The men found each other. They collaborated and cut a side deal. They learned the identity of the Paraguayan el jefe. They gave him a down payment on the Muzo-Klein emerald stash. El jefe was near-broke and in poor health. He wanted to sell. It was December ‘63. Fate intervened and fucked it all up.
Balaguer had a financial setback. Papa Doc had a financial setback. They lacked the cash to outright buy the stones. They looked for a rich American to consign them to.
The right-wing grapevine supplied a name: Dr. Fred Hiltz. He was a hate pamphleteer and an emerald-myth worshiper. They contacted Dr. Fred. He paid off eljefe with a bank draft. The stones were messengered to Santo Domingo. Balaguer and Papa Doc met there just to touch them. They did not trust messengers to hand-deliver the stones. Dr. Fred insisted on an armored-car drop. A Haitian man was hired to fly the emeralds to L.A. It was now 1/16/64. He could not leave until 2/21/64. Balaguer and Papa Doc enjoyed the delay. They got to touch the stones more.
SUDDENLY:
A Tonton Macoute thug learned of the shipment. He contacted his old Tonton frиre Leander James Jackson. Leander knew his old comrades Joan and Celia. Serendipity: Celia’s brother Richard Farr worked at Wells Fargo in L.A.
Jack Leahy ran the FBI’s L.A. Office. Richard knew the armored-car route. Richard predicted the cash take along with the stones. Jack knew expendable criminal scum to leave dead at the scene. The greatest hurdle was obscuring their IDs. Joan knew a brilliant chemist named Reginald Hazzard. She had mentored him at the Freedom School. She had bailed him out of jail the month before.
The plan was developed. Reginald concocted a bone-deep burning solution. Jack recruited an expendable Klansman named Claverly and an expendable hood named Wilkinson. The plan was now fully formed, but:
Reginald wanted to be there. He told Joan and Jack this. Joan and Jack conferred and tried to dissuade him. Reginald insisted. He thought his chemical expertise marked him invaluable and immune to deceit. He was right and he was wrong. Joan and Jack argued. Jack argued for compliance as Joan argued for termination. Jack won. Reginald would go in and Reginald would survive. The plan was now fully formed, but:
Reginald feared a double cross. Reginald harbored a hurt-child resentment. His comrades trusted him to develop deep-burning compounds, but not to be there. He was there that day. He impulsively popped a bank tab and let loose jets of ink. Jack impulsively shot him.
His flame-retardant precautions saved his life. Soft-point bullets hit him, regardless. His chemical compounds worked erratically. The palliative pellets in his mouth circumvented damage. The anti-flame chemicals enhanced flames paradoxically.
So he lived. So Marsh Bowen and the doctor saved him. He grabbed handfuls of inked cash as he went down. He gave them to the doctor.
He hid in East Los Angeles. Scotty Bennett led the LAPD Task Force. Jack worked FBI-adjunct. The newspaper accounts and crime-scene reports shocked him. There were two dead robbers at the scene.
Jack wanted to find Reginald and kill him. Joan told him, “No.” The debate raged for days. Comrade Joan won. She searched for Reginald and found him. She begged for his forgiveness. He told her he wanted to live in Haiti and study herbal chemistry. She gave him the emeralds and told him to serve the Cause.
Joan and Jack now possessed millions of dollars. A dozen ink bindles had leaked. Stains rendered the cash unpassable for some time. They waited. Jack heard a rumor: pilfered heist cash had been laundered through the Peoples’ Bank. He told Joan. She asked around about Lionel Thornton. She learned that he was mobbed up. She learned that he came out of the Detroit labor struggle, circa ‘40. She arranged a meeting with him.
The meeting went well. It was instinctively collaborative. A level of trust built both ways. Thornton was politically versed and self-interested. Joan got dirt on him as an insurance policy.
She gave him the stained and non-stained cash. Reginald developed a compound to obscure the ink markings. She let Thornton trade the money up, down and sideways. The base sum grew in a hidden bank vault. She let him implement Reginald’s emerald-disbursement plan. The green stones formed a circuit back to Isidore Klein and his struggle. That gave Joan a bare semblance of peace.
Thornton did his job and kept his word. Scotty Bennett and Marsh Bowen killed him. He did not reveal Jack’s name or hers.
Reginald remained in Haiti. He was still there. His exact whereabouts were unknown. He forgave Joan and Jack. He was nineteen, he was eager, he was easily led. He was passively complicit and as guilty as they were. He bought revolution unblinkingly and never saw through to the cost. Joan understood a bit of that now. She was thirty years in the game.
The heist aftershocks subsided. Joan rode the ‘60s Zeitgeist. Jack stayed with the Bureau. He disseminated information. He redacted and misplaced their comrades’ files. Joan kept up with Karen Sifakis. Karen described her love affair with a rogue Fed named Dwight Holly.
Dwight did terrible things for Mr. Hoover. Dwight was dead-wrecked in the spring of ‘68. Tommy Narduno sensed the FBI behind the King hit. Tommy saw Dwight in Memphis a few days before. Joan kept Tommy’s thoughts from Karen. Karen said Dwight was planning a
A non sequitur clash occurred. Jack called Joan and reported rumblings.
It was Dr. Fred. He put together some leads on the heist, gleaned from Clyde Duber’s file. He wasn’t looking for revenge. Balaguer and Papa Doc had refunded his money. He wanted a second shot at the stones.
Hiltz wanted to run his heist leads by Mr. Hoover. He was a trusted CBI and a Hoover phone-chat pal. Joan summarily acted.
She knew about Dr. Fred’s bomb-shelter stash. Leander knew of Jomo Clarkson, via the black-militant grapevine. Joan cutout-worked Jomo and fed him the plan. Steal Dr. Fred’s money. Don’t hurt him. Scare him into silence per 2/64. He’ll fold off that.
She didn’t want more death. She got it anyway. Jomo and his partner killed Dr. Fred. The partner absconded. Jomo found him and killed him.
Marsh and Scotty wanted the money and the emeralds. They colluded and betrayed each other and died for their cause. Dwight and Joan colluded and conspired. She betrayed him only by her silence. They had crafted an operation that would serve to right all their wrongs. Dwight pulled out, unilaterally. Their paperwork was stashed at a comrade’s house. She’ll honor Dwight’s decision to abort their plan. She lacks the requisite will.
Celia was lost on that island. La Banda and the Tonton had X-marked her. The warrants derived from her work with Wayne Tedrow. Celia was past reason in some regards. Maria Rodriguez Fontonette was almost certainly murdered in L.A several years back. Celia felt complicitous. She had hexed Tattoo. It was preposterous. Voodoo was barbarous capitalism cloaked in magic. Celia thought otherwise. It didn’t matter. Celia was courageous beyond ideology. Belief works that way.
She should have told Dwight the story. One thing hexed her, still. Her last word to him should not have been “No.”
The clouds broke and spilled rain. The boy looked different. The length of her tale matched the breadth of his surveillance. That pop-up face always there.