Our Man in the Dark

by Rashad Harrison

  They were already in my life and in my head before I was even aware of it. Now they are in my dreams. I look around my place and begin to find its simplicity deceptive. I grab the lamp on the nightstand and run my hand along the inner circumference of the shade, unscrew the bulb and inspect the socket, then remove the felt from the bottom and look inside. Nothing. I remove the phone from its cradle and dismantle the receiver. I inspect the perplexing wires and magnets like a flummoxed caveman, and then when I realize there is nothing sinister inside, I put the casing back on. I feel foolish. I was so sure I’d find something.

  “John?”

  At first, the voice strikes me like that of God coming from a burning bush, then I come to the horrific realization that the agents have planted something in my head—some sort of transmitter while I was asleep. Then I leave that scary place and come back to reality, back to the reassembled phone still in my hand, and hear my name come from it once more.

  “Hello,” I say, placing it to my ear.

  “John?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you while you were reading your Bible . . .”

  “No, you’re not. I was just—”

  He lets out a laugh. “Well, anyway, brother, I’m just calling to tell you I appreciated those suggestions you made regarding Chicago a while back. I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time now. Although you met some resistance in the room, I’ve been thinking about it myself, and I want to thank you for your commitment. Of course, some details need to be ironed out, but I am thinking about it ever so seriously. There’s a lot of good we can do up there, and I am glad you made us aware of what our focus should be, and not just the politics. We sometimes get caught up in the mere strategy of things while ignoring our responsibility to humanity in general. So I just wanted to say thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Martin, of course.”

  “Well, that’s that. I guess I’ll let you get back to your Bible.” He laughs again, says, “Bye, now,” and hangs up.

  Chicago? The word sounds foreign as it bounces around in my head, trying to adhere itself to a meaning—but then I remember. Chicago. The ideas of the old me, before I knew myself better.

  After work, my Cadillac and the smoky smell of its leather interior usually offer a welcome retreat, but as I drive home, I only feel uncomfortable and conspicuous. Gant offered no tell of his decision—or that there was even one to be made—and his haughtiness had already returned.

  “King Criticizes Hoover, FBI. Cites Lack of Negro Protection.” Since Martin’s criticisms of the FBI went public, everyone at the SCLC has been bracing themselves for the inevitable retaliation.

  “One of the great problems we face with the FBI in the South,” Martin said, “is that the agents are white Southerners who have been influenced by the mores of the community. If an FBI man agrees with segregation, he can’t honestly and objectively investigate.” Obviously, Mathis and Strobe are not Southerners, but I didn’t bother to point that out. The tension has already prompted a meeting between Martin and Hoover, and I’m sure Hoover made Martin aware of his inaccuracies.

  I pull up to my building and see a white man parked in front. I get out, and as I walk closer, I realize that it’s Mathis. I didn’t recognize him at first. He’s not in his usual G-man suit and tie, but a plaid hunting shirt and denim pants. Why is he here? He should receive my photos soon—if he hasn’t already.

  “Hello, Mathis . . .”

  “Get in, John,” he says.

  I don’t move. I’m not sure what to make of his tone. I take a moment to read the potential consequences in his eyes. His poker face is excellent. “Get in,” he says again.

  We are both silent as he drives. I think of Martin and the night those policemen put him in the back of their car: how they wouldn’t tell him where they were taking him once downtown Montgomery and its jail faded behind them; the fear he felt, like the closest thing to death while living, as the dark unfamiliar roads only promised the most sinister destinations; and the absurd relief he felt once the sign that read MONTGOMERY JAIL became visible, and he realized that they had been toying with him.

  I think of the woods where I saw Pete and that burning cross: how dark they were, and how many Negroes have disappeared never to be seen again. I wrestle with asking him where we are going, but I don’t really want to know. That would just make the ride even more intolerable.

  I don’t have to suffer long as we approach his office. He parks in back, and then we go inside.

