A pang of guilt hits me in my stomach. I reach out to her. I want to pull her close, but she just waves me away. She wants to continue her story without me touching her.
“He doesn’t think it’s you, though,” she says. “Thought it was Count. He thought that money meant that I was leaving him. That Count still had control of me. He said I was still Count’s whore.”
Lester has done a lot for me up to this point. Maybe in some way I owe him, but I’ve never wished harm on a person more than I do now. Despite his size, his training as a professional fighter, if Lester were in front of me right now I’d try my best to kill him.
“Just sit down. Let’s talk about it.” I lead her to my bed and sit next to her.
“I don’t have any place to go, John. I can’t go back to Count.”
“Well, you can stay here,” I say. “You’ll stay here and I’ll take care of you.” Our eyes tangle in shared gaze. For the first time, I think she understands what I mean. She smiles, wipes away a tear, and nods, “Okay.”
I brushed back a strand of her hair that’s fallen over the cheek bruised by Lester. I think about how this could all be different. This whole ordeal has generated a newfound understanding of my life and the world. I want to share that with her. All the mistakes I’ve made in the past will be forgotten. My new chapter with Candy begins now.
My phone rings. Reluctantly, I pull away from Candy to answer it.
“Hello?”
He seems frantic and desperate in a way that I’ve never heard him before. He says he wants to see me—an urgent matter. It snaps me out of my love lust. He wants to meet at his house—his house, for God’s sake. I don’t even tell him I have company. “I’m on my way.”
I told her to make herself at home, lie down in my bed and rest a bit, and I’d be back very soon to take care of her. She said she understood, that I should do what I had to do and not to worry about her.
When I arrive at his house, I wait inside my car for a moment, staring at the brick portico. I take a deep breath before I get out and make my way to his front door.
“Come in,” he says. “Coretta and the children are not here. It’s just the two of us.”
They let him out of the hospital at his insistence. He looks a bit feverish, but I can’t tell if it’s because of whatever’s troubling him or a preexisting condition. I enter and he gives two quick looks outside to the left and right before closing the door. I look over his home methodically, making sure to take in everything: the wallpaper in his living room with its baroque roses and endlessly swirling leaves, the nicked and scratched but well-polished wood of his piano, the yellowing sheets of “Amazing Grace” on the music rest, the modest dining room with a portrait of Gandhi above the dining table, which has now been turned into a desk that he’s been putting to use. Books sit in stacks—Niebuhr, Gandhi, Whitman, a book about the Korean War—next to a well-used ashtray, a legal pad, and a few balls of crumpled paper. All of this, and just a few days out of the hospital. I look over at the pad and try to make out what’s written on it without appearing intrusive. Something about the Vietnam conflict . . . poverty . . . peace.
I was blinded by the excitement of being in his home. I didn’t see that everything is in disarray: shades removed from their lamps, the sofa, now separated from its cushions and their exposed stuffing, drawers overturned, papers and clothes on the floor, tables with their legs in the air like road kill.
This is only the aftermath, but I know the kind of fear that prompts such frenzied panic.
“John, are you listening to me?”
I snap out of it. “I’m sorry, Martin. What did you say?”
“This. This is what I found. Do you know what this is?”
I open my palm and he drops a small metal cylinder in my hand. It seems dented, like he tried to smash it. I know exactly what it is, but I ask him to identify it for me anyway.
“It’s a listening device,” he says. “They’re bugging my home. They’ve gotten inside, John. I called you because you seem like you’d understand. I think I can talk to you. Some people at the SCLC . . . I don’t know if I could trust them anymore.”
That word “trust” makes me uncomfortable. Was Gant being truthful when he said that Martin was suspicious of me?
“Wait,” he says. “They could be listening.” Stepping over the wreckage, Martin goes over to his phonograph, removes the vinyl from its sleeve, and Mahalia Jackson’s booming voice fills the house.
When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high. And don’t be afraid of the dark . . .
He returns and gets very close to me as if preparing to tell a secret. “They think I’m losing my mind. Paranoid. Going insane. Yes, I’m under a great deal of pressure. But I’m no fool—this is more than just some lousy mercenaries who work for Hoover.”
I think about all the bugs in this house that Martin has not found, and what Mathis and Strobe will think of being called mercenaries.
“I think somebody on the staff is working for the FBI. To get this close to my home? It may sound crazy, but I’ve known jealousy from my own people before. Especially in the leadership. The higher up people are, the more envious they become. You should have seen what I had to deal with during Montgomery. All the backbiting and backstabbing—and now Wilkins at the NAACP. I feel there are so few people I can trust. They don’t know that I’m aware of it, but there is a plot to replace me—have me step down with my sanity intact . . .”
I watch his face for a tell. Nothing. If he is toying with me, then he’s more persuasive than anyone could presume, and Hoover is outmatched.
