{"product_id":"the-underworld-usa-trilogy-volume-ii-isbn-9781101908143","title":"The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume II","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eUnderworld U.S.A. Trilogy\u003c\/i\u003e concludes. We've traversed the interlocked conspiracies of the decade and are there for the wind-up and swan songs.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlood's A Rover\u003c\/i\u003e takes us into the seventies. MLK and RFK are dead. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago has spawned chaos. There's a punk-kid private eye in L.A. He's clashing with a mob goon and an enforcer for J. Edgar Hoover. There's an armored-car heist and a cache of missing emeralds. There's bad voodoo in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Amidst it all is a revolutionary, Joan Rosen Klein. The kid P.I., the mob goon, and Hoover's enforcer love her unto death. \u003ci\u003eBlood's A Rover \u003c\/i\u003egives us the private nightmare of public policy on an epic scale.JAMES ELLROY was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the \u003ci\u003eUnderworld U.S.A. Trilogy\u003c\/i\u003e--\u003ci\u003eAmerican Tabloid\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Cold Six Thousand\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBlood's A Rover\u003c\/i\u003e--and the \u003ci\u003eL.A. Quartet \u003c\/i\u003enovels, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Dahlia\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Big Nowhere\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eL.A. Confidential\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhite Jazz\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Colorado.THEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Los Angeles, 2\/24\/64\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSUDDENLY\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The milk truck cut a sharp right turn and grazed the curb. The driver lost the wheel. He panic-popped the brakes. He induced a rear-end skid. AWells Fargo armored car clipped the milk truck side\/head-on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMark it now:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 7:16 A.M. South L.A., 84th and Budlong. Residential darktown. Shit shacks with dirt front yards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The jolt stalled out both vehicles. The milk truck driver hit the dash. The driver’s side door blew wide. The driver keeled and hit the sidewalk. He was a fortyish male Negro.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The armored car notched some hood dents. Three guards got out and scoped the damage. They were white men in tight khakis. They wore Sam Browne belts with buttoned pistol flaps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They knelt beside the milk truck driver. The guy twitched and gasped. The dashboard bounce gouged his forehead. Blood dripped into his eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMark it now:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 7:17 A.M. Winter overcast. This quiet street. No foot traffic. No car-crash hubbub yet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The milk truck heaved. The radiator blew. Steam hissed and spread wide. The guards coughed and wiped their eyes. Three men got out of a ’62 Ford parked two curb lengths back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They wore masks. They wore gloves and crepe-soled shoes. They wore utility belts with gas bombs in pouches. They were long-sleeved and buttoned up. Their skin color was obscured.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Steam covered them. They walked up and pulled silencered pieces. The guards coughed. It supplied sound cover. The milk truck driver pulled a silencered piece and shot the nearest guard in the face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The noise was a thud. The guard’s forehead exploded. The two other guards fumble-grabbed at their holsters. The masked men shot them in the back. They buckled and pitched forward. The masked men shot them in the head point-blank. The thuds and skull crack muffle-echoed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It’s 7:19 A.M. It’s still quiet. There’s no foot traffic and car-crash hubbub yet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Noise now—two gunshots plus loud echoes. Muzzle flare, weird-shaped, blasts from the armored car’s gun slit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The shots ricocheted off the pavement. The masked men and the milk truck driver threw themselves prone. They rolled \u003ci\u003etoward\u003c\/i\u003e the armored car. It blitzed firing range. Four more shots popped. Four plus two—one revolver load.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #1 was tall and thin. Masked Man #2 was midsized. Masked Man #3 was heavyset. It’s 7:20 A.M. There’s still no foot traffic. This big blimp up in the sky trailed department-store banners.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #1 stood up and crouched under the gun slit. He pulled a gas bomb from his pouch and yanked the top. Fumes sputtered. He stuffed the bomb in the gun slit. The guard inside shrieked and retched very loud. The back door crashed outward. The guard jumped and hit the pavement on his knees. He bled from the nose and the mouth. Masked Man #2 shot him twice in the head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The milk truck driver put on a gas mask. The masked men put gas masks on over their face masks. Gas whooshed out the back door. Masked Man #1 popped gas bomb #2 and lobbed it inside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The fumes flared and settled into acid mist—red, pink, transparent. A street hubbub started perking. There’s some window peeps, some open doors, some colored folks on their porches.\u003cbr\u003e It’s 7:22 A.M. The fumes have dispersed. There’s no second guard inside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Now they go in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They fit tight. It was a cramped space. Cash bags and attaché cases were stacked in wall racks. Masked Man #1 made the count: sixteen bags and fourteen cases.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThey grabbed. \u003c\/i\u003eMasked Man #2 had a burlap bag stuffed down his pants. He pulled it out and held it open.