  “Have a seat,” he says. I grab a chair, and he walks over to the file cabinet, reaches into the bottom drawer, and pulls out a bottle of liquor. “I guess we’ll finally be having that drink,” he says. Two tin cups, the kind used for camping, follow the liquor. He wipes the dust off the cups with his shirt, places them on his desk, and starts to pour.

  “I hope rye’s okay,” he says.

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  He hands me the cup, I take a swallow, and it quickly fills me with enough heat and courage to ask questions.

  “What are we doing here, Mathis?”

  He brings his seat closer to mine, and we sit face to face, only an arm’s length apart. He looks down while cradling his cup in his palm. “How do you people do it?” he asks.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mathis. Do what?”

  “How do you people pursue what you want—every impulse—no matter what people think of you?”

  I’m taken aback by his question. I’m not sure if it is a compliment or an insult. “I don’t know how to answer that, Mathis. I rarely think of ‘us’ collectively—at least not in that sense.”

  “Well, look at you. You’re an accountant, but . . .”

  I take a sharp short breath, my shoulders tighten, and I sit up in my chair.

  “And even King,” he continues, “he’s a preacher yet whenever he wants a woman—if she wants him—he just has her. Restraint. How do you people live without restraint?”

  He’s being sincere, but I still laugh. “I’m sorry, Mathis, but I can’t get over a white man asking a Negro how we live without restraints.”

  He smiles slightly. “Don’t make fun of me,” he says. “When I think about Hoover and the rumors about him—and the life I think he would want to lead, but doesn’t—part of me sees a hero. But then I think of the pain he must be under. The constant agony of not going after what he desires, then the other part of me thinks he’s a fool.”

  “Maybe he is a fool,” I say. “What is life without happiness?”

  He lets out a short sigh. “You probably don’t know what I’m getting at, but to hell with it. Nothing goes better with whiskey than a good secret. There were these rumors going around influential circles that Director Hoover was . . . a homosexual. Trusted agents were told to look into it and discredit the source. Some divorcee of a very wealthy man, a professional socialite essentially, told me that Hoover and Tolson, his assistant director, had attended an orgy in complete drag—dressed as women—demanding to be referred to only as ‘Mary’ and ‘Alice,’ and engaged in acts of sodomy. We had already known the woman was not credible, even before her interview—morphine addict, shock therapy, crazy stuff—so I let it pass. But then someone sends me this picture anonymously.”

  I take a quick, hard swallow of my drink.

  “Photographs of Hoover and Tolson having sex—if you can call it that. Photos. This goes way beyond some crazy woman saying she saw Hoover prancing around some hotel room in a dress. There were multiple photos of the two of them on the beach. Granted, they were blurry, and you couldn’t quite tell it was Hoover, but the mind sees what it wants to see, especially after I learned of my Southern assignment. I didn’t say anything; a good agent knows when to keep his mouth shut. But I wanted it to be true, goddamnit. If he was weak enough to go after what he wanted, it would have lifted a burden off my shoulders. I wanted the details, but damn that photo was grainy. Not a concrete detail on it—just one vaguely m
asculine blur wrapped around another. Even now I think of that picture. I go over it in my mind, seeing if I missed some aspect that might give Hoover away.”

  I think of Mrs. Mathis in the backseat of Lester’s cab, smelling of gin and lavender perfume and spilling Hoover’s nasty little secret. Even I had heard, and disregarded, those rumors about Hoover, but Mrs. Mathis’s drunken candor gave them a new validity.

  It must have infuriated Hoover no end when he learned of Martin’s sexual habits, not because of the presumed moral objections, but out of envy. I don’t know him, but he seems like a frightened man, rigid and unwilling to act on his desires. He has created an image for himself and the FBI that is inextricable. To be risky, even momentarily, is to risk everything. So then, how does he explain Martin, a man he views as a nuisance, and with at least as much at stake?

