“I want to help you,” Holt declared.
“You are.”
“You know what I mean, home. Field work.”
“That’s not going to happen. Shit’s gonna get funky.”
She chuckled and kissed his chest then laid her head on it. “You can’t do this by yourself.”
“My face is only on dusty clippings, but you, you’re ghetto fabulous. Besides, you’ve got grandkids you need to be around for, counselor.”
“You might too.”
He glared at the top of her head, flashing on the mushroom cloud jet-black afro from all those years before. “Shit, do I?”
“No, but you get my point, old timer.”
“I ain’t stove up yet. No pork, no salt, plenty of roughage and their ghosts are with me.”
“Who?”
“Che and Malcolm, Ho and Fred, baby.”
“I’d say you were delusional, but you might be right. I want you to be right.”
“Hell yeah, I am.”
She looked up at him and they made love again.
The younger and larger man had his arm around Briscoe’s windpipe and said, “You must be mixing vodka with your Ensure in the mornings, grandpa. The math you learned in grade school has evaporated from your diseased mind.”
He choked him some more to underscore his intent. Briscoe’s face was red from effort and lack of breath, his hands impotently trying to loosen the other man’s chiseled arms. Finally he was released and he wilted to the floor, choking and gagging on all fours.
“We understand each other now, right?” Clete Willhelm walked to the counter and picked up his open can of beer and took a lengthy pull. On the floor was an upset can of spilled beer. Briscoe had been drinking from this until Willhelm attacked him.
Briscoe finally sat and cleared his throat. “I’m not trying to cheat you, Clete. You gotta learn to relax.”
“Let me worry about my anger management issues. Two of my road dogs are dead ’cause of this super spade sparring partner of yours. How come he knew to come at them looking for your ass, he supposed to have been out of the country all those years?”
Briscoe held his hands wide. “I’m sure he still has contacts. If it was me, the first thing I would do is find out the lay of the land. There’s a reason Swanmoor was high on the Bureau’s key agitator index. He’s no bench warmer.”
Contemplatively, Willhelm opened another beer.
Briscoe went on. “We need to flush Swanmoor out to tell us where the money is—or more precisely, where he thinks it is.”
“Uh-huh,” Willhelm grunted, considering his next words. “This isn’t a Legion matter, Rory. This is between you, me and a few I trust. And that list is now a lot shorter.”
“Whatever you say. But we need to make some moves or else we’re just running around with our heads up our asses.”
“Seems to me you need to be doing your job and targeting his old friends to make him come out and play.”
“I know. Only if we don’t have the troop strength, we need to be selective. We can’t go around jacking up worn-out Lenin-quoting has-beens. The worse thing would be for Swanmoor to go back underground.”
“Huh,” Willhelm muttered, tipping his head back and quaffing his beer. “But you must have had a snitch or two from back then still around. Like that photographer who followed the civil righters around, and at the same time was a rat for your bunghole loving boss Hoover.”
“It’s not like turncoats belong to a club, Clete. Don’t you think I’ve been out there beating the bushes?”
“What about, what you call it, an intermediary? One of them burr head preachers all hyped up on keeping the peace and shit. Somebody that wasn’t on the payroll but who you leaned on in the past, you know, one of those reasonable negroes.” He chuckled.
At first Briscoe was going to make a dismissive comment then got a faraway look on his face. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Maybe for a cut.”
“Or at least he thinks he’ll get a cut,” Willhelm opined.
“My friends we must keep up the good work. The Lord’s work really. I am so heartened that we are one step closer to winning the culture war and restoring sanctity and values for our impressionable youth and our nation. I applaud your efforts good citizens in shutting down that blasphemous exhibit at the Smithsonian. It was a true waste of our tax dollars.”
Masai Swanmoor smiled thinly, shaking his head slightly. He turned off the small digital radio, ceasing the woman’s rants. He had to admit though, the sound quality was amazing. Modern technology. He left his hideaway and was soon walking through the park, having reconnoitered the perimeter like he’d been taught in country.
