(Los Angeles, 3/25/70)
BTA scored some smack. It was an old-prison-buddy deal. Ezzard Jones put it together.”
Dwight said, “Keep going.”
“It came out of nowhere. A bunch of Panthers turned tail to Oakland after the December thing. A big connection got stiffed. His guys are willing to lay the stuff off on consignment.”
The Carolina Pines on Sunset. The 8:00 a.m. clientele: drowsy whores and Hollywood High teachers.
Dwight lit a cigarette. “Keep going.”
Marsh twirled his fork. “BTA’s got a pound and a half. The funny thing is that the lay-off guy dumped an equal amount on MMLF. I don’t know how it went down, but it was some kind of consensus. ‘Let’s have a powwow so our shit don’t go bad, brother.’ I’m supposed to mediate a ‘summit meeting’ next week.”
Fucking Joan. Stone-brilliant. She spread the wealth and doubled the indictments.
Dwight blew a Joan-style smoke ring. It came out blurry and dispersed too quick.
“Do it. Make it happen as fast as you can.”
Dwight went back to the drop-front. It was musty. He opened the shades and cracked the windows. He pulled a telex out of the tray.
The Dominican embassy contacted me a few moments ago. Regretfully, I must inform you that Wayne Tedrow was murdered in Haiti sometime within this past week. The crime appears to have been motivated by political and racial grievance. The body was disposed of on the Dominican side of the Plaine du Massacre. Pieces of paper scrawled with garish symbols and anti-American slogans were found in the victim’s pockets. Please assess this situation per the victim’s dealings with RMN, Mr. Hughes and our Italian friends, et al. Call me upon receipt of this communiquй.
The dark room helped. The walls enclosed him. Street noise was steady. He ran the window unit and leveled out the hum.
He pressed himself into small spaces. His desk cubbyhole and the closet felt safe. He tucked up his legs and rode out the cramps. He covered his head for more darkness. He threw his gun down a heating shaft so he wouldn’t shoot himself. His shirt was soaked from sobbing all wrapped up.
Time drilled a hole someplace. He dumped his booze and pills down the shaft so he wouldn’t run to sleep. The phone rang and rang. It was all gunshots. He covered his ears. The phone kept ringing. He crawled out of his nest and threw the phone on the floor. The receiver was close, the line crackled, he heard her voice.
The hole expanded. He grabbed the phone. He got out “Yes?” and “You never called me here before.” His voice was Wayne’s.
The line fuzzed. He lost her voice. The line cleared. He got her again.
“Balaguer’s rounding up and torturing people. Wayne bombed the sites. Balaguer’s making a statement.”
Dwight coughed. The line fritzed and died. He cracked the shades and got sight back. His eyes swirled. He called his L.A. patch-call guy. A recorded message rolled. He asked for a callback: one minute with The Man.
The light hurt. He pulled the shades back tight. Blackout curtains and time travel: Wayne with his first chemistry set and his Scottish immigrant grandfather.
Peru, Indiana. Spring ‘48. Wayne mixes powders and builds a rainbow.
The phone rang. He grabbed the receiver. A flunky said something. Dwight wiped his eyes. The line clicked. Richard Nixon said, “You’ve got balls to call me out of the blue.”
“Wayne Tedrow’s dead. Balaguer’s going nuts and rounding up people for some shit that Wayne pulled. We all go back with Wayne, Sir. With all due respect, this has to stop now.”
Nixon whistled. “Sure, Dwight. I’ll call the little prick. Jesus, those fucking Nevada Mormons are crazy.”
(Santo Domingo, 3/26/70)
Street view, mirror view. He couldn’t stop looking.
His suite was penthouse-high. The vista was wide. The fuzz kicked Red ass across a biiiiiig plane. The show was a week running. Roundups, hassles, brawls. Skirmishes up the ying-yang.
The window show got to him. His carved-up back, ditto. The 6/14 brand was a keeper. The scar was permanent. He sort of dug it. It astonished him and made him look.
Crutch walked mirror to window. He was shirtless, he was sweaty. Heart pings-bip, bip, bip.
Ivar Smith just called him. The Crutchfield hex worked. Some voodoo niggers whacked Wayne Tedrow’s nigger-lover ass.
His head hurt. His vessels vibrated. It was a top-ten Richter-scale migraine. L.A. scared him back here. L.A. was worse. He read the signs: Dwight Holly and Marsh Bowen had some fucked-up dope thing going.
Tiger Krew dope. His dope. One fucking obvious conclusion.
Crutch stared out the window. Shit perked far and near. It was an ant show. The street was an ant farm. Cops and Commies skittered.
Sirens blared. It was earache-loud and stereophonic. The sound felt citywide. Spic ant groups froze.
He walked to the mirror. His scar was pink and creased. 6/14, por vida.