“Martin, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to keep your ears open at the SCLC. Let me know what you hear. They’re getting too close to me. They know too much. They know more about me than my own wife. We need to look closer at who we allow to volunteer. Can you do that for me, brother? Can you help me?”
“Of course, Martin. I’d do anything you’d ask.”
“I’ve got to be more careful about who I associate with. How well do you know that girl you were with in Los Angeles? Candice, I believe it was . . .”
“Candy? I know her very well.” Our eyes collide and send off brief knowing sparks. “But she has nothing to do with this.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry, John. It just seems that after Los Angeles, a torrent of venom has descended upon us.”
I panicked that night at the hospital. I didn’t make my case as I’d planned, and the tension has been building up inside me. I want to tell him everything, even though I know it’s selfish of me to do so; I want to free myself of the burden and let him deal with it. He’s obviously a stronger man than I am. I’ll reassure him that no one would judge him if he chose to turn his back on the movement in order to save it from embarrassment.
“Martin, have you ever thought about stepping down? You’ve given practically a decade of your life, your marriage, your family, all sacrificed to the movement. You’ve won a Nobel, for heaven’s sake. Haven’t you done enough?”
Walk on through the storm. Walk on through the rain. Though your dream be tossed and blown . . .
He looks at me with those eyes that were once filled with dread—now filled with anger, irritation, and contempt. “Step down from what? I’m not the executive of an insurance company or the manager of a department store. Do you know what’s going on out there? I am just a soldier. God is the general. How do you turn your back on a revolution? Not you too, brother. Not you. Don’t start with that nonsense. This is bigger than being uncomfortable or inconvenienced. There are sacrifices we all had to put up with when we signed on. I know human frailty is a reality. I just need you to help me.”
“Where do you think this is headed, Martin? This won’t end happily.”
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart. And you’ll never walk alone. You’ll never walk alone . . .
“I’ve asked you to help me. This is how you can do it.” He gives me a dismissive l
ook. He’s said what he had to. Our conversation is over.
It’s time for me to go. I see that now. I wish my confrontation with Gant were so irreparably damaging that it would be impossible for me to return to work in the morning. I can’t work there any longer. God knows what would happen if I left, but being free of that place might do me some good. I wouldn’t have to deal with the pressure of managing all these secrets. And the agents—the agents would find me useless.
It surprises me, even as the idea warms up my brain, but LA sounds good to me now. Despite all the disappointment I suffered there, you’ve got to love a city that lets you down so often you stick it out just to see if your luck changes. Palm trees and sunshine, Candy in a bathing suit. I haven’t a clue what I’d do there, but I’d make it work.
The door to my apartment is ajar. I call out Candy’s name and reach for the light switch, but darkness persists. I slowly head toward the kitchen, which I can find thanks to the light from the streetlamp outside. I slip and fall to the floor. At first, I blame the goddamn brace, but then I feel wetness permeating my pants. I feel around. There is a puddle of warm liquid everywhere. I wipe my hands on my shirt and struggle to get up, but fall again. I get up once more and make my way over to the lamp. When I switch it on, I see that my floor is covered in blood, and so am I.
I see her there. Candice. What’s left of her face is badly beaten. No, not Count or one of his goons—it’s obviously the work of a skilled fighter. I reel back, trembling.
Lester.
Candice. I should have done more to protect her. I should have done more to protect her—from me, from the rest of us. I’m not sure what to do. Police are not an option. Then I see all the blood and shift from sadness to panic. Someone needs to help me with her, and someone needs to kill Lester. I hate to call him, but I don’t have much choice.
I didn’t give him any details over the phone. I just said that Candy’s in trouble. He must have known by my voice what that meant.
Count touches Candice’s forehead with a tenderness I’ve never seen from him before.
“I blame you for this. I should never have trusted you with her.”
I do feel responsible in some sense, but at the same time I’m sobered by the reality of a dead girl in my apartment—and Lester out there roaming free or planning a suicide that will rob Count and me of our retribution.
“I let her go with you to LA, and you ain’t even man enough to hold on to her. You let some other motherfucker take her, and you ain’t even man enough to protect her and see that she’s safe.”
“Count, I thought it was your job to protect her and see that she’s safe. You could’ve put an end to Lester at anytime. You chose to allow your little game to continue. You blame me? No, motherfucker, I blame you!”
Count lunges at me. I try to avoid him but the brace won’t budge. He grabs me by the throat. “I should’ve killed your ass a long time ago.”
I grab the lamp and smash it across his forehead. His grip loosens. He goes inside his coat and under his arm and comes back with a gun.
“Just remember that Lester is still out there,” I sputter out with my hands in front of my face.
Count blinks rapidly as blood runs from the cut on his forehead. I find satisfaction in knowing I caused it. He pushes me out of his way and goes for the door.
“Wait, damnit. Where are you going? What about her?”
He looks at her, then quickly turns away. “I’ll take care of Lester. You take care of her. Maybe you’ll get it right this time,” he says as he walks out.
