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

Karen in ’49, at a Paul Robeson bash. There’s Karen outside Sing Sing—the Rosenbergs just got it. L.A., 3/12/61—Karen at a ban-the-bomb rally. His favorite: Karen composed in prayer as Berkeley cops bash heads all around her.
    She taught history at UC Santa Barbara. Her husband was a lefty lawyer in Jew York. He rotated west two weeks per month. They quit fucking four million years ago. They stayed together for obscure Commie reasons and for the sake of their two-year-old daughter. Karen disdained violence. Karen built bombs, blew up monuments and always made sure that no human beings or watchdogs got hurt. She operated under the direct sanction of Special Agent Dwight C. Holly.
    Quid pro quo. He let her destroy jingoist statuary. He pulled her activist chums out of the shit with some regularity. She ratted Reds who exceeded her low threshold for physical hurt. She was pregnant again now, at age forty-three. It was some kind of jack-off-in-a-jar/test-tube job that required hubby’s assistance. Karen Sifakis—Jesus Fucking Christ.
    They met at Yale. It was fall ’48. He was a rookie Fed. She was a Smith College/Yale trial coed. They had a two-hour pub chat. They killed a bottle of scotch and a pack of cigarettes and made everlasting impressions. He dug her looks. She dug his looks. He didn’t know it was mutual until three years back.
    L.A., August ’65. The Watts riot—crazy nigger shit ascendant. Mr. Hoover was aghast. He ordered file checks on all the college profs who signed pro-spook petitions. Dwight did a full week of file work. There’s Karen’s name. There’s Karen’s picture. Fuck—it’s that tall, red-haired Greek girl from Yale.
    He did some research. He learned that Karen wrote her doctoral thesison the Indiana Klan. Prominently mentioned: Walter “Daddy” Holly himself.
    He conducted some interviews. He learned that some Indiana Klan klowns lynched Karen’s Greek immigrant granddad. It was 1922. Daddy Holly ran a klavern two counties south of the lynch site.
    He did more research. He pulled Karen’s FBI file from the Central Records. He got her protest-march arrest records expunged in nine cities. He climbed a big limb to get her granddad some late justice.
    One of the lynch guys had spawned a neo-Nazi grandson. Dwight tracked him to a county jail in Ohio. The guy was an evil sack of shit. Dwight got him moved to an all-nigger tier. The spooks gave him a come-to-God whipping.
    He flew out to L.A. and knocked on Karen’s door. She recognized him seventeen years later. He told her what he’d done and that his father was Daddy Holly. She asked him why he did it. He told her that he wanted to give her something that no one else ever could.
    She invited him in.
    They developed an arrangement.
    He’s black-bagged her house. He’s read her journal. She describes her fascist-toady lover tenderly.
    She always tells him, “We’re too circumspect to self-immolate.” He always tells her, “We’re too tall and good-looking to lose.” Sometimes he snaps out of nightmares and finds himself coiled in her arms.
    The flight got bumpy. The seat-belt warning flashed. Dwight jotted notes on a file card:
    â€œBTA & MMLF best bets. Check various police agcy files & hate-mail subscriber lists (left-wing, anti-white mailings) for leads on possible plant (Wayne Sr.’s stash/Dr. Fred Hiltz).”
    The bumps leveled off. The plane descended. There’s that big wide light. Jesus, L.A. looked good.
    The bedroom was hot. The window unit went on the fritz and pushed stale air around. They’d sweated the sheets through to the mattress. Karen called it a “sauna fuck.” Dwight kissed her wet hair, sheened up all the more red.
    The husband was back east. He had a name, but Dwight never said it. Dina was out at nursery school. They had three hours.
    Karen rolled on her back. She was three months pregnant.