The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy [222]
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/2/67. San Francisco Chronicle subhead:
KING ATTACKS “RACIST” WAR IN VIETNAM
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/4/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Office/Mike Lyman’s Restaurant/Los Angeles/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Unidentified Males #1 & #2, presumed organized-crime associates. (Conversation 2.6 minutes in progress.)
UM #1: … under Truman and Ike you had order. You had Hoover, who bore us no ill fucking will. Fucking Bobby and Jack changed all that.
UM #2: LBJ’s got schizophilia. He don’t take no shit from the Reds in Vietnam, but he sucks up to that King like he’s his long lost soul brother. The policy guys back east see this correlation. King comes to Harlem, gives these speeches and gets all the pygmies hopped up. They quit playing the numbers, our policy banks take it in the shorts, and the fucking pygmies get agitated and start feeling their oats.
UM #1: I see the correlation. They quit betting policy, their minds wander. They start thinking about Communism and raping white women.
UM #2: King likes white women. I heard he’s a pig for it.
UM #1: All the niggers want it. It’s the fruit of the forbidden fucking tree.
(Non-applicable conversation follows.)
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/12/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Rec room/St. Agnes Social Club/Philadelphia/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Steven “Steve the Skeev” DeSantis & Ralph Michael Lauria, organized-crime associates. (Conversation 9.3 minutes in progress.)
SDS: … Ralphie, Ralphie, Ralphie, you can’t talk to them. You can’t reason with them like they’re regular people.
RML: This is not news to me. I have been a landlord for many fucking years.
SDS: You’re a slumlord, Ralphie. Do not try to shit a well-known shitter like me.
RML: You’re talking like that nigger fuck King, which is just the point I wanted to make. I run to my buildings on the first, the welfare checks are out and it’s payday for the few shvoogies who work. Now, one old nigger lady shows me Time Magazine with King on the cover and says, “I don’t gots to pay no rent ’cause the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior says you a slumlord who is exploiting me.” This fuck two doors down demands his civil rights, which he fucking describes as “I don’t have to pay no rent until all my peoples is free.”
SDS: They’re way out of line. As a fucking race, I mean.
RML: That King’s got them hopped up. You got a whole race of overstimulated people.
SDS: Someone should clip that hump King. They should slip him a poison watermelon.
RML: We should join the Ku Klux Klan.
SDS: You’re too fat to wear a sheet.
RML: Fuck you. I’ll join anyway.
SDS: Forget it. They don’t take Italians.
RML: Why? We’re white.
(Non-applicable conversation follows.)
DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/21/67. Listening-post report. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Suite 301/El Encanto Hotel/Santa Barbara/listening-post-accessed.
Sirs,
During the 1st monitoring period (4/2/67–4/20/67), Subject RFK was not in residence at the target location. Subject RFK rents the suite on a yearly basis & it remains empty during his absences. The (voice-activated) mounts have thus far picked up only the non-applicable conversations of El Encanto caretakers & other employees. Per orders, the listening post will continue to be manned full-time.
Respectfully,
SA C. W. Brundage
DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/9/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.
Location: Card room/Grapevine Tavern/St. Louis/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Unidentified males #1 & #2, presumed organized-crime associates. (Conversation 1.9 minutes in progress.)
UM #1: … Klan’s willing to stand up and be counted, which means you’ve got to call them our shock troops.
UM #2: I’m for segregation, don’t get me wrong.
UM #1: St. Louis is a good example. One, it’s hillbilly.