Crutch got out and rang the doorbell. Marsh Bowen opened up. He was in uniform. His Medal of Valor pin glowed.

Marsh did a double take. Oh, yeah-Clyde Duber’s kid.

Crutch said, “Scotty knows you went to Haiti. I think you’d better run.”

111

(Washington, D.C., 12/7/71)

Harvey’s was packed. He waited at the bar. Howard Hunt was late. The lunch crowd table-hopped.

Ted Kennedy and John Mitchell. Veep Agnew with a multi-table joke. Dwight caught fragments. A lion was fucking a zebra, ha ha.

He was jet-lagged and up-for-days shot. He had lunch with Jack Leahy yesterday. It was nails-on-blackboard raw. They did not discuss the Operation. Joan told him about it. He approved of it and wanted it. His looks signaled sanction. That much was clear.

Jack came to talk-his terms solely. He said he went back with Joan. He said he got the money out. They did not discuss the heist. Jack said he hated Hoover like Joan did. Dwight asked him why. Jack said, “I’m not telling you.”

Hunt was late. It pissed him off. Karen and the kids were here. Dwight sipped coffee and scanned the restaurant. Ronald Reagan walked in. He got ooohs, aaaahs and jeers.

He’d worked three days straight with Joan. They combined the fake-diary excerpts with Marsh’s real-life text. It was now seamless. They deleted the Lionel Thornton murder. It would throw huge heat on Scotty and induce him to talk. The omission might convince him to stay silent. Joan had been close to Lionel Thornton. The omission would spare his family.

The new text revealed Marsh’s heist fixation. He partnered up with the equally fixated Scotty and pursued fruitless leads. Marsh was now all greed and perversion. He came to political grievance late. He was pawn and puppetmaster. His psyche had disarticulated sixteen million ways. Cops took him in and gave him an identity. Cops told him to retain it while he assumed an antithetical one. The search for the money and emeralds went nowhere. He didn’t know who he was, where he was or what to do. He decided to kill a public figure to make it all click.

Howard Hunt walked in. Dwight waved him over. The barman saw him and built a martini.

He took two sips and packed a pipe. He cleaned his glasses with his necktie.

“I can’t stay for lunch.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“It’s warm out. The spring’s going to be a bear.”

Dwight passed him an envelope. Hunt palmed it and lit his pipe.

“So?”

“This summer. The Watergate. Your call on the exact timing and the personnel.”

“The old girl turned him down. I’ve heard rumors.”

“The Man likes me. Let’s leave it at that.”

Hunt drained his martini. “You’re in charge?”

Dwight shook his head. “Look in the envelope. There’s a drop-phone you can call. The Man has a thing for Cubans. You’ve been here before. It’s all drops, cutouts and flash paper. I’m walking away from it now.”

Hunt put down a five-spot. Dwight handed it back.

“It’s on me.”

“Dwight ‘the Enforcer.’ Ever the gent.”

“Nice seeing you, Howard.”

Hunt put on a golf cap and walked outside. The door swung wide. Sunshine hit the bar and the table floor. Two big guys ushered in a frail old man.

He shuffled. His clothes fell off him. His glasses slipped down his nose. Liver spots, palsy, slack neck. Half-inch mincing steps.

The old man looked over and saw him. He had filmy dark brown eyes. Nothing clicked outward. Dwight blinked and refocused. Mr. Hoover dead-eye stared.

The bodyguards eased him to a table. It took three minutes to walk fifteen yards. He looked around the restaurant, unfocused. Nobody noticed him. People table-hopped around him. A waiter brought pre-cooked food out.

Dwight had him head-on. A short space stood between them. He stepped away from the bar. He built a big, simple frame.

Mr. Hoover looked over. Dwight waved. Mr. Hoover stayed blank.

One bodyguard cut up his steak. One bodyguard fed him. Ted Kennedy noticed him and looked away. Ronald Reagan smiled and waved his way. Mr. Hoover dead-eyed it. Saliva dripped down his chin.

Dwight walked three steps closer. It built a clearer frame. Mr. Hoover coughed. Saliva pooled on his plate. A waiter pounced and snatched it. Dwight stepped forward. He hovered now. Mr. Hoover was very close. He looked straight at Dwight and never saw him.

The girls skipped around the monument. Dwight and Karen held hands on a bench.

“Have you told them Washington was the father of our country?”

Karen smiled. “Your American history is not my American history.”

“I might dispute that now.”

“Given recent events, I might concede the point.”

The lawn was full of nannies with strollers and kids kicking balls. A little boy saw Dwight’s belt gun and grinned.

Karen said, “We’ve been together for seven years.”

“I know. You’ll be forty-seven in February.”

“Take me somewhere for a weekend. I’m bracing myself all the time. You’re doing something irreparable. I want a few moments with you first.”

Dwight tucked a knee up and faced her. Karen looked at him. He held her face. Some tears rolled. He brushed them off with his thumbs.

“I’m not doing it.”

Karen leaned away from him. Her tears rolled crazy. She took off her sweater and blotted her eyes.

The mauve cashmere cardigan. His first Christmas gift. She’d said, “What? You didn’t buy me reef?”

“Why?”

Dwight said, “Nobody dies.”

He had a big suite at the Willard. Bureau-vouchered digs. The bathroom featured a walk-in shower.

Room service sent up a bottle of bourbon. It made him salivate. He carried his briefcase and the jug into the bathroom. He dumped the diary pages in the shower and poured the bourbon on top.

He lit a match and dropped it. The shower stall contained the blaze. He let the flames leap way up.

The nozzle dangled outside the stall. He kicked on the water and sprayed it all out. The pages crackled down to black muck.

A wall phone was clamped above the toilet. Dwight dialed the fallback direct. He got three rings and “Yes?”

“We’re pulling out. I can’t do it.”

Joan said, “No,” and hung up.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 12/8/71-1/17/72. Extract from the journal of Marshall E. Bowen

I always know when something has ended. I opened my door, saw that silly boy on my porch and realized that many threads of my life had fully run their course. I did not ask him to elaborate on his statement; I did not tell him that I had glimpsed him here and there enough to know that he had to be a deft surveillance artist with considerable knowledge of me. His car was parked in my driveway. I walked over to grab the day’s newspaper off my lawn and saw that the boy had photographs of Joan Rosen Klein taped to the dashboard. In that instant, I knew: it is over.

He drove off. I grabbed my journal from its hiding place, liquidated my bank account, packed a bag and flew here. I doubted that Scotty would come here or risk exposure of our many crimes by siccing the LAPD on me. Instinct told me that the money was in Los Angeles and Reginald and the emeralds were here. Thus, I got on an airplane and flew to Port-au-Prince.

It is very black. I am a French-fluent black man, an American, a policeman. I have the gifted actor’s flair for assimilating language. I could never pass myself off as purely Haitian, but I have become proficient in Kreole French. Native people feel honored when foreign rubes attempt to speak their tongue and actually succeed at it. My proficiency and natural charm have given me carte blanche to indulge and observe.

I travel by foot and bicycle and stay in small hotels. I ask questions about Reginald Hazzard in French and English wherever I go. I describe the young black man with the burn-scarred face; I sometimes display my police credentials. Many people recall having seen Reginald, but no one knows where he is. I have all the time in the world to find him. I am not going back to America.