77

(Los Angeles, the Dominican Republic, 5/16/69-3/8/70)


She’s gone.

She left him with nineteen file cards and no good-bye note. She left a lipstick smear on her pillow.

The cards listed snitch-outs gleaned from the BTA. Joan gave up six armed-robbery teams, two kidnap gangs and eleven mail-bombing leftists. Dwight attributed the work to Marsh Bowen. It bought the time-buyer more time and wowed Mr. Hoover. The old girl ordered the Federal raids herself.

A brief return to form, followed by more slippage.

“Dwight, those prehensile-tailed creatures must sell heroin. I fear that they will not accomplish this in my flickering-out lifetime.”

He mollified the old girl. The old girl responded with a daily telex barrage. Racist doggerel and hate cartoons, sent through the FBI mail flow.

Pat Nixon pulls a train for Archie Bell and the Drells. Slippage verging on breakdown.

He walked away from it. He tried to find Joan.

Phone checks, records checks-nothing. Subtle probings with Karen-no go. Wayne nailed that “Freedom School” lead. It proved that Joan and Karen lied to him. Wayne redacted Joan’s file. He told Dwight that a little click kept eluding him. Dwight knew what it was. Wayne stripped inked paper and got the name Thomas Frank Narduno. The man knew Joan. They were comrades. Dwight and Wayne’s gang killed Narduno at the Grapevine Tavern. It begged the biggest questions of their lives:

What does she want? What does she know? Why have we let her in?

Dwight print-dusted the Eagle Rock and Altadena pads. No prints, no diary notes, no guns under pillows.

She’s gone.

His nerves are stripped gears. He stares at the drop-front walls and lets time evaporate. He takes more pills with more booze and sleeps worse commensurately.

He filled the Joan void with Karen. Joan gave him nineteen snitches. He gave Karen the quid pro quo benefit. He bailed her friends out of jail in record numbers. Karen pulled more Quaker woo-woo than ever before. He has Dr. King nightmares. Karen gets a monument-bombing chit the next day. He keeps thinking of Silver Hill. The doctors told him not to think. He stared at the walls and thought anyway.

She’s gone.

He’s got more time to think and stare at walls and wait for the walls to speak back. OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER was in a soul coma. The BTA and MMFL brothers were losing their fire fast. October 18, ‘69. The Panthers ambush two L.A. cops. One cop is wounded, one Panther is wounded, one Panther is dead.

December 8, ‘69: The big pig-Panther shoot-out at Panther HQ. Woundings, no deaths. LAPD reprisals?-probably. Most likely implemented by Scotty B.

Marsh Bowen was useless. The wire was useless. The talk was Revolution 101 for burrheads and dupes. His new Marsh vibe: the fuck had an agenda. The fuck was lying in wait. He should have produced more or plain rabbited from the Jomo thing.

Scotty weighed on him. Scotty had an agenda. Scotty got LAPD to fire Marsh. Scotty put out the word: no reprisals on Marsh. He snitched Jomo, I don’t care, don’t fuck with him or I’ll fuck with you.

The sweat-box room, the hose shots, the Q amp;A. Why the grilling on that armored-car heist?

Suspicion.

It kept aging cops up nights. Their brain compartments seeped. They saw shit that wasn’t there and missed the shit that was. He had phone chats with President Nixon and Mr. Hoover. President Nixon feared Mr. Hoover’s file stash. Mr. Hoover feared President Nixon’s soft line on black militants and Commies. Mr. Hoover was obsessed with Wayne’s black girlfriend and feared that coon-killer Wayne had gone Red. Nixon sent Dwight on a scouting trip to the D.R. He wanted Dwight’s take on the Midget. He wanted to make sure his mob deal wouldn’t boomerang. Dwight dipped down to Santo Domingo. The casino build was going strong. The Midget gave good lunch. La Banda gave good oppression. He called the prez and told him the D.R. looked kosher.

Suspicion.

He called Mr. Hoover and reported the trip. Mr. Hoover was suspicious-”Dwight, did Nixon talk about me?”

Dwight said, “No, Sir. He didn’t.” Mr. Hoover was aghast and relieved. He told a fourteen-minute joke about Dr. King and Lassie. He told a sixteen-minute joke about the prez and Liberace.

Suspicion.

He had downtime in Santo Domingo. He hobknobbed with Tiger Krew and felt shit percolating. His hunch: they were moving smack behind Wayne’s back. He didn’t tell Wayne. Why promote chaos?

The D.R. felt creepy-crawly. L.A. felt good on the rebound.

She’s gone.

His birthday was last week. He turned fifty-three. The prez called and requested a D.R. backup trip. Karen bought him dinner at Perino’s. He got a plain white envelope in the mail.

It came to the drop-front. His name and address were typed on. There was no return address.

He opened the envelope. Inside: a little red flag on a stick.


DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/8/70. Extract from the privately held journal of Karen Sifakis.


Los Angeles,

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