They drove by LAPD rousts. Jomo rolled down his window and made pig noise. They hit the Snooty Fox. A Moms Mabley type did ridicule patter and insulted the audience. She singled out Milt and Wayne. They were ofay mud-shark motherfuckers out to muff-dive black chicks on the rag. This vampire cat beat them to it. He done cunnilingized the southside dry and be snoozin’ in his coffin as we speaks.

Wayne checked out Marsh sidelong. Marsh emitted ghetto laughs convincingly. File faces popped to life. There’s Benny Boles. He’s a fruit. He’s trolling. He’s checking out Roscoe X. There’s Joseph Tidwell McCarver. He’s the MMLF’s “Pan-African Ruler.” He’s with three whores. He’s trading clenched-fist greetings with Jomo.

A junkie combo replaced the comic. The piano man nodded out and banged his face on the keys. The crew split. The barge dropped them at Rae’s Rugburn Room. The floor show featured hooded women with dildos. Strobe lights played over insertion points. The soundtrack featured the Beatles with “All You Need Is Love.”

Milt and Jomo dug it. Leander and Junior looked away. Wayne decided to buy the place. It was packed. It had money-wash potential.

Next stop: the Scorpio Lounge. A soul-food buffet and a low-stakes dice game. The croupier was a topless chick with a two-foot Afro. Afro-heads bobbed in back booths. Blow jobs went for ten dollars per.

Jomo and Leander fueled up That Glare. Marsh and Wayne watched. They exchanged little nods. They exchanged telepathic waves-Marsh, it’s on you.

Let’s buy the place. It’s a cash cave. Mr. Clean will make that green glow.

The crew rolled to Sultan Sam’s Sandbox. Wayne got a contact buzz from the hash smoke. Buy the place-easy call-it’s 1:00 a.m. packed. The joint had a Far East motif. The waitresses wore turbans and see-through saris. The walls were studded with big colored stones. The green ones reminded Wayne of that emerald. It was like a dream revived.

He trolled for file faces. He snagged one close by. Ezzard Donnell Jones, BTA bossman. He was with a white woman. Wayne caught a back view. She had dark, gray-streaked hair. Perfect smoke rings dispersed above her.

The crew sat at three tables. Wayne watched Marsh cup his hands and work quick. He crumbled two Benzedrine rolls into powder. He scooped it up, table-hopped and did some buddy-buddy drapes. He dropped powder in Leander’s scotch and milk. He jiggled the glass and sidled over to Jomo. Jomo worked on bourbon with a malt-liquor chaser. Marsh distracted him and powdered up both drinks.

Wayne nodded. Marsh nodded back. Wayne touched his wristwatch. Marsh flashed ten fingers.

It was 2:00 a.m. The crew was yawning. Milt mentioned food. Junior said, “I hear that.” The gestalt circulated: the Pines on Imperial Highway.

The chow consensus built. They booked to the barge. Milt and Junior plopped in first. Wayne and Marsh hovered. Jomo and Leander got squished in together. They bristled at the contact.

The barge pulled out. Jomo and Leander got jostled in tight. They squirmed apart. They shoulder-rolled and got themselves a few inches. Wayne and Marsh sat facing them. Milt and Junior dozed. Jomo looked sulky and blurry. Leander started to get bennie-bipped.

His mouth twitched. His hands talked. Little plucks at his trousers, little puckers and grins. He bumped Jomo. Jomo pulled away. Their feet bumped. They scuffed each other’s shoes. Fucker, don’t invade my space.

Jomo started to get big-eyed. Say now, what’s this? He scratched, he stretched, he bumped Leander’s foot. Wayne nudged Marsh-that’s it.

Marsh said, “Hey, Leander. I’m not sure I buy all that Tonton and voodoo shit you’ve been talking. Run that by me again.”

Jomo said, “That shit don’t fly with me. All forms of mystical jive keep the black man enslaved. Haiti is a sissified, punk-ass place. Voodoo was invented by the French white man to keep the black man shackled up and fucking dead chickens.”

