Blood's a rover

49

(Las Vegas, 11/5/68)

Tricky Dick won. Close, but no squeaker. More than a rat’s-cunt-hair win.

Carlos threw a bash. His mock-Roman suite, mobsters and Mormons, election returns on TV. Call girls told I-blew-JFK stories. Farlan Brown said Dick was no headman. He was more like an S amp;M slave. He’d get stinko and bomb some Third World shit-hole. He’d fry some little kids and get all misty then. He’d bring in a sick chick with a whip to retool him.

Sober guests waved little flags. Drunk guests wore elephant hats. The Hughes hotels shot off fireworks: Viva Nixon! in red, white and blue.

Wayne circulated. Farlan Brown showed him Dracula’s thanks note. Drac praised Wayne’s hard work and chemical assistance. He mentioned the Hughes charter flights to the foreign casino sites-let’s get started soon.

More fireworks. The Landmark scrolled a neon Nixon face on their marquee. Farlan said, “The cocksucker still needs a shave.”

Sam G. said, “The casino sites. We’ve got to send Mesplede down soon.”

Santo T. said, “Nicaragua has this tendency to go Red.”

Carlos said, “Dick will put a pro-U.S. puppet in place. He knows you need a strongman to put the quietus on the Reds.”

Sam said, “The D.R.’s the ticket. They’ve had a stable government since the ‘65 war. The new jefe is a fag midget. All he wants is some U.S. gelt and a nice pair of elevator shoes.”

Santo said, “Sam’s got this Dominican girlfriend leading him around by the schvantz. She’s got him thinking Dominicans are white.”

Carlos said, “Celia’s a coal burner. She crosses over into Haiti and gets that black stick.”

Sam grabbed his crotch. “Italians are built bigger than the moolies.”

Carlos said, “Where’d you get that?”

Santo laughed. “Pope John the XXIII told him. They were hanging out at a cathouse with some nigger nuns.”

Carlos handed Wayne a doughnut box. “Thanks for everything, paisan. Hughes, Nixon, the whole deal.”

The ride back took forever. The hotels went Nixon-nuts and put dumb signs up. Traffic jams resulted. Tricky Dick was Mormoned-up and mobbed-up. He was good for biz. The Boys bought themselves four fat years.

The Stardust was Nixon-numb. Legislators told I-know-Dick stories and puked into slot-machine cups. Wayne took the stairs up. He heard the phone ringing in the hallway. 3:00 a.m. calls-oh, shit.

He ran and grabbed it. He heard Mary Beth in the bedroom.

“Wayne Tedrow. Who’s this?”

“Long-distance, sir. Will you hold for President-elect Nixon?”

Wayne gulped. The line clicked twice. Wayne heard background hubbub and the Man’s voice.

“Thank you for all your hard work. Be assured of my cooperation.”

Click. What? Was it real?

Wayne walked into the bedroom. Mary Beth was watching TV. The Man did V-for-victory. A shirt button popped.

She killed the sound. “Who called so late?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

She smiled and pointed to the doughnut box. Wayne dumped it on the bed. Fifty grand fell out. Mary Beth whooped and covered her mouth.

“That’s my find-your-son fund.”

That lovely emerald was there on her pillow. Mary Beth threw it in with the cash.

(Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., 11/6/68-12/24/68)

Nerves, brain loops, sleep on and off. Memphis kaleidoscopes mixed in.

One drink and one pill ran on-and-off insufficient. The Lorraine Motel shape-shifted. Hate cartoons transmogrified. Black gargoyles wearing Klan hoods.

Karen was concerned. She saw him running raw and couldn’t stop it. What’s-His-Name kept passing through and blitzing their time. Her pregnancy was advancing, she had more doctors’ visits, she took her family back east for Christmas. She was tweaked on his tweak on Joan Klein.

Wayne was working on Joan’s file redactions. The kid was a genius- maybe he could burn through black ink. He showed Joan the snapshot of the kicked-to-shit pedophile. Joan quid-pro-quo’d him а la Karen Sifakis. She gave up a Cleveland mail-bomb gang, a multi-indictment chart topper. He said, “Thank you, Miss Klein.” She said, “You’re welcome, Mr. Holly.”

