The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy [153]
White horse stayed west. Junkies stayed home. Junkies eschewed white Vegas. Tiger Kabs prowled west. Tiger orbs glowed.
So far:
No new pushers. No pending fuzz heat. No unbribed narcs making noise.
Tiger Kab was hip. Sonny Liston tigerized. Sonny ate at the hut. Sonny drank at the hut. Sonny went on local TV.
Sonny did ads. Sonny proselytized:
“Tiger Kab packs a knockout punch.” “Tiger Kab kicks Cassius Clay’s patootie.”
Fag drivers drove. Straight drivers drove. Pete enforced faction détente. Fag drivers sold boys. Fag celebs bought boys. Fag drivers drove fags to hotels.
Fag clerks minced. Fag clerks smirked. Fag clerks supplied rooms. Said rooms: Bugged/tapped/extortionized.
Fag drivers drove fags. Fag drivers turned tricks. Donkey Dom tricked with Sal Mineo. Donkey Dom tricked with Rock Hudson.
Sonny said it:
“Tiger prowls 24 hours! If you don’t swing, don’t ring!”
Tiger Kab swung in Vegas. Tiger Kamp rocked Laos hard.
Pete rotated. Pete left Vegas. Pete cut the Barb cord. Wayne rotated. Stanton worked in Saigon. Laurent and Chuck worked in Laos.
Pete detached Flash—4/65—strict orders: Hit the Gulf. Hit exile camps. Scout for good troops.
Pete detached Mesplède—4/65—strict orders: Hit the U.S. Hit the South. Scout gun dealers out.
Bob Relyea left Laos—5/65—Bob Relyea hit Mississippi. Bob was Fed now. Bob did snitch work. It was klandestine.
Chuck to follow Bob. Chuck to hit Houston. Chuck to scout guns. Chuck to scout Gulf-close—close to Mississippi. Close to Mesplède and pal Bob.
Chuck snickered to Bob. Bob snickered to Chuck. They snickered contrapuntal. They snickered through Bob’s big farewell.
They implied mischief. They indulged wordplay. They inferred klown-ery. Birmingham, Alabama. Really BOMBingham. Bogalusa—tee-hee—BOMBalusa.
Bob split for Fed work. Chuck changed roommates. Chuck bunked with Laurent Guéry now. Chuck bugged him. Chuck hassled him. Chuck harangued him:
With Klan klaptrap. With klownish klaims. With klaims of krossburns to kome.
Rotations all—Dallas to Vegas—Dallas to Vietnam. Grad-school hijinx and reunions.
Chuck shot. Chuck shot from the knoll. Mesplède shot Oswald’s gun. Flash and Laurent stood in Boyd’s team. They got scuttled pre-hit.
Rotations—Saigon to the Gulf—the Gulf to Cuba. Flash is Cuban. Flash is dark. Flash could get in.
The plan:
Flash goes in. Flash charts resistance. Flash finds good men. Flash smuggles them out. Flash boats them in. Flash feeds Guéry and Mesplède.
They’ve got a shack. It’s Gulf-close. They’ve got electrodes. They torture the men. They test their balls. They ensure their loyalty.
Rotations—Cuba to the Gulf—the Gulf to Vietnam. Bigggggggg U.S. troop numbers.
Stanton logged said numbers. Stanton logged provocations. Stanton vibed a long war.
The Cong hits Pleiku. Eight Yankees die. LBJ reacts. Air strikes: Operation Flaming Dart.
The Cong hits Qui Nhon. Twenty-one Yankees die. LBJ reacts. More air strikes: Flaming Dart II.
U.S. troops arrive—“advisors”—two Marine battalions. More air strikes: Operation Rolling Thunder.
Two battalions arrive—logistical troops—20,000 men. They get deployed. They get dispersed. They get detached to Marv units.
Firefights. Dead Yanks. Incoming rotations. Buildups—incremental—40,000 men per.
Troops hit Saigon. Troops R&R. Troop numbers swell. Long war good. Kadre like it. Buildup most boocoo.
Wayne lived in Saigon. Wayne lived in his lab. Wayne said his fucking world swelled. More people. More noise. More songs up his vents. More Marvs. More O-heads. More whores.
More cover. More white horse. More money.
Stanton laundered profits. Stanton fed Pete. Pete fed Mesplède. Mesplède bought righteous guns.
.50-calibers/Ithacas/BARs/antitank guns.
Flash found a troop site. It was Gulf-close and gooood. It was near Port Sulphur, Louisiana. It housed sixty troopers—Cubano shitkickers all.
Mesplède dropped some guns off. The shitkickers roared. Pete rotated through. Pete dug on the troops. Pete dug their maneuvers.
The troopers were hard-ons. The troopers were très hard.