like to know what the Prince really thinks of this gaudy homicide.

WJL: I would like to know myself, Sir.

JEH: I cannot help but think of your brutish client, Carlos Marcello. I suspect that he would enjoy access to Bobby's troubled thoughts.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: It would be nice to have a source close to the Prince.

WJL: I'll see what I can do.

JEH: Mr. lloffa gloats in an unseemly manner. He told the New York Times, quote, Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now, unquote. It's a felicitous sentiment, but I think there are those in the Italian aggregation who would appreciate more discretion on Mr. Hoffa's part.

WJL: I'll advise him to shut his mouth, Sir.

JEH: On a related topic. Did you know that the Bureau has a file on Jefferson Davis Tippit?

WJL: No, Sir.

JEH: The man belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, National States' Rights Party, National Renaissance Party and a dubious new splinter group called the Thunderbolt Legion. He was a close associate of a Dallas PD officer named Maynard Delbert Moore, a man of similar ideological beliefs and a reportedly puerile demeanor.

WJL: Did you get your information from a DPD source, Sir?

JEH: No. I have a correspondent in Nevada. He's a conservative pamphleteer and mail-order solicitor with very deep and diverse connections on the right flank.

WJL: A Mormon, Sir?

JEH: Yes. All the Nevadan fьhrer manques are Mormons, and this man is arguably the most gifted.

WJL: He sounds interesting, Sir.

JEH: You're leading me, Mr. Littell. I know full well that Howard Hughes wets his pants for Mormons and has two greedy eyes on Las Vegas. I'll always share a discreet amount of information with you, if you broach the request in a manner that does not insult my intelligence.

WJL: I'm sorry, Sir. You understood my design, and the man does sound interesting.

JEH: He's quite useful and diversified. For example, he runs a hate-tract press covertly. He's planted a number of his subscribers as informants in Klan groups that the Bureau has targeted for mail-fraud indictments. He helps eliminate his hate-mail competition in that manner.

WJL: And he knew the late Officer Tippit.

JEH: Knew or knew of. Judged or did not judge as ideologically unsound and outrй. I'm always amusingly surprised by who knows who in which overall contexts. For example, the Dallas SAC told me that a former Bureau man named Guy Williams Banister is in town this weekend. Another agent told me, independently, that he's seen your friend Pierre Bondurant. Imaginative people might point to this confluence and try to link men like that to your mutual chum Carlos Marcello and his hatred of the Royal Family, but I am not disposed to such flights of fancy.

WJL: Yes, Sir.

JEH: Your tone tells me that you wish to ask a favor. For Mr. Hughes, perhaps?

WJL: Yes, Sir. I'd like to see the main Bureau file on the Las Vegas hotel-casino owners, along with the files on the Nevada Gaming Commission, Gaming Control Board, and the Clark County Liquor Board.

JEH: The answer is yes. Quid pro quo?

WJL: Certainly, Sir.

JEH: I would like to forestall potential talk on Mr. Tippit. If the Dallas Office has a separate file on him, I would like it to disappear before my less trusted colleagues get an urge to take the information public.

WJL: I'll take care of it tonight, Sir.

JEH: Do you think the single-gunman consensus will hold?

WJL: I'll do everything I can to insure it.