Truth serum-I’ll buy it.

“Who do you snitch to Jack?”

“Ghetto scum, man. Dope-pushers and Panther-type fools.”

Marsh dropped the address book. Scotty penlight-signaled him. Marsh signaled him back. They got each other’s eyes. They telepathized.

Scotty said, “Where’s the vault, Mr. Thornton?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Marsh said, “What haven’t you told us that you should have told us in the name of full disclosure?”

Thornton laughed. “Man, you are nothing but a nigger full of four-dollar words.”

Scotty said, “Please take us to the vault.”

“I’m not going to.”

Marsh said, “Where are the emeralds?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Scotty shrugged.

Marsh shrugged.

They penlight-drilled Thornton’s face. They got a big funnel target. Marsh pulled a throwdown piece and capped him.

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