Dwight was twelve then. Lyle was nine. They lost their big house in Peru, Indiana, and moved to Shitsville. Daddy started ignoring them. Daddy found a protйgй: a younger man named Wayne Tedrow. They dreamed up get-rich-quick schemes and hawked hate tracts. Dumbfuck Hoosiers dug the kaptioned kartoon texts and katkalls at Franklin Double-Cross Rosenfeld. Wayne Tedrow hatched a son with a local girl, circa ‘34. Wayne Junior was a brilliant kid with a chemistry bent. Dwight dug him as a kid brother/son from the get-go.

Daddy Holly crapped out in ‘39. Cirrhosis took him down. Wayne Senior raised Wayne Junior in Peru. He ditched his first wife and married a fast skirt named Janice Lukens. Dwight and Lyle worked dead-dog jobs and put themselves through college. Dwight went on to Yale Law School. Lyle went on to Stanford Law School. Wayne Senior moved his family to Nevada and got rich off hate and real estate. Dwight joined the marines, got commissioned and killed Japs on Saipan. Lyle joined the navy, got commissioned and killed Japs on boats. Dwight joined the FBI in ‘46. Lyle joined the Chicago PD in ‘47. They both kept in touch with the Tedrows.

Wayne Junior grew up studious and wild. He served with the 82nd Airborne in the mid to late ‘50s and got a chemistry degree. Dwight worked hot-desk Bureau jobs and developed a rapport with Mr. Hoover. He almost bellied up in early ‘57. Mr. Hoover allotted him a brief rest reprieve. Lyle quit the Chicago PD. Mr. Hoover gave him a full-time assignment.

Get next to Martin Luther King. Infiltrate and subvert the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Lyle did his best. Lyle failed. Lyle failed because he rather liked Martin Luther King and because Martin Luther King was unstoppable.

Wayne Junior joined the Las Vegas PD. Dwight transferred to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He worked the Southern Nevada Office and spent time with Wayne Senior. Wayne Junior’s life imploded in Dallas. A big coon hunt resulted. Wayne Junior waxed three shines that Dwight was set to prosecute. Yeah, he cared for the kid. But no passes for old friendships. You do not cross Agent Dwight C. Holly.

He went after Wayne Junior. Ward Littell and Pete Bondurant interceded. Wayne Junior waltzed on the spooks. Ward and Pete pulled strings for Dwight and forged a tenuous truce. Dwight was named chief investigator for the Southern Nevada Office. He didn’t stay long. The job bored him. Mr. Hoover lured him back to the FBI.

Lyle killed himself in August ‘65. It was slightly hinky. Ward Littell was embroiled with Lyle then. Ward spread grief wherever he went and sometimes turned minor grief fatal. Lyle Dunn Holly, dead at forty-five. A boozer, a gambler and a womanizer. A sweet-natured hump spread too thin.

Dr. King had Mr. Hoover spread wafer-thin. It was a fucking grizzly bear versus a Chihuahua. Dr. King was a stone Commie. Mr. Hoover was a stone Tory. Dr. King fucked women with gusto. Mr. Hoover collected antiques and vintage pornography. History welcomed Dr. King. History withdrew the welcome mat and put Mr. Hoover flat on his ass. He concocted Operation Black Rabbit and tried everything.

Bug jobs, tap jobs, black-bag jobs, shakedowns, poison-pen campaigns. Tail jobs. Newspaper slander. Innuendo, coercion, plants, cutouts, propaganda, psych warfare. Black Rabbit went on for three years. The key personnel had rabbit names. Dr. King was Red Rabbit. Dwight was Blue Rabbit. Lyle was White Rabbit for a spell. Red Rabbit had a fag adviser code-named Pink Rabbit. Wayne Senior was Father Rabbit. The operation was a rabid rabbit hutch and a dead-end cluster fuck. Dr. King soared as Mr. Hoover withered. Dr. King had his nigger-florid “I have a dream” shtick. Mr. Hoover told Dwight that he had a dream without ever stating the words. He stayed out in the dream ether. Blue Rabbit made the dream cohere in Memphis. Blue Rabbit watched the resultant riots live on TV. Blue Rabbit saw a little colored girl dead from a stray bullet.