  Listening to those tapes with Martin and a woman exchanging sounds of pleasure like pocket-sized notes, Hoover must have been a motionless, yet attentive, audience. Rewinding the reel over and over again, he listens. He’s uncertain at first, but then he listens closer: Yes, that is him. He listens to Martin acting impulsively, indulgently, like a beast—a child—a man. He must not know whether to scream or applaud. Tolson, always the supportive one, must have placed a comforting hand on Hoover’s sloped shoulder.

  Martin’s critical assessment of the FBI prompted the meeting with Hoover. Since there was no press in the room, who knows if Martin and Abernathy are being truthful when they offer the occasional detail at the office. But the encounter must have been hard for the old man. While they exchanged niceties and words limited by the formality of the setting, Hoover in the back of his mind must have been adding a visual narrative to the secret tapes of Martin. Those sexual things . . . and with white women. Some part of him, I’m sure, must have wanted to seek counsel from the young Negro. How does one maintain a fulfilling private life separate from the public one without people knowing? But Hoover stops there when he realizes that he himself knows, and that alone is one person too many.

  Even though Mathis talks about Hoover, this is really about the girl. He wants to gossip about the fairy so he won’t have to talk about himself. Maybe I acted too harshly—the photographs may have been over the top. I’m not used to this, but I think he’s reaching out to me. He’s trying to connect. I’m no expert, but it seems that despite everything, he wants me to see him as human.

  I don’t add anything, I just nod knowingly. For some reason, that takes Mathis out of his conversational mood.

  “It’s funny,” he says, “but you don’t seem surprised. Why is that?”

  “I guess I expected it,” I say.

  “How?” he asks quickly.

  “After working with Gant I looked for signs, characteristics. Hoover seems a bit . . . foppish, don’t you think?”

  His face relaxes and he leans back in his chair. “Yeah, I guess it is noticeable if you know how to look. You do know that Hoover’s going to go harder on him, right? And it’s not just the comments in the press, and the women—he knows what King really thinks of him. That he’s senile and too old and broken down to continue as director. That pressure should be put on the president to censure him.”

  “I’ve never heard Martin say anything like that.”

  “Maybe you haven’t, but I have.”

  “Why bring me here and tell me all of this, Mathis? You don’t have to do this. I know you don’t want to do this. You still have a choice. Freedom or servitude. Instead of meeting in secrecy, we can get out of here and have a drink together in public. We’re both caught up in some shit we’re better than, Dick. Right now, we can be more than just the men we want to be; we can be the men that we are. Let’s get out of here, you and me. I know a place where guys like us can have a good time.”

  “Guys like us? You think we’re the same?”

  “I know that we are.”

  For a moment, the creases of his brow disappear and I see acquiescence in his eyes, but then he goes over to that tape machine of his. “There’s another one, you know,” he says. “He’s at it again.” I know he’s not talking about one of the Kennedys.

  I think about playing indignant, but then I see how this validates all of my actions. I was foolish to show him sympathy. The tape plays and I sit back and enjoy my drink.

  My confidence soon fades after listening to Mathis’s third tape of Martin. I have been exposed to many threats during my involvement with the agents, but never have I felt more vulnerable than I do now. This tape had an ominous quality—they all did, but this one especially so. Martin rarely spoke on this tape. So little, in fact, that it’s startling when he does speak. But it’s the woman on this tape that is so troubling. He engages her with familiarity and in an almost apologetic tone. She does sound forgiving, but she seems to see through him. Even though she is alone with him, I feel that she is aware of her audience, and—more disturbingly—that I am her audience. I know this woman. I feel crazy even thinking it, but this is the same woman from the second tape Mathis played. Beyond identifying her voice, I know this woman. The quality of this recording is poor, that’s the only thing keeping me from lunging at Mathis and beating him with that bottle of whiskey.

  Immediately, reality presents itself and starts to coalesce. I think of everything I’ve done and the madness of those actions nauseates me. I tell Mathis that I am leaving. I practically fall, stumbling down most of the steps and out onto the street. I find a cab, and it takes me home.