The snitch-out thrilled Mr. Hoover for six seconds. His attention span had shrunk to comic-strip dimensions. His monomania had grown to Russian novel-size. He hated black militants like he hated Reds in 1919. He talked black-militant woe real and largely imagined. He sent himself into coughing fits and fey tizzies. Dr. King was laughing his saintly black ass off in heaven. The boss nigger got resurrected as all niggers real and imagined and the old girl was powerless.

But he was still dangerous. But he still had dirt files on the whole fucking world-Dwight “the Enforcer” Holly included.

Mr. Hoover was pleased with OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER. Dwight told him that Marsh Bowen was being courted by BTA and MMLF. He did not tell Mr. Hoover that he paid two cops to kick Bowen’s black ass. Bowen did not tell him about the beating and avoided face-to-face meetings until his injuries had healed. Vanity was the key to Brother Marshall E. Bowen. Contempt denned Brother Bowen secondarily. He was the diva with the abject need for an audience and the commensurate disregard. He was a brilliant and brilliantly complex actor. He would seduce, betray and entrap with insolence and show-must-go-on savoir faire.

The beating seemed to fracture his ego and instill a greater circumspection. The beating brought Brother Bowen some soulful southside strut. Now needed: a cutout to work Brother Bowen on a daily basis. He pulled Don Crutchfield’s spot tails-Brother Bowen was toeing the line. The current boding question: will Brother Bowen cross paths with Comrade Joan Klein?

He called her “Miss Klein.” He thought of her as “Joan.” She possessed an eponymous quality. The gaps in her file and her reluctance to discuss her past enhanced his curiosity. She had traveled extensively. She facilitated left-wing woo-woo worldwide. Organizer, facilitator, armed-robbery suspect. Pamphleteer, informant, renegade academic.

Tell me what I want to know.

I don’t know why I need it.

He gave Joan a scrambler phone. It let her call him untraced. She called him most nights. They observed informant-operator protocol while discussing their personal lives. He did not describe the full extent of his relationship with Karen Sifakis. Joan did not mention Karen at all. They did not talk business. They saved those discussions for their phone-drop chats. Joan told him that she had some money for him. He said, “What money?” She told him that Leander Jackson made a profit on Agent Holly’s cocaine. Comrade Klein felt that she should return her percentage. He told her to keep the money. She thanked him. It was all so fucking gorgeously decorous.

They sparred and talked politics. He paved roundabout queries on her past life and associations. Joan rebuffed them with occasional brusqueness and a harsh humor. The cop part of him was all over her. The rest of him was a faltering half step behind. Joan had run safe houses. They had to have been upscale and well camouflaged. She had avoided prison time. There should be more police paperwork on her. He scoured for paperwork on her left-wing ancestors and found none.

Karen shared her scant Joan knowledge with a distancing resentment. He was certain that Joan knew more about him than he knew about her. The disparity had him running breathless.

He was making coontown inroads. Wayne brought Milt Chargin in to help Fatso run Black Cat Cab. The white shtickster and the black behemoth clicked as a business team. LAPD chilled out the Big Boy Cab bombing-the owner was a hot-car fence they wanted nullified. The Dr. Fred snuff faded to back-page status. Jack Leahy greased some reporters with Bureau cash and said, “Let this go, all right?” That LA. Times piece was the last major mention. Wayne scheduled a meeting with the Peoples’ Bank prez. It might get ugly. The Boys wanted their bank back. The Feds wanted information.

He cruised darktown some nights. It wired him up and induced exhaustion and occasional pre-dawn sleep. Late-night ghetto life was deadpan seductive. Vice cops donned rubber gloves to manhandle tranny whores. Record stores played Zulu music and sold LAPD pig dolls. Cops bought the bulk of them and stuck them on their car antennas. He listened to revolutionary radio. Bootleg-band stations were broadcasting out of bars and Muslim mosques. He told Joan that his favorite song was “Blue Genocide” by Muhammad Mao and the Pig Hunters. Joan said, “Comrade Dwight, you ‘re learning.”

He saw Scotty Bennett out cruising sometimes. Scotty loved soul food. Sister Sylvia’s Kitchen fed him for free. Scotty always tipped lavishly.

There must be a BTA and MMLF war. Marsh Bowen must facilitate it. Narcotics must figure prominently. It has to stay short of catastrophe, or Karen will not forgive him. It has to get fierce. It has to get him his mandated results and further Comrade Joan’s agenda. It has to take them both to the identical place-so that she will tell him where she’s been and what she knows.