“I hope you’re using these compounds for a beneficial purpose.”

“Oh yes. If eliminating an infestation of rabid gophers in my backyard can be considered that.”

Wayne smiled. “Then my best advice is to add more ammonia and cook the powder into an emulsion paste.”

The man grabbed a pen and wrote French on a scratch pad. Wayne ID’d scents: alkalines mixed with herb residue.

He pulled out his show picture. The man put on glasses and bent down a gooseneck lamp.

“Yes, I have met this young man.”

“When?”

“I vividly recall it. It was right after the president was shot.”

“And the circumstances?”

The man dabbed ointment on a finger cut. The skin puckered and closed in an instant. Wayne smelled caustic hydroxide and something all new. The effect stunned him flat.

“He was a pleasant young man and a knowledgeable amateur chemist. He had heard of me. He was curious about the anesthetic qualities of Haitian herbs, particularly their pain-killing and flame-retardant potential.”

(Los Angeles, 2/18/69)

Emma Goldman, Moscow, Archie Bell and the Drells. Clogged veins abet Looney Tunes.

The old girl was gonesville. How long could he last? How much shitwork could he assign?

Race shit abets hate shit. Dr. King had a dream. Mr. Hoover had a comic-book Jones.

Hate cartoons and hate sonnets. “This little piggie went to market. This little piggie stayed home. This little piggie got offed by a Panther, after he sucked his big bone.”

Dwight drove print shop to print shop. He worked off a phone-book list. A pro printed this shit. It was print-shop quality.

It was raining. He’d hit sixteen print shops. He displayed his hate shit and ruined moods en masse. His badge and nerves induced freakouts. Numbnuts clerks flashed the peace sign.

Mr. Hoover dug the peace sign. It was the “footprint of the American chicken.”

Dwight drove northeast. He was five hours in. The southside and the Miracle Mile were kaput. Hollywood was next.

He hit a print shop on Fountain and a print shop on Cahuenga. He played his police radio between stops. The LAPD band hopped. A Stop the War march downtown. A fruit-picker march in Boyle Heights. Lots of monkeyshines due south.

He got “No” and “No, sir.” He headed east. He hit a print shop on Vine and a print shop on Wilton. A zit-faced kid yukked at the hate shit. A hippie chick went, “Om.”

He hit a print shop on Vermont. He smelled maryjane and incense. Two counter kids weaved and goof-grinned. They saw him and grokked his occupation. A joint passed girl to boy. The boy ate the roach.

Dwight flashed his hate spray. The boy said, “So? It’s not illegal.” The girl tee-heed.

They perused the shit. Dwight spread it out for a better look-see. The girl focused on the heavy-hung buck. The boy said, “It’s a free country.”

“Did you print this material?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s a free country.”

The girl tee-heed. “Well, sort of.”

“Who brought it in? What did they look like? Who picked it up? How did they pay and/or where was it sent?”

The girl said, “This is censorship.” The boy said, “It’s a free country.”

Dwight walked to the door, threw the bolt and walked back to the counter. The girl chewed her lip. Dwight flexed his hands.

The boy wilted. “It was a cash sale and a delivery to a place in Eagle Rock. This woman, strong-looking, you know, like a ball-buster chick you don’t want no part of.”

Dwight smiled. “Early forties, dark, gray-streaked hair, glasses. A knife scar on one arm.”

The kids slack-jawed him. Dwight said, “Tell me her name.” The girl said, “Joan.”

The neighborhood was hilly and semi-low-rent. You got some big vistas and snaked freeway views. White stiffs and beaners co-existed. WALLACE FOR PRESIDENT bumper stickers and taco wagons chopped low.

The address was a bungalow court with a mottled paint job. Some hun-yuck had raped white stucco for a tie-dye effect. Eight apartments with built-in mail slots. Snooze-quiet at 3:00 p.m.

Dwight rang the door buzzer. It was wake-the-dead shrill. He put his ear to the hinge crack and heard empty-room air. He waited thirty seconds and wedged his pocket shim in the lock jamb. The door popped easy.

Too easy, un-Joan.

He walked in and chain-locked the door. He turned on the ceiling light and got the whole pad in a glance. A living room-bedroom, a bathroom-kitchenette. A pop-up wall bed unfolded.

A runner’s roost-not a safe house. A short-term place-a fugitive’s stopgap.

Dwight walked through. He knew he’d find canned goods in the kitchen. He knew he’d find cheapo toilet gear in the can. He knew he’d find clothes he’d never seen her in. He saved the dresser for last.

Faded jeans, boots, summer dresses styled to offset her bare arms.

He touched everything. He’d black-bagged Karen’s place a dozen times. He never touched her softer things.

Dwight sat on the bed. Two pillows were placed against the railing. The rain kicked up again. The roof leaked a few feet from him. He tossed the pillows. Of course: a Magnum and a diary underneath.

The gun had rubber-band grips. They were non-print-sustaining and steadied your aim. The diary was black leather and almost weightless. That implied new pages.

He opened it. A Polaroid snapshot fell out. It was him, sleeping. The backdrop was their Statler room. He was curled toward Joan’s side of the bed.

He put the photo down. His hand trembled. He gripped it calm again on the bedrail. He pulled the one page out. It was handwritten-Joan Rosen Klein’s slashing block print.

We are determined to achieve the same results and are driven by a near-identical utility. Our shared goal is to perpetrate a containable chaos. Dwight is committed to furthering the FBI’s short-term ends. I want to create the illustion that the operation has reached its logical and successful point of termination. Dwight believes that this conclustion will derail the black-nationalist movement. I believe that the black-nationalist movement will be only momentarily discredited. Dwight will have done his job and will have seen his assignment through to a cosmetically vouched end. The rebuttal to that non-end will be a continuous and continuously growing level of disbelief, moral horror and unofficial censure that will lead in time to an as-yet-unimaginable plane of liberation. The FBI wants the BTA and MMFL to move heroin. They believe that it will expose black nationalism as inherently criminal and reveal black people at large to be inherently depraved. The FBI’s short-term goal is a sedated black populace; its long-term goal is the perpetuation of racial servitude. I want the BTA and MMLF to move heroin. I will risk the short-term probability of squalor in fervent hope that the sustained depravity of heroin will lead to a rich expression of racial identity and ultimately to political revelation and revolt. In that sense, I see honor, hope and beauty where Dwight does not. Our goals are both inimical and fully synchronous. We diverge and cohere in equal measure. We are devout union and misalliance. I have begun a powerful path with a racist provocateur who has given me something unfathomable and precious. I will put my goals above his at all times and will concede that I cannot forsee the specific details of our journey.

A gust hit the window screen. The pages blew out of his hand. The word comrade roared through his head.