Laughing children under the watchful gaze of their mothers or nannies played on the swings and slides. Sitting on a bench under a maple tree was Big Stick Caruthers. After two bouts with cancer, once in the throat and the other time in the stomach, he was a slender shell of his former defensive tackle frame.
“Young blood,” Caruthers greeted. He stood and the two men hugged. “You’re looking pretty damn decent. What’s your secret?”
“I wish it was big titty virgins and palm oil, but I only got the latter in abundance.”
“I heard that,” Caruthers said, sitting down again. Swanmoor remained standing and scanning.
“It’s just you and me. I’m the messenger, not the tethered goat.”
“Not knocking you, brother.”
“Just being on point. I ain’t mad at you like the adolescents say.”
Satisfied, Swanmoor also sat on the bench near the former owner of the Lamplighter bar. “So what’s their offer?”
“The ofays figure you and them don’t need to be in this scorched earth mode. Two dead and—”
“Two?” Swanmoor interrupted. “I left that lumberjack shouldered broad alive. Bleeding but no fatal wounds.”
“That’s not what was on the news but what’s the difference?”
Swanmoor smiled humorlessly. “Wheels within wheels, man.”
“One race hater dead, two race haters dead, even they mamas probably won’t miss ’em.”
“No doubt. But they probably came from a long line of sieg heiling fucks.”
“Children don’t always follow in their parents’ footsteps.”
“There is that. Briscoe came to you alone?”
“He did. Motherfuckah phoned for me at the senior hall during our square dancing night, you believe that? Was in the middle of do-si-do-ing with a cute little widow with some beachfront property. Sheeit.”
Both men snickered. “What I believe is he’s a greedy forked-tongue devil. He expects me to do the grunt work and then I just give him a cut being all nostalgic and what not?”
“He calls off the Legion. Says you been green lit ’cause of you dropping members of the calling. The inference being it wouldn’t just be you in their crosshairs.”
Swanmoor looked off in the mid-distance. “How is it that Briscoe’s got an in with them? The Aryan Legion wasn’t around in his day.”
“We’re getting off topic, aren’t we, Masai?”
“You’ve kept your ears open, Big Stick. I can’t imagine you’ve retired that much.”
Caruthers made a face then said, “His daughter. She was a doper, college dropout, ran the streets, the whole bit. Don’t know the full story but damn right, I made it my business to keep tabs on friends and enemies alike. She winds up marrying one of these white power studs while he’s in the joint. He gets out, they set up house, it’s all tattoos and mud-people-bashing, but they eventually split up. She got born-again.”
“It’s your educated guess that Briscoe reached out to his former son-in-law once he knew I was back on the scene?”
Caruthers made a small gesture.
A silence dragged by as Swanmoor considered his response. “If I get the goods they’ll kill me. What’s my guarantee?”
“Briscoe says he knows who your daughter is. The Legion doesn’t know and he’ll keep it that way
if you agree to the split. Fifty-fifty”
“Shit,” Swanmoor swore.
“He’s going to call me later today. What do you want me to tell him?”
Swanmoor stared at Caruthers.
Walking back to another car he’d stolen that morning, a fifteen-year-old beater with a dented roof, he took off his shirt, shaking it and feeling up the material. He knew bugging devices had changed greatly since the days of cassette tapes and wanted to make sure Big Stick Caruthers hadn’t planted some kind of tracking button on him when they’d embraced. The former bar owner was a pragmatist after all. Relieved Big Stick hadn’t planted anything on him, Swanmoor re-buttoned his shirt over his athletic-T and drove away.
There was a decorative table in a corner of the high-rise office of the Wilder Foundation. Upon its surface was a vase filled with fresh cut flowers including lilies and chrysanthemums. Their fragrance subtly altered the area. Yet the fragrance of the studious young woman who came out to greet him, was both more powerful and understated simultaneously.
“Ms. Van Meter apologizes but her call should be over in the next five minutes,” the young woman said. “Would you care for coffee or sparkling water?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Swanmoor took a seat in a plush chair and leafed through a recent issue of The Atlantic. He was into an article about the origin of the Garamond typeface when a pointed shoe touched his shin.
