They moored and draped Tiger Klaw with camouflage netting. They took Tiger Kar back to Santo Domingo. Crutch dozed off his dope jolt. Mosquitoes buzzed into his mouth and woke him up periodic.
It was dawn. The Krew decamped at the El Embajador. Froggy told Crutch to hold the suitcase. The Tonton guys would shag it to Port-au-Prince tomorrow. Crutch yawned and elevatored up to his suite.
He opened the door. He re-caught the vibe. He smelled cigarette smoke. He saw a tip glowing.
The light snapped on. There’s Dwight Holly on the couch. There’s some shit on the coffee table.
A paint can and a paintbrush. A syringe and a morphine Syrette.
Crutch shut the door and dropped the suitcase. Dwight pulled out a pocketknife.
“How much are you holding?”
“Three pounds.”
“That’ll do.”
His mouth dried up. His bladder swelled. The walls loop-de-looped.
Dwight said, “Take your shirt off.”
“Man, you can’t-”
“I’m not saying it again. You’re taking your shirt off, I’m taking the suitcase. I won’t stop you from running out the door. I’ll call Wayne and rat out your dope business the moment you do.”
Crutch pulled his shirt off. His sphincter almost blew. Dwight opened the paint can and dipped in the brush. The paint was bright red.
He walked the walls and pulled off the artwork. He painted “6/14” above the couch. He re-dipped his brush. He painted “6/14!!!!” above the wet bar. He re-dipped his brush. He painted “Death to Yanqui Dope Peddlers” beside the door.
Crutch prayed and tried not to cry. Dwight popped the Syrette and plungered the syringe. Crutch held his arm out. Dwight clamped his biceps and brought up a vein.
Crutch squeezed his Saint Chris medal. It snapped off his neck. Dwight poked the vein and geezed him up.
He went loosey-goosey. His bladder blew. He didn’t care. His eyes rolled back.
Dwight flicked his lighter and warmed up his knife. Crutch braced his hands on the door. Dwight carved “6/14” on his back.
79
(Las Vegas, 3/14/70)
Wayne linked boxes. His wall graph was Op Art. Boxes and arrows off at odd angles.
Boxes and arrows. Reginald to Joan to the Haitian herb man.
Graph boxes and boxed carbons-LAPD and the L.A. County Sheriff’s, His LVPD contact secured them. Call it a dim long shot. Occurrence reports, field-interrogation cards. The L.A. cops hard-rousted black kids routinely. Reginald’s name might be there.
Wayne checked his watch. He had an hour, tops. His bags were packed. He had skim cash for Celia. He booked a red-eye to the D.R.
Arrows and boxes. “Library Books” to “Bailed Out of Jail.” A new box: “Leander James Jackson/BTA/Tonton Macoute.”
The hallway door creaked. He heard Mary Beth in the living room. Her keys jiggled. She dropped bags on a chair. She exhaled like she was pissed.
He stared at the graph. He locked his satchel and attached the handcuff chain. He check-marked “Leander James Jackson.”
“I want you to stop all this.”
Wayne turned around. Mary Beth stared at the satchel.
“I don’t want you to find my son. He doesn’t want to be found. If he’s alive, he made that decision of his own free will, and I will not dishonor him by forcing a reunion.”
Wayne jammed his hands in his pockets. Voodoo-herb residue made his eyes run.
Mary Beth stepped close. “Whatever you’ve done in the past, I’ll forgive you. Whatever you’re doing now, I’ll forgive you. I’ll forgive you for not trusting me, because you don’t want to be forgiven, you just want to create more risk and intrigue and buy yourself more punishment.”
Wayne left-hooked the wall. He dented the molding, his knuckles bled, his wristwatch face shattered.
Mary Beth said, “Who have you hurt? What have you done?”
He walked to the safe house. Santo Domingo looked different. The visit was ad-libbed. He didn’t call Ivar Smith or the Boys. He just wanted to see.
It felt like wide-screen hi-fi. He usually limousined. It bought him eyeball relief and less volume. This was the shit. The sewers reeked, the noise peaked, the cops perched and pounced.
It was winter-warm/night-air sticky. Wayne wore a sport coat over his cuff chain. The address was in Borojol. The district was all go-go bars and low-peso hotels. Haitian vendors sold klerin-laced ice cream.
Wayne found the address: a pink cube off the main drag. His free hand ached from the wall punch. He banged his bracelet on the door. Celia opened up.
She wore a bloody smock. The space behind her was crammed with cots and fluid-drip stands. Four boys and two girls were head-sutured. Barbed-wire sap wounds-Wayne saw the stitch cuts oozing.
He saw the doctor he met last year. Two nurses changed bedpans. One boy had a foot stump. One girl had a bullet crease down to her cheekbone.
A back window framed an alley space. Wayne saw Joan outside, smoking. Scalpels poked out of her boot tops.
Celia pointed to the satchel. Wayne unlocked it. His hand throbbed. Celia scooped out the money.
“How much?”
“One forty-eight.”
“I spoke to Sam. He told me that Balaguer has agreed to four more casinos. They’ll have to burn or flood Haitian villages before the building can begin.”
Wayne shut his eyes. His senses reloaded. He smelled the skin rot there in the room.
He opened his eyes. Celia repacked the satchel and slid it under a cot. A boy screamed in Spanish. A girl moaned in Kreole French. Joan turned around and saw him. Wayne sidestepped cots and walked out to her.
Her hair was tied back. Her glasses fit crooked. She had small, rough hands.
“Did you bring a donation?”
“Yes, but not quite as much as last time.”
“I’m confident that there’ll be a next time.”
“Yes, there will be.”
Joan lit a cigarette. Her fingernails were blood-caked.
“How real is all of this to you?”
“Tell me what you know about me. Tell me how you know.”
“I’m not going to.”
A gunshot cracked somewhere. A man dog-bayed. Joan said, “The doctor should look at your hand.”
Wayne shook his head. “I tried to find you in L.A.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t the only one looking for you.”
“I’ll find the man we’re discussing when it becomes necessary.”
The dog man bayed. Two more dog men piped in. A dog woman bayed from the opposite direction.
Wayne said, “There’s some things you could tell me.”
“I’m not going to.”
The dog pack bayed and threw bottles at walls. Glass shattered in stereo.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Wayne flexed his hand. “Some people you wait your whole life for. They send you someplace you’d be a fool not to go.”
Joan reached in her pocket. Wayne noticed tremors. She pulled out a small red flag on a stick.
Wayne said, “Get me a silencer threaded for a.357 Magnum revolver.”
The Santo Domingo sites were back from the street and one-man-guarded. The guards knew him. The crews slept in tents thirty yards adjacent. The demolition shacks abutted the foundation struts. The interior walls were baffle-wrapped and unleaded. Dynamite, C-4, nitro. All pure flammables.
The surrounding ground was rain-damp. The work bosses talked site-to-site via pay telephone. Soak a tight synthetic cord and plastic-sheath it. Allow enough circumference to air-feed the flame. Rig the phones and call the phones and pray for a simple ignition.
The rural sites would be harder. They were sixty miles apart. That might mean a bomb-toss gambit.
Wayne found an all-night auto-parts store. He bought the tools and two acrylic-pad car seats. He bought a thick plastic hose at a hardware store and went back to his hotel.
He cut the seats down to fabric strands and gasoline-soaked them. He memory-measured. He cut the hose sections down to an approximate length. He perforated them and created flame-feeders. The pay phones stood on loose dirt. The wire rigs should be easy. The phone-call currents might or might not ignite.