(Santo Domingo, 4/7/72)
The Zombie Zone, distilled. Plain fucking MORE.
More street rousts, more toxic rodents, more Haitian dispossessed. More sap-twirling fascistas and more skin-color gaps.
More heat. More flying insects. More stump-legged black guys on rolling planks. No casino-build cosmetics. More baaaaad juju and less dissent.
Crutch cabbed into Borojol. He had four hundred K and a silencered piece. Customs let him in easy. He wasn’t red-tagged. He had his memory lists. Joan got him two forged passports: one for Celia, one for Reggie.
Too familiar meets evil. Everything brought back something he tried to forget. He passed the golf course. His X-ray eyes revived. There’s the torture bunker and the electric chair.
The New York Times diverted him. Doofus Democrats and Nixon. J. Edgar’s latest gaffe. A street flash de-diverted him. Surging fuzz crush a leaflet-passing cabal.
He’d spent four nights with Joan. They talked and made love. He’d leave for short stretches, just to take deep breaths. He didn’t mention His Idea. He couldn’t risk the word “No.” He didn’t sleep much. He curled around her and smelled her hair on the pillow. She held his hands to her breasts.
The cab pulled into Borojol. The More got Worse. More iron-heel bullshit. More skateboard beggars. More barefooted Haitians traipsing through rat dung and broken glass.
There’s the open-front bodega. There’s the safe house.
Crutch paid the driver and got out. The safe house looked innocuous. He knocked and got no answer. No footsteps inside and no sounds of flight.
He shouldered the door. Sunlight through broken glass supplied the upshot.
The walls were bullet-holed. Spent shells covered the floor. One wall was blood-sprayed and pellet-flecked, all laced with dark hair.
Flies buzzed around a doctor’s smock, soaked red on a chair.
Stay awake. It’s a last look. Go get more of the More. Lefty lifestyle rules curtailed him. Joan knew her comrades mostly by first names. Dr. Sanchez had no phone listed. That meant drive and peep.
Crutch rented a junker and cruised the safe-house list. He’d memorized fourteen addresses. He started in Gazcue and worked west.
The first three pads were empty. He door-knocked to no avail and broke in. He saw telltale cleanup signs. He smelled ammonia with blood undertones. He ran his penlight and saw the casings the cleanup guys had missed.
Santo Domingo by night: 82° and still fascist-oppressed.
He drove around. He got lost in the details. He saw three women he’d peeped a while back.
The black kids eating boat chum in the Rio Ozama. The old casino sites with squatter bands and cracker-box cribs going up.
He hit four more addresses. Two houses weren’t there. He talked to a street fool. The guy said La Banda torched them. It got to him. He wanted them to be speakeasies. Knock, knock. A peephole slides. He says, “I’m a friend. Comrade Joan sent me.”
He looped around. He hit the next seven places. He met two square families at the outset. We just rented the dump. We don’t know no Celia, no Reds.
He cruised the last five pads. He got one torch job and four clean-outs. A wino said those La Banda humps were fucking firebugs. He saw pellet pocks and maggot mounds on gristle. He saw a shot-to-shit Afro wig.
He got Another Idea.
Ivar Smith said, “Hola, pariguayo.”
Terry Brundage said, “I never thought we’d see your peeping ass back here.”
The bar at the El Embajador. 8:00 a.m. Bloody Marys affixed with celery sticks. Both guys had aged. Both guys looked prematurely sclerotic.
Crutch cleared table space. Brundage Tabasco’d his drink. Smith pointed to the briefcase.
“Quй es esto?”
Crutch said, “Four hundred G’s.”
Brundage said, “Oh, shit. He’s working for the Boys again.”
Smith said, “As if Wayne Tedrow and the Tiger Krew weren’t enough.”
Brundage said, “Just what we need. More mob grief and Commie sabotage.”
Smith said, “Wayne killed Mormonism for me. I used to think they were all good right-wing white men.”
Brundage noshed his celery stick. “I hate fucking wops.”
Smith noshed his celery stick. “I hate fucking left-wing converts with chemistry expertise.”
Crutch flashed his show pix: Reggie and Celia Reyes.
Brundage said, “Who’s the chiquita? I dig her eyes.”
Smith said, “Sambo looks like Chubby Checker. ‘Come on, baby. Let’s do the Twist.’ ”
Crutch dipped into the briefcase and tossed them both ten grand. Smith gagged and almost sprayed. Brundage dropped his celery stick.
