American Tabloid - James Ellroy [171]
“… So it’s what you call a sweetheart deal. I got my Royal Knights Klavern, which is basically an FBI franchise, and all I gotta do is keep my ear down and rat off the Exalted Knights and Imperial Knights for mail fraud, which is the only Klan stuff Mr. Hoover really cares about. I got my own informants subcontracted into both them groups, and I pay them out of my Bureau stipend, which helps to consolidate the power of my own group.”
The shack reeked of stale socks and stale reefer smoke. Dougie Frank wore a Klan sheet and Levi’s.
Kemper smashed a fly perching on his chair. “What about those shooters you mentioned?”
“They’re here. They’ve been bunking with me, ’cause the motels around here don’t differentiate between Cubans and niggers. ’Course, you’re trying to change all that.”
“Where are they now?”
“I got a shooting range down the road. They’re there with some of my Royals. You want a beer?”
“How about a dry martini?”
“Ain’t none of those in these parts. And any man asks for one’s gonna get tagged as a Federal agitator.”
Kemper smiled. “I’ve got a bartender at the Skyline Lounge on my side.”
“Must be a Jew or a homo.”
Kemper laid on some drawl. “Son, you are trying my patience.”
Lockhart flinched. “Well … shit, then, you should know that I heard Pete found his four boys. Guy Banister said you’re still two short, which don’t surprise me, given all the integration work you’ve been doing.”
“Tell me about the shooters. Limit your extraneous comments and get to the point.”
Lockhart wiggled his chair back. Kemper slid his chair closer to him.
“Well, uh, Banister, he sent them over to me. They stole a speedboat in Cuba and ran it aground off the Alabama coast. They robbed some gas stations and liquor stores and renewed an old acquaintance with that Frenchy guy Laurent Guéry, who told them to call Guy for some anti-Fidel work.”
“And?”
“And Guy considered them too goddamn crazy for his taste, which is too crazy for just about anybody’s. He sent them to me, but I got about as much use for them as a dog does for fleas.”
Kemper moved closer. Lockhart backed his chair into the wall.
“Man, you are crowding me more than I’m used to.”
“Tell me about the Cubans.”
“Jesus, I thought we were friends.”
“We are. Now, tell me about the Cubans.”
Lockhart slid his chair sideways. “Their names are Flash Elorde and Juan Canestel. ‘Flash’ ain’t Elorde’s real first name. He just took it ’cause there’s some famous spic boxer with the same last name as him who uses it as a nickname.”
“And?”
“And they’re both crack shots and big Fidel haters. Flash ran this prostitution slave trade in Havana, and Juan was this rape-o who got castrated by Castro’s secret police, ’cause he raped something like three hundred women between the years 1959 and 1961.”
“Are they willing to die for a free Cuba?”
“Shit, yes. Flash says that given the life he’s led, every day he wakes up alive is a miracle.”
Kemper smiled. “You should adopt that attitude, Dougie.”
“Which means?”
“Which means there’s a nice colored church outside Meridian. It’s called the First Pentecostal Baptist, and it’s got a beautiful moss-hung cemetery next door.”
Lockhart pinched one nostril and blew snot on the floor. “So fucking what? What are you, some nigger church conno-sewer?”
Kemper milked his drawl. “Tell your boys not to touch that church.”
“Shit, man, how do you expect a self-respecting white man to respond to something like that?”
“Say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.’ ”
Lockhart sputtered. Kemper hummed the “We Shall Overcome” song.
Lockhart said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.”
Flash sported a Mohawk haircut. Juan sported a big testicle bulge—handkerchiefs or wadded-up tissue filled the space where his nuts used to reside.
The range was a vacant lot adjoining a trailer park. Full-dress Klansmen shot tin cans and swigged beer and Jack Daniel’s.
They hit one can out of four at thirty yards. Flash and Juan notched all hits from twice that distance.
They shot old M-ls in late-afternoon light. Better rifles and telescopic sights would make them invincible.
Dougie Frank circulated.