Blood's a rover

98

(Los Angeles, 3/8/71)

Sassy Sal loved soul food. He dive-bombed the post-fight buffet and out-snarfed the brothers. He was reefer-ripped. He was libido-lashed. He wolfed chicken wings and grooved low-life maleness. Marsh Bowen was missing. Crutch wanted Sal to see him. Sal’s job: kick-start their vibe.

The party poked on. The re-hash ran sans pithy perception. Panther pedantry. Fractious Frazierites and mongoloid Muslims.

Fools milked the moment. The cover price included chow and a dope smorgasbord. Big Mama’s Kitchen catered. Fred O. supplied pharmaceuticals. On-site consumption raged. Geeks crawled into Tiger kabs and passed out.

Where’s Marsh?

Crutch yawned. He was nerve-numb. His re-hash ran rampant. Tattoo wants to meet movie men. She’s been de-hexed. The envelope prints: possibly Reggie Hazzard’s, for sure Lionel Thornton’s.

Sal noshed collard greens. Crutch yawned anew. He’d been reading. His new kick: chemistry and left-wing dialectic.

He was in his Reggie Hazzard head. He sent Mary Beth another file-request letter and got no answer. He was reading Reggie’s books. He performed some simple experiments, per instructions. He liquefied two powders and blew up a trash can. He learned about United Fruit in Guatemala. He went with the narrative. Good guy/bad guy roles got reversed. He got eyestrain. He started seeing RED.

Marsh walked into the hut. He looked shivery-shaky. What’s that trouser stain?

Sal noticed him. Sal made an ooo-la-la face. Marsh walked back to the can. Crutch tailed him. Marsh left the door cracked.

Marsh washed his hands. Dark smudges went light red and pink. He doused his shirt cuffs and wrung the fabric. Crutch smelled blood.

Marsh wiped his face. Marsh pulled out a pen and wrote on his left arm. Crutch squinted and caught it.

(Media, 3/8/71)

Resident Agency. A two-room records drop. One office in a four-story building.

Media was Snoresville. A trolley ran twelve miles to Philly. The front door was made for thin-head pry bars.

It’s 11:49 p.m. The world’s abuzz: Frazier takes Ali.

Dwight parked on a side street. He had a near-diagonal view. He saw the front door and the office windows.

Karen ran him through it yesterday. They discussed outcomes.

His take: Mr. Hoover will stonewall it. That meant newspaper leaks. Go to the biiiiiiiig dailies. Include documents. Tweak some muckraking journos. Let it build on its own. Leak the file pages through cutouts. Invent a name for a lefty group. Claim the B amp;E under their flag.

Joan disagreed. Her take: we’re robbing the big revelation. His take: this is the prelude and primer. The Media files are bland. They detail prosaic hassles and routine surveillance. The juicy shit is elsewhere. Our operation will reveal it. The post-Hoover FBI cannot stonewall it. Media will have exposited the term COINTELPRO. Fed-speak will distort the truth, I will tell the world what it really means. The Bureau cannot regroup post-hit. Media will have created a file hue and cry. Obfuscation will not work post-hit, I will be found, I will break ranks, I will step forth to testify.

Dwight held up binoculars. A van entered his sight line.

Four people got out: two men, two women. They dressed like middle-aged squares. The women carried bulging purses stuffed with laundry bags. Karen wore a suburban-mom pantsuit.

They had his dupe key. They slow-walked to the front door and unlocked it. Karen pick-gouged the lock housing to simulate a B amp;E.

They shut the door. It stayed dark. Penlight bips reflected. Take the back stairs. Don’t risk the lift.

Dwight checked his watch. It hit midnight. He watched the four windows. A half minute elapsed. Penlight beams strafed.

A car passed the building. Late-model Merc, dud mom and dad, the country club set. Pops ran the radio. Dwight heard “Ali.”

The beams kept strafing. The windowpanes flickered. A black amp; white passed the building. Two fat cops yawned.

Dwight counted watch minutes. The second hand crawled. The windows stayed dark for a forty-eight-count. Okay, that’s it.

He watched the lobby. There they are. The laundry bags are bulging. Go out the door. Get the van and take off.

The other three walked ahead. Karen stood on the sidewalk and faced him. He kissed his fingers and touched the windshield. Karen raised a clenched fist.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/12/71. Los Angeles Herald Express article.

SHOCK WAVES FROM SOUTHSIDE ROBBERY-MURDER

COMPLEX PORTRAIT OF VICTIM EMERGES FROM INVESTIGATION

Lionel D. Thornton, 51, the president of the Peoples’ Bank of South Los Angeles, died a horrible death Monday night. Returning from a viewing of the Ali-Frazier boxing match at a popular local taxicab stand, he was waylaid outside the bank and forced inside. He was subsequently robbed of his cab-stand receipts, tortured and killed. Preliminary investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department has revealed that the robber-killer or killers went through the bank in a fit of rage, perhaps looking for a hidden vault or perhaps currency secreted by Mr. Thornton on the premises. Sadly, the crime may have derived from never-substantiated rumors pertaining to Mr. Thornton himself.

“I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Mr. Thornton,” the lead investigator, Sergeant Robert S. Bennett, told reporters at a hastily called press conference Tuesday afternoon. “He’s been a mainstay of the local black community for many years, as one can feel in the outpouring of grief over his death and in the number of glowing tributes we have heard since the news broke this morning.”

Sergeant Bennett, 49, is overseeing six full-time detectives charged with solving the case and bringing the suspect or suspects to justice. “I personally believe Mr. Thornton to have been a blameless individual,” he told reporters. “That stated, I believe that this crime stems from the long-held southside rumor that perhaps Mr. Thornton had organized-crime ties and was hoarding laundered money on the bank’s premises. I do not believe the rumors. I believe that the crime stemmed from persistently held misinformation. The tragedy is that Mr. Thornton gave his life for $2,000 in cab receipts, and that the suspect or suspects killed him and decimated the bank interior in a search for something that was not there.”

