Big bells:

The lefty Grapevine vic. Heist suspect: New York and Ohio. Bug devices found on his body.

Wayne said something about fluoroscopes and hydroxic acid. Dwight hung up and poured just-one-more-drink.

It burned and brought up shudders. Dwight dialed the scrambler-phone number.

No rings on scramblers. Just faint hiss and “Hello, Mr. Holly.”

“May I sleep with you tonight?”

Joan said, “Yes.”

54

(Cuban Waters, 12/27/68)

Fins and churned waves. Mesplede tossed chum. Sharks hovered and snapped high for it. Bright moonlight made them glow. The speedboat launched from Boca Chico Key. Destination: Varadero Beach, Cuba.

Mesplede had called him in L.A. Wayne approved him for the Nicaragua and D.R. trips next month. Froggy filed a negative Panama report. Panama was out. Nicaragua would get nixed. The D.R. would get the nod. Cuba was close. His case was all there.

Crutch ate Dramamine. He was seasick green. He wanted to fortify: booze, pills, hash. Froggy said nyet.

“This will be intimate, Donald. I want to see how you perform.”

They were forty miles out. They wore lampblack and frayed fatigues. They carried combat knives and silencer-tapped Magnums wrapped in plastic.

The shark escort bobbed and snapped. Mesplede baby-talked them. The chum was all cat innards. Mesplede had a pal with a cat-killing pit bull named Batista. Batista was a Bay of Pigs K-9 Korps vet. He raged to kill cats in a free Cuba.

The speedboat zoomed and crunched waves. Crutch fought flashbacks: Horror House, the meeting list, Joan Klein and Thomas Frank Narduno.

A shark brushed the boat. Mesplede petted him. The chum smelled ten times worse than cat shit. They hit the ten-mile point. The chum ran out. Mesplede cut the motor and let waves push them in.

Swells rode them toward shore. It was bumps and chop and water knee-high in the boat. Crutch ate more Dramamine and took deep breaths.

They saw the shore. They dropped anchor by some shoals sixty yards from the beach. They had infrared binoculars. They saw five militia guys playing cards at a picnic table.

Exile intelligence. A guy in the Cuban Freedom Council tipped Froggy. The cardplayers: all torturers at La Cabana prison. They castrated rightist insurgents. They walked from their barracks and played cards Tuesday nights.

The boat was moored. Gull noise killed the scrape-against-rock sound. Crutch put on goggles. Mesplede wore a mask. Their weapons were triple-plastic-wrapped.

They rolled into the water. It was freezing cold. They swam diagonally. A beachfront tree line covered the moon. The cardplayers smoked. Cigarette tips glowed-little sighting devices.

They reached the beach and rolled Dark sand and white sand dusted them. They dumped their headware. They got more breath. Crutch ate sand and willed back stomach cramps.

Ten feet to the table. Two shapes sand-drift rolling. Five targets, twelve bullets, close range.

Mesplede gave the signal. They positioned themselves prone, two-hand aimed and fired. Their muzzles flashed, their silencers thunked, they heard body impact. Table chunks shattered. They saw cigarettes drop. They heard skull-crack impact and saw two men pitch forward.

Three men stood up-big body-mass targets. Three men jabbering and unsnapping holsters.

Mesplede fired. Crutch fired. They took their legs out, knocked them down and gut-shot them. Crutch buried his head and sucked sand.

Silencer echo and wave noise. Gulls squawking and no return fire.

Crutch pulled his head up. Mesplede was standing by the table. His flashlight was out. Crutch weaved over.

Five dead men. Three cigarette tips still glowing.

Froggy said, “Scalp them.”

Crutch shook his head. Froggy grabbed his hair and yanked him into the table. Crutch banged his knees and went down in the sand. He was kiss-close to a faceless man. The man’s hairline was powder-scorched. A flap of skin dangled.

Froggy watched. Crutch pulled his knife. He said some kind of dumb-kid prayer and jammed the blade down. He missed the flap and yanked up from the eye socket.

(Las Vegas, 12/27/68)

Mary Beth wore his Christmas-gift sweater to bed. It was way too big. She tucked her chin under the turtleneck and goofed on him. She pulled the cuffs over her hands.

“There’s no guarantee that you’ll find my son, but you’re determined to spend all that time and money anyway.”

The bedroom drapes were open. The Nixon signs were down. The hotels were hawking yuletide cheer now. The green bulbs reminded him of that emerald. It was like a dream revived.

“There’s no guarantee that I’ll find him, but my instincts keep telling me L.A. I’m building an informant network there, so there’s always the chance that something will pan out.”

“Have you done something like this before?”

Wayne rolled away from her. He smelled her shampoo on the pillow. He took a breath of it.

She said, “You found Wendell Durfee, didn’t you?”

Wayne looked at her. “Yes, I did.”

“And you killed him?”

“Yes.”

She pulled the pillow over and got their eyes close. She did that a lot. She said they both had these green flecks.

“Sweetie, I already figured that out.”

56

(Los Angeles, 12/27/68)

The Bureau kept a suite at the downtown Statler. Karen’s baby was just born four blocks away. Joan wore a red dress. Dwight wore his most-Fed gray suit.

Christmas lights blinked on Wilshire. The prior tenant left a bottle of Ten High. Joan saw Dwight’s ratched hands and dosed them with bourbon on a washcloth. It stung. Dwight held tears back. He thought of Thomas F. Narduno and wondered what Joan knew about everything. He thought of Karen and Eleanora.

Joan said, “Save your hands. You’re fifty-two years old.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“What do you want from all this?”

“Tell me what ‘all this’ means.”

“The job. The oper-”

Joan touched his lips. “I’m here because I want to be. I would have asked you if you hadn’t asked me.”

His hands burned. Some tears leaked. Joan stood on her tiptoes and kissed them off his cheeks. The outside lights shaded them weird colors.

They fell on the bed. Joan held his head and kissed him. Her breath tasted like cigarettes and dry wine. She wiped off his tears with her thumbs.

He held her in with his arms. His hands were useless. He wanted to grab her hair. He knew it would kill his hands. He couldn’t stand this wet-eyed thing. If he touched her hair, he’d hurt himself and never want it to stop.

She pushed his head back. She kissed him. She leaned over him and pinned his wrists and let her hair fall on him. He nuzzled the dark parts and bit at the gray streaks and forced her legs apart with his knees. She pulled his arms up and pinned his wrists above his head. Lights played over her underarm stubble and her knife scar. She saw that he wanted it. She let his wrists go and let him roll into her sideways. She held her arms up and let him kiss her there. He heard himself gasping and saw them both naked and knew he’d lost track of the time. She said things. They weren’t quite words. She might have said his name. She held him softly. She took his hands softly and let them brush here, here and here. He kissed all the places his hands touched. She held his hands and held his head there every moment. She spread her legs for him to touch and taste and be held there. She gasped as he gasped and his eyes burned from all the tears and his hands didn’t hurt at all.