The shack reeked of stale socks and stale reefer smoke. Dougie Frank wore a Klan sheet and Levi’s.
Kemper smashed a fly perching on his chair. “What about those shooters you mentioned?’
“They’re here. They’ve been bunking with me, ‘cause the motels around here don’t differentiate between Cubans and niggers. ‘Course, you’re trying to change all that.”
“Where are they now?”
“I got a shooting range down the road. They’re there with some of my Royals. You want a beer?”
“How about a dry martini?”
“Ain’t none of those in these parts. And any man asks for one’s gonna get tagged as a Federal agitator.”
Kemper smiled. “I’ve got a bartender at the Skyline Lounge on my side.”
“Must be a Jew or a homo.”
Kemper laid on some drawl. “Son, you are trying my patience.”
Lockhart flinched. “Well… shit, then, you should know that I heard Pete found his four boys. Guy Banister said you’re still two short, which don’t surprise me, given all the integration work you’ve been doing.”
“Tell me about the shooters. Limit your extraneous comments and get to the point.”
Lockhart wiggled his chair back. Kemper slid his chair closer to him.
“Well, uh, Banister, he sent them over to me. They stole a speedboat in Cuba and ran it aground off the Alabama coast. They robbed some gas stations and liquor stores and renewed an old acquaintance with that Frenchy guy Laurent Guйry, who told them to call Guy for some anti-Fidel work.”
“And?”
“And Guy considered them too goddamn crazy for his taste, which is too crazy for just about anybody’s. He sent them to me, but I got about as much use for them as a dog does for fleas.”
Kemper moved closer. Lockhart backed his chair into the wall.
“Man, you are crowding me more than I’m used to.”
“Tell me about the Cubans.”
“Jesus, I thought we were friends.”
“We are. Now, tell me about the Cubans.”
Lockhart slid his chair sideways. “Their names are Flash Elorde and Juan Canestel. ‘Flash’ ain’t Elorde’s real first name. He just took it ‘cause there’s some famous spic boxer with the same last name as him who uses it as a nickname.”
“And?”
“And they’re both crack shots and big Fidel haters. Flash ran this prostitution slave trade in Havana, and Juan was this rape-o who got castrated by Castro’s secret police, ‘cause he raped something like three hundred women between the years 1959 and 1961.”
“Are they willing to die for a free Cuba?”
“Shit, yes. Flash says that given the life he’s led, every day he wakes up alive is a miracle.”
Kemper smiled. “You should adopt that attitude, Dougie.”
“Which means?’
“Which means there’s a nice colored church outside Meridian. It’s called the First Pentecostal Baptist, and it’s got a beautiful moss-hung cemetery next door.”
Lockhart pinched one nostril and blew snot on the floor. “So fucking what? What are you, some nigger church conno-sewer?”
Kemper milked his drawl. “Tell your boys not to touch that church.”
“Shit, man, how do you expect a self-respecting white man to respond to something like that?”
“Say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.’”
Lockhart sputtered. Kemper hummed the “We Shall Overcome” song.
Lockhart said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Boyd.”
o o o
Flash sported a Mohawk haircut. Juan sported a big testicle bulge-handkerchiefs or wadded-up tissue filled the space where his nuts used to reside.
The range was a vacant lot adjoining a trailer park. Full-dress Klansmen shot tin cans and swigged beer and Jack Daniel’s.
They hit one can out of four at thirty yards. Flash and Juan notched all hits from twice that distance.
They shot old M-1s in late-afternoon light. Better rifles and telescopic sights would make them invincible.
Dougie Frank circulated. Kemper watched the Cubans shoot.
Flash and Juan stripped to the waist and used their shirts to swat off mosquitos. Both men were torture-scarred from the hips up.
Kemper whistled and signaled Lockhart: Send them over, now.
Dougie Frank rounded them up. Kemper leaned against an old Ford half-ton. The bed was jammed with liquor bottles and guns.
They walked over. Kemper came on courtly and genteel.
Smiles and bows went around. Handshakes went down. Flash and Juan pulled their shirts on-a sign of respect for the Big Bwana white man.
Kemper cut the niceties off. “My name is Boyd. I have a mission to offer you.”
Flash said, “Sн, trabajo. Quiйn el-”
Juan shushed him. “What kind of mission?”
Kemper tried Spanish. “Trabajo muy importante. Para matar el grande puto Fidel Castro.”
Flash jumped up and down. Juan grabbed him and restrained him.
“This is not a joke, Mr. Boyd?”
Kemper pulled out his money clip. “How much would it take to convince you?”
They crowded up to him. Kemper fanned out hundred-dollar bills.
“I hate Fidel Castro just as much as any Cuban patriot. Ask Mr. Banister or your friend Laurent Guery about me. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket until our backers come through, and if we succeed and get Castro, I’ll guarantee you large bonuses.”
The cash hypnotized them. Kemper went in for the close.
He slipped a hundred to Flash and a hundred to Juan. One to Flash, one to Juan, one to Flash-
Canestel squeezed his hand shut. “We believe you.”
Kemper snagged a bottle out of the truck. Flash beat mambo time on the back fender.
A Klansman yelled, “Save some for us white men!”
Kemper took a drink. Flash took a drink. Juan chug-a-lugged half the bottle.
o o o
The cocktail hour segued into get-acquainted time.
Kemper bought Flash and Juan some clothes. They moved their gear out of Lockhart’s shack.
Kemper called his broker in New York. He said, Sell some stock and send me five thousand dollars.
The man said, Why? Kemper said, I’m hiring some underlings.
Flash and Juan needed lodging. Kemper braced his friendly desk clerk and asked him to revise his WHITES ONLY policy.
The man agreed. Flash and Juan moved into the Seminole Motel.
Kemper called Pete in New Orleans. He said, Let’s arrange a Whack Fidel audition.
They brainstormed.
Kemper set the budget at fifty grand per shooter and two hundred grand for general overhead. Pete suggested severance pay- ten Gs for each rejected shooter.
Kemper agreed. Pete said, Let’s dq the gig at Blessington. Santo can put Sam G. and Johnny up at the Breakers Motel.
Kemper agreed. Pete said, We need a spic fall guy-non-CIA! non-Cadre-connected. Kemper said, We’ll find one.
Pete said, My boys are braver than your boys.
Kemper said, No, they’re not.
Flash and Juan felt like drinking. Kemper took them to the Sky… line Lounge.
The bartender said, They ain’t white. Kemper slipped him twenty dollars. The bartender said, They are now.
Kemper drank martinis. Juan drank I.W. Harper. Flash drank Myers’s rum and Coke.
Flash spoke Spanish. Juan translated. Kemper learned the rudiments of slave prostitution.
Flash kidnapped the girls. Laurent Guery got them hooked on Algerian horse. Juan broke the virgins in and tried to perv them into digging random sex.
Kemper listened. The ugly things drifted away, compartmentalized and non-applicable.
Juan said he missed his balls. He could still get hard and fuck, but he missed the total shoot-your-load experience.
Flash raged against Fidel. Kemper thought: I don’t hate the man at all.
o o o
The six wore starched fatigues and camouflage lampblack. It was Pete’s idea: Let’s turn our shooter candidates out scary.
Nйstor built a range behind the Breakers parking lot. Kemper called it a jerry-rig masterpiece.