Blood's a rover

104

(Los Angeles, 3/15/71-11/18/71)

Peeper.

It’s his old name and his new name re-discovered. Guys used to call him Dipshit and pariguayo. He asked Clyde about it. Clyde said, “You’ve been around awhile. People in The Life know you. There’s rumors about you. Some guys believe them, some guys don’t. If a handle sticks to you, you’ve got to figure there’s some truth in it.”

He let it go. He didn’t mention his JFK/MLK/RFK hit knowledge. He didn’t mention his Commie kills or his case. He didn’t mention his nightmares or the shit he saw and did on that island.

Peeper-sure, it’s true. Peeper-it’s okay for now.

He tail-jobbed for Clyde and Chick Weiss. He entrapped cheating spouses. He kicked in doors and peered in windows.

Peeper, sure. Reader, too. Part-time student-that fits.

He read some more chemistry books and left-wing-theory books. He mixed a sulfur paste and blew up a street sign at 1st and Oxford. He learned about the Wobblies and the LA. Times bombing. He mixed fertilizer paste and blew up a VIVA VIETNAM sign.

There was a dream movement inside of him. It was like he was becoming Reggie and Wayne.

He studied. He learned. He part-time Tiger-kabbed. He drove to Vegas and tried to find the Haitian herb man. The guy was gone. He asked around and found some other herb guys. None of them knew Reggie. They all knew how to cook herbs and induce wild shit.

They said they’d teach him. He spent two weeks in Vegas and learned tricks. They taught him how to mix toad organs and blowfish toxins. They showed him how ferns and tree-frog livers caused heart attacks. He learned zombification. He mixed grand mal seizure potions. He learned some dope-trip formulas. He bought herbs, tubes and beakers. He learned some Kreole French.

He blew up a Nixon sign in East L.A. He popped herbs, drove around and peeped windows. He tried leapfrogging Dwight Holly again. Dwight lost him three times running. He lucked out on tail #4.

Dwight drove to a bungalow in Silver Lake. He perched and peeped. Dwight stayed inside for long stretches. Dwight took breaks and walked to a house down the street. A tall woman and two little girls lived there. A part-time hubby showed on occasion. He checked house-sale records and got the woman’s name: Karen Sifakis.

He did more checking. He stiffed a call to Clyde. Clyde said Karen S. was a college prof and a Fed snitch. She was Big Dwight’s lover. Big Dwight back-doored the hubby. It was going on five or six years.

He popped herbs and surveilled the bungalow. It was file-packed, like his pads. He thought about breaking in. He couldn’t do it. The thought immobilized him. He’d learned all this new shit. It made him sit still and just look.

Then she was there.

She was older and more gray and even more fierce. Her glasses still fit crooked. Her slouchy walk was the same. He perched out of sight and watched her arrive for twenty days straight. He anticipated what she’d wear. Some days he saw her knife scar, some days he didn’t. He still had the 6/14 scar on his back.

He watched her come and go. He started to get a sense of what it all meant.

He’s the nexus of great and startling events. Nobody knows and nobody cares. He has linked a series of baffling crimes. Nobody knows and nobody cares. Scotty Bennett and Marsh Bowen killed Lionel Thornton and are chasing the armored-car swag. He knows this. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

Scotty distrusts Marsh. Scotty is levying a fruit squeeze. Sal cannot seduce Marsh. He knows this. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

Jack Leahy redacted Joan Rosen Klein’s file. Nobody knows and nobody cares. He tailed Joan to Jack and surveilled three of their lunch dates. He hovered close by. He heard them discuss Celia, lost in the D.R. He heard the word Haiti. Reggie was living in Haiti. He sensed it quite strongly. Reggie sends out the emeralds. Nobody else knows and nobody else cares.

He’s alone in his quests. Joan and Jack were in on the heist. He accepts that conclusion as fact. Marsh and Scotty know more and less than he does. He has worked this case for a very long time. It is all unprovable. His paper trials are logically inviolate and specious. It is all in his head.

The island terrifies him. He’s afraid to go back. He might become that monster child again and lose everything he has.

He’s a kid chemist and a kid Red now. He reads files and books and passes out in paper. His mother’s file, Wayne’s file, the file on “Tattoo.” He gets lost in logical surety and inconsistency. Nobody knows how hard he works and nobody cares.

Tattoo wanted to meet film-biz men. He didn’t know who she met. His suspect pool was large. Joan did not kill Tattoo. It consoled him. It allowed him to track her and live that much more with her.

Joan has lunch with Karen Sifakis. He observes them. He knows they share a love for Dwight Holly. They never mention Dwight. He’s the third party hovering. Only peepers know how this works.

He follows Joan. He lives in the hope that she will lead him somewhere. It must justify all the time he has spent with her. She must do something or say something that will let him rest and give this all up.

I have been following you for three years, four months and twenty-nine days. I know you have a story you can only tell to me.

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Part V