Crutch said, “They’re Commies, sure as shit. I want to find them and take them back to the States.”
Brundage fanned his cash stacks. “Why?”
Crutch said, “I’m not telling you.”
Smith fanned his cash stacks. “Put motive aside for a moment. How much of the money do we keep?”
Crutch patted the briefcase. “All of it. You pay everybody who needs to get paid, and you keep the rest.”
Brundage said, “Explain this to me. I’m not saying no, but give me more of a hint.”
“I’m all out of leads. You’ve got the files, the informants and the manpower. It’s a roundup. You find them or you find the Commies who know where they are.”
Brundage salted his drink. “Detentions.”
Smith peppered his drink. “Interrogations. We bring in La Banda.”
Crutch said, “They could be in Haiti.”
Brundage rolled his eyes. “That means the Tonton.”
Smith rolled his eyes. “Evil, chicken-fucking primitives, who do not work cheap.”
Brundage chomped his celery stick. “Papa Doc will want a taste.”
Smith chomped his celery stick. “So will the Midget.”
Crutch fanned a cash roll. “It’s a lot of money.”
Brundage said, “I’ve got Jew blood. We’ll do it for five.”
Smith said, “I’m getting more Jewish by the moment. Five closes the deal.”
Crutch shook his head. “Four hundred big ones, over and out.”
Brundage sighed and looked at Smith. Smith salted his drink and sighed back.
“This could get raw. You’re dealing with hard-core subversives.”
Crutch tapped the show pix. “I don’t care, as long as they don’t get hurt.”
He stayed awake. Sleep scared him. His nightmares would eclipse shit that flared real-time. He copped dexies at a quick-script farmacia. He leveled his fuel with klerin-laced sno cones. The fruit base cut down dehydration.
Smith and Brundage culled files and built a name list. The cash split went down. Papa Doc and the Midget hogged the green. They got a hundred each. Smith and Brundage got fifty each. The rest went for ops costs and goons. La Banda and the Tonton supplied shake-the-trees guys.
Flying squads: the D.R. and Haiti. Rural-jail detention sites flanking the river. Polygraph machines, Pentothal, coercion. Hard boys with phone books and saps.
The planning took three days. Smith’s office served as command post. Crutch stayed awake and sat in. Brundage and Smith scanned KA lists. They found nineteen Celia listings and zero Reggie listings. That limited their targets. Smith said, let’s keep it tight. Detain, interrogate, press and/or release. Brundage disagreed. The Reds all know each other. Let’s build a big snitch-out pool.
The argument extended. Crutch sided with Brundage. More was better. Smith argued for a less-meets-more combo. Don’t overcrowd the jails. Don’t let the fuckers huddle and collude. Weed out the lice who don’t know Celia or Reggie at the get-go. Offer rat-out cash. Restrict the interrogations to likely suspects.
They agreed on thirty-four names. Twenty-three lived in the D.R., eleven lived in Haiti. They had four La Banda teams with squad cars. They had three Tonton teams with squad cars. The jail sites were mid-island, near Dajabуn. A walk-bridge provided foot access. The Plaine du Massacre was croc-infested there. The fuckers dined on dumped garbage and errant Haitians on voodoo-herb trips.
The polygraphs were hooked up. The Pentothal was laid in. The interrogators stood ready. Both jails were two-way-radio-rigged. The squad cars had two-ways. The system was spiffy.
Smith called the shots. Crutch joined him at the D.R. jail. Crocs lounged on the riverbank. They were groovy. Crutch stared out the window at them.
Clock it: exactly 7:00 a.m.
Smith radioed the cars. The cars rogered back in English and French. Mug shots were wall-pinned: thirty-four comrades, total.
Crutch read their files last night. They were mostly kids his age. They looked like kids. He didn’t. He had gray hair and posterior scarring. One non-kid exception: Esteban Sanchez, M.D. He looked battle-aged. Joan had called him “a seasoned Red Brigade warrior.”
The callbacks hit: got them, got them, got them. Smith manned the radio. Crutch heard sputter and squawk. Some Reds resisted, some didn’t. We’re coming in now.
Crutch walked outside and waited on the bridge. Crocs sunned and swam below. He tossed them handfuls of beef jerky. They snapped it off the water. Their teeth flashed. Their snouts veered toward the bridge.
Joan.
Every thought now. Cutting through his case and his idea. Cutting through to This.
She raises her arms. He kisses her there. She says, “You’re insanely durable and persistent.” She harps on that. She talks about the gene of persistence. He asks her what she means. She says, “I’m not telling you.”
