He settled in for the night. He updated his notes on his mother’s last known location. Christmas ‘67-Margaret Woodard Crutchfield writes from Des Moines. Every known records check-zero. Backtrack to ‘66-a Christmas card from Dubuque. Every in-between town, full records checks, zero.
Crutch got antsy. Buzz was who-knows-where, blitzed on who-knows-what. Buzz had this mean streak that he lacked. Buzz carried a fake cop’s badge and coerced head out of hookers. Nix that. Holding it in was better.
It was warm out. A summer storm brewed. Crutch took a drive. He circled up to Hollywood Boulevard and out to the Strip. He looked at people. The longhaired girls jazzed him and the longhaired guys rubbed him wrong. He trawled for that ‘62 Bird and Scotty’s blow-job bandits. He saw two fags in a ‘61 Bird and no more.
He drove east to Hancock Park. He cut his lights and perched at 2nd and Plymouth. That big Spanish house held him.
Window glow flickered, upstairs and down. He saw Chrissie in USC sweats-one glimpse and gone. He saw Dana tie her hair back in the kitchen.
Buzz didn’t get it. Nobody got it. That’s why he never told anyone. It wasn’t Chrissie Lund. It was always Dana Lund, and she was fifty-three years old.
3
Dwight Holly
(Washington, D.C., 6/16/68)
SPOOKS:
The restaurant was thick with them. Mr. Hoover ran a head count. Dwight watched his eyes click. Colored waiters, colored lobbyist, colored baseball ace. The old poof was frail. He slurped his soup palsy-style. He’d lost some beats, his brain still sparked, his circuits cranked on HATE.
Harvey’s Restaurant, midtown D.C., the big lunch rush. A big be-seen spot. Big eye-click action.
Mr. Hoover said, “Did Wayne Tedrow Jr. kill Wayne Tedrow Sr.?”
“Yes, Sir. He did.”
“Extrapolate, please.”
Dwight pushed his plate back. “Carlos Marcello bought off LVPD and the Clark County coroner. A blunt-force trauma homicide was ruled a heart attack.”
Mr. Hoover smiled. “Stroke would have affirmed the golf aspect.”
Dwight lit a cigarette. “I won’t ask for more details, Sir. I’ll commend your sources and move on.”
“Captain Bob Gilstrap and Lieutenant Buddy Fritsch viewed the crime scene. They were aware of the animus between Tedrow pиre and fils, and both officers are beholden to Mr. Marcello.”
“Mr. Marcello is a wonderful friend to the Nevada law-enforcement community, Sir. He sends lovely gift baskets at Christmas.”
Mr. Hoover beamed. “Really?”
“Yes, Sir. The false bottoms cover casino chips and hundred-dollar bills.”
Mr. Hoover glowed. “Did Junior take part in any recent Memphis operations that you might have heard about?”
Dwight winked. My lips are sealed. Mr. Hoover snagged a toast point and shooed off a waiter.
“You are an eloquent man, Dwight. You understand your audience and play to them inimitably.”
“I rise to the occasion of you, Sir. There’s no more to it than that.”
Spook action stage left. A spook waiter sucked up to the spook baseball cat. Mr. Hoover tuned the banter out and tuned in to the spooks. He was seventy-three. His breath reeked. His cuticles bled. He lived off digitalis and skin-pop amphetamine. A Dr. Feelgood supplied daily injections.
Click-he’s back again. Click-he’s back to you.
“Our other homicides. The gaudier and more scrutinized ones likely to inspire loose talk.”
Dwight stubbed out his cigarette. “Ray and Sirhan are psychopaths, Sir. Their statements confirm their paranoia, and the American public has come to expect grandstanding delusion in its assassins. There will be loose talk, but it will be replaced by public indifference over time.”
“And the Tedrows? Are we exposed there? Reassure me in your most bluff-hearty manner.”
Dwight said, “Senior’s death is in no way suspect. Yes, he ran Klan ops for us, but it’s never become public knowledge. Yes, he peddled hate pamphlets, but he was never as publicly voluble as our hate-pamphleteering chum, Fred Hiltz. Yes, he was slated to take over Ward Littell’s job for Howard Hughes, which might have created speculation. Yes, I think Junior will get the job now. No, I don’t think that any of it will serve to expose us in any significant way.”
Mr. Hoover speared his last toast point. His hand trembled. Some table-hopping pols eyeballed him.
“Power. Was that Junior’s motive?”
“I’ve known him all his life, Sir. I think ‘fully justified hatred’ describes it best.”
A spook preacher braced the pols. Yuks and backslaps circulated. The guy wore cowboy boots with his clerical suit. Dwight recognized him. He hosted telethons for some spook disease and espoused leftist shit.
Mr. Hoover said, “Prince Bobby and Martin Lucifer King have departed, leaving the morally impaired disconsolate and providing the sane with dear relief. Operation Black Rabbit did not achieve the results we had hoped for, and toxic clouds of black nationalism are quite evidently aswirl. I would like you to assess the Black Panther Party and the United Slaves, also known as ‘US,’ as potential targets for a disruption program. I am thinking of a full-scale Cointelpro. There are also two lesser known cabals in Los Angeles that may also require scrutiny. Mark their lurid names: The Black Tribe Alliance and Mau-Mau Liberation Front.”
Dwight got goose bumps. “I have an informant in L.A. I’ll fly out and talk to her.”
“Her, Dwight? Confidential Bureau informant number 4361?”
Dwight smiled. “Yes, Sir. We may be looking for an inside plant, and she knows every duplicitous left-winger in captivity.”
“All left-wingers should reside in captivity.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Stop by Las Vegas as well. Assess Wayne Tedrow Jr.’s mental health.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“The Mau-Maus were an African cannibal sect with no valid grievance. They diddled baboons and ate their own young.”
“Yes, Sir. I know about them.”
“Your knowledge does not surprise me. You’re my obedient Yalie thug.”
He lived in hotel suites. Roving agents had Bureau-vouchered digs nationwide. He liked the Statler in L.A. and the Sheraton Chicago. The D.C. Mayflower was dud-ritz. The room service tanked, the pipes hissed, the bed creaked.
His study files and plane tickets were there on the desk. Mr. Hoover had them sent during lunch. Panthers/US/Mau-Mau/Tribe. Mr. Hoover wanted this. His L.A. flight left in two hours.
Dwight buffed his shoes, cleaned his gun and did doorway-bar chin-ups. Bullshit tasks quashed his nerves and kept him at one drink a night. It was chilled. RFK was all on Carlos. It was his wet dream. Sirhan Sirhan practically drooled. He’d never ID Otash credibly. Jimmy Ray got popped at the London airport. Extradition woe would extend. Jimmy would talk- that was certain. Otash ran him in circles. Jimmy’s story would play as cracker fantasia.
Pete would hold. Otash would hold. The lone-nut consensus would kick in. Mr. Hoover would short-shrift all divergent queries. The one wild card was the kid.
“I’ve known him all my life, Sir.”
And his daddy and my daddy and Indiana long gone.
His daddy was “Daddy” Holly, an upstart nativist and Klan huckster. Daddy Holly got rich selling Klan kitsch in the ‘20s Klan heyday. Daddy hatched his sons Dwight and Lyle out of wedlock and sent Louisa Dunn Chalfont back to Kentucky. Dwight and Lyle grew up in Klan kamp-grounds. Daddy taught them to spell all hard “C” words with a “K.” Daddy hated Jews, Papists and niggers and understood that the Klan was a shuck.