Bowen looked in windows and dawdle-strolled. A longhair held up a Coke bottle. A longhair stuffed a rag into it and lit it. All the longhairs tripped on the flame. A longhair hurled the bottle straight at the fuzz.

It broke short of them. The explosion was a dud. The longhairs yelled “Off the Pigs!” jive and ran away, laughing. Marshall Bowen turned around-Hey, now, what’s this?

The cops charged him. He put his hands up-no, please. The cops hit him and pummeled him in one big blur.

21

(Chicago, 8/26/68)

Chemistry set.

Wayne stood in Farlan Brown’s bathroom. Mirrored walls threw his own image back. He looked all wrong. You’re too old, too thin, too trashed.

He grabbed a sink cup. He mixed airline scotch with opium chunks and a crumbled Valium. He stirred it with a toothbrush end and quick-guzzled it.

The effect hit him mid-body and worked its way up to his head. The required tingle occurred. He braced himself on the sink ledge and checked the mirrors. The required reversal occurred.

He walked into the living room. Drac’s elves were all there. Head count: Brown and Mesplede. Six strongarm guys for Sam Giancana and eight off-duty cops. On the floor, dead center: a big steamer trunk full of hurt.

The goons and cops sat mingled. Brown and Mesplede stood behind the wet bar. They sipped breakfast Bloody Marys topped by celery sticks. Mesplede had passed out French cigarettes. The whole suite was smoke-swirled.

Brown nodded-your show, Wayne.

“Amphetamines, hallucinogens and hashish. Get it to the kids and make sure there’s no reporters around when you do it. There’s some plant evidence. You’ve got subversive literature and bomb-making diagrams. There’s at least fifty Class-A felony pops in that trunk, every kid you pop will roll over on two dozen more, and you’ll all get back at the Democrats for having their show in your city.”

A few cops clapped. A few goons whistled. A cop passed Mesplede a file and mouthed the words “They’re here.” An obese goon cracked his knuckles.

Brown slapped his knees. Mesplede waved his celery stick.

Chemistry set-Wayne mixed a bedside cocktail. Nembutal and Jack Daniel’s-a pro chemist’s assuredly safe dose.

It went down warm and sat there. He stretched out to wait for the curtain. It was his sixteenth calculated dosage since West Las Vegas.

He’d stop soon. The compounds he cooked at Lake Tahoe would last him through next week. He was tapering his sleep jaunts off now. Tahoe topped out at twenty hours-plus. He kept up with Carlos and the Hughes group by scrambler phone. I’m recuperating in the woods. I’ve got a bum disk.

They bought it. They attributed his missing beats to illness. Dwight sealed the output on the killings. Word would seep over time. Two more dead shines-no one would care.

The curtain started spreading up. He saw the black woman dressed in black as the light slipped.

(Las Vegas, 8/26/68)

Freddy O. described the Grapevine gestalt.

It was a shitkicker joint with a north-woods ambience suffused with far-Right detail. Glowing Hamm’s beer signs. Polyester-flocked fir trees. Beaver pix taped above the urinals. Gun mags stacked everywhere. Racist-cartoon napkins-Sambo, stay out.

Dwight and Freddy floated in the Golden Cavern pool. The water was fjord-cold. They had the deep end to themselves. Freddy described the loose-talk gestalt.

It emanated from six lowlifes: Brundage, Kling, DeJohn, Currie, Pierce, Luce. They were stickup guys and pill pushers prone to right-wing hijinx. They were stone juicers and dope fiends. They stuck to themselves. They closed the Grapevine every night and stayed after hours to talk shit. They had keys to the joint. The proprietors trusted them to leave cash for their booze and lock up when they left. They were not ATF surveillance targets. That was good. ATF would not investigate their mass homicide.

A waiter brought Freddy a Cuba Libre and Dwight an iced tea. They floated and talked. Freddy said it’s a three-man job. Dwight said no, four. Wayne knows a French-Corsican merc. The guy sounds perfect. Let’s bring him in.

Freddy agreed. A zaftig blonde slinked by and provided diversion. Dwight slathered on more suntan oil. They discussed the meet on the thirtieth. We’ll have Wayne and the merc then. We’ll finalize.

Dwight said, “It has to be self-contained. Those six fools and nobody else. It’s late, they’re there alone, they’re talking crazy political woo-woo and it all explodes.”

Freddy said, “I agree. St. Louis PD comes in, works the crime scene, does the tests and says, That’s that.’ All the numbers match.”

Dwight said, “We’ll have to fire audibly. We want a barrage of overlapping shots to be heard and noted. We can’t use silencers, because they’ll leave tube fragments on the spent rounds.”

Freddy said, “I agree. They all carry pieces routinely, but we won’t have time to disarm them and kill them with their own guns. We’ll need to bring in weapons with a traceable St. Louis origin.”

Dwight said, “I agree, and that’s your job. You’re the St. Louis guy on this, so you 459 a few gun stores or pawnshops and steal some pieces the investigators can trace back. And revolvers, Freddy. I don’t want any automatics jamming up on us.”

Freddy sipped his Cuba Libre. “I agree. We pop them, we plant the guns they shot each other with, we pull their existing guns and move the bodies around to match the blood spill. That part of it is all crystal clear.”

Dwight sipped iced tea. “We’re in and out in under four minutes. You said they always blast the jukebox, right?”

“Right. The world’s worst Okie music, and loud.”

“That’s good. It’s partial cover on the shots, and the neighbors are used to racket at all hours. We goose the volume on our way out, which ups the chance that some local will stiff a noise-complaint call and some doofus patrol cops will respond and find the bodies.”

Freddy hovered under the diving board. “We need one more key detail.”

Dwight said, “Cocaine. They scored some pure shit and went nuts behind it. We leave some lines on the counter. We get Wayne to liquefy a portion of it. We get some small-gauge insulin needles and stryinges and boot them full of coke postmortem. We can inject them between their toes, and the marks will be too small to be noted at autopsy.”

Freddy said, “It’s tight and localized. It’s a categorizable white-trash multiple homicide for all fucking time, and it’s ‘case closed’ in twelve hours tops.”

Dwight nodded. “We’ll make it convincing. And don’t worry about Wayne, he’s solid.”

Freddy laughed. “We’re worried about him, but he’s the stone killer.”

Dwight laughed. “We’re just lucky the dipshits are white.”

A waiter walked a blinking phone up. Freddy got out of the pool and futzed with the cord and receiver. Dwight shut his eyes and tuned out the sun.

Freddy said, “It’s for you. Your guy Bowen’s in custody in Chicago.”