Confluence. Clyde Duber’s word. It’s who you know and who you blow and how you’re all linked.

Wayne introduced Fred O. to the Frogman. They spewed some staticky talk. Fred O. introduced Dwight to the Frogman and spieled his last name as Holly.

Confluence. Dwight Holly knew Clyde. Dwight Holly tapped Clyde to tail Marsh Bowen in Chicago.

Crutch got situated. His headphones fit tight and the spy hole was there at eye level. The 308 crew pulled chairs up close to the lamp feed. Fred O. bopped to the wet bar and came back with highballs and chips. Dwight Holly declined the drink. The other guys dug in. Crutch got a vibe: this had nothing to do with his case.

Clock it-3:18 p.m. Roll the tape, live.

The guys settled in. Sentence fragments overlapped. Dwight and the Frogman lit cigarettes. Fred O. looked plump and sassy, back to his normal bulk. Wayne looked raggedy-ass and too thin.

Fred O. said, “Enough bullshit,” pitch-perfect headphone sound.

Dwight Holly said, “There’ll be six men. They always stay after hours. It’s always them and just them, and I don’t think they’ll vary the routine on the night we go in.”

Wayne said, “When?”

Fred O. said, “We’re set on my end. I’ve got the plant guns, Dwight’s got the dope. I think we can be in and out in five minutes.”

Dwight Holly said, “Four. The takedown will be easy. They’ll be blitzed and they’ll be surprised. It’s all about rigging the forensic. St. Louis PD has a shit crime lab, but I still want the wound spill and trajectories to make some kind of sense.”

Crutch started sweating. His earphones wetted up and produced crackle hiss. “Six men,” “plant guns,” “wound spill”-

Mesplede said, “ ‘Grapevine.’ That is an American colloquialism, correct? It means ‘a source of information.’ So, it is idiomatic. And in that manner, it becomes the name of a hoodlum’s meeting place.”

Fred O. yukked. Ditto Dwight. Wayne flinched. Crutch caught it late.

June 20. THAT NIGHT. Talk fragments-grapevine/Tommy/plant-Joan and Gretchen/Celia.

The headphones pooled sweat. Crutch whipped them off, wiped them dry and put them back on. He got four-way garbles, fuzz, bips, pops, line hiss. Sweat-clogged feeder lines, shit.

More bips and line hiss. Food noise-Fred O. and the Frogman snarfed chips. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them dry and put them back on. He pressed up to the spy hole. He squinted. He tried to read lips and gestures and sync them to hiss. He got squeaks, he got crackle, he got words here and there in the mix.

He heard “Memphis.” He saw Wayne twitch. He heard “patsy,” “King,” “Ray.” Dwight Holly and Wayne shared queasy looks. He heard food noise. He squinted harder. He breathed harder. He fogged up the spy hole. He lost a full minute to bip-bip-bips.

He heard “witness.”

He heard “grapevine” again.

HE STARTED TO GET IT.

Fred O. ran a monologue. His bass voice cut down line hiss. Crutch heard “Sirhan.” Crutch heard “Bobby K.” Fred O. mimed a shooting-bam, bam, you’re dead. Wayne and Dwight H. shared a trиs queasy look.

HE GOT MORE OF IT. His bladder almost blew. He clenched up, sucked up and kept it in.

The spy hole was fogged. The bug line was clogged. Fucking potato chip-chomping noise fucked it up worse. Crutch took the headphones off, shook them and put them back on. Crutch spit on the spy-hole glass and shirt-wiped it clean.

He got more sight. He got more sound. He saw the Frogman’s lips move. He heard incoherent yak-yak and “Dallas.” He heard Frenchy word cuisine, “Cuba,” “revenge.”

The sound died altogether. Crutch shook his head. The phones cleared and the bug line re-fed. He got hiss, snap, crackle, pop, buzz, fuzz, bips. He heard “Le grand putain Jack.” He saw Jean-Philippe Mesplede assume a rifleman’s pose.

And he pissed in his pants.

And he shit in his pants.

And he vomited and gasped.

He pulled off his headphones. He ran to the console, pulled the main wire and ripped Spackle out of the wall. He made a small through hole. It fed into 308, all wire-free. The Spackle blew back into his suite. He squinted and put his ear to the hole-God, please please please.

The meeting was done. The men stood at the door. Dwight Holly said, “One last thing.”

The other men nodded. Dwight Holly said, “No women. If there’s women there, we pull out.”

Fred O. nodded reluctant. Mesplede rolled his eyes. Wayne Tedrow clutched Dwight Holly’s wrist.

(St. Louis, 9/3/68)

Throwdown guns-check. Insulin needles-check. Liquid cocaine-check. One last mug shot-memorization look.

Brundage, Currie, Pierce. Kling, DeJohn, Luce.

They were all inside. They were all armed. They were all blitzed. They entered between 10:41 and 12:49. Dwight played inside man and observed them. He chatted up Pierce and laid some groundwork. I’m a Schenley’s sales rep. I do the deliveries. Sometimes they go late.

It was 3:10 now. They were still in there. Otash made a wax fit of the back-door lock yesterday. It was a clean walk-in. The Schenley’s man and his pals with booze. Hey, Tommy Pierce-long time no see.

They parked behind the Grapevine. They wore jeans and duck-blind windbreakers-Okie hunter gear. They had four Schenley’s boxes.

Dwight had a vented.45. Wayne had a.38 snub. Otash had a Colt Python. Mesplede had a long-barrel.32.

The van was stolen. Mesplede clouted it. They wore gloves for the ride over. Dwight felt calm. Otash and Mesplede looked calm. Wayne looked too calm-Dwight figured he was on something.

Music inside-hee-haw/hoedown shit. A country fiddle brayed and screeched.

Dwight tapped his watch. They got out of the van. Mesplede leaned in and dispensed the boxes. Otash walked over, unlocked the back door and left it ajar. A storeroom light was on. Dwight saw canned goods on shelves. High-pitched fiddle chords scraped.

Dwight tapped his watch-now.

They pulled out their guns and held them under the boxes. They clumped and made he-man grunts and nonchalantly walked in.

The storeroom led to the tavern proper. Their big-boot clomps and macho groans pre-announced them. The six fucks were sitting on two dumb leather sofas. They faced each other. A plank table was plopped down between them. It was covered with bottles, glasses and junk-food debris.

Dwight yelled, “Hey there, Tommy.” Heads turned their way. Dwight head-counted and got seven, not six.

An extra man. Fortyish and curly-haired. Interloper/sorry, pal/it’s just too late.

Looks traveled quick. Tommy Pierce cued the guys-this is okay. Dwight huffed and puffed over. Otash, Mesplede and Wayne were bunched behind him. It was a left-side, front-entry-wound, in-tight approach. The seven fucks just sat there. Dwight dropped the cue line: “Yeah, I know it’s late.”

Off that last syllab-

They dropped the boxes. They aimed and fired down. They emptied their guns at their pre-assigned targets, all body mass and face. The fucks just sat there. The shots swallowed them up. They pitched and jerked and bounced and stayed in their seats.

The noise was loud overlap and reverb. The cordite stink was bad and the barrel smoke was thick. The music went inaudible. Blood blew out their backs and pooled on the sofas in one continuous sweep.

Gurgles, belches, neck-wound coughs, shudders and gasps. Seven dead in one twitching sweep.

Dwight tapped his watch-go.

They put on rubber gloves.

They pulled belt-concealed guns off the dead men and paper-bagged them. Dwight checked out the seventh man. He was unarmed. Dwight went through his wallet. Fourteen bucks and a New York driver’s license: Thomas Frank Narduno, almost forty-six.