“I know.”

“Mr. Hoover called Coretta Scott King ‘a diseased go-go girl’ on national TV.”

“I know.”

“Can you please say something more than that?”

“Mr. Hoover is losing his mind. He’s old and he’s sick. No one has the balls to pull the plug on him, because he’s got dirt files on the whole fucking world.”

“Including you?”

“Yes.”

Karen rocked Eleanora. The clouds went double dark and kicked loose a downpour.

“There’s times I can’t run from it, Dwight.”

“Run from what?”

“From the things you never talk about. From how far you’ve gone for that man. From every horrible thing that you’ve done.”

Dwight reached for Eleanora. Karen pulled her back. Dwight walked out into the rain.

Three pills and drinks failed him. His circuits sparked and kept him awake. Adrenaline ate through the sedation. He got dressed and drove to Eagle Rock.

It was midnight. The courtyard was quiet. The rain brought red flashes and thunder peals. Dwight picked the lock and let himself in.

He hit the lights. The pad looked identical. He walked to the bed and tossed the pillows. He found the same gun and diary. He opened it and found new sheets.

My short-term aims and Dwight’s short-term aims have blurred. I have come to share Dwight’s view of the BTA and MMLF. They are criminals driven by personal animus at the expense of political consciousness. Dwight credits them with no consciousness; I credit them with dawning consciousness blunted by the self-serving pathology of angry males in groups. These men must push heroin and facilitate a definable squalor. It must be the contained chaos that Dwight and I both desire. The dawning of consciousness must be provoked through the application of moral terror. Dwight and Mr. Hoover believe that the stimulus of heroin will prove overpowering to black militants, their followers and the uncountable black people moved by their rhetoric. Their mass capitulation will confirm vile racist caricature, discredit black radicalism and suppress its emerging mainstream appeal. I believe that the dawning of political consciousness will serve to confront and transcend this obstacle, reinvent the formerly criminal and cast them in the hero roles they now so selfishly and fatuously seek. This controlled chaos will not conclude in political dissolution. The chaos is too steeped in the horrifying context of white neglect and injustice to be anything but liberating. I have seen and done horrifying things in my long revolutionary struggle; my deployment of heroin in Algeria in ‘56 prooved ambiguous. I sternly trust that any and all conflicts in thsi journey will resolve in my favor, not Dwight’s and that no human beings will die.

Dwight reread the pages. He skimmed and jumped and hopscotched the text. The printing blurred. The booze and pills kicked in late. He saw spots and ink wisps. The floor rolled. He lay down and shut his eyes.

The bed rolled. The floor dipped. He didn’t know if he was awake or asleep or someplace in between. He drifted. It was scary and peaceful. His head and limbs felt funny. He went blank for a while. He opened his eyes and saw Joan.

She sat on the bed. One leg was cocked. Her knee brushed his hip. She wore boots over black nylon stockings full of runs. Her hair was tied back.

“How did you find it?”

“The cartoons you had printed. You left an easy trail.”

“The cartoons were a bust. It won’t happen again.”

“Who drew them?”

“An old Freedom School student of mine.”

Dwight sat up. Dizziness slammed him down. Joan squeezed his knee. Dwight traced her stocking runs and found some bare leg to touch.

She said, “Heroin.”

“They can’t score it. They won’t be able to deal it for ten seconds without getting popped.”

“I could help them.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Joan laced up their fingers. Dwight tore out a stocking run and cupped her whole leg.

“How many of these places do you have?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“You left the diary out for me to find. Did you get the idea from Karen Sifakis?”

“Karen’s a mail-drop friend. I don’t actually know her.”

“Did you leave the diary out for me to find?”

Joan nodded. Dwight said, “Nobody dies.” Joan took his face in her hands.

The dizziness faded out. He felt his body again. Her hands steadied him.

Joan said, “What do you want?”

Dwight said, “I want to fall. And I want you to catch me on the way down.”

66

(Santo Domingo, 3/20/69)

His eyes hurt. He kept seeing word prisms. His fingers were paper-cut.

A month of code work. Maybe some progress. Making words out of numbers, letters and spaces.

Tiger Krew bombed up Autopisa Duarte. Ivar Smith sold them a Dominican army half-track. Saldivar and Canestel tiger-striped it. Morales painted on a big tiger paw. They headed for Piedra Blanca and Jarabacoa. Slave crews were breaking ground on their sites. The Midget sold them the two rural lots and two lots in Santo Domingo. La Banda recruited work crews from La Victoria prison. The jailbirds got sentence reductions if building deadlines were met.

Balaguer’s construction firm stood ready. La Banda evicted paupers from the out-of-town sites. The casino build was on. The PT boat was ordered. They were meeting a Tonton Macoute guy to discuss the dope biz later.

Crutch Murine-dosed his eyes. The half-track treads chewed up pavement. Froggy drove. The Cubans perched above the wheel wells. Crutch sat in the machine-gun nest. They passed through cane fields and glades. Crutch blasted tree stumps for kicks.

Wetback Haitians ducked across the road. Morales fired at their feet. Crutch yawned and stretched. The code work induced a boocoo sleep deficit.

Voodoo. The probable book of the dead. Letters, numbers, symbols and mathematics. It’s a Horror House murder lead. Book symbols match the Horror House symbols. It’s Gretchen/Celia’s book. Fuck-he still can’t see Joan and Gretchen/Celia as killers.

He’s giddy with it. He thinks Gretchen/Celia is in-country. He’s combed every records-check resource and can’t find her. Mesplede told him not to brace Sam G. “Your ‘case’ is all frivolity. We are here to move heroin and depose Fidel Castro.”

The terrain was steep. The half-track mulched fallen tree bark. Crutch practiced stitch shots. He aimed at trees and severed limbs with.30-caliber fire.

Wayne Tedrow was coming soon. The Boys told him to cinch the deal with the Midget. Geologists bagged soil at all four sites. They said it would sustain heavy building. Mesplede found a shore spot on the D.R.-Haiti border. It was near Cap-Haiti’en. Their Tonton guy was Mr. Big around there.

Tiger Kart rolled into Piedra Blanca. Local peons saw the beast and hightailed it. The site rocked. Bulldozers plowed shacks. Policia Nacional guys detained the dispossessed. They spoke Spanish. Morales translated for Crutch. It was eminent domain. Jefe needs your house. You get forty bucks and a food chit.

Some evictees wept and glared. La Banda guys flanked the bulldozers. They stood at parade rest and carried carbines at port arms.

The construction boss moseyed over. He told Gomez-Sloan the land was sound. La Banda would bring some prisoners up to clear brush. His crew would build a pre-fab bunkhouse. The prisoners would sleep shackled. Cop crews with bullwhips would oversee their work.

On to Jarabacoa.

Crutch got road-sick. Tiger Kart tread-crunched everything in its path. It was 2:00 p.m. and hell-hot. Suntan oil dripped down his neck. His head was back in Santo Domingo. His torch for Joan and Gretchen/Celia burned strong. He saw them as Commies. He didn’t see them as killers. The matching symbols might not mean Murder One.