That heist lead torqued him: Leander James Jackson as Laurent-Jean Jacqueau. He located Jackson in coontown and spot-tailed him. He. learned buppkes. He spot-tailed Marsh Bowen. Paydirt: Marsh meets Scotty Bennett at Tommy Tucker’s Playroom.
Hated rivals-trиs chummy. Say what?
Crutch walked to the window. His head hurt. He sweated. He panted and fogged up the glass.
He wiped it clear. He blinked and squinted. The ant show was gone.
Coffee sounded good. Bop to Gazcue and slurp Java. Re-calibrate and re-cogitate. Groove on the hex. Recap and reconsider the case.
Crutch strolled. He cut across the polo field. He scoped women at the paddock. He hit Calle Bolivar and made for the Malecуn.
No fuzz, no ant farm. That siren blare was some kind of all-clear.
His head still hurt. The pain re-circulated and stung. He heard a car idling behind him. He heard foot slaps on pavement. He saw shadows up ahead.
Pile drive:
Two guys behind him, two guys up front. They’ve got bandanna masks, one’s slipping off, it’s Felipe Gomez-Sloan.
They slammed him. He flailed. He got clotheslined, he got rabbit-punched, he got tape slapped on his mouth. He got an arm free and ripped Canestel’s mask off. The street flipped, the sky hit him, he saw Tiger Kar.
They dumped him in the trunk and threw the lid down. He pulled the tape off. He kicked at the latch point and gagged on stale air. Tiger Kar peeled out. He heard backseat banging. The trunk lining ripped and let air and light in. A knife blade stabbed and carved space.
There’s more light. There’s a hand. There’s Froggy’s pit-bull tattoos.
Froggy yelled. It was word bouillabaisse. Cochon, pйdй, putain Rouge. “L’hйroпne” en franЗais, “cocksucker” in English.
The blade kept stabbing. Crutch squirmed away from it and kicked out. He hit Froggy’s hand. The blade ripped his tennis shoe. He contorted and pulled his feet back.
Fumes filled the trunk-five fuckers smoking. Crutch saw Froggy’s eyes in the trunk hole.
“It was not 6/14. It was Dwight Holly. There was a security camera in the lobby at the hotel. The camera was equipped with a timer. It cannot be anything else.”
The Cubans tiger-hissed. Saldivar blew smoke in the trunk. Crutch gagged and kicked at his face.
Froggy laughed. Crutch squirmed against the truck latch. Cigarettes bombarded him. He swatted out the coals.
He prayed. His headache lodged behind his eyes and white-bordered things. Froggy said, “The bombings have greatly upset Sam and Carlos. Sam and Carlos do not know of your part in this, although I have told them you may well be soft on Communists. I doubt that President Balaguer will risk another round of construction and potential sabotage. Sam and Carlos think you should embellish your anti-Communist credentials.”
Tiger Kar zoomed. It felt like the full-bore Autopista. Crutch prayed. He zoomed through the psalms and the Gloria Patria. His head pounded. His eyes burned. He saw Jesus and Martin Luther at Wittenberg. Smoke filled the trunk. Cigarette butts followed. Tiger hisses, tiger growls, mugging faces at the hole.
Pariguayo, pariguayo, pariguayo.
Crutch vomited and gasped. Road bumps sent Tiger Kar swerving. Crutch pressed his face to the trunk hole and sucked air in. Gomez-Sloan jabbed a cigarette at his nose.
He screamed and rolled away from the hole. He heard pariguayo, pariguayo, pariguayo. Tiger Kar braked and brodied. The doors slammed. The trunk lid popped and let I-see-Jesus light in. Hands grabbed him and placed his feet on the ground.
It’s a shit-ass place. It’s a garbage dump with six shacks adjacent.
Paper refuse and mulch. Fifty tons of ground something. Bones poking out of an ash mound. Wiggles inside it-gator tails snapping through.
Pariguayo, pariguayo, pariguayo.
The sun burned his headache out through his eyes. The grabbing hands held him and walked him. Somebody strapped a big weighty thing on his back. The thing had a hose, a nozzle and a trigger. Somebody put a spout thing in his hands.
Pariguayo, pariguayo, pariguayo.
It was L.A. or the D.R. It was the Boyle Heights dump or Watts swampland or some 6/14 deal. The sun melted the spout thing into his hands. Other hands pushed him to an open-front shack. Two dozen people were bound and tape-gagged.
Black people. Men, women and kids-bone-thin and squirming. Pus-packed sores. Yellow eyes jumping and glazing.
The spout thing smelled like gasoline. The yellow eyes talked to him. It was L.A. or Haiti. The people were darktown riffraff or voodoo lords. The psalms kept replaying.
Hands steadied him. Hands flexed his hands on the spout thing. Clouds doused the sun for a moment.
He stepped forward and turned around. He saw all five of them and got their names straight for the first time. The sun re-eclipsed and winked at him. He tapped the trigger.
The flame tore up and out. They screamed and went spastic on fire.
The ammo on their belts blew up. Pieces of them exploded.
Los Angeles,