(Los Angeles, 10/25/68)
Black Cat Cab featured black velvet walls and a black-history tribute. The time line spanned the Black Jesus to the Black LBJ. The flocked-on icons were peeling. The air conditioning ran twenty-four hours and messed with the motif. The boss weighed 428 pounds. The hut was stalactite-cold, per his orders.
Cordell “Junior” Jefferson: entrepreneur, Teamster-loan defaulter.
Wayne said, “The Boys are calling in their paper, Mr. Jefferson. There’s some good news within that context.”
Jefferson squirmed in his chair. It was triple-wide. The room ran 50°. He was sweating.
“You’re tellin’ me I’m about two months behind, so I gots to take this?”
Wayne shivered. “You’re three years behind, sir. Three years, but my news is not all bad.”
Jefferson spooned ice cream from a half-gallon drum. Some Panther types walked through the hut and evil-eyed Wayne. A big white man followed them. He radiated Cop. He wore a gray suit and a plaid bow tie.
Jefferson waved his spoon. “What’s all this motherfuckin’ good news you talkin’ about, while you tryin’ to pull the motherfuckin’ rug out from under me?”
Wayne opened his briefcase and tossed ten grand in Jefferson’s lap. Jefferson fondled it, smelled it and rubbed his face on it.
He snapped the rubber band holding it. He squeezed it into the world’s fattest flash roll.
Wayne said, “You hold the deed on the biz. We bring in a white guy named Milt Chargin to help you run things, you help some cop friends of mine out with information and dry-clean some cash, for which you get 7% of the action.”
“Suppose I says no?”
“Sir, you’re smarter than that.”
Jefferson ate ice cream and ruffled the roll. Wayne checked out the wall icons. He recognized the Black FDR and nobody else. A man with a triple-wide Afro walked in. He sneered at Wayne and went to the switchboard. Wayne pulled out a snapshot of Reginald Hazzard and flashed it at Fats. Fats shook his head no.
The Afro man tossed Fats a fresh tub of ice cream. Fats said, “Big Boy Cab is crowding my business. If my business is our business, then I could use some of your help.”
Wayne smiled.
Mary Beth was asleep. The covers were up over her back. One leg was exposed.
Wayne watched her. She always fell asleep before he did. She kissed him and burrowed off by herself and gave him something to see.
He pulled a chair up to the bed and touched her knee. He waited. He liked to see her turn her head on the pillow.
The lab phone rang. Wayne got up and ran for it. He grabbed the call two rings in.
“Yes?”
“It’s Dwight, Wayne.”
“Yes, and at midnight.”
“I’ve got a chemistry question.”
“All right.”
“Can redacted file paper be stripped to expose the typed words underneath?”
Wayne leaned on a shelf. It was crammed with heroin components.
“Maybe. I’ll try, if you get me some C-4 explosive.”