(Las Vegas, 2/16/69)
The Clark County Sheriff’s sent more paperwork. Wayne went through the folder and pinned documents to the wall.
Interview notes—LVPD file repeats. Repeat dispo reports, smudged file carbons.
The file alcove was overpacked—let’s move chem bins for more shelf space. Stop, here’s something—
Wayne pinned it up. A parking ticket, 11/29/63. Fire-hydrant obstruction. 2082 Monroe Street, North Vegas. Reginald Hazzard got tagged the week before he disappeared.
It was tri-racial turf. Nellis AFB decreed that. The commercial strip was all slot joints and one-buck buffets. They were one-race-only deals. Whites had the Shamrock, blacks had Monty’s Mosque, the Mexicans had Al’s Alamo.
The residential streets were mixed and cut through diagonally. Wayne parked on Monroe and went walking. He’d read Ivar Smith’s report and summarized it for the Boys. The soil and structural stats were superb. Balaguer wanted their biz. He was paying them to come and build. The Boys said let’s go. Wayne called Smith in Santo Domingo. Smith said Balaguer wanted fifty grand a month personal. Wayne said okay. The Boys said okay. Wayne proposed a hands-off chit from Dick Nixon. Farlan Brown said we need a phone-chat liaison. Wayne’s candidate: Dwight Holly.
The prez was a cop buff and an FBI washout. He loved to schmooze with tough-guy Feds. Dwight “the Enforcer”?—none better.
The houses were all ant-sized and eroded cinder block. Windows were foil-crimped to beat the heat. Wayne started at 2082 and knock-knocked. It was 4:10 p.m. He got tri-racial residents off shift at Nellis. He smiled, he said hello, he showed Reginald’s picture. He got four no answers and fourteen straight nos.
He kept walking. A North Vegas PD car cruised by. A cop recognized him and went Pow!
He got three more no answers and nine more nos. He walked by a house with an open garage adjacent. He saw a black man vat-boiling on a hot plate. He smelled tropical plants and ammonia base.
The man waved to him. Wayne walked up. The vat fumes knocked him back. The man laughed and laughed.
They shook hands. The man squeezed words out between chuckles. He had a French island lilt. Wayne scoped the garage. It was his lab unkempt—cheap gear and tape-marked bottles.
Urera baccifera. Diodon holacantheus. Crapaud blanc. Theraphosidae E., Anolis colestinus, Zanthroxyllum matinicense.
Spiny plant powders, topical irritants, ground tarantulas, lizards and toads.
The man smiled. Wayne said, “Tetrodoxin posioning.”
The man bowed. “You are a chemist?”
“Yes.”
“Have you other things to tell me?”
Wayne scanned labels. Tremblador, Desmembres, puffer fish, stinging nettle. Diffenbachia seguine—a prime spiny plant.
“I hope you’re using these compounds for a beneficial purpose.”
“Oh yes. If eliminating an infestation of rabid gophers in my backyard can be considered that.”
Wayne smiled. “Then my best advice is to add more ammonia and cook the powder into an emulsion paste.”
The man grabbed a pen and wrote French on a scratch pad. Wayne ID’d scents: alkalines mixed with herb residue.
He pulled out his show picture. The man put on glasses and bent down a gooseneck lamp.
“Yes, I have met this young man.”
“When?”
“I vividly recall it. It was right after the president was shot.”
“And the circumstances?”
The man dabbed ointment on a finger cut. The skin puckered and closed in an instant. Wayne smelled caustic hydroxide and something all new. The effect stunned him flat.
“He was a pleasant young man and a knowledgeable amateur chemist. He had heard of me. He was curious about the anesthetic qualities of Haitian herbs, particularly their pain-killing and flame-retardant potential.”