Hours whizzed by. Crutch stayed in the Joan Zone. He ate dexies. He watched the crocs. He heard incoming calls on a loudspeaker. Yeah, we got Reds-but no Reggie or Celia.
The squad cars showed. Muffler noise announced them. Whoosh- dual-court press-both riverbanks. It felt synchronized. Crutch had a two-river view.
Eyes right-Tonton guys and black Commies. Eyes left-La Banda with Reds black and brown. Crutch stood on the bridge and head-counted. The D.R.: eighteen total. Haiti: nine of eleven. No Reginald Hazzard, no Celia Reyes.
The comrades were handcuffed. Crutch counted twenty-four men and three women. The goons shoved and pushed them. A few dragged their feet. Little sap shots got them back going.
They entered the jails. Two-river view. Out and in, instantaneous.
Nothing showed through the windows. Crutch stood on the bridge and fed the crocs. He was weavy and dingy. Spots popped in front of his eyes. He’d been up since L.A.
A croc leaped way high. Crutch reached down and scratched his nose. A man screamed in the D.R. jail, up close. A man screamed in the Haiti jail, faint.
It went on for ten seconds. Crocs swarmed under the bridge. Feed me that shit now.
Crutch tuned it all out. The crocs dispersed. Time dispersed. He popped more dexies, he got more dingy, he saw more spots. Joan takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. He kisses her arms. He yanks at her boots. She laughs and resists. He falls on his ass.
A man screamed in the D.R. jail. Two men screamed in the Haiti jail, faint. It went on for half a minute and stopped.
Crutch re-tuned it out. His arms tingled. He felt sunstroked. He saw spots. His pants felt slack. The spots started to look like bugs.
A man screamed in the D.R. jail. It went on and didn’t stop. He conjured Joan harder. She touched Dwight’s clothes and cried. He told her he’d look after her. She said, “You can’t.”
A woman screamed in the D.R. jail. It went on and didn’t stop. Crutch covered his ears. That didn’t stop it. He turned his back and got more distance. That made it worse. His ears hurt. The spots grew into grids and re-framed everything. The screams got louder. He turned around and sprinted up.
The front door was open. Kids were shackled to drainpipes and benches inside. The sound reverbed down a back hall.
Crutch ran. The spots became figures. He knocked down a Tonton dude and a La Banda guy with a Sten gun. He hit a connecting corridor. He saw mirror-paned sweat rooms on both sides. Kids resisted poly tests. Goons cuffed kids to chair backs. Goons waved phone books and hose chunks.
The woman screamed louder. Crutch nailed the sound and kicked in the door. She was chair-cuffed. Her arms were bloody. A Tonton fuck had a barbed-wire sap.
She saw him and screamed louder. The Tonton guy stepped up. Oh, no, baby boy-this is mine.
Crutch arm-barred him. His throat bones cracked. Crutch elbow-slammed his nose and broke it. The Tonton guy grabbed at his throat and convulsed. The woman screamed. Crutch pulled off his shirt and showed her his scar.
Smith ran into the room. The Tonton fuck puked bone chips and blood. Crutch weaved and saw spots. The woman looked at his scar. Their heads converged. She said something in Spanish. Crutch thought he heard “Celia” and “Port-au-”
Two Tonton guys drove him. Brundage and Smith frosted the dustup. You was over-zealous. You over-reacted. Thanks for the bread.
The car was a voodoo barge. A ‘63 Impala, lowered and chopped. Bizango-sect flags. Cheater slicks and baby-moon hubcaps. Dashboard pix of dogs in pointed hats.
Crutch weaved in the backseat. Those spots kept swirling. He broke his L.A. record for staying hot-wired awake. The Tonton guys dug him. The torture guy fucked the driver guy’s wife. That be bad juju. You a righteous white boy.
The barge was air-cooled. Tinted windows shaded all the pauvre shit outside. Little villages and big signs extolling Papa Doc. Blood-marked trees ubiquitous and geeks in chicken-head hats.
The people faded into spots and vice versa. The Tonton guys spoke half English, half French. The roundup made them each a C-note. La Banda skirmished with some Reds in Santo Domingo. That be bad gre-gre.
Port-au-Prince was Shitsville with a Sea Breeze. Rocky beaches, stucco cubes and eroded buildings older than God. The barge stopped at a lime green pad raised off the street on pylons. Crutch said bye-bye and lurched up the steps.
