38

(Los Angeles, 9/19/68)

It’s her hair.

The gray streaks. No concessions for forty-one. Her bare arms to spotlight the knife scar. She vibed her age, she dressed mature, she eschewed kid aesthetics. The scar was sufficient Fuck You.

They lit cigarettes. Their booth was big and wraparound. Ollie Hammond’s was pre-lunch slow.

Joan Klein said, “You haven’t mentioned the pay.”

Dwight sipped coffee. “A thousand a month, cold. Spend a hundred a week getting next to our targets. Buy food for the Feed the Kiddies scams, so the brothers can allot more money for guns and dope.”

“And my duties beyond that?”

“Report in full, be discreet, don’t forward information that could only have come from you. Protect your informant status. Warn me in advance of potential violent crime and any specific talk of actions against police officers.”

Joan smiled. “Beyond the usual ‘kill the pigs’ chatter?”

Dwight smiled. “Specific pigs, tell me. Nebulous, honky-pig-motherfucker bullshit, I can do without.”

It’s her glasses.

The black frames, the loose fit, the dips down the bumps on her nose.

Dwight said, “You know Karen Sifakis.”

“I know of a woman named ‘Karen the Bombmaker.’ She knows people who know people who know me. You know all about cutouts, mail drops and dead-letter fronts.”

Heartburn-Dwight popped two mints. A persistent waiter hovered. Dwight glared him off.

“I’ve read your file.”

“I figured you had.”

“It’s threadbare and full of inconsistencies. I can’t tell if you’re a red-diaper peacenik or an armed-robber manquй.”

Joan blew smoke rings. “Assume both and there’ll be fewer surprises.”

Dwight stubbed out his cigarette. “No court filings, no paperwork. Four suspicion rousts, no DR numbers to indicate dispos-”

“Four robberies in cities undergoing labor strikes. Random roundups of Smith Act violators, names on Red Alert sheets, cops out for some fun.”

Dwight poured them fresh coffee. “Did you roll over on any of your comrades?”

“No.”

“How long were you detained?”

“It varied.”

“Were you physically threatened?”

“A cop in Dayton, Ohio, hit me with a phone book.”

“Your reaction?”

“An injudicious comment about his mother.”

Dwight laughed. “And then?”

“They put me in a tank with some bull daggers. One girl was cute. I liked the kisses, but she moved a little too fast to suit me.”

She spoke precisely. New York lurked in her vowels. She shifted her voice patterns-a skilled dissembler’s trait.

Dwight said, “I’ve never rebuffed an amorous dyke in a holding tank.”

Joan said, “I stabbed her with a fork. The tines cut through her cheek and lodged in her upper palate.”

Dwight quashed a grin. Joan sipped coffee. She had a gaunt up-all-night look.

“How will we communicate?”

“Phone drops for now. Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. The pay phone at Silver Lake and Effie.”

“I have a teleph-”

“You’re being disingenuous, Miss Klein. I don’t want to know where you live, and I’ll find you when I need you.”

“Will you guarantee me no random detentions and no photo-surveillance hassles?”

Dwight shook his head. “No. If I ask that favor, the other L.A. agents will know you’re working for me. I’ve already flagged your file with a false listing. As of last week, you were creating woo-woo with some militant fucks at UC Davis.”

She didn’t smile. He wanted her to. Her smiles leveled her harshness.

“May I tell you what I won’t do?”

“I’m listening.”

“I won’t inform on young people who come in for a lark and get out when things get ugly.”

“You’re assuming they’ll get ugly?”

“Yes, aren’t you?”

Dwight said, “Not like you might wish. I don’t foresee armed revolution in America, I don’t see street-corner punks like the BTA and MMLF as the vanguard of anything more than a few fistfights and pimp rousts.”

Joan smiled. Her harshness leveled up.

“Then why are you working so hard to suppress them?”

“Because they’re driven by criminal design, because I despise disorder, because Mr. Hoover told me to.”

“Because their antics will discredit the black-power movement at large. Because the better-known groups are more of a threat, but they’ve ingratiated themselves with the press. Because black militancy has achieved a degree of mainstream acceptance and you’re trying to take it back to the gutter.”

Dwight looked at her. She smiled for him. Her teeth were lipstick-smeared.

“I haven’t asked you why you’re doing this.”

“For the money? Because suppression never works in the end? Because I’ll find some people and shape their views in ways you’ll never be able to assess, and Mr. Hoover will be paying me to create revolution on an undetectable level that will never make its way into any file he can gloat over at 3:00 a.m., when warm milk, cookies and Seconal don’t work.”

Dwight smiled. “You’re very well informed.”

Joan smiled. “One of Mr. Hoover’s former housekeepers has a son in the Panthers. He’s a gifted cartoonist. He did four panels on Mr. Hoover at bedtime. He peruses surveillance photos of well-oiled young black men sunbathing, and Aunt Jemima has to knock before she brings in her goodies.”

Dwight slapped his knees. His elbows banged the table and dumped a glass. A waiter zoomed up and blotted the spill.

Joan said, “It wasn’t that funny.”

“I’ll disagree there.”

“You’re very impolitic.”

“Mr. Hoover and I share a history. Humor helps sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.”

Dwight shook his head. “Tell me about that scar on your arm and why you’re so proud of it.”

Joan shook her head. “I’m working on a new version. Something subtle and racist-inspired. Something the BTA and MMLF will groove on.”

“You could tell me the truth.”

“Utilitarian fictions are more my style.”

His stomach churned. Dwight chased two mints with coffee.

“Who redacted your file? Your ‘Known Associates’ section has been inked, so you must have informed Federally.”

Joan lit a cigarette. “I’ve informed, yes. I’ve never informed Federally, so there must be some names in there that some other Federal handler wanted deleted.”

Dwight said, “I’m not sure I buy that.”

“I don’t care what you buy, Mr. Holly. We’re both here to buy and sell, and I’m sure we’ll create repression and revolution in a fucked-up, but somehow complementary fashion.”

It was her smell. She was sweating. Her soap scent was gone. Her arm-holes were damp.

“I have a few specific questions, Miss Klein.”

“All right.”

“How will you get next to the BTA and MMLF?”

“I run a safe house. I’ve already made arrangements for the BTA to stash some guns there.”

“And you won’t tell me the address?”

“No.”

Dwight said, “Here’s your first test. You borrow the guns, fire them into acoustical baffling and bring me the spent shells. You replace the guns, so that I have the spents to run comparisons on.”

Joan said, “No.”

Dwight said, “Then there’s no deal. Then I run a fifty-state detention sheet on you.”

She squeezed the table ledge. Her fingers throbbed. The whole table shook.

“I won’t reveal the location of the house, but I’ll get you the shells.”

“How do I know they’ll be the right ones?”

Joan smiled. “Because you trust me?”

Dwight placed a plastic-wrapped block of cocaine on the table. Powder puffed out a stretch hole.

“Make some Commie spooks as happy as you’ve just made me.”

Karen said, “I’ve never met her, but I’ve heard about the scar.”

They were in bed. Karen was showing full-on. Dwight put a hand on her belly. Eleanora kicked twice.