Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His Assassin

12 ON THE BALCONY

THROUGH THE MONTH of February 1968, as Martin Luther King stepped up his travels around the country to promote the Poor People's Campaign, it became clear to everyone close to him that he desperately needed a vacation. His doctor said so, and so did Coretta. Friends and colleagues noticed the bags under his eyes, the despair in his voice, the worry on his face. He nursed ever-deepening doubts about himself and the direction of the movement. His insomnia worsened. In speeches and sermons, he touched increasingly on morbid themes. He even made the SCLC draft new bylaws declaring that his closest friend and right-hand man, Ralph Abernathy, would succeed him should anything happen to him. King, clearly, was about to snap.

Finally his staff prevailed. It was time for their leader to head for somewhere sunny. Abernathy would go with him. Their usual habit, this season of the year, was to spend a week in Jamaica. This time, though, King had a different idea: they would fly to Acapulco.

They left the first week of March. On the initial flight, to Dallas, King fell into an argument¹⁹² with a segregationist white man from North Carolina. Ordinarily, King never engaged in pointless one-on-one jousts, but something about the man ignited his temper. Uncharacteristically aggressive in pressing his points, King talked about the Poor People's Campaign as an alternative to riots this summer. The argument predictably went nowhere, but when they landed in Dallas, the segregationist wished King good luck in Washington, saying, "It may be the last chance for your brand of non-violence."

On the ramp, Abernathy questioned King about the argument. Why do you even bother with those guys? he said. You know you can't convince them.

"I don't play with them anymore,¹⁹³ Ralph," King said testily. "I don't care who it offends."

In the Dallas airport, King and Abernathy stopped off in a men's clothing shop. When he noticed Abernathy admiring a collection of fine neckties, King lapsed into an effusively generous mood. "Here, take this," he said, handing Abernathy his American Express card. "Buy one for me, and four or five for yourself, whatever you want." He set off down the terminal to place a call at a pay phone while Abernathy bought nearly fifty dollars' worth of ties.

They landed in Acapulco that afternoon and checked in to a suite at the El Presidente Hotel with a balcony that looked out over Condesa Beach and the brilliant blue Pacific. King and Abernathy spent the day watching the famous cliff divers and then ducking into the shops of La Costera. King remained in a sentimental and ultra-generous mood, one that Abernathy found sweet but strange. Anything that met Abernathy's fancy, King tried to buy.

After a long day, they collapsed in their suite. Abernathy woke up in the dead of night,¹⁹⁴ around three o'clock in the morning, with a stab of foreboding. In the dim light, he noticed that King wasn't in his bed. Worried, he checked the bathroom and the common room, but his friend was nowhere to be found. He thought about calling hotel security. Then he remembered the balcony.

He opened the sliding door and found King there, in his pajamas, leaning over the railing, lost in thought. Even as Abernathy drew near to his side, King didn't seem to register his presence.

Abernathy and King had been together since the beginning--since the Montgomery bus boycott and the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They'd met in 1951 when Abernathy, a native Alabaman and World War II veteran, was a student pursuing a master's degree in sociology. Since then, they'd marched together, tasted tear gas together, gone to jail together. And nearly everywhere they went in their ceaseless travels, they shared the same hotel room. They were inseparable friends--"a team,"¹⁹⁵ as Abernathy put it, "each of us severely crippled without the other." But in all those turbulent years, Abernathy had never been so worried about his friend. He feared that King might have received another letter from the FBI,¹⁹⁶ urging him to commit suicide. He worried that suicide was what King vaguely had in mind now, as he leaned out over the balcony.

"Martin," he said. "What you doing out here this time of night? What's troubling you?"

King didn't reply at first. He just stood there, arms draped over the railing. He stared and stared at the ocean. "You see that rock out there?"¹⁹⁷ he finally said.

Abernathy looked over the dark water and saw a huge rock in the bay, waves frothing around it. "Yeah, I see it," he said, puzzled.

"How long you think it's been there?" King asked.

"I really don't know. Centuries and centuries. I guess God put it there."

The waves smashed and hissed. "You know what I'm thinking about?" King said.

"No, I really don't." Abernathy's concern was edging into annoyance. "Tell me."

"You can't tell me what I'm thinking about, looking at that rock?"

Abernathy only shook his head--he was irritated by this cryptic guessing game.

In the silence, King started singing a hymn. "Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee."

Now Abernathy understood. It was the old hymn they'd sung together many times before, a reverie about approaching death, about finding comfort in the final hours. Though he was now thoroughly spooked, Abernathy joined in, and for a time the old friends sang out over the sea breeze of Acapulco:

While I draw this fleeting breath

,

When mine eyes shall close in death

When I soar to worlds unknown

,

See thee on thy judgment throne

,

Rock of ages, cleft for me

,

Let me hide myself in thee

.