Clyde rolled his eyes. Chick said, “As your lawyer, my advice is don’t reveal shit. Dr. Fred was dirty in countless fucking ways. You don’t want guilt by association.”
The intercom buzzed: “Donald Crutchfield. Captain’s office, please.”
Crutch walked over. The door was ajar. He stepped inside. Dwight Holly was standing there.
“Hello, Dipshit.”
Crutch shut the door. Confluence, Clyde’s word, it’s who you know and who you blow and how you’re all linked.
“People keep calling me that. I keep trying to show them otherwise.”
“It’s the bow tie with the polo shirt. It’s hard to see through to the real, dynamic you.”
Crutch leaned on the door. His chest throbbed. Bile crept up. He felt like he looked green. Dwight Holly tossed him an antacid mint. He caught it and popped it. Dwight Holly winked.
“Wayne explained the stalemate you created. I said, ‘Let’s kill him anyway,’ but softer minds prevailed. If you want to look for that woman who skimmed Farlan Brown, swell. Obey orders, you live. Disobey them, c’est la guerre.”
Crutch shut his eyes and saw Dr. Fred faceless. Triple-aught buckshot. Big game-stopping loads. He tasted blood in his mouth. He’d bit his gums raw.
Dwight Holly said, “Mr. Hoover wants this homicide short-shrifted. Some jigs pulled a robbery and it got out of hand. Dr. Fred was a Bureau informant, a hate peddler, a dope fiend and a compulsive pussy hound. It was a high-risk lifestyle, and the world will not mourn. Are you starting to see your role in this?”
Crutch opened his eyes. “He had a bomb shelter. There was a big hamper full of-”
“The shelter was ransacked and the money is gone. Some jigs pulled a robbery and it got out of hand. They’ll blow the money on dope, Cadillacs and mink coats for their bitches, they’ll continue pulling robberies until some white cops shoot and kill them. Now, are you starting to see your-”
“Don’t tell BHPD about the Gretchen Farr gig. Don’t mention Dracula or Farlan Brown. Lie. Dissemble. Prevaricate. Don’t bring up you, Wayne, Freddy O., Mesplede, or any other dipshit-killer friends you might have. Don’t embarrass your pansy boss, Mr. Hoover.”
Dwight Holly grinned. “I thought I detected a brain there.”
Crutch swallowed some blood. Dwight Holly tossed him another mint. It fell short and hit the floor.
“May I ask you a question about your tie and your haircut?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have an unseemly crush on Sergeant Robert S. Bennett?”
Crutch said, “Fuck you.”
Dwight Holly roared.
37
(Las Vegas, 9/15/68)
Files, graphs, lists. His suite was a chem lab/paper mill.
Teamster Fund book loan defaulters. Deadbeats and stiffs. Transaction files and credit sheets. Debit-projection files and cost-analysis studies.
Wayne read files and jotted figures. He worked with a scratch pad and three different pens. His back hurt from hunkering down and his fingers hurt from writing. His eyes hurt from file reads and column-figure scans.
Let’s co-opt the Steve’s Kingburger chain in Akron, Ohio. Let’s buy a mall site in Leawood, Kansas. Let’s co-opt the Pizza Pit chain and wash casino skim through it. Let’s annex three low-life clubs in South L.A.: The Scorpio Lounge, Sultan Sam’s Sandbox and a dyke den named Rae’s Rugburn Room. Let’s grab the Peoples’ Bank of South Los Angeles, for its laundry potential. Let’s usurp Black Cat Cab. It’s an all-cash biz, it’s near the Peoples’ Bank, it’s close to the border and our foreign-casino sites.
Wayne put his pen down. He was wiped. He got off the dope that got him through West Vegas and the Grapevine. He got through his sobbing fits over Janice. He was getting fit again. He was getting impervious, because-
He was working.
He was mediating and colluding. He was working for Carlos Marcello and for and against Howard Hughes. Drac’s hotel spree was forestalled by Justice Department edict. Tricky Dick would put the skids to that, should he prevail at the polls. His dirty-tricks squad would lend support.
He was dispatching. Jean-Philippe Mesplede was set to scout casino-site countries. Mesplede was a mixed-bag grande plus. He was tireless and competent and prone to sentimental gaffes. He let the numbnuts kid live. The kid’s fail-safes were borderline sound. Borderlines were tenuous. He projected Dipshit’s life span as roughly six months.
The kid was a shit magnet. So was he. So was Dwight Holly.
Dwight called him yesterday. His news: the Fred Hiltz homicide. Mr. Hoover wanted it entombed. That was good: Drac and Farlan Brown might get offshoot publicity. He told Dwight his Don Crutchfield story. Dwight said, “Should I kill him?” Wayne said, “Not yet.”
He yawned and grabbed The. File. It ran four pages. Dwight pulled strings and shagged it for him.
LVPD-Clark County Sheriff’s: Missing Person Case #38992. Reginald James Hazzard/male Negro/DOB 10/17/44.
Scant and bleak. Pro forma: missing colored kids rated zilch.
Reginald Hazzard was a high school honors grad. He took college classes, worked in a car wash, kept his snout clean. The cops interviewed a few neighbors, learned zero, case closed.
The folder was unscuffed. The paper smelled new. It was an un-visited and un-mourned document.
He’d called Mary Beth three times. She never answered. He called at one-day intervals and let the phone ring twenty times.
He put the file down. He hesitated. He dialed her number again. He got four rings and her near-brusque hello.
“It’s Wayne Tedrow, Mrs. Hazzard.”
She near-laughed. “Well, it’s good to hear from you, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Can we get coffee?”
“All right, but I’ll bring it.”
“Where?”
“That first rest stop on I-15. I shouldn’t be seen with you.”
The then to now blurred. This rest stop and the rest stop near Dallas. Sand drifts and scrub balls then. Desert grit now. Wendell D. in pimp threads. Similar rest-room huts blurred seamless.
Wayne pulled in. Mary Beth sat in a ‘62 Valiant. It was midday and crowded. She’d parked away from the other cars. Wayne leaped in her car. She smiled and slapped the steering wheel. The horn beeped. Wayne banged his knees on the dashboard.
“We’re not fugitives, you know.”
Wayne said, “You could make a case for it.”
She handed him a paper cup with a napkin attached. The bottom was seeping.
“I forgot to ask for cream and sugar.”
“Any way’s fine with me.”
“Are you always so accommodating?”
“No, I tend to be a bit peremptory.”
Mary Beth smiled. “I know. I saw Buddy Fritsch on Fremont Street yesterday. He was wearing a splint on his nose.”
Wayne held the cup two-handed. The coffee was too hot. He sipped it slow. It was pure busywork.
“My friends think you’re crazy.”
“What do you say to them?”
“That men who want things from you usually give you things or show you things, which is the same as telling you things flat out. I say, ‘Mr. Tedrow has something to tell me, and he doesn’t have the words, but he sure knows a gesture.’ ”
Wayne put his cup on the dashboard. It rocked and sat still. He turned toward Mary Beth and laced his hands over one knee.
“Tell me about your son.”
“He made me wish there were two or three more of him, which coming from a busy-making person like me says quite a bit.”
“That describes your feeling for him. I was thinking of your assessment of him as a young man.”
Mary Beth sipped coffee. “He was a reader and a chemistry dabbler. He went on binges with books and his chemistry sets. He was trying to figure out the world with his mind, which I respected.”
A car pulled up next to them. A white couple gawked. Wayne said, “And the police investigation?”