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThey grabbed. \u003c\/i\u003eThey stuffed the bag. One attaché case snapped open. They saw mounds of plastic-wrapped emeralds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #3 opened a cash bag. A C-note roll poked out. He tugged on the bank tab. Ink jets sprayed him and hit his mask holes. He got ink in his mouth and ink in his eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He gasped, he spit ink, he rubbed his eyes and tripped out the door. He shit in his pants and stood around flailing. Masked Man #1 stepped clear of the door and shot him twice in the back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It’s 7:24 A.M. \u003ci\u003eNow \u003c\/i\u003ethere’s hubbub. It’s a jungle din confined to porches.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #1 walked toward it. He pulled four gas bombs, popped the tops and lobbed them. He threw left and right. Fumes rose up red, pink and transparent. Acid sky, mini-storm front, rainbow. The porch fools whooped and coughed and ran inside their shacks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The milk truck driver and Masked Man #2 stuffed four burlap bags tight. They got the full load: all thirty cash sacks and cases. They walked to the ’62 Ford. Masked Man #1 opened the trunk. They dumped the bags in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 7:26 A.M.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A breeze kicked up. Wind swirled the gas clouds into wild fusing colors. The milk truck driver and Masked Man #2 gawked through their goggles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #1 stepped in front of them. They got pissy—\u003ci\u003eSay what?—\u003c\/i\u003edon’t block the light show. Masked Man #1 shot them both in the face. Slugs blew up their goggle glass and gasmask tubes and doused their lights in a second.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMark it now:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 7:27 A.M. Four dead guards, three dead heist men. Pink gas clouds. Acid fallout. Fumes turning shrubs gray-malignant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Masked Man #1 opened the driver’s side door and reached under the seat. Right there: a blowtorch and a brown bag stuffed with scald-on-contact pellets. The pellets looked like a bird feed\/jelly bean hybrid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He worked slow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He walked to Masked Man #3. He dropped pellets on his back and stuffed pellets in his mouth. He tapped his blowtorch and blazed the body. He walked to the milk truck driver and Masked Man #2. He dropped pellets on their backs and stuffed pellets in their mouths and blowtorched their bodies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sun was way up now. The gas fumes caught rays and made a small stretch of sky one big prism. Masked Man #1 drove away, southbound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He got there first. He always did. He bootjacked niggertown robbery squawks off patrol frequencies. He packed his own multiband squawk box.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He parked by the armored car and the milk truck. He looked down the street. He saw some coons eyeballing the carnage. The air stung. His first guess: gas bombs and a faked collision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The coons saw him. They evinced their standard ‘‘Oh shit’’ looks. He heard sirens. The overlap said six or seven units. Newton and 77th Street—two divisions rolling out. He had three minutes to look.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He saw the four dead guards. He saw two scorched dead men near the east curb back a few car lengths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He ignored the guards. He checked out the burned men. They were deep-scorched down to crackle skin, with their clothes swirled in. His first guess: instant double cross. Let’s fuck up IDs on expendable partners.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sirens whirred closer. A kid down the street waved at him. He bowed and waved back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He had the gestalt already. Some shit you wait your whole life for. When it lands, \u003ci\u003eyou know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He was a big man. He wore a tweed suit and a tartan bow tie. Little 14’s were stitched into the silk. He’d shot and killed fourteen armed robbers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e NOW\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAMERICA\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI window-peeped four years of our History. It was one long mobile stakeout and kick-the-door-in shakedown. I had a license to steal and a ticket to ride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI followed people. I bugged and tapped and caught big events in ellipses. I remained unknown. My surveillance links the Then to the Now in a never-before-revealed manner. I was there. My reportage is buttressed by credible hearsay and insider tattle. Massive paper trails provide verification. This book derives from stolen public files and usurped private journals. It is the sum of personal adventure and forty years of scholarship. I am a literary executor and an agent provocateur. I did what I did and saw what I saw and learned my way through to the rest of the story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eScripture-pure veracity and scandal-rag content. That conjunction gives it its sizzle. You carry the seed of belief within you already. You recall the time this narrative captures and sense conspiracy. I am here to tell you that it is all true and not at all what you think.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou will read with some reluctance and capitulate in the end. The following pages will force you to succumb.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI am going to tell you everything.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233759670501,"sku":"NP9781101908143","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101908143.jpg?v=1767741988","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-underworld-usa-trilogy-volume-ii-isbn-9781101908143","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}