Read James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 for Free Online

the dream ether. Blue Rabbit made the dream cohere in Memphis. Blue Rabbit watched the resultant riots live on TV. Blue Rabbit saw a little colored girl dead from a stray bullet.
    Dwight did fifty chin-ups total. He made himself all sweat and muscle ache. He showered, dressed and packed. He got out his anonymous check-writing kit.
    One postal money order and one envelope. $300 to Mr. George Diskant in Nyack, New York.
    Dwight wrote the check, sealed the envelope and wiped it fingerprintfree.
    The flight left Dulles late. Dwight ate salted nuts and read black-militant memoranda.
    The Black Panthers. Cool name, cool mascot. Founded in ’66. Exconvictand aggrieved-spook membership. Lots of meetings, lots of whoop-de-doo, exponential growth assured. Cop-haters. Celebrity “Brothers” Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. “Off the Pigs!” rhetoric. Non-fatal cop snipings. A fatal shoot-out in Oakland, California—10/28/67.
    Huey Newton wounded. One policeman dead. Criminal proceedings pending.
    The Panthers hated the United Slaves. It was jig factional jive. US had a catchy motto: “Wherever you are, US is.”
    Fatal shootout—4/6/68—two days post-Memphis. Oakland again—this honky-hater hot spot. The Panthers called it an ambush. The cops called it “tactical surveillance.” One Panther was killed. Eldridge Cleaver was wounded. Footnote: Brother Cleaver was a convicted rapist.
    Dwight flipped pages. Most big-city PDs had files on the Panthers and Negro informants placed. Food drives, educational programs, black-culture rebop. Burgeoning numbers, hip cachet, minor newspaper clout.
    An instinct:
the Panthers are too well-known to full-on operate
.
    The Bureau ran a half-assed Cointelpro last summer. The goal: create Panther-versus-US dissension. Some San Diego agents circulated custom hate lit. The Panthers called US “chitlin chumps.” US called the Panthers “pork-chop niggers.”
    An instinct:
US was too well-known to full-on operate
.
    Note to Mr. Hoover: do not increase pressure on Panthers or US. Status-quo existing operations. Both groups will discredit themselves over time.
    Dwight flipped pages. He hit sheets on the Black Tribe Alliance and Mau-Mau Liberation Front. They were garish, outlandish and distinctly criminal.
    Darktown L.A. Rival storefront operations. Small membership stats in gradual ascent. Both groups: “Allegedly seeking to sell narcotics to finance their activities.”
    No known informants placed. Nomenclature out of
Amos ’n Andy
. “Lord High Commissioner,” “Propaganda Minister,” “Pan-African Ruler.” Rat jackets on the key players:
    A geek with four dope busts. A faggot carhop with two armed-robbery jolts. A bunco artist/voodoo priest. A card shark with ninety-one arrests and a phone book–size rap sheet. A “politically motivated” rape-o. Arrivistes, opportunists, Black Panther manqués. Buffoons prone to whimsy and carnage.
    Dwight got goose bumps. Dwight fretted his law-school ring and read more pages.
    More names, dates and locations. More details on BTA/MMLF brouhahas.A note from LAPD Sergeant Robert S. Bennett: “Per the armored-car robbery-homicides of 2/24/64, rumors of BTA & MMLF participation cannot be substantiated.”
    Street-corner agitation. Fistfights, drunk-driving beefs, Mickey Mouse rousts. The faggot carhop pimped drag queens. The card shark pimped his wife to cover his gambling debts. The Pan-African Ruler owned a porno bookstore and keestered his neighbor’s pet goat.
    His goose-bump count
zoooomed
. His nerves jumped. He ordered his one drink a night early. There, now—put your seat back and trip on Karen.
    Confidential Bureau informant #4361—Karen (NMI) Sifakis. DOB 2/1/25, New York City. Fellow Yalie, history prof, Quaker-leftist subversive.
    He brought her file with him. He loved the old surveillance pix and mug shots. There’s