(Los Angeles, 4/5/70)

The lot.

Old home week.

Back in the fold.

Dipshit, pariguayo. You killed the guy who killed JFK. You offed umpteen Reds and had boocoo adventures. You’re twenty-five. You’ve got gray-flecked hair and lines on your face. Your back is all sliced up.

Crutch sat in his sled. The old crew circulated. Clyde and Buzz Duber, Phil Irwin and Chick Weiss. Bobby Gallard and Fred Otash.

He got more are-you-all-rights and you-don’t-look-so-goods. Fred O. evil-eyed him. Freddy was in on the King-Bobby hits. Freddy knew he knew. It was all stale bread now.

Biz circulated. Chick sent Bobby and Phil out on a rope job. That producer at the Ravenswood was priapic. Wife #3 craved Splitsville while hubby craved Greek meat.

Hey, man. Weren ‘t you embroiled in some cool shit in the Caribbean?

Not so cool. I should have stayed home.

He cut the villagers loose. They did a big-white-bwana number and ran into the brush. He torched Tiger Kar and walked back to Santo Domingo. He packed up and got the fuck out of Dodge.

The Boys never braced him. He got to L.A. and dismantled the fail-safes. He re-clicked with Clyde and Buzz and went back to tail jobs. Buzz buzz-bombed him with questions. He downplayed everything. Buzz asked him about his case. He said he gave it up.

A rainstorm came on. The guys perched in their cars. He was eight days back. Clyde saw that he was fucked-up and ladled work on him. He deployed that heavy-hung Filipino across all gender lines. He kicked in doors and snapped mucho pictures. Sal Mineo needed gelt and consented to pork a woman. The deal died with Sal’s soft dick. It felt wrong. It should have jazzed him. It scared him, instead.

Everything scared him.

Nothing clicked in safe. He had his pad at the Vivian and his file pad downtown. They felt unsafe. He picked at his mother’s file and his case file. That felt unsafe. He peeped Hancock Park. Julie Smith was married, pregnant and out of the house. Dana Lund had a dimwit boyfriend. She’d aged as much as he had.

Crutch tapped the ignition and ran the radio. He heard a song burst: “Faces come out of the rain.” It spooked him. It was voodoo-derived. The song was aimed at him. It was raining now. He squinted out the windshield and tried to read faces. Zilch-just pedestrians with umbrellas.

He sees signs everywhere. He stays up all night or sleeps too long. He has these kid crying jags-Dipshit, pariguayo. He sees shit involuntarily. They’re Zombie Zone re-takes with L.A. backdrops.

His case was deactivated somewhere in his head. It was there, back burner boiling. Leander James Jackson was Laurent-Jean Jacqueau, but both guys were dead. Gretchen/Celia was somewhere. It hurt to think about Joan.

The rain came down zigzagged. Crutch saw two fender benders. Radio news blah-blah’d: Hanoi Jane Fonda and James Earl Ray.

Crutch doused it. A black chick walked down Beverly. The hex backfired-he thought about Wayne.

You tried to tell me, I didn’t listen, I ratted you out. You’re dead inside days and I’m here. Fucker, you re-hexed me. I can’t keep food down. I’m afraid to be alone and I schiz around people. I went to church this morning. I wanted to revoke the hex. The pastor kicked my peeper ass off the pew.

Pariguayo in English: “party-watcher.”

Clyde took him to a big LAPD bash. Jack Webb served as emcee. Marsh Bowen got the Medal of Valor.

Marsh was a fruit. Who knew and who didn’t? Who did and didn’t care? Marsh posed for pix with Scotty Bennett. They were salt-and-pepper pals now. The “Black-Militant Blastout”?-a righteous Fed snafu. Big Dwight’s operation backfires and the fuzz make hay. Dwight was off somewhere. He called the drop-front a bunch of times and got no answer.

Thunder and lightning cracked. The sky went flamethrower red. Crutch got a fear jolt. He ran to the service bay and stood under the roof.

Two mechanics worked on a ‘62 Olds. Crutch watched them pull the flywheel and re-fit the clutch. A newspaper was creased flat on the workbench. Crutch checked it out.

The Vegas Sun. A piece on Wayne’s funeral. A photo of Mary Beth Hazzard, black-veiled.

She wept. She believed what he told her and grieved nonetheless.

The Stardust was mid-Strip. Wayne’s suite had an easy-shim door. He’d read a book on voodoo. Hex removal was a snap. You touched the victim’s belongings and retrieved your thoughts. He didn’t believe it. It was Lutheran text removed a million heartbeats. He figured he owed Wayne.

The drive took six hours. The rain never let up. Faces came and went with the radio music. He parked underground and elevatored to Wayne’s floor. Nobody answered his door knock. He shimmed the door and got in.

The suite looked the same. The same furniture, the same caustic stink. The place looked preserved.

He walked back to the lab. A file space was built right beside it. Paper stacks, boxes, wall graph. A replay of his file nooks.

The arrows, the connecting lines. The neat handwritten notes.

He followed lines and arrows. Facts, logic, conjecture. It all made perfect sense.

Mary Beth’s missing son. Emeralds. Haiti and Leander James Jackson. The woman with the dark, gray-streaked hair.

Celia, leftist firebrand. A hint of Joan and Dwight Holly in love.

His case and Wayne’s-indivisible.

Dear God, that little red flag.

87

(Silver Hill, 4/5/70-12/4/70)

The bed, the lawn. The white buildings, the injected sleep.

Coercion got him in. He spent thirty days then. He stayed eight months now. Thirteen years of penance tithes formed his time between stays. His first visit was happenstance. The context was drunken neglect. The issues raised were guilt payments and abstinence. This stay resulted from reckless intent and cruel political thinking. The death toll was uncountable. The mind-set that created the actions mandated a conscious address.

He was here. She was wherever she went when she vanished. She knew she was complicit. Her heedlessness had spawned chaos on other occasions. She went away to build the will to return.

Silver Hill was beautiful. His stay covered three seasons. He got spring blaze, summer glow and snow.

He sent Mr. Hoover a telex. It stated his need for a long rest and did not state his location. Mr. Hoover knew he’d be here. A card arrived a month later.

Take as much time as you need. I have a new job for you. It’s in Los Angeles. You’d start in January.

“File superintendent.” “Dirt-digger,” euphemized. Hoard gossip and scandal skank. Feed the old girl’s private stash.

Low-risk work. A non-death-causing assignment.

L.A. was L.A. He might feel safe north of the southside. Karen was there. Joan might surface and find him.

He collapsed in New Orleans. He chartered a Bureau plane and flew straight here. Doctors examined him and found him physically sound. They force-fed him big meals and put proper weight on his frame. They sedated him. He slept eighteen hours a day for six weeks running. He woke up startled. He saw his lost ones the moment he opened his eyes. He sobbed. He segued into panic jolts and threw himself at walls. Male nurses shot him up. He went back to sleep and did it all over again.

His bedroom walls were padded. The throws didn’t hurt. He wanted to cause pain. He thought it would blur the dead people’s faces.

He got through that part of it. Repetition burned it out. The docs decreased his sedation. He avoided the head-shrinkers and the other patients. He spent time with a flock of tame goats. They lived protected on the grounds. They were there to console the burnouts.