“Well, well.” Alison Van Meter stood with her hands on her hips, head cocked, eyes peering over her designer glasses. Her blonde hair was streaked with white but was shoulder-length and full-bodied.
“Hey, Ali,” Swanmoor said, rising.
“Get your ass in here before the black helicopters come swooping down.” She pivoted and marched toward a set of double doors. He followed. Van Meter was heavier than back in the day, but he could tell she maintained an exercise regime. There was a muscularity apparent in the calves visible below the hem of her business skirt.
They entered her large office, and she closed the doors behind them. Pressing him against those doors, she kissed him for several beats before they parted. A man could get very used to this he reflected.
“You know you shouldn’t have risked this, Masai. The swag might not be there. You could have sent word. I would have retrieved it and gotten it to you, you know that.”
“Sending a proxy would have been shaky. Notwithstanding there’s a damn good chance one of the construction workers could find the dough.”
“I’d have gone personally, chump,” she said.
He pointed at her stylish shoes. “Those are Jimmy Choos, aren’t they? You wouldn’t want to break one of those heels, would you, trawling among the lumpen?”
“Being the sexist dog you remain, it figures you’d keep up with women’s fashion.”
“Look, I started this, it’s only right I should finish it. Anyway, I was homesick, Ali.” As he talked he walked around her office, holding his hands wide. “Nice.”
“Money is just a means of exchange, comrade.”
“The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power.”
From a mini-fridge she offered him fresh-squeezed blueberry and pomegranate juice which he accepted. He sat on the couch in her office and she in a chair near him. Looking past her at the cityscape out of her wide windows, he brought himself back to the present.
Van Meter was talking. “I got you a room at the hotel. Part of the place has been demoed, that’s how his handgun was found in the remains of the dumb waiter.” A cell phone picture of the gun had been shared among the work crew and by chance Van Meter, making a site visit, had seen the shot. Given the location and its age, she concluded it was the piece she’d obtained for Swanmoor decades ago—the one she knew had been used in the job. She then got in touch with him.
“There are some tenants left who are moving out by month’s end. It’s unlikely anybody will bother you as you prowl about,” Van Meter said.
She rose and went to a closet and returned with an equipment bag she placed on the floor near him. “A few items you might need.” She sat on his lap. “Now about the equipment I need,” she teased.
“Shouldn’t I be resentful being objectified in this way?”
“Shut up.” They kissed again.
Later that day Masai Swanmoor took his room at the Warwick, these days a residential hotel. It was in a part of downtown still home to the poor—though they were being pushed out due to the area’s stepped-up gentrification efforts.
He stepped into the hallway. Loud rap music issued from behind one door and an argument through another. He walked downstairs as the elevator had long been out of use. In the lobby there were a few about, including two old men, one with a walker, involved in an intense chess game. Van Meter, whose foundation was behind redeveloping the hotel into mixed-use affordable housing, had provided a layout to Swanmoor. Across the lobby and to his left was a door leading to the basement.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a voice challenged as Swanmoor put his hand on the doorknob.
He looked over at a pudgy bald man in his mid-fifties with a tweed jacket and cargo pants. He had an iPod in his sports jacket’s handkerchief pocket and removed his ear buds.
“Who are you?”
“I live here, you don’t.” The man frowned at Swanmoor.
“I’m inspecting.” The door was locked but it didn’t take much to get through it, loose as it was in the frame. He went downstairs, using the flashlight Van Meter had included in the supplies she’d given him.
Overhead were sewage and water pipes and heat conduits leading from vintage but functioning gravity heaters. He made his way around, operating on the theory he would stick to areas so far untouched by the construction crew. If the money had been found by one of the workers, Van Meter assumed she would have heard of such.
Aside from the inner workings of the building, Swanmoor found cardboard boxes of discarded clothes, neatly tied stacks of yellowed and brittle girlie magazines and National Geographies, and an assortment of sweep brooms of various sizes. More exploring turned up little else of interest.