Dwight did fifty chin-ups total. He made himself all sweat and muscle ache. He showered, dressed and packed. He got out his anonymous check-writing kit.

One postal money order and one envelope. $300 to Mr. George Diskant in Nyack, New York.

Dwight wrote the check, sealed the envelope and wiped it fingerprint-free.

The flight left Dulles late. Dwight ate salted nuts and read black-militant memoranda.

The Black Panthers. Cool name, cool mascot. Founded in ‘66. Ex-convict and aggrieved-spook membership. Lots of meetings, lots of whoop-de-doo, exponential growth assured. Cop-haters. Celebrity “Brothers” Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. “Off the Pigs!” rhetoric. Non-fatal cop snipings. A fatal shoot-out in Oakland, California- 10/28/67.

Huey Newton wounded. One policeman dead. Criminal proceedings pending.

The Panthers hated the United Slaves. It was jig factional jive. US had a catchy motto: “Wherever you are, US is.”

Fatal Shootout-4/6/68-two days post-Memphis. Oakland again-this honky-hater hot spot. The Panthers called it an ambush. The cops called it “tactical surveillance.” One Panther was killed. Eldridge Cleaver was wounded. Footnote: Brother Cleaver was a convicted rapist.

Dwight flipped pages. Most big-city PDs had files on the Panthers and Negro informants placed. Food drives, educational programs, black-culture rebop. Burgeoning numbers, hip cachet, minor newspaper clout.

An instinct: the Panthers are too well-known to full-on operate.

The Bureau ran a half-assed Cointelpro last summer. The goal: create Panther-versus-US dissension. Some San Diego agents circulated custom hate lit. The Panthers called US “chitlin chumps.” US called the Panthers “pork-chop niggers.”

An instinct: US was too well-known to full-on operate.

Note to Mr. Hoover: do not increase pressure on Panthers or US. Status-quo existing operations. Both groups will discredit themselves over time.

Dwight flipped pages. He hit sheets on the Black Tribe Alliance and Mau-Mau Liberation Front. They were garish, outlandish and distinctly criminal.

Darktown L.A. Rival storefront operations. Small membership stats in gradual ascent. Both groups: “Allegedly seeking to sell narcotics to finance their activities.”

No known informants placed. Nomenclature out of Amos ‘n Andy. “Lord High Commissioner,” “Propaganda Minister,” “Pan-African Ruler.” Rat jackets on the key players:

A geek with four dope busts. A faggot carhop with two armed-robbery jolts. A bunco artist/voodoo priest. A card shark with ninety-one arrests and a phone book-size rap sheet. A “politically motivated” rape-o. Arrivistes, opportunists, Black Panther manques. Buffoons prone to whimsy and carnage.

Dwight got goose bumps. Dwight fretted his law-school ring and read more pages.

More names, dates and locations. More details on BTA/MMLF brouhahas. A note from LAPD Sergeant Robert S. Bennett: “Per the armored-car robbery-homicides of 2/24/64, rumors of BTA amp; MMLF participation cannot be substantiated.”

Street-corner agitation. Fistfights, drunk-driving beefs, Mickey Mouse rousts. The faggot carhop pimped drag queens. The card shark pimped his wife to cover his gambling debts. The Pan-African Ruler owned a porno bookstore and keestered his neighbor’s pet goat.

His goose-bump count zoooomed. His nerves jumped. He ordered his one drink a night early. There, now-put your seat back and trip on Karen.

Confidential Bureau informant #4361-Karen (NMI) Sifakis. DOB 2/1/25, New York City. Fellow Yalie, history prof, Quaker-leftist subversive.

He brought her file with him. He loved the old surveillance pix and mug shots. There’s Karen in ‘49, at a Paul Robeson bash. There’s Karen outside Sing Sing-the Rosenbergs just got it. L.A., 3/12/61-Karen at a ban-the-bomb rally. His favorite: Karen composed in prayer as Berkeley cops bash heads all around her.