(Los Angeles, 10/18/68)
Spot tail:
Marsh Bowen’s pad, 54th and Denker, lace-curtain Niggertown.
It was Night #6. Dwight Holly hired him, through Clyde Duber. Clyde was unsure of Big Dwight’s motive. Maybe Bowen vibed comsymp or security risk.
Bowen’s sled was out front. He drove a ‘62 Dodge. Candy-ass wheels. Bowen was a nosebleed. He went to doofus parties and played Zulu chief. Bowen fucked with Scotty Bennett and got sacked off LAPD. It got him clout with loser liberals and showbiz Jews.
Crutch yawned. He’d clocked in at midnight. It was 2:06 now. He tilted the car seat back and scoped his dashboard frieze. He got the idea from Scotty.
Scotty had his heist pix all taped up. Crutch rigged his own version. There’s Joan, there’s a groovy D.R. beach, there’s voodoo-vile spooks in Haiti.
The Bowen job torqued him and distracted him. It diverted work on his case and his dirty-tricks gig with Mesplede. Bowen was half-ass tail-savvy. It was like he sensed a car frogging him.
Crutch played the radio low. The tunes vexed him. It was all peacenik pap and jungle jive. Brainstorm: rig Bowen’s car with a voice box and night-light.
He got out his toolbox, squatted down and ran over. He took a corkscrew and popped a hole in the left taillight. He taped a 9-volt battery voice box under the right wheel well and flipped the dial to Frequency 3. He ran back to his car and got out the receiver. Click-there’s Channel 3 and current ambient sounds.
Crutch re-settled and re-zoned his head. He shined his penlight on the Joan pix. He had the knack now. He knew how to make those gray streaks glow.
Bowen walked out and got in his car. Night owl-2:42 a.m.
He pulled out. Crutch long-distance frogged him. That taillight hole supplied range and direction.
They drove. Crutch hovered six car lengths back. Coontown hopped. Bowen slow-cruised all-night rib cribs and bars locking up. LAPD was out BIG. Sidewalk dice games vaporized as The Man passed. Bowen drove by two black-power storefronts-BTA and MMLF. You be window-shoppin’? What be wrong wid you?
Street noise bopped off Channel 3. The jungle be late-nite loud. Bowen U-turned and shagged ass westbound on Slauson and northbound on Crenshaw.
Now, it’s more white. Now, it’s more civilized. Channel 3 is amping down. He’s heading west on Pico, north on Queen Anne Place, right by the park.
Bowen bumped the curb and took the center walkway. Fuck-no way to frog close.
Crutch doused his lights and perched at the east curbside. The park was all wet grass, shrubs and trees. He eyeball-tracked the taillight hole and saw Bowen slow-weaving.
The light went off. The car sounds died. Crickets chirped on Channel 3.
Silence. Bowen’s car door opening and closing. It’s dark. It’s all audio now.
More silence. Then two male voices. Then zippers snag and belt buckles rattle and all these scary moans.
JEH: Good morning, Dwight.
DH: Good morning, Sir.
JEH: Do you feel like some campaign chat? The swing states appear close, but our boy Dick seems to be surging.
DH: I think he’ll win, Sir.
JEH: He applied to the Bureau in 1939. I saw his application photo and thought, That young lawyer did not shave closely this morning.
DH: And you altered the course of American history in the process, Sir.
JEH: I alter the course of American history every day, Dwight.
DH: You certainly do, Sir.
JEH: Update me on the shenanigans of our murderous French bonbon J. P. Mesplede and Clyde Duber’s upstart charge Crutchfield.
DH: They’re effective in a gadfly way, Sir. They’re due in Miami next, and I’m sure Mesplede will not be able to resist the lure of that pissant island 90 miles offshore.
JEH: You consider the Cuban Cause to be entirely moribund and existentially futile, don’t you, Dwight?
DH: Yes, Sir. I do.
JEH: I most assuredly do not. Castro has been in power since 1926, and he is a worse tyrant than his predecessors Chaing Kai-shek and Cardinal Mindszenty.
DH: Uh, yes, Sir.
JEH: You sound dubious, Dwight. You do not normally falter during our snappy repartee.
DH: I’m fine, Sir.
JEH: You subsist on coffee and cigarettes. They have dulled your memory for established historical facts.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Would another rest cure at Silver Hill suit you? You might recall the first one. I pulled you off the Dillinger case in ‘34. You were drunk and killed those Negro tourists from Indiana.
DH: Uh, yes, Sir.
JEH: “Uh” twice in one conversation? I think you do require a rest cure of some sort.
DH: I’m fine, Sir.
JEH: Moving along, then. Please update me on the Dr. Fred Hiltz case.
DH: It’s covered, Sir. Jack Leahy is overseeing the investigation for the Beverly Hills PD. There’s no way the Bureau will be embarrassed.
JEH: I think the robber-killers are black militants on a rampage. They may well be consorts of a criminal cartel called Archie Bell and the Drells.
DH: I don’t think so, Sir. Archie Bell and the Drells are a musical ensemble, and Jack Leahy thinks-
JEH: Jack Leahy is a duplicitous agent with a seditious sense of humor reminiscent of the late heroin addict/comedian, Lenny Bruce. I track cocktail-party chitchat, you know. When I went in for my gallbladder operation, Jack Leahy told a Chicago agent that I was having a hysterectomy. This was in 1908, and I remember it well.
DH: So do I, Sir.
JEH: I know you do. You were working the Cleveland Office, then.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: And
DH: My infiltrator and informant are both in place, Sir. I’m sure they’ll be approached soon. I don’t think my infiltrator is entirely trustworthy, so I’ve had Don Crutchfield spot-tailing him. Bowen’s done nothing irregular, so I’m pulling the tail as of tonight.
JEH: Ah, young Crutchfield. Clyde Duber’s most persistently voyeuristic foundling.
DH: He is that, Sir.
JEH: And Wayne Junior? Persistently homicidal and racially unlucky? How is he faring?
DH: I’m seeing him tomorrow, Sir. I would guess that he’s grappled with this most recent mishap and has moved on.
JEH: We must all move on. Persistence and tenacity cure all one’s ills in the end.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Good day, Dwight.
DH: Good day, Sir.