3/30/70

“Black-militant summit”: savor the concept.

I was to be the facilitating agent. Leander James Jackson would represent the BTA and Joseph Tidwell McCarver and Claude Cantrell Torrance would negotiate on the MMFL’s behalf. This august event was couched as an afternoon bar-b-q at Joe McCarver’s crib. There would be ribs, chicken, greens, booze, reefer and sweet-potato pie. Joe’s backyard would be festively decorated. His four-year-old daughter and six-year-old son would provide diversion and perhaps serve to squelch overuse of the word motherfucker.

I had possession of the dope. I would be in charge of negotiating the BTA/MMLF percentage cut and the ultimate splitting of profits. Most importantly, this was where I would shift my allegiance from Mr. Holly to Scotty.

The plan resulted from Bowen-Bennett summitry at Tommy Tucker’s Playroom. We determined that immediate action would be required. The dope split would be accomplished; the BTA and MMLF fools would leave the pad holding big poundage; Scotty would swoop down for the bust. It meant betraying my FBI-infiltrator status prematurely, thus shafting Mr. Holly and Mr. Hoover, with hopes of getting back on LAPD in a flash. If the plan meshed, both the BTA and MMLF would be fully discredited, the Feds would get their indictments and I would be reinstated to LAPD. Mr. Hoover and Mr. Holly would be furious. I had unilaterally terminated the operation, with Scotty’s assistance. Resentment would simmer and then dissipate. Scotty and I would then be free to pool our information on the heist. We would form a powerful two-man team to go after the money and emeralds; OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER would be considered a success. This wild swath of my young life, with all its attendant mindscapes, would assume an entirely new dimension.

I asked Scotty how he knew of my fixation with the heist, enough so to brace me on it. Scotty told me he had picked up tips that I had been making subtle queries, going back months. On instinct, he did a background check on me. Bingo: my 84th and Budlong address showed up on an old driver’s license.

Joe McCarver owned a small stucco house off 68th and Slauson. The day was warm. The backyard was comfortably strewn with lounge chairs; the kids splashed around in a wading pool. Scotty was parked in an unmarked unit, two blocks away. He had a two-way radio with dial-in capacity. All I needed was four seconds with Joe’s bedroom phone.

“This be good like a motherfuuuuucker,” Claude Torrance said as we sat down. The dope sat in the middle of a long picnic table, as if it were an altarpiece. Intergroup tension needed to be brooked before we began the negotiation, so 151 rum and spike-laced grass was served. I partook sparingly. The other three men consumed a full bottle of the rum and smoked several reefers. Joe attacked the food; I prepared the opening remarks of my mediation. Then Claude started fucking with my head.

“Brother, an’ I calls you ‘brother’ with a big muthafuckin’ grain of salt, let me ask you, brother, why’d you rat out Brother Jomo Kenyatta Clarkson to the muthafuckin’ pigs last year?”

I said something neutral. I did my conciliatory “Hey, brother, be cool” thing.

Leander stepped in; I’m sure he considered my response sissified. He said, “Listen to me, baby boy. I put a knife in Jomo and saw him bleed weak blood. He was anemic from weak thoughts and a strong appetite for evil. I put a hex on his nigger soul, and he die the next day. I have connections to Bizango-sect bokurs and the ghost of Baron Samedi. They make Jomo off himself. They send legions of red ants up the hole in his dick to eat out his eyes and his brain. That is the pure truth, baby boy.”

I held my breath.

Joe put down a chicken wing and cracked his knuckles.

Claude said, “Baron Samedi sucked my big black dick,” and spit on Leander’s shoes.

Then:

Leander pulled a gun. Joe pulled a gun. Claude pulled a gun. There was the briefest of pauses where they might have stepped back. A strong wind whipped through the backyard. A bottle toppled. The noise rang loud. That did it.

All three men had fat-clip automatics. They all fired at once, as I ducked under the table.

It was very close range. The noise was horrible. Leander shot and killed Claude. Joe shot and killed Leander. Leander shot and killed Joe as he was going down. The three men were on the ground by the table. They were technically dead, but still twitching. They kept firing and sending shots out. The children screamed and tried to run. Stray shots and ricochets hit them, I saw the little girl’s brains blow back into the wading pool.

I curled up, covered my head and waited for more shots or death-throe noise. There was none. I looked around and saw the three dead men and two dead children. It was over in less than ten seconds. I had an epiphany. It was instantaneously realized mind-scaping. I immediately prepared a tableau for my heroic, trial-by-fire redemption.

The house and backyard were flanked by vacant lots on three sides, which gave me both privacy and time to work. Calmly, I pulled my gun and shot the dead Claude Cantrell Torrance in the head. Just as calmly, I shot the late Joseph Tidwell McCarver and Leander James Jackson. Finishing up, I took the three guns out of their hands and fired off random shots. I smudged the grips, then calmly placed the guns back in their hands.

Sure-they fired on each other. But I assumed control and took them all out. Too bad about the kids. I tried to sweep them to safety, but ricochets caught them first.

I walked through the yard and stretched the bodies out in convincing cross-fire positions. I wiped up the drag marks with paper towels and checked out the scene. I ran into the house and stiffed a faux-panicked call to Scotty.

His siren kicked on instantly; I heard it from two blocks away. I walked slowly back to the yard.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/1/70. Los Angeles Herald Express article.

BLACK-MILITANT BLASTOUT

Two days ago, a backyard barbecue in South Los Angeles erupted into violence and three men and two children lay dead. Initial news reports attributed the killings to a high-stakes narcotics deal gone bad. It now appears to be much more than that.

The three adult victims-Leander James Jackson, age 31, Joseph Tidwell McCarver, age 32, and Claude Cantrell Torrance, age 23-were rabid black-militant activists, LAPD Sergeant Robert S. Bennett told reporters at a press conference. The two murdered children-Theodore and Darleen McCarver, ages six and four, were McCarver’s two offspring with his common-law wife. Sergeant Bennett went on to reveal that there was a sixth person in Joe McCarver’s backyard: former LAPD Officer Marshall E. Bowen.

“You may recall Officer Bowen from an encounter he had with me on October 1, 1968,” Sergeant Bennett said. “Officer Bowen’s actions resulted in his being fired from LAPD. In reality, the encounter and the subsequent firing were just a ruse to allow Officer Bowen to convincingly infiltrate the Black Tribe Alliance and Mau-Mau Liberation Front, two deadly black-nationalist groups intent on selling heroin to finance their subversive activities.”

Officer Bowen assumed the microphone. “Jackson, McCarver and Torrance had extensive criminal records and Communist ties,” he said. “I had been gathering evidence against them since my fake firing from LAPD a year and a half ago. The purpose of the barbecue was a ‘dope summit meeting’ and the culmination of my work as an FBI infiltrator. Regrettably, a verbal argument escalated into a gunfight. I ran in and attempted to lead the two children to safety, but stray bullets got to them first. At that point, I entered into gunfire with Jackson, McCarver and Torrance, as they were firing at one another.”