Back upstairs in his room, Swanmoor lay on the bed, hands behind his head staring at the water-stained ceiling. He reviewed the past, hoping for a clue in the present as to where Georgie Boy hid the COINTELPRO slush funds they’d stolen. The FBI under Hoover orchestrated the Counter-Intelligence Program for over a decade. The Program’s one overarching goal was through chicanery and agents-provocateurs to disrupt and destroy self-determination struggles from the militant American Indian Movement, mainstreamers Martin Luther King, to hope-to-die revolutionaries like him, Leann Holt and Georgie Boy, George Dixon—the three who’d pulled off the score.
Dressed in matching khakis, black turtlenecks, work boots, gloves and full-face ski masks, the three had moved precision quick back then out of the Falcon station wagon parked at a yellow zone. Applying the pry bar to a service entrance sans latch, they forced the door open. A day before, Leann Holt in disguise of a housecoat, curlers—she’d hot combed her afro straight so as to have it fit underneath her mask—and sunglasses, had come into the unemployment office and clipped the alarm wires to that particular door.
Their movements rehearsed by Swanmoor, a decorated Vietnam vet, they got the drop on the building’s two security guards. One was an out-of-shape, chain-smoking former cop with a gimpy leg. The other a hippie who said he dug them taking it to the man. The trio bound and gagged the two, shooting Novocain into their legs to temporarily make their limbs numb and useless.
Rory Briscoe was the Special Agent in Charge of the regional implementation of COINTELPRO that covered this area back then. Briscoe was a hands-on kind of Bureau man. Beatings, planting evidence and illegal wiretaps were all part of his repertoire. He also shook down the hustlers and weed and smack dealers for a taste. Briscoe had amassed a sweet sum for his retirement coupled with cash shipments from Washington to be used specifically for bribing snitches and setting up off-the-boo
ks operations.
This slush fund was nearly three million which even in today’s dollars had worth. But Briscoe had it bad for this one mixed race street walker named Francie. To impress her one time, after she gave him a blowjob in his secret field office, he’d shown her the stash and told her they could get away, start over as he wanted out of his square marriage. She stalled him, but Francie, who did like to brag while on the nod, had let it slip in the Lamplighter about the money.
Briscoe’s unmarked office was inside the unemployment office building and the monies were kept there in a floor safe. Given they had time, the three peeled the safe door using a heavy-duty drill and a power chisel. The goal was to seed the money back into the community. Splitting after the robbery, Georgie Boy had been tasked with hiding the scratch while Swanmoor and Holt ditched their getaway car and clothes, setting fire to them. They made sure to keep apart but otherwise maintain their regular regimes. They’d told Francie to leave town, promising to send her a cut. Her body was found under a freeway overpass, her neck broken.
Only in what had to be classified as the caprice of the gods, Georgie Boy was eating a fish sandwich, laughing hard as he told friends a story about his dad, an amateur prize fighter. He choked to death on a fish bone. Where he hid the money, he and Holt didn’t know.
Swanmoor’s reverie ceased as he smiled knowingly. He suddenly remembered what Georgie Boy had said as, fueled on exhilaration, they’d dropped him off at the other getaway car, a VW beetle belonging to his girlfriend, Sharon Mason.
“It’ll be cool, y’all,” Georgie Boy had said driving away. As a kid, Swanmoor knew Georgie Boy had sold newspapers in front of the Warwick.
That night, up on the roof of the dilapidated hotel, near the long broken air conditioning units, he found the two duffle bags of cash. They’d been stuffed into a crawl space access cavity. The panel to get to this was rusted over and the edges of the panel had been super glued by Dixon, though most of that had worn away. Van Meter had supplied Swanmoor with a crowbar he used to remove the panel.
“I knew I recognized you,” the pudgy man said. “Hell, I gave money to your defense fund when you were accused of killing that undercover cop.” He stood near Swanmoor on the roof.
Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! Page 29