Blood's a rover

37

(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.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 9/16/68. “SUBVERSIVE PERSONS” Summary Report. Marked: “Chronology/Known Pacts/Observations/Known Associates/Memberships Se Organizations.” Subject: KLEIN, JOAN ROSEN/Numerous Unknown Aliases/white female/DOB 10/31/26, New York City. Compiled: 3/14/67.

1.-Summation: SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN must be viewed as a seditiously anti-American figure with pervasive connections to dangerous radical organizations across a wide left-wing ideological spectrum dating back over SO years. She has been a “community organizer,” a planner of “protest marches” for numerous subversive causes, an instructor at dubious “Freedom Schools” that espouse Communist Party-line doctrine, and, most pertinently, a strong ally of radical-Left groups that have advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government-i.e., THE SOCIALIST WORKER’S PARTY, THE STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY and THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTION MOVEMENT. These organizations have announced their solidarity with violent black-nationalist organizations, the BLACK PANTHER PARTY and US, marking them as Level-4 security risks. SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN has also been suspected (unproven) of participation in armed robberies in Los Angeles in 1951 amp; 1953/no further information available, and of two 1954 armed robberies in Ohio amp; New York/no further information available.

SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN’S grandfather, ISIDORE HERSCHEL KLEIN (1874-1937), was a wealthy emerald merchant and left-wing polemicist who donated large amounts of money to anarchist groups, radical pro-labor groups amp; Communist Front causes. His son JOSEPH LEON KLEIN (1902-1940) was a confirmed radical zealot, as was his wife HELEN HERSHFIELD ROSEN KLEIN (1904-1940). Their 1940 deaths left SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN orphaned. She resurfaced during the war years and was detained for Alien and Sedition Act violations, disorderly behavior at Communist-organized protest rallies and was photo-surveilled at nationwide meetings of the COMMUNIST PARTY USA, SOCIALIST LABOR PARTY. STUDENTS PEACE UNION. LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. TRADE UNION UNITY LEAGUE, and at various rallies for exiled Communist sympathizer Paul Robeson. SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN is rumored to have authored the most virulently anti-American literature distributed by the above-referenced organizations.

2.-SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN considers herself to be an itinerant academic by trade and recently (1962) taught at a radically funded “Freedom School” adjunct of the University of Southern California, where she allegedly mentored Negro students in chemistry and physics. She has heavily cloaked relationships and mail-drop correspondences with numerous left-wing college professors who serve to facilitate her meetings with other like-minded subversives inhabiting the Communist/Socialist/Radical underground. SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN travels extensively abroad (most likely under false passports), has allegedly spent time in Communist Cuba (in violation of travel-ban edicts) and allegedly has ties to the Communist-backed 6/14 Movement in the Dominican Republic and has written anti-American, anti-Dominican polemics excoriating the alleged mistreatment of Haitian peasants by “U.S.-backed fascist interests colluding with Dominican despots in the genocidal war against Haiti.” These polemics were allegedly co-authored by a Dominican woman known only by the first name of “Celia.”

3.-SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN is known to have traveled extensively within the continental United States and is often flown (by wealthy fellow travelers) to insurrectionist hot spots to confer with radical leaders and advise them how to best achieve their ends. Her sub-specialty is the recruitment of the naпve college students who attend her “Freedom School” classes, and she has been rumored to have assisted many young people in “dropping out” and assuming “underground identities.” Subversive-meeting-group index logs and photo-surveillance logs note SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN’S attendance at loyalty-oath protest meetings in Los Angeles on 8/30/50; Free the Rosenbergs rallies in New York City in 6/52; rallies of the INDEPENDENT PROGRESSIVE PARTY in Boston in 11/51. SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN was also spotted at Communist-backed rallies for the Stockholm Peace Petition in 14 U.S. cities in 1950.

4.-More recently, SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN has mediated “peace pacts” between rancorous left-wing factions and (primarily white) groups allied with black-militant groups. She was allegedly the author of a 200-page pamphlet advising the YOUNG SOCIALIST ALLIANCE in their “Violent Workers War to Overthrow the State of Indiana.” SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN has (1966) worked as a “disk jockey” at the left-wing radio station Radio-Free Dixie and was recently spotted (photo-surveillance) with members of the violent radical group the WEATHER UNDERGROUND. Four issues of their Communist-influenced newsletter, “The Weather Report,” bear her byline. SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN is also rumored to be adept at maintaining “safe houses”-i.e., hideouts for violent fugitive radicals.

5.-Known Associates: •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• ••••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• ••••••••••• ••••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• ••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• •••••••••• ••••••••••

6.-SUBJECT JOAN ROSEN KLEIN (current whereabouts unknown) must be considered a Level-4 security risk and should be put on the all-city alert for frequent mail intercepts, photo surveillance and possible regular stints of 48-hour detention. (Periodic updates to follow as new information accrues.) Routing #1499684/Central Records/Washington, D.C. SA Holly: please return by Inter-Bureau mail cover.