  For the first time fear sets in. I have left a dangerous trail behind me, and it didn’t matter before, as long as I didn’t care about the outcome. Agents, gangsters, and preachers—my volatile mixture of associations begins to sink in.

  I park across the street from the Atlanta Gazette and look at the small but powerful passenger riding next to me: an envelope with the pictures of the files I took at the agents’ office. It’s enough to expose everyone—including me—but maybe it will put a stop to this madness.

  Sitting here, lost in a labyrinth of possible outcomes, I wonder how I will be perceived—as a hero or a villain? A tap on my window snaps me out of it.

  I look out at Strobe and see myself reflected in his sunglasses, as he points at my rear door. I unlock it and he gets in, making himself comfortable in the roomy backseat.

  “Looking to change careers, Estem?”

  The lack of menace in his voice throws me off.

  “What?”

  “The newspaper. Why the sudden interest in journalism?”

  “About to buy a classified.” The lie comes to me easily. “Trying to unload the Cadillac.” I watch him in the rearview mirror as he looks out of the window. I give a look at the envelope and push it down into the cavernous floor of the Caddy.

  “So . . . you and Mathis have been meeting one-on-one a lot lately,” he says.

  Is this about jealousy? I almost laugh, but I keep quiet.

  “What did you discuss?” asks Strobe.

  “Mathis didn’t tell you?”

  The mirror cools from his icy stare.

  “I’m asking you, Estem.”

  “Actually, Strobe, it was the usual stuff—Martin, segregation, communism, illicit sex. The rest was personal.”

  “Personal?”

  “Personal.”

  Strobe removes his sunglasses and leans over the seat, close to my ear. “This is where you should be careful, Estem.”

  I feel his breath on the side of my face.

  “Careful? You pay me to talk. So I talk. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that his relationship with you should remain professional.”

  “He’s the boss, Strobe. Are you warning me or him?”

  “Hoover’s the boss, but it seems that you and I both have bosses that need to be reined in.”

  “What do you mean ‘reined in’?”

  “Look, John,” he says relaxing back into the seat. “Mathis has a history of using his cases as a way to escape. Maybe it’s somethin
g in his own life, but sometimes he can become too personally involved. There was a situation in New York. A Russian immigrant and grand-scale con man agreed to work with us and bring down the outfit he worked for. It was a big operation too. Both coasts and Europe. Mathis and the guy got pretty friendly. Fine. But then Mathis gets pretty friendly with the man’s wife as well. A real sexy blond number, with more curves than the road to Ronda. Next thing you know, the Russian decides to keep his trap shut and disappears into the fog. Just like that, two years of work down the drain. And when the higher-ups gave Mathis a temporary suspension, he didn’t even take responsibility. He saw it as retribution for the botched job he did on one of Hoover’s special cases. After that, they assigned me to him—to keep an eye on him.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I’m not Russian, and I damn sure ain’t blond. How would Mathis feel if I told him you were putting his business out in the street?”

  “You won’t, because you like his attention. You’re flattered by it.” He says it as if there is no way I could disagree. “And you’re smart enough to know that his interest in you is a double-edged sword. He could turn on you with the same intensity. How would he feel if you embarrassed him with what I told you? What do you think he’d do? How would he react?”

  I stay quiet for a moment and try to weigh what Strobe has said. A behavioral pattern is forming. Could it be true that Mathis is so lost? I don’t say it out loud, but Strobe nods subtly as if reading my thoughts.

  “Thanks for the chat, Strobe, but I’d better get going.” I start the car to signal my desire for his departure.

  “Your ad,” he says, still anchored.

  “What?”

  “Your ad for the car.”

  I look at the envelope, regarding it as a covered cage with a snarling animal inside.

  “Thanks,” I say, looking in the mirror, and then turning off the car.

  He’s silent for a moment—obviously contemplating knocking me out and taking a look inside the envelope. But Strobe stays civil. He opens the rear door and gets out, then comes over to my window.