Sills was crowded-the lunch trade and no empty booths. It was up in shitsville North Vegas. The color line was blurred there. The joint was quasi-segregated. Whites ate on one side, blacks on the other.
Wayne walked in. Mary Beth Hazzard was over on the black side. She was sitting with four union friends. They were all black. Wayne recognized them from his picket-line show.
Two people noticed him. A man nudged Mary Beth. She noticed him and whispered all around the booth. The people got up and walked out. They passed Wayne en route. They lowered their eyes.
Wayne walked over and put his hand out. Her hand was firm and dry. He said, “Mrs. Hazzard.” She said, “Mr. Tedrow.” Her eyes clicked to the opposite seat. Wayne took the cue and sat down.
They looked at each other. It was still. It made the restaurant noise subside. People started looking at them. It was still. Eyes just clicked their way.
Mary Beth touched her coffee cup. “I read about your father. You have my condolences for your loss.”
The union folks had left their coffee cups and saucers behind. Wayne cleared a space for his hands.
“Thank you. My father treated union people horribly, so your condolences affirm your good manners very nicely.”
“I wasn’t fishing for compliments, Mr. Tedrow.”
“I know. I’m just hoping you’ll accept the one I gave you, and not consider it condescending.”
Mary Beth smiled. Wayne felt a million eyes click.
“And my condolences for your husband.”
“Condolences accepted. But in the spirit of candor, I’ll add that Cedric was recklessly fervent and had no business being alone with Pappy Dawkins at 2:00 a.m.”
Wayne glanced around for a waitress. Two waitresses caught it and looked away. A little black boy draped himself over his booth and stared at them. Two little white girls pointed.
“You’re very nervous, Mr. Tedrow. If you’re thinking of ordering coffee, you might want to reconsider.”
Wayne smiled. “And besides, they won’t serve me,”
“They will if you make a big-enough fuss.”
“Or put on a big-enough show.”
Mary Beth smiled. “Your show at the picket line was memorable. It begs the question of what you were trying to say, but I won’t press you on that.”
Wayne fidgeted. Mary Beth pushed her coffee cup over. Wayne warmed his hands on it.
“I want to thank you for your part in settling the strike, Mr. Tedrow. The rumor is that you convinced Mr. Hughes.”
Wayne said, “Yes, I did.”
“And your motive?”
“You mean, my motive given my history?”
Mary Beth touched the coffee cup. “I don’t judge your history as harshly as most black people around here would.”
Wayne touched the coffee cup. His hands almost touched hers. She left her hands there. He pulled his back.
“And why is that?”
“You killed those men while you were looking for Wendell Durfee, so you get a pass from me on that one.”
Peeple looked at them. A big fat black guy and a tall, skinny white guy flat-out fucking gawked.
“Why, Mrs. Hazzard?”
“Because Leroy Williams and the Swasey brothers supplied the dope that killed my sister. Because Wendell Durfee raped me on April 19, 1951, which makes me inclined to forgive your rash behavior and like you just fine.”
Wayne looked at his hands. They jerked and spun the coffee cup. Some coffee spilled on Mary Beth’s hands. She didn’t seem to notice. She kept her hands there.
“I read about your son. The missing-person part, I mean.”
“He was a brilliant boy. He knew a great deal about chemistry.”
“I’m a chemist.”
“Yes, I was told that.”
“Were you inquiring about me?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Why?”
Mary Beth pulled her hands back. “You’re pushing me. Don’t ask me to say things I’m not ready to.”
Wayne looked around the diner. The whole goddamn room was looking their way.
“You described your son in the past tense. Do you think he’s dead?”
Mary Beth shook her head. “There’s times I do, there’s times I don’t. Sometimes dead’s easier, sometimes it’s not.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Yes, I miss him terribly.”
Wayne said, “I’ll find him for you.”
____________________
Part II
SHIT MAGNET
September 12, 1968-January 20, 1969
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DOCUMENT INSERT: 9/12/68. Internal FBI memorandum. Marked: “Stage 1 CoverWDirector’s Eyes Only “/”Destroy After Reading.” To: Director Hoover. From: SA Dwight C. Holly.
Sir,
OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER now stands at the on-go stage, with the drop-front and preliminary operating funds secured, police agency paperwork on our target groups and their members assessed and our infiltrator selected and ready to be placed in an operational context both plausible and provocative. Bureau informant #4361 has supplied me with the name of a potential confidential informant (female), and I have requested her Bureau file from Central Records and will study it thoroughly before any attempt is made to facilitate a meeting. THE BLACK TRIBE ALLIANCE (BTA) and MAU-MAU LIBERATION FRONT (MMLF) occupy the identical political and criminal universe, which I will summarize, along with criminal/political summaries of the groups’ “leaders.” As previously stated, the groups are criminally inclined, staffed with career criminals and are determined to achieve their goals through criminal means. They are political rivals, and as such, our goal must remain fixed: to create inter-group dissension that will result in criminal charges and serve to discredit the entire black-nationalist apparatus.
1.-Both groups operate along near-identical lines. They employ storefront offices that serve as recruitment hubs, social clubs and gathering places for local Negroes and visiting radicals, thus photo surveillance may prove useful at some point. Both groups distribute anti-white, anti-Los Angeles Police Department literature and hate literature besmirching rival black-militant groups, most often vulgar pamphlets in the comic-book style. Both organizations recruit on campus at local high schools and junior high schools. Both organizations extort local merchants for food to deploy in their Feed the Kiddies programs and liquor for their weekly pay-to-attend “political mixers,” in reality drunken parties that often result in brawls. Both organizations have female followers-i.e., “groupies,” who act as prostitutes and donate most of their earnings to the “cause.” Both organizations are rumored to have “safe houses” where visiting radicals and members fleeing criminal proceedings are allowed to hide out. Unlike the BLACK PANTHERS and US, there have been no known instances of BTA and MMLF violence directed at police officers. I will direct both our infiltrator and informant to notify me immediately should they learn of any such planned provocations. Both organizations are rumored to be planning excursions into the narcotics trade, although I seriously doubt that they possess the expertise required to be successful at it. They are both, to date, small-time in their organized criminal designs, although their individual “leaders” and followers quite often possess major felony records. BTA members are suspected of burglarizing a series of pornographic bookstores in the LAPD’s Wilshire Division; MMLF members are suspected of participation in a series of employee-assisted faked robberies of all-night Jack in the Box drive-in locations. The profits from these criminal actions were allegedly donated to BTA and MMLF operating accounts. A BTA member allegedly operates a still and produces 190-proof corn liquor; an MMLF member allegedly scalps counterfeit tickets to the local games of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Rams. Again, these criminal enterprises create operating expenses for the BTA and MMLF and spotlight the inherent criminality of their members. The exposure of endemic criminal activity is essential to our derogatory profile of the groups and will provide a pithy courtroom commentary when our operation concludes and highly publicized legal proceedings begin.