Leander lit a Kool king-size. He inhaled and torched it all the way down in one breath. He exhaled through his nostrils. The whole backseat smoked up.

“Voodoo give me the power to do that. Dragon breath. Papa Doc can do that, so could half my friends on the Tonton. You think 151 is strong? You try klerin liquor. You try herbs and blowfish toxin. You want to fuck with the white man? You get a bokur to zombify him. Bokur put a spell on that Dominican fuck Trujillo. CIA hit, bullshit. You slaughter Haitian people, zombies come for you. That is the pure truth, baby boy.”

Jomo lit a Kool king-size. He inhaled and coughed and dropped the cigarette in his lap. It burned his pants. He went shitfuck and swatted out the flame.

Leander laughed.

Leander said, “MMLF fucks dead chickens. BTA fucks beautiful black sisters.”

Jomo pulled his knife. Leander pulled his knife. They both reared back for more stab room. Their arms hit. They twisted clear. They stabbed simultaneous, chest-high, full-force.

Fabric ripped. The blades cut through overcoats and suitcoats and hit blunt. Jomo’s blade snapped off. Leander’s blade twisted sideways. It gouged Jomo’s arm and stuck in the seat back.

They both went in clawing and gouging. Leander showed his teeth and snapped at Jomo’s neck. Wayne gave it two more seconds. Marsh jumped in telepathic. Milt and Junior dozed on. Roscoe X ran the barge off the road.

59

(Los Angeles, 1/26/69)

Picture spray:

Wayne Tedrow kissing a black woman. An ad-libbed FBI shot. A Vegas agent snapped it outside Wayne’s hotel suite.

Photo #2: one-month-old Eleanora Sifakis. A future bomb maker in swaddle cloth. She looks like Karen-not her cashew-dick hubby.

Mr. Hoover loved the Wayne photo. Insane Wayne: the woman and cutout ascendance. An inter-group knife fight his first day.

Dwight kicked his chair back. The drop-front was musty. L.A. was rainy and warm. The air was thick. He was smoking more. His desk was cluttered. The Thomas Frank Narduno file was all over it.

The file was innocuous. Suspicion rousts, lefty leanings, no “Known Associates” list. Narduno-dead at the Grapevine. Narduno-the one visible name on Joan’s KA list.

Thomas Frank Narduno: robbery suspect in New York and Ohio. No convictions, no Ohio or New York paperwork extant. Joan Klein: robbery suspect in New York and Ohio. No convictions, no Ohio or New York paperwork extant. No dates listed in Narduno’s file. Ohio dates listed in Joan’s file: both 1954. Also listed: two L.A. robbery rousts, ‘51 and ‘53. No DR numbers or other paperwork extant.

Dwight placed Joan’s file by Narduno’s file and read both files again. Nothing went Boo! He’d telexed every big-city and mid-city PD in New York and Ohio. He got zero on Joan Rosen Klein and Thomas Frank Narduno. Joan told him a cop beat on her in Dayton, Ohio. He’d queried Dayton PD on their unsolved heists, circa ‘54. There were two payroll jobs, netting sixty grand total. Masked men, no women, case closed. He’d had the file telexed. There was no mention of Narduno, Joan or left-wing suspects. Joan’s “random roundups” statement? Maybe true.

Dwight lit a cigarette and cracked the window. Wind and rain messed with his pages. He propped Eleanora up on his desk lamp.

Fuck-Joan Rosen Klein and Dwight Chalfont Holly.

A month now. The Statler, the Ambassador, the Hollywood Roosevelt. Neutral spots. The drop-front was Karen’s.

They talk and make love. They discuss the operation and avoid What Do You Want? It’s informant protocol and implicit lovers’ pact.

Joan was getting tight with the BTA. Marsh was BTA- and MMLF-friendly. They were both torqued on those cartoons flooding the Congo. Joan made the FBI for it, BAAAAAD BROTHER-adjunct. She was wrong. Most of the cartoons defamed the Panthers and US. Some defamed BTA and MMLF. He made it as amateur street art. It didn’t play as planned provocation.