The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy [161]
The egg men stepped back. The cops stepped back. The cops bumped the marchers. The cops brushed picket signs.
Littell cracked the door. Littell jerked the brake. The truck rolled. The truck hit a light pole. The ambulance swerved and cut through.
Littell stepped back. Eggs hit his glasses. Tobacco juice hit his shoes.
Gutted:
Scorched timber/wet timber/wet dirt. Two dead—a boy and his dad.
The bomb hit a 4:00 p.m. service. The bomb made a floorboard blast. It reached up. Pews shattered. Wood sheared.
Littell mingled.
He saw the meat wagons. He saw the dead. He saw a boy with no toes. He saw fire trucks. He saw TV trucks. He saw some Klan youth.
They kliqued up. They klanvoked. They klowned for kamera krews.
Littell mingled.
He drew stares. He smelled like egg. He dripped shells and yolk.
Some marchers showed. Some Feds showed. The marchers consoled the victims. Folks bled and wept.
Medics hauled gurneys. Medics hauled vics. Meat wagons hauled Code 3.
Littell tailed them. Littell watched them unload. Folks limped. Folks hobbled. That boy held his toes.
The clinic was old. The clinic was unkempt. A sign read Colored Only.
Littell watched. The Feds watched Littell. Nurses pushed IV stands. A woman fell. The toe boy convulsed.
Littell drove to a liquor store. Littell bought a pint of good scotch.
75
(Bogalusa, 6/21/65)
Radio rock:
Hatenanny stuff. “Who Needs Niggers?” and “Ship Those Niggers Back.” Katchy. Kool kombos. Kall-ins on K-L-A-N.
Pete dipped his seat. Wayne watched the door. Door 5—the Rebel’s Rest Motel.
Chuck was out. Pete was right. Chuck shagged to Bogalusa. Chuck diced his folks. Chuck stole their car. Chuck shagged his ass here.
They tossed the house. They found body parts. They found no hit notes. They drove east. They called motels. They found Chuck.
They drove fast. They drove fried. No sleep since Saigon. They stopped in Beaumont. They scored bennies. They revitalized.
Pete told Wayne the hit story. Pete spieled full disclosure.
He named names. He dropped details. He spieled perspective. He blew Wayne’s mind. He framed Wayne’s own Dallas tale.
Wayne talked up Wayne Senior. Wayne Senior fed the hit fund. Wayne Senior ran snitch-Klans. Wayne Senior ran Bob Relyea now.
Pete said it: Wayne Senior runs YOU.
Radio rock: Odis Cochran/the Coon Hunters/Rambunctious Roy.
Wayne flipped the dial. Wayne caught a newscast.
“… leaky pipe explosion at a Negro church outside Bogalusa, which civil-rights agitators have called a ‘bomb blast.’ A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Integration said that early evidence points to a faulty gas main.”
Pete turned it off. “That’s the Feds. They got to the radio people.”
Wayne popped two bennies. “They know it’s Bob.”
Pete sipped RC. Bennies parched him bad.
“They’ve got a hunch, and they want to cover their bets. They didn’t tell him to do it, they didn’t want him to do it, but he figured he could get away with it, and if they made him for it, they’d let him slide and warn him not to do it again.”
Wayne watched the doors. Night-lights bipped above them. Doorways glowed blue.
“You think Bob’s with Chuck?”
Pete cracked his knuckles. “I hope not. I don’t want to kill a Federal employee who’s hooked up with your dad.”
Wayne grabbed the RC. “I don’t like the chronology. Chuck gets the letter, Chuck flies home and clips his parents. He’s probably got the journal, and he might’ve told Bob about the hit.”
Pete cracked his thumbs. “We’ll ask him about that.”
Wayne sipped RC. An Olds pulled up. Pete made the plates: PDL-902.
Chuck got out. Chuck picked his teeth and swaggered. Chuck entered room #5.
Wayne said, “He’s alone.”
Pete popped two bennies. Wayne grabbed their guns. Pete tapped the silencers. They pulled up their shirttails. They stuffed the guns down. They covered the grips.
They walked over. The room-row rocked—shitkicker tunes and full tenancy.
Wayne tried the door. It was locked. Pete shouldered it. The jamb cracked. The lock split. They rode the door in. There