Both men are pressuring me: Wayne wants me to align myself unilaterally with either the BTA or the MMLF; Mr. Holly wants me to somehow facilitate the dope-pushing arm of OPERATION BAAAAAD BROTHER, an aspect of my duties that Wayne disapproves of with almost Galvinistic fervor. Heroin is scarce around here; I credit some form of black consciousness for its relative scarcity, if not black militancy itself. Thus, I cannot rat out BTA or MMLF members for the procurement or sale of it anytime soon. There have been more southside liquor-store robberies, replete with rumors of black-militant suspects, but my subtle queries on that topic have yet to turn up names. I’m hoping the Jomo-Leander fracas will fester among the BTA/MMLF leadership and produce some exploitable discontent. In the meantime, I’m making the scene.
I have party-crashed a mйlange of political poseurs. They are recreating a dank form of New York cafй society, circa 1930. El Morocco, the Stork Club and ‘21’ then; Sultan Sam’s Sandbox, the Scorpio Lounge and Rae’s Rugburn Room now. The skin tone has darkened, the fashions have changed, the cultural bar has been vulgarized and revitalized. These people love to see and be seen. Ezzard Donnell Jones, Joan Klein, Benny Boles, Joe McCarver and Claude Torrance club-hop most evenings. I always rate a “Right on” or “Hey, brother,” because I am a celebrity, martyr and prized commodity in one package. They sense that I want to be one of them, and I think they see my lack of one-group allegiance as a sign of coyness and of understandable reluctance. We gots to let the brother choose. Sheeeeit, brother was a motherfuckiri pig just a few months ago.
There has been an unsettling barrage of hate cartoons flooding the southside for the past several weeks. The chief targets have been the Panthers and US, along with street-art salvos directed at BTA and MMLF. My cartoonist and hate-tract writing friend Jomo ridicules the artistry and has convinced me it did not spring from his hand-”Not my style, brother. This is Mr. Hoover’s work for goddamn sure.” Mr. Holly disputes that-convincingly-because he’s given to blunt confirmations or denials, sees me as a brother cop on his side and would not try to disingenuously assert that the Bureau is above such tactics. Dwight Chalfont Holly, social realist, a man who calls a spade a spade and sometimes a spook, shine, dinge, coon, jungle bunny or smoke. The master of the mixed message. A critic of the LAPD’s vilely abusive conduct on the southside. A man who sadly admits that suppression never works, expresses a rather haunted respect for Martin Luther King and enjoys making me the straight man in impromptu Amos ‘n Andy routines. I despise the hackneyed expression “a piece of work,” but that is Mr. Holly denned. The same phrase applies to his tortured aide-de-camp and quasi-kid brother, Wayne Tedrow- perhaps even more so. How odd that Wayne is the true killer of the two; how odd that he seems to be much less driven by racial animus and appears to be more capable of sustaining equitable relationships with blacks. I like Wayne; I’ve enjoyed the several cutout/operatee meetings that we’ve had. I’ve spread the word on how he killed the three black junkies and psycho rapist Wendell Durfee. Of course, the brothers loved it. Wayne has become the stuff of ambiguous ghetto lore already. Ooooh, that Wayne T.-he baaaaad.
And something else.
I arrived early for one of our meetings. Wayne was caught unprepared. I saw him looking at a photograph of a black woman. Wayne was quite obviously embarrassed. He put the photo down and gave me a look that brusquely stated Don’t Ask. I didn’t ask Wayne; I asked Mr. Holly, who replied, “Wayne goes deep with you dark motherfuckers,” and cut the topic off there.
I did some Las Vegas newspaper research and identified the woman as a union steward named Mary Beth Hazzard. She’s a decade older than Wayne and is the mother of a long-missing son named Reginald. Reginald Hazzard is the young man in the photograph that Wayne showed me on the day we met; Wayne has been showing the photograph to almost everyone he encounters on the southside and seems determined to find the young man, come hell or high water. My newspaper research also revealed this: a West Las Vegas dope addict killed Mrs. Hazzard’s minister husband last year, then killed himself. Astonishingly, the dope addict was posthumously indicted for the murder of Wayne’s father in June of ‘68. More astonishingly: the Vegas rumor is that Wayne and his late stepmother/lover killed Wayne Senior themselves.
Wayne and Mr. Holly absorb me on several levels. They are not rogue cops а la Scotty Bennett-they are rogue authoritarians. And Wayne miraculously entered my life just as all my subtle queries on the armored-car heist had panned out fruitlessly and I found myself once again at the start-over point. In that moment, I meet Wayne. He casually asks me if I’ve heard stories of black folks receiving emeralds anonymously. He shows me a photograph of the young black man he’s looking for. The young man vaguely resembles the burned-faced man I met on 2/24/64. I feel like I’m entering a serendipitous dream state. What does all of this mean?
DOCUMENT INSERT: 2/11/69. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. Marked: “Recorded at the Director’s Request”/”Classified Confidential 1-A: Director’s Eves Only.” Speaking: Director Hoover, Special Agent Dwight C. Holly.
JEH: Good morning, Dwight.
DH: Good morning, Sir.
JEH: Wayne Tedrow and the sullen Negress Mary Beth Hazzard. I would be remiss in not expressing my horror and delight.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Guilt assumes many forms. Mrs. Hazzard is not a comely Negress in the Lena Home mode. She is undoubtedly given to phrases like “power to the people” and predisposed to the music of Archie Bell and the Drells.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: You are being deliberately obtuse this morning, Dwight. You went through a spell like that when I deported Emma Goldman in 1919.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Sirhan Sirhan is on trial and the formal James Earl Ray proceedings should begin in April. Would you say the Bureau is covered there?
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: And the Dr. Fred Hiltz homicide?
DH: Again, Sir. We’re covered. Jack Leahy has the case buried.
JEH: Jack Leahy is the Alger Hiss to my HUAC and the Costello to my Abbott. He is a traitor and an unfunny nightclub comedian who has ridiculed my penchant for antiques.
DH: Yes, Sir. No one has ever quite figured Jack out.
JEH: He was your partner in ‘23. You worked the Milwaukee Office with him.
DH: Yes, Sir. I remember.
JEH: I’m appalled by those hate cartoons circulating in South Los Angeles. I want you to determine their origin immediately and send me copies of all such works of filth extant.
DH: I’ll get on it, Sir.
JEH: Wayne Tedrow as Marshall Bowen’s cutout. Do you still defend the choice?
DH: Vehemently, Sir.
JEH: Why, pray tell? Because the dusky widow of the preacher he killed has imbued young Wayne with a surfeit of soul?
DH: Yes, Sir. In part.
JEH: And our Congolese cuties the BTA and MMLF? Will they cooperate with our agenda and push heroin sooner or later?
DH: I think they will, Sir.
JEH: And the infant daughter of informant 4361?
DH: Lively and healthy, Sir.
JEH: And your newer informant/inamorata?
DH: She’s in my thoughts, Sir.
JEH: As you are in mine, Dwight.
DH: Thank you, Sir.
JEH: Good day, Dwight.
DH: Good day, Sir.
DOCUMENT INSERT: 2/13/69. Pouch communiquй. To: Wayne Tedrow. From: Colonel Ivar S. Smith, TJSMC (Retired). President, ISS Security Limited, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Marked: “Hand Pouch Deliver Only “/”Destroy Upon Reading.”