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(Los Angeles, 5/3/72)

It was headline news. Heart attack, seventy-seven.

She felt nothing. The obits would extoll and defame. Dwight had ripped him out of her. She didn’t care anymore.

Joan parked in front of the house.

A newscast blared next door. TV rays bounced out a window. The boy called the place “pad #3.” His souped-up car was gone. She opened the door with a bogus credit card and let herself in.

The living room was messy. A breeze swirled paper scraps. The air smelled odd. The walls were soot-flecked.

A stack of car magazines. Test tubes and chemical bottles. Notes scrawled on scratch pads. A sawed-off shotgun.

She opened her purse and pulled out the camera. She rolled up her sweater to show him how she’d changed. She held the camera at arm’s length and snapped the picture.

The print popped out a minute later. The image faded into focus. She placed it on the front window ledge.

Your resolve resurrected my resolve.

I can’t imagine who you’ll become.

I’m grateful this happened with you.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 5/11/72. Extract from the privately held journal of Karen Sifakis.

Los Angeles,

May 11, 1972

I’m leaving. This will be my last journal entry. The house has been sold, the car has been packed. The girls are tucked safely in the backseat, along with Ella’s stuffed animals. I will never have to teach college again. Profits from a hellishly violent robbery will support me for the rest of my life.

For the time being, I possess no surname. I have resisted all the false identities offered to me. It’s a risk, but I’m taking it gratefully. At the proper time, I will tell the girls the entire story and how I came to the name Holly.

I locked the house and took one look up at the fallback; I made sure all the car doors were secured. Dina pouted a little; Ella grinned at me. I noticed the little red flag attached to the seat.

I looked around. I wanted to see her one last time or at least catch a breath of her smoke. She was gone. She had always held that farewells were mystical and presumptive. Comrades should be ready to reunify or lose each other forever. Belief works that way.

The photograph has been preserved. History stopped at that moment thirty-seven years ago. History reconvened with the first batch of paper.

Documents have arrived at irregular intervals. They are always anonymously sent. I have compiled diary excerpts, oral-history transcripts and police-file overflow. Elderly leftists and black militants have told me their stories and provided verification. Freedom of Information Act subpoenas have served me well.

I found the journals of Marshall Bowen and Reginald Hazzard. I found Scotty Bennett’s notebooks. Joaqum Balaguer was surprisingly candid. The Richard M. Nixon Library provided perfunctory support. The J. Edgar Hoover Library was resistant. Hoover spokesmen have consistently denied the charred files in his basement and refuse to link the event to Hoover’s death that night.

I interviewed numerous comrades of Joan Rosen Klein and Karen Sifakis. Their recollections form a great contribution to this narrative. They refused to reveal Joan’s and Karen’s new identities. My attempts to bribe and coerce them have roundly failed.

My own memory rages in sync with everything I have described. I have not forgotten a moment of it. Forty thousand new file pages buttress my recall. I burned all of my original paper. I built paper all over again, so that I might tell you this story.

Most of the people are dead. Sal Mineo was murdered in a botched stickup. Booze took down Phil Irwin. Tiger Kab went bust. Freddy Otash had a fatal heart attack. Dracula died in ‘76. Farlan Brown died a year later. Clyde and Buzz are gone. The mob guys are dead. Mary Beth is still alive. Reginald Hazzard returned to Haiti. Dana Lund died in ‘04. Jack Leahy has vanished.

I was the youngest of us all. I remain in fine health. I run a successful detective agency in Los Angeles. My firm bodyguards celebrities and verifies stories for tabloid tell-all rags. I am a frequent guest on scandal-mongering TV shows. My employees utilize cutting-edge technology. I reap profit from their efforts. It allows me to relive History and continue my search for Joan.

I know she’s still alive. I know that Karen and her daughters are alive and thriving. All my hunter’s prowess has not led me to them.

God gave me a restless temperament and a searcher’s discipline. My unruly rover’s drive now veers toward the good. I look for lost loved ones and bring them home. I do it constantly and anonymously and at my own cost. I have found a great many lost people and quite a few lost dogs. This book encapsulates four years and circumscribes many arcs of magic. Wisps of that magic have come to reside in me. I listen, I look, I cull files. I follow people to people and bring them back to the people who most love them. The process fulfills a sacred trust and takes me breathlessly close to Joan.

She’s eighty-three now. Our child is thirty-six. Instinct tells me it’s a girl. My mother is ninety-four. She still sends me a card and a five-dollar bill every Christmas.

“Your options are do everything or do nothing.” Joan told me that. I have paid a dear and savage price to live History. I will never stop looking. I pray that these pages find her and that she does not misread my devotion.

I have toured the world’s revolutionary hot spots. I have been to Nicaragua, Grenada, Bosnia, Rwanda, Russia, Iran and Iraq. I have drawn pictures of Joan and aged her in my mind’s eye. I read newspapers and magazines and search for her actions in ellipsis. I see women who might be her and follow them until their auras disperse. I have paid out millions of dollars in tip cash. I hear of car bombings and arms deals and scan computer photographs. I have a lab filled with photo-enhancing equipment. Correspondents send me footage every day. I stare at crowd scenes and hold my breath for the moment it’s her.

Her picture. My gene of persistence.

My options often fluctuate between Then and Now. I live in the latter with reluctance. I live in the former with kid-convert rectitude.

There’s a party at Tiger Kab. A strange island beckons me. I’m chasing a killer to a self-indicting end. I’m making friends and enemies and roving at full speed. I’ve got that license to steal and that ticket to ride.

It’s always there. It’s always unfurling. It’s always teaching me new things. I give you this book and anoint you my comrade. Here is my gift in lieu of a reunion-my lost mother, my lost child and the Red Goddess Joan.