The investigation continues. Sergeant Bennett and his six-man team will spearhead the drive to apprehend the slayer or slayers of Lionel D. Thornton. A backup investigation will be fielded by the

Los Angeles Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, supervised by Special-Agent-in-Charge John C. Leahy.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/12/71. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: “Recorded at the Director’s Request/Classified Confidential 1-A: Director’s Eyes Only.” Speaking: Director Hoover, Special Agent Dwight C. Holly.

DH: Good morning, Sir.

JEH: It is decidedly not.

DH: Sir?

JEH: The Resident Agency in Media, Pennsylvania, was burglarized Monday night. A great many files were stolen.

DH: Is it secured, Sir? And forgive my ignorance, but I don’t know where Media is.

JEH: It’s a two-man office space near Philadelphia. The file bank holds overflow from the New York, Boston and Philadelphia offices. The break-in occurred while local police officers were at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, watching replays of the Cassius Clay-Smokin’ Joe Frazier Battle of the Apes.

DH: Sir, is it secure?

JEH: It is. The break-in was discovered by the agents themselves. They bypassed the Media PD and called the Philadelphia SAC. Media has not yet made the media.

DH: The files, Sir?

JEH: Bland, by your Los Angeles Office standards. Damning by the standards of addlepated civil libertarians. We lost adjunct surveillance files, tap files and COINTELPRO addendum sheets.

DH: It’s a shocking breach, Sir.

JEH: You are muddle-headed and swoony with emotion today, Dwight. Extended stays in sanitariums undermine strong people. They confuse their emotional states with the world.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: That’s better. The old “Enforcer.” Hard-edged and submissive.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: Better yet.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I’m sure we’re thinking along similar lines. Which lunatic fringe group will claim credit? Will they release the files? Which treasonous leftist rag will they release them to?

DH: How many agents are on it, Sir?

JEH: Forty-six, full-time. Of course, there are no witnesses and the thieves left no physical evidence.

DH: I’ll query my informants, Sir.

JEH: Do that. Offer cash incentives and employ your generally intrusive methods with my full sanction.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: I have sent out a general memo to all our field offices. The file sections are being security enhanced at this very moment.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: Do not underestimate my resolve to forestall future break-ins. Do not underestimate the robust state of my health. My physician, Dr. Archie Bell, considers me to be an outstanding specimen.

DH: Yes, Sir.

JEH: President Nixon is mentally ill. He refuses to inform me that he will reappoint me as director after his fait accompli reelection next year. I’m telling it like it is, Brother Dwight. Tricky Dick has asked me to black-bag the major Democratic candidates, which I have declined to do. I’m dragging my heels. Nixey boy is starting to sweat.

DH: I can dig it, Sir.

JEH: I’m sure you can. And your mental health? Have you regained your brusque grasp of life?

DH: In spades, Sir.

JEH: We lost some files, but we will prevail in the end. The files in my superbly secure basement would bring down the world.

DH: Right on, Sir.

JEH: Good day, Dwight.

DH: Good day, Sir.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/12/71. VERBATIM STAGE-1/CLOSED CONTACT/TOP-ACCESS ROUTING telephone call transcript. Closed file #48297. Speaking: President Richard M. Nixon and Special Agent Dwight C. Holly, FBI.

RMN: Good evening, Dwight.

DH: Good evening, Mr. President.

RMN: It’s been too long, my friend.

DH: I agree, Sir.

RMN: Are you keeping busy?

DH: I certainly am, Sir.

RMN: That’s the ticket. Keep going until your hat floats.

DH: That is very sage advice, Sir.

RMN: It is. On that note, I would have to say that you-know-who must be very busy fretting over that break-in.

DH: He is, Sir. We were discussing it this morning. May I ask if he was the one who informed you?

RMN: The attorney general called me. He said, “The old girl may have her dick in the wringer.”

DH: May I be blunt, Sir?

RMN: By all means, Dwight. Why mince words? I only call you when I’ve been belting a few and I’ve got a yen for bluntness.

DH: The burglars will or will not claim credit and may or may not leak the files. Parenthetically, I would add that Media, PA, is the Siberia of file holes and that all the data in the files pre-dates your administration.

RMN: I like that.

DH: I thought you might, Sir.

RMN: Here’s my fear. I’m thinking what’s-her-name may be infirm to the point where she’ll deploy her files on me to keep her job.

DH: You’ll be reelected next November, Sir. Inauguration Day 1973 sounds like a good time to cut your losses.

RMN: I like that.

DH: I thought you might, Sir. And please let me add that should the break-in be claimed and the files go out resultantly, it will make you-know-who quite circumspect about releasing files in any sort of derogatory manner.

RMN: Dwight, you my main man.

DH: Thank you, Sir.

RMN: Per next year’s election, then. The old girl has been dragging her heels on a certain front. “Black-bag job.” It’s got soul as a concept, don’t you think?

DH: Frankly, Sir, it’s ghetto. I appreciate it that way myself.

RMN: Dwight, you’re a sketch. Let’s talk about that again next time.

DH: Yes, Sir.

RMN: Anything I can help you with?

DH: One thing, Sir.

RMN: I’m listening.

DH: The L.A. Office is security-fitting the file section. The agents are afraid you-know-who will show up unannounced before it’s finished. Will you get me his travel schedule from someone at Justice?

RMN: Sure, Dwight. On the QT, baby. Just like all our chats.

DH: Thank you, Mr. President.

RMN: Straight ahead, kid.