The man just looked at him. Wayne stepped back. The man jumped up and down and waved his free hands. The other men stared at Wayne and Got It.

They raised their hands in unison. Shackle chains linked them together. Wayne walked man to man and cut them free. They swarmed him and lifted him high. He memorized their faces as they ran.

The second site was two miles off. The gate was unlocked. The guard snored in a sleeping bag by the pay phone. Wayne shot him in the head and lugged up his tools.

The ground was soft, the trench laid flat, the work went fast. The job ran nine and change.

The slave tent was made from near-transparent gauzing. It was rain-soaked and heat-absorbent. Four all-night floodlights baked it.

The slaves were awake. Their cots were sweat-soaked and dipped to the ground. They saw Wayne and just lay there. Murmurs built and stayed short of shouts. Wayne walked cot to cot. The first slave pulled his hands back. Wayne grabbed his wrists and cut his chain off. The other slaves got the picture. They held their wrists up.

Wayne worked man to man. They got up slowly. They stumbled and hobbled. Nobody looked at Wayne. A man did a voodoo benediction. Two men tore through the gauzing and ran.

Wayne watched them. They sprinted to a small hut and kicked and shouldered the door. It fell off its hinges. They grabbed the rifles and Sten guns inside.

The Autopista ran straight north. He needed a view. Elevated and within his sight range.

A gas station popped up at Reparado. Foothills and a downslope horizon. A single phone booth. A big nightscape frame.

The calls would be short of long-distance. No operator patch-through. It might or might not work.

Wayne double-dipped the coin slot and dialed the first site phone. He got sixteen rings and nothing. Ring seventeen echoed and brought a pink glow. Ring eighteen whooshed a big red-streaked sky.

He dropped coins and dialed the second number. The flame burst on the second ring. The red patches merged.

The rural sites troubled him. The phones and shacks were badly spaced. The slave tents were foundation-flush. That meant casualties.

The Midget knew by now. La Banda knew. The rural sites would get fast reinforcement.

Wayne parked in a thicket outside Jarabacoa. He ate herbs and willed himself not to think. Tree branches lifted his car. He saw ten million stars. Constellations moved at his fingertips. He heard sounds that could have been gunfire and could have been drums.

Coins dropped from the sky. He opened his mouth to taste them. Dial tones rang and sparked light shows. The colors lulled him someplace safe.

The sun woke him up. Windshield glare hit him. His eyes blurred. He saw flames and smelled smoke.

He started the car and took back roads. He passed a fire truck and two Policia Nacional cars. The flames shot up over a tree line. He saw the Jarabacoa site burn.

Show me more-

He stopped the car. He got up and stood on the roof. He saw two site guards lynched from tree limbs. He saw “6/14” smeared on a foundation block and a discarded Sten gun.

Show me-

He jumped onto a tree branch and climbed to a summit perch. The world expanded. Foliage swirled somewhere close. He saw light-skinned kids and black men running with guns.

Show-

He looked south. The world re-expanded. He did spontaneous math and geometry. Coins dropped. The sky exploded where the other site should be.

80

(Los Angeles, 3/19/70)

Stragglers left Sultan Sam’s. Sambo locked up. Dwight perched in the rear lot.

Afro music pulsed inside. A copmobile cruised Central. The stragglers oink-oinked. The cops let it slide. The spooks outnumbered them.

Dwight checked his watch. Joan phone-dropped him. The lot at 2:00 a.m. That made her eight minutes late.

The music downshifted to bebop. Dwight laid his piece on the briefcase. He got the shit through customs. He split the D.R. in short-hair sync.

His White House contact called. Nixon was agitated, verging on pissed. Some Commies sabotaged the casino sites. La Banda tagged it 6/14.

Dipshit got out in pre-sync. Dwight carved him and robbed him and told him how to lie. Get to L.A. and work the Bowen wire. Let Mesplede mourn the dope. Tell him Clyde Duber needs you.

Dwight rolled up his window and earplugged the bop. He hit L.A. and put out feelers. Tell her we’re on, she’ll get it, she’ll know. He braced every left-wing denizen on Planet Earth. It took six full days.

Headlights strafed him. A ‘63 Dodge pulled into the lot. Dwight blinked his brights. The Dodge blinked back. Dwight grabbed his shit and got out of the car.

Joan pulled up beside him. She doused her lights and kept the motor running. An alley lamp backlit her. She looked done in, verging on fraught.

“You never said good-bye.”

“It didn’t seem necessary. I knew we were incomplete.”

“Where were you?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No. I’m not going to.”

Dwight touched her hair. Joan leaned into his hand for a heartbeat.

“We’re on?”

Dwight passed her the briefcase. “Get it to BTA through a cutout. Keep your name out of it if you can. We want Bowen to think it’s a windfall. Kid, we got lucky, it just dropped on your head.”

A horn honked. Dwight aimed at the sound. Joan reached out and eased down his gun hand.

“I need you to say it.”

Dwight leaned into the car. Joan pressed his hand to the doorsill.

“We should say it. Belief works that way.”

Dwight said, “Nobody dies.”

(Los Angeles, 3/19/70)

Dead air. Dawn air and insomnia-the shits.

The bug post was a shine shack on Marsh Bowen’s block. The feed lines ran through overhead phone wires. Extraneous calls popped in. You heard a coon cacophony.

Funny and diverting. Non-lethal. Lots of pimp talk and holy roller spiel.

Crutch yawned. He was jet-lagged four days on. Big Dwight scripted him. Froggy saw his carved-up back and fucked-up room and bought it. Clyde needs me, Boss. Go, my son. You will be avenged.

Convergence: a faux-Commie dope rip-off and real sabotage.

Froggy called and broke the news. The 6/14ers torched the sites. The Midget was prepping a Big Red Roundup.

Crutch shifted his headphones. A call hit the air: the asthmatic biddy next door.

Mama wheezed and ragged Governor Ray-gun. Crutch rode out a nerve jolt. He bugged Sam G.’s suite. He heard Sam and Celia talking. She pumped him on the casino sites. He remembered high school Latin. Post hoc, propter ergo hoc. After this, because of this.

Yeah, but:

It felt dumb, it felt wrong, it felt un-Celia and un-Joan.

Mama wheezed-Ray-gun cut my welfare check. Crutch got antsy. He dumped the headphones and pulled off his shirt.

A wall mirror faced the console. Crutch stood up and craned for a look. The wound was scabbed over and peeling. Scar lines extended. The numbers were visible, the branding might stick.

He kept looking. He glanced at the console. His Joan pix were there on the ledge.

The math came to him. One year, eight months and twenty-seven days. He had tracked her that long.

The red light blinked. Bowen-incoming call.

Crutch slipped on his headphones. He heard Bowen, yawn-voiced. He heard “Marsh, it is Leander James Jackson.”

A happy cat. Cheery. Big Haitian lilt.

Greetings ping-ponged and devolved into off-the-pigs chat. That Haitian sound. “Baby boy”-the late Luc’s verbal tic.