He knocked. The door opened. Celia Reyes leaned on the jamb. She said, “I’ve seen you before.” He said, “Everyone has.” The spots cohered and made everything black.
Lieutenant Maggie Woodard, USNR.
She wore the winter blues and the summer khakis. Her name tag read WOODARD. She never married Crutch Senior. She drank too much and got pissy or effusive. She stayed in the reserves after the Big War.
She wore her uniform on weekends. He watched from doorways. She tipped highballs and played Brahms on a scratchy phonograph. She chain-smoked. She dangled her brown uniform shoe off her left foot. She dangled her black uniform shoe off her right. She caught him lurking and laughed. She fed him maraschino cherries out of her glass.
Fading in and dispersing. Blackout sketches into spots.
We’re in Ensenada. You ‘ve got an earache. I can’t stand your hurt. I hit a farmada and shoot you up.
We’re in L.A. Your father blows our money. We scrounge empty pop bottles and splurge at Bob’s Big Boy.
We’re in San Diego. Your father is elsewhere. You’re out roving, as you always are. You come back unexpectedly. You catch me with a lover at the El Cortez Hotel.
You’re always watching me. I leave that day. You stand at the window, waiting. I never saw it, but I know.
“You undressed me.”
“You were delirious. You weren’t making sense at all.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two full days.”
“Jesus. Everything looks different.”
“Then maybe it is.”
The robe was too big. He’d lost twenty pounds, easy. She cooked a big breakfast. The smell repulsed him. The kitchen was cramped. Everything was off-scale. Dishes covered the table and sent weird fumes up.
Celia said, “Joan sent you.”
“How did you know?”
“I found a picture of her in with your clothes.”
“What else did you find?”
“A Saint Christopher medal, a.45 automatic and a list of meticulously prepared questions.”
Crutch re-focused. Four years, then to now. Hollywood to Haiti. She hadn’t changed. Everything else had.
“I hope you’ll be willing to answer them.”
Celia sipped coffee. “I don’t think I care like you do.”
“I don’t understand.”
She smiled. “I’m saying I’ve changed. My beliefs have solidified. I’m not that reckless and vindictive person so determined to avenge Tattoo.”
Crutch weaved. The off-scale room contracted. He felt kitchen heat and started to sweat.
“I’d appreciate it if you could tell me what you know and what you remember.”
Celia buttered her toast. She wore a knee-length shift. Her hair was cinched tight by a barrette.
“Tattoo was a voodoo priestess. I held to her beliefs much more then than I do now. She was wild and I was wild, and I was trying to manipulate a man who worked for Howard Hughes. I wanted to see those casinos built in my country. Joan and I thought we could shape that event to benefit the Cause.”
Crutch poured coffee. “I know that part. I know about the hex you placed on Tattoo and how you wanted to revoke it. What concerns me is the specific details of that sum-”
“I was wild. She was wild. We were caught up in large things together. I had summoned a curse on her because I believed in those things then. We reconnected that summer. It was a dangerous time in the world. I wanted to hurt Tattoo and save her, all at once. She had made a pornographic film with a voodoo theme. A sleazy realtor arranged for screenings of it around the time Tattoo disappeared. Things connected. The realtor knew the man who worked for Howard Hughes. It all felt mystical. Joan humored me and allowed me to rent a house from the man. Tattoo was crashing in a house nearby. Joan had told her about the place. It stayed vacant for long periods. Joan and some comrades had used it as a safe house years before.”
Convergence, confluence, coincidence. Arnie Moffett, Horror House, the Commie meeting notes. A time loop: ‘68 to 12/6/62.
“The realtor’s name was Arnold Moffett.”
“Yes, that sounds right. He had a vague connection to the Caribbean. I think he was involved in Haitian import-export.”
Re-convergence. Arnie Moffett in ‘68: my pads are fuck-film sets.
“You knew Sal Mineo. You asked him to set Tattoo up with some movie-business men. He’d referred you before. You wanted to revoke the curse. Tattoo had done penance and bought her way out of the book of the dead. She-”
Celia clamped his hands. He was racy and sweaty. He let her anchor him.
“Sal called it ‘fantasia’ then, and I’m calling it that now. Tattoo was wild, I was wild. We were wild like you’re wild now. Tattoo reconciled with the 6/14 people and did favors for Joan. Joan said, ‘Sweetie, stop this foolishness. Tattoo will be better served if you let all this go.’ ”
Crutch pulled his hands free. “And you did? And you’re telling me that’s it?”
