“I haven’t seen her, either. Gretchie was strictly fly-by-night, in her own unique way.”
Crutch grabbed the flask. Sal relinquished it, reluctant.
“You told me everything you knew, right?”
“Well…”
“Come on, man.”
“Well…”
Crutch balled his fists. Sal went oooo, I’m scared. Crutch drained the flask. Sal rubbed his thumbs and forefingers. Crutch laid out a yard. Sal held up two fingers. Crutch re-dipped his wallet and re-laid him.
Sal cranked the seat back and stared at the headliner. He snuggled and futzed with his spit curl.
“Well… you know our Gretchie’s MO. She fucked strings of men, borrowed bread from them and disappeared. Are we up-to-date now, sweetie?”
Crutch nodded. “Yeah. You introduced her to guys, but you can’t remember their names. She was always careful not to bang guys in the same social circle, so they couldn’t compare notes.”
Sal nodded. “That’s riiiiiiight.”
Crutch punched his seat bolster. Sal jiggled. It made him laaaaaugh.
“You don’t scaaaare me, Crutchy. And, frankly, I don’t believe all those silly rumors about those Communists you killed.”
A headache freight-trained him. Behind the eyes, a beaut. He dug out his aspirin and dry-popped three. Keep it zipped/do not fucking blow this.
Sal kicked off his sandals and toe-curled the dash. Miss Froufrou had big, smelly feet.
“So, right before we talked about her the first time, I saw Gretchie at a party. I didn’t tell you about it because it all seemed so unreal.”
“And?”
“Well… Gretchie said there was this chick named Maria, also known as Tattoo.’ She bought her way out of the ‘book of the dead,’ she betrayed ‘the Cause,” but she ‘did penance.’ Believe me, none of it made the leeeeast bit of sense to this girl, until Gretchie told me that Maria was coming to L.A., she was ‘wild,’ could I set her up with some movie-biz guys? That was more my language, so I said I’d ask around, which I did not do, because Gretchie owed me money for some referrals I gave her, but she never paid me, so where was the incentive if she was just going to rip me off again? Soooo, it all just went away. Gretchie never mentioned Maria again, but she sort of paid me for the referrals. She gave me this teeny little emerald and this herb stash. It was Haitian dope, and it was a bummer.”
Deep breath now.
Sal said, “Really, dear heart. Have you ever heard such fantasia?”
96
(Los Angeles, 3/6/71)
Print work and ink work. Get the details.
Homo napkin notes. Fake diary excerpts. Print transfers to fag porn novels and propaganda texts.
The fallback was quiet. Dwight worked alone. He bar-hopped last night. He hit the Jaguar, the Tradesman and the Falcon’s Lair. He laid down dollar bills and snatched the napkins. The fruits smelled fuzz en masse.
He printed herky-jerky. “Love your hair!” “Anytime, sweet” and a phone-number smudge. “I saw you on TV!!!! Can’t believe I saw you here!”
Varied print styles. Crinkly paper. Pocket debris, lifestyle minutae.
“The Hard and the Hung” by Lance Greekman. “AmeriKKKan Gestapo” by Richard T. Saltzman, Ph.D. “Blow the Man Down” and “Semen Demon.” Dissertations on Mr. Hoover’s war on Dr. King.
Dwight applied print strips. Marsh mock-touched book covers. Dwight wrote queer crush notes. Smeared phone numbers, napkin rips, words half-obscured. Marsh: “I’ve got 9 inches. How about you?”
He kept his desk neat. He worked with rubber gloves. He plastic-bagged his piecework. He brainstormed a fake diary entry.
Think it through. Type it in. You’ve got an identical Underwood. Remember: tool-gouge the small C and J.
You’ll be there at the convergence. Joan will insert the fake diary.
That means more B amp;E runs. He might have a real diary.
Dwight cleared desk space. He bagged the books and notes and got out a scratch pad. The Silver Hill photo was up against a lamp. Karen, Dina, Ella. Their address/phone number. “If this man is lost, please return him.”
He covered it with a handkerchief. He mock-Marsh-ascribed:
“My process of radicalization truly began when I realized I could not control my perceptions. Physical symptoms manifested in direct proportion to my attempts to keep them suppressed. It was as if a virus had swept through me. It was significantly more discomfiting than the panic I endured when I became fully aware of my homosexuality a decade ago. A self-hatred took hold then and a politically defined and outwardly directed hatred has taken hold now. My hatred has lingered on immediate targets-the brutish Scotty Bennett, the imperviously exploitative Agent Holly and my racist alma mater, the LAPD-and it has gradually and inexorably ascended to an ineluctable plane. I cannot halt the spread of the virus until I dose myself with the anti-toxin that only JEH’s death will create.”
He read it through again. He covered the desk with a drop cloth and walked out to the terrace.
Clouds top-framed Silver Lake. A haze covered Karen’s house. Their fight rescrolled. It scared Dina. Ella seemed to study it. He kicked around a notion. Ella knew things that he didn’t. Ella got them from Joan.
Shit stirs in the spiritus mundi. Karen tells Joan about him. Comrade Tommy’s in Memphis hit day. Karen read his dreams and held him through his nightmares. Joan just understood.
A squirrel perched on the terrace ledge. Dwight soft-lobbed him acorns. He shagged them with his paws and skedaddled.
The door gizmo buzzed. Dwight looked through the side window. Eleanora hopped on the porch.
Dwight ran through the front room and opened the door. Ella stormed his legs. He scooped her up with one arm. Ella play-bit his neck.
Karen leaned on a porch post. Dwight said, “You could have broken in.”
“I was saving it for Media.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Ella wriggled. Dwight put her down. She ran into the front room.
“How’d you find it?”
Karen stepped inside. “I tracked the binocular glint. I thought, I detect a voyeuristic presence, and applied spatial geometry.”
Dwight laughed. Karen draped an arm around him. He walked her away from the desk. Ella peeked in a cardboard box. Dwight grabbed her and whisked her off.
She broke free and pointed. She made a What? face.
Dwight said, “They’re throwdown guns, sweetie.”
Karen dropped her purse and kicked it. Dwight said, “Do you love me?” Karen said, “Yes, goddamn you.”
Inserts:
He worked in the file section. He kept loose inside. He was nonchalant and late-night-clandestine.
He pulled Vice files and tattle files. He found field interrogation cards and inked in Marsh Bowen’s name. Marsh at three fruit-bar sweeps, Marsh at a drag ball, Marsh at a hate-whitey bash.
He walked to the subversive-file bank. He dropped in a chemically aged file.
Joan created it. He supplied the perspective. A now-dead agent wrote the file, late ‘66. Marsh worked for Clyde Duber then. Marsh worked against Clyde for the Black Muslims. The agent had suspicions. Clyde never knew.
He cashed in stock. He secured Bob Relyea’s down payment. He needed Mr. Hoover’s travel schedule. Tomorrow a.m.: he flies to Media.
He skimmed the snitch-file index. Names sideswiped him. Bill Buckley snitched neocons. Chuck Heston snitched potheads. Sal Mineo snitched rump rascals wholesale. Salacious Saclass="underline" botched bait for the Bayard Rustin squeeze.
He found more F.I. cards. He blue-inked one in cursive. He block-printed two in black. Busy bee Marsh-’66 and ‘67. Fistfights at the Klondike. Lewd shit with hippie boys at Griffith Park love-ins.