(Las Vegas, 9/15/68)
Files, graphs, lists. His suite was a chem lab/paper mill.
Teamster Fund book loan defaulters. Deadbeats and stiffs. Transaction files and credit sheets. Debit-projection files and cost-analysis studies.
Wayne read files and jotted figures. He worked with a scratch pad and three different pens. His back hurt from hunkering down and his fingers hurt from writing. His eyes hurt from file reads and column-figure scans.
Let’s co-opt the Steve’s Kingburger chain in Akron, Ohio. Let’s buy a mall site in Leawood, Kansas. Let’s co-opt the Pizza Pit chain and wash casino skim through it. Let’s annex three low-life clubs in South L.A.: The Scorpio Lounge, Sultan Sam’s Sandbox and a dyke den named Rae’s Rugburn Room. Let’s grab the Peoples’ Bank of South Los Angeles, for its laundry potential. Let’s usurp Black Cat Cab. It’s an all-cash biz, it’s near the Peoples’ Bank, it’s close to the border and our foreign-casino sites.
Wayne put his pen down. He was wiped. He got off the dope that got him through West Vegas and the Grapevine. He got through his sobbing fits over Janice. He was getting fit again. He was getting impervious, because-
He was working.
He was mediating and colluding. He was working for Carlos Marcello and for and against Howard Hughes. Drac’s hotel spree was forestalled by Justice Department edict. Tricky Dick would put the skids to that, should he prevail at the polls. His dirty-tricks squad would lend support.
He was dispatching. Jean-Philippe Mesplede was set to scout casino-site countries. Mesplede was a mixed-bag grande plus. He was tireless and competent and prone to sentimental gaffes. He let the numbnuts kid live. The kid’s fail-safes were borderline sound. Borderlines were tenuous. He projected Dipshit’s life span as roughly six months.
The kid was a shit magnet. So was he. So was Dwight Holly.
Dwight called him yesterday. His news: the Fred Hiltz homicide. Mr. Hoover wanted it entombed. That was good: Drac and Farlan Brown might get offshoot publicity. He told Dwight his Don Crutchfield story. Dwight said, “Should I kill him?” Wayne said, “Not yet.”
He yawned and grabbed The. File. It ran four pages. Dwight pulled strings and shagged it for him.
LVPD-Clark County Sheriff’s: Missing Person Case #38992. Reginald James Hazzard/male Negro/DOB 10/17/44.
Scant and bleak. Pro forma: missing colored kids rated zilch.
Reginald Hazzard was a high school honors grad. He took college classes, worked in a car wash, kept his snout clean. The cops interviewed a few neighbors, learned zero, case closed.
The folder was unscuffed. The paper smelled new. It was an un-visited and un-mourned document.
He’d called Mary Beth three times. She never answered. He called at one-day intervals and let the phone ring twenty times.
He put the file down. He hesitated. He dialed her number again. He got four rings and her near-brusque hello.
“It’s Wayne Tedrow, Mrs. Hazzard.”
She near-laughed. “Well, it’s good to hear from you, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Can we get coffee?”
“All right, but I’ll bring it.”
“Where?”
“That first rest stop on I-15. I shouldn’t be seen with you.”
The then to now blurred. This rest stop and the rest stop near Dallas. Sand drifts and scrub balls then. Desert grit now. Wendell D. in pimp threads. Similar rest-room huts blurred seamless.
Wayne pulled in. Mary Beth sat in a ‘62 Valiant. It was midday and crowded. She’d parked away from the other cars. Wayne leaped in her car. She smiled and slapped the steering wheel. The horn beeped. Wayne banged his knees on the dashboard.
“We’re not fugitives, you know.”
Wayne said, “You could make a case for it.”
She handed him a paper cup with a napkin attached. The bottom was seeping.
“I forgot to ask for cream and sugar.”
“Any way’s fine with me.”
“Are you always so accommodating?”
“No, I tend to be a bit peremptory.”
Mary Beth smiled. “I know. I saw Buddy Fritsch on Fremont Street yesterday. He was wearing a splint on his nose.”
Wayne held the cup two-handed. The coffee was too hot. He sipped it slow. It was pure busywork.
“My friends think you’re crazy.”
“What do you say to them?”
“That men who want things from you usually give you things or show you things, which is the same as telling you things flat out. I say, ‘Mr. Tedrow has something to tell me, and he doesn’t have the words, but he sure knows a gesture.’ ”
Wayne put his cup on the dashboard. It rocked and sat still. He turned toward Mary Beth and laced his hands over one knee.
“Tell me about your son.”
“He made me wish there were two or three more of him, which coming from a busy-making person like me says quite a bit.”
“That describes your feeling for him. I was thinking of your assessment of him as a young man.”
Mary Beth sipped coffee. “He was a reader and a chemistry dabbler. He went on binges with books and his chemistry sets. He was trying to figure out the world with his mind, which I respected.”
A car pulled up next to them. A white couple gawked. Wayne said, “And the police investigation?”
“About what you’d expect. It came and went in about half a day, so Cedric and I hired a private detective. His name was Morty Sidwell, and I think he did an adequate job. He checked death records and police and hospital records all over the country and became convinced that Reginald was still alive. We ran out of money after a while, so we had to let the whole thing go.”
The white people kept staring. Wayne kept looking over. Mary Beth said, “Let it go. I don’t think I can take another gesture from you.”
Wayne hitched his seat back. It freed up his legs. Mary Beth put her cup on the dashboard.
“President Kennedy was killed a few weeks before Reginald disappeared. He was very upset.”
The white people drove off. Dad did some double-clutch thing and kicked gravel their way.
“Do you remember where you were that weekend?”
Wayne looked at her. “I was in Dallas.”
“Why?”
“I was trying to find Wendell Durfee.”
“And?”
“And I found him, and I let him go.”
More cars pulled in. It got claustrophobic. Wayne jittered up and broke a sweat. Mary Beth put her hand on his knee.
1.-Summation:
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4.-More recently,
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