Celia nodded. “I’ll grant you this. Tattoo disappeared, and I had a legitimate premonition that she had been killed that summer. For what it’s worth, I still have it. I had it later that year, and I talked to a friend about it, and-”
“Leander James Jackson, who-”
“Who is dead now himself. He asked around about Tattoo. He talked to the realtor, and he got nowhere.”
Crutch rubbed his legs. His limbs felt numb. His brain re-spooled, restarted, re-stopped and re-fed.
“You’re saying that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying you don’t remember the men you set Tattoo up with?”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying you don’t know who attended the screenings?”
“Yes. I have a copy of the film, but Leander and I never identified the other actors.”
“You’re saying that Jackson braced Arnie Moffett on the screenings and got nothing, and that from there you just let it all slide?”
Celia touched his arm. “You’re resourceful and persistent, or you wouldn’t have found me. If you’re as anxious to please Joan as I think you are, you can find better ways to serve the Cause.”
Re-feeding, re-spooling, stop/start, squelch/sputter/off.
“Do you know where Reginald Hazzard is?”
“Yes. He lives a mile from here.”
Crutch laughed. “Just like that?”
She took a napkin and wiped his face. Sweat trickled into his eyes.
“I’m taking you back to Joan.”
“No, you’re not. I’ll write a note to her.”
The film can was heavy. The envelope was sealed. C.R./J.K. was printed on the back.
He decided to walk and re-scale things. It didn’t work. He felt re-railed, not de-railed. He had the Arnie Moffett re-lead. He still had That Idea.
He called Ivar Smith from Celia’s place. They made travel plans. Ton-ton shuttle to Santo Domingo. L.A. from there. Stiff the Vegas call and pray it plays out.
His fingers were paper-cut. File reads did that sometimes. They tingled. His brain just re-signaled him the pain.
Sea spray and humidity. Spice in the air. Black folks speaking French.
He tossed Celia’s passport in a trash can. He swiped a banana from a fruit stand and snarked it. Some kids played a portable radio. Memory Lane: Archie Bell and the Drells with “The Tighten Up.”
There’s chez Reggie. It’s Caribbean Day-Glo green.
The door was open. A torn-up screen was stuck in place. Crutch reached through a hole and un-latched it.
A lab and a file trove. Bottle rows and stacked folders. Chem texts, beakers, burners and pots. Some nifty molecular charts.
His fingers stung. He scanned shelves and played a hunch. There’s ocimum basilicum. Sure, why not?
He dipped his left-hand fingers in the bottle. They re-tingled and un-stung. He pulled them out. The cuts disappeared as the skin puckered up.
“Do you believe in Haitian chemistry?”
He turned around. Nix on Chubby Checker. Reggie looked like Harry Belafonte with white splotches and a Fu Manchu stash.
Crutch said, “I believe in everything.”
Sleep found him and won. He wanted to see it all one more time and say good-bye to Wayne. He got a blackout curtain and cigarette backdraft.
He smelled the airport. Jet fuel and scorched rubber. He heard chants right after that.
“Muerto,” La Banda, “Raids” en espaсol.
He opened his eyes. He saw kids with black-bordered placards. A photo of a swarthy guy. ESTEBAN JORGE SANCHEZ, 1929-1972.
He shut his eyes again. Reggie said, “Don’t go to sleep. We’re here.”
The Midget flew them first-class. Reggie was tall. The legroom jazzed him. Crutch tried to conjure Joan and got Esteban Sanchez non-stop.
Reggie was Mr. Quiet. It all oozed fait accompli. He didn’t niggle, question, protest. Reggie, the doofus genius with the hellbent past.
Crutch stayed awake. The nightmare potential re-vitalized him and kept him up. Reggie read chemistry books and over-ate. His burn scars looked exotic. The stewardess dug on him. Reggie, the socially unkempt and angelic savant.
Crutch got mad out of nowhere. The jet engine throb got lodged in him somehow. He got dizzy. Sleep fought him and won.
“Sir, we’ve arrived.”
The stewardess jostled him. First class had filed out. Reggie was gone. No, not yet. Please, God-let me see-
He jumped up. He grabbed his bag and shoved people out of the way. His coat flapped. People saw his gun and got panicked. He shoved his way down the ramp. He elbowed some hippie fools and a nun. He made the runway. He saw Reggie and Mary Beth lock in an embrace.
The kid was sobbing. Mary Beth held his head down. She looked up and saw Crutch. She gave him her green-flecked eyes for a moment and walked her son off.