American tabloid

91

The geek wore a monogrammed Klan sheet. Pete fed him bonded bourbon and lies.

“This gig is you, Dougie. It’s got ‘you’ written all over it.”

Lockhart burped. “I knew you didn’t drive out here at 1:00 a.m. just to share that bottle with me.”

The shack smelled like a cat box. Dougie reeked of Wildroot Cream Oil. Pete stood in the doorway-the better to dodge the stink.

“It’s three hundred a week. It’s an official Agency job, so you won’t have to worry about those Fed raids.”

Lockhart rocked back in his La-Z-Boy recliner. “Those raids have been pretty indiscriminate. I heard quite a few Agency boys got themselves tangled up in them.”

Pete cracked his thumbs. “We need you to ride herd on some Klansmen. The Agency wants to build a string of launch sites in South Florida, and we need a white man to get things going.”

Lockhart picked his nose. “Sounds like Blessington all over again. Sounds also like it might be another big fuckin’ buildup to another big fuckin’ letdown, like a certain invasion we both remember.”

Pete took a hit off the bottle. “You can’t make history all the time, Dougie. Sometimes the best you can do is make money.”

Dougie tapped his chest. “I made history recently.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. It was me that bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. That Communist-inspired hueand-cry that’s going up right now? Well, I got to say I’m the one that inspired it.”

The shack was lined with tinfoil. Dig that Martin Luther Coon poster taped to the back wall.

“I’ll make it four hundred a week and expenses, through to mid-November. You get your own house and office in Miami. If you leave with me now, I’ll throw in a bonus.”

Lockhart said, “I’m in.”

Pete said, “Clean yourself up. You look like a nigger.”

o o o

The ride back went slow. Thunderstorms turned the highway into one long snail trail.

Dougie Frank snored through the deluge. Pete caught newscasts and a Twist show on the radio.

A commentator talked up Joe Valachi’s song-and-dance. Valachi dubbed the Mob “La Cosa Nostra.”

Valachi was a big TV hit. A newsman called his ratings “boffo.” Valachi was snitching East Coast hoodlums up the ying-yang.

A reporter talked to Heshie Ryskind-holed up in some Phoenix cancer ward. Hesh called La Cosa Nostra “a goyishe fantasy.”

The Twist program came in scratchy. Barb sang along in Pete’s head and out-warbled Chubby Checker.

They talked long-distance right before he left Miami. Barb said, What is it?-you sound frightened again.

He said, I can’t tell you. When you hear about it, you’ll know.

She said, Will it hurt us?

He said, No.

She said, You’re lying. He couldn’t argue.

She was flying to Texas in a few days. Joey booked them in for an eight-week statewide run.

He’d fly in for weekends. He’d play stage-door Johnny, straight up to November 18.

o o o

They hit Miami at noon. Lockhart dosed his hangover with glazed doughnuts and coffee.

They looped through the downtown area. Dougie pointed out For Rent signs.

Pete drove in circles. The house-and-office search had Dougie yawning.

Pete narrowed his choices down to three offices and three houses. Pete said, Dougie, take your pick.

Dougie picked fast. Dougie wanted to log in some sack time.

He picked a stucco house off Biscayne. He picked an office on Biscayne-dead center on all three parade routes.

Both landlords demanded deposits. Dougie peeled bills off his expense roll and paid them three months’ rent in advance.

Pete stayed out of sight. The landlords never saw him.

He watched Dougie lug his gear into the house-this carrot-topped stupe about to be world-famous.