Lester worked her over good. Probably nothing fancy, just a bunch of straights and hooks. She looks like an overripe fruit. Her face is sunken in places, like the bones underneath gave way. I guess at some point he had some mercy to offer: she’s still recognizable.
Seeing her like this, I realize I haven’t done her justice. While telling my own story, I neglected hers. It may be too late, I’m not sure that it is, but I feel that it’s my duty—as a final gift—to give her a voice. “Nobody hates themselves like they do,” she said to me. I can hear her now, but her voice isn’t coming from her or that little place she shared with Lester. All I see are the spinning wheels of a tape machine. In fact, her voice now bombards my mind, but it doesn’t sound real—it’s muffled by the crackle and hiss of recording tape, but it’s her. It’s definitely her.
I still don’t know what to do, but I don’t have to worry about that as my door opens slowly and two dark figures appear. Mathis and Strobe walk in with their guns drawn. They must have heard everything.
“You really fucked up now,” Mathis says while staring at Candice’s body. “At least cover her up with a sheet, for Christ’s sake.”
I grab the blanket off my bed and do as instructed. I think about that recording device I found. I had destroyed it, but of course, there were others.
“Get the stuff out of the car,” Mathis tells Strobe.
Strobe walks out and then returns a few moments later with peroxide, towels, and gloves. Mathis pours the peroxide wherever he sees blood. Pink, hissing foam appears, and the air is fouled by a putrid-sweet metallic smell. The agents put on gloves, get on their knees, and begin to wipe frantically with the towels. I stand there marveling at the image of the two of them cleaning my floor.
They finish minutes later, covered in sweat.
“Got to get rid of that carpet,” Strobe says, out of breath.
“I know,” says Mathis. “We’ll roll her up in it. Let’s get her in the trunk.”
Mathis looks at his watch then looks at Strobe. “We’ve been monitoring them all day. It’ll fit. We can still make it,” Mathis says to Strobe. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
Strobe furrows his brow, “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” answers Mathis to both questions.
Strobe looks as if he were deciding whether or not to draw his pistol, but it soon passes, and they wrap up Candy in my rug and carry her out to their car.
I look around my apartment. The agents did a good job. It’s as if nothing has happened—as if the only crime committed was that my rug was stolen. I can get over losing the rug. I can move on like none of this ever happened. I think about my new life, and I decide to start now, but then Mathis returns. He startles me. For some reason when he walked out, I thought I’d never see him again. “Get yourself together,” he says. “Let’s go.”
As the city lights recede behind us, I know that we are headed for the woods. It’s the perfect place to get rid of Candice—and me—but I don’t panic. I know that I am outmatched, and I have accepted it. I’ll accept whatever else this night has to offer. Everything that’s happened has brought about a hypervigilance, and I notice Mathis struggling to speak softly to Strobe.
“Strobe, you can’t get soft on me now,” Mathis says as he drives. “We have to do this. This isn’t about him, it’s about us. If it ever got out that one of our informants had a dead girl found in his apartment, we’d be lucky if Hoover let us clean the toilets in a field office in Alaska.”
“I get it, Mathis. Stop trying to sell it, for Christ’s sake.”
“If you get it, then act like it and stop sulking.”
Mathis takes a dirt road that leads us through a densely wooded area that gives way to an open field. There is nothing but field, night sky, and a large but decaying old house.
“Don’t want to get too close. Now, we just wait,” Mathis says, staring through the windshield. Strobe turns to him and slowly shakes his head with a sigh.
I think of Candice in the trunk, wrapped in a rug stained with her blood. I tremble and sob softly.
“There they are,” Mathis says. Two white men leave the house. “Just on time. They’re headed for the rally. The tall one’s Billingsley. We’ve got to be quick. I don’t know when they’ll be back.”
Tall and gaunt, Billingsley is all sinew, like a wiry scarecrow come to life. Even though he’s short, Cullworth is al
l rounded muscle. My bet is that he inflicted most of the damage to that couple.
“Let’s just bury her in the woods,” Strobe says. “What’s the fucking difference at this point?”
“No. We have to try to make this right. Take a good look at their faces, boys. Think about that couple they killed, and how Billingsley and Cullworth would have hurt that girl in the trunk.”
“Candice,” I say. “Her name is Candice.”
“Candice,” Mathis says. “Think about how much they would have loved hurting her.”
With Candice in the trunk and the ominous silence of the woods, my mind is unraveling. I can’t stand waiting in the car any longer. The agents have already broken into the home of Billingsley and Cullworth, so I get out and find them. Inside, there are copies of the “If I Go to Jail” speech by L. G. Maddox and other segregationist pamphlets, scattered on a hand-me-down chest of drawers, too old and weathered to be considered antique. License tags with the Confederate flag and several “Goldwater ’64” bumper stickers adorn the walls. Their idea of decorating, I guess. Even cans of the novelty Gold-Water soft drink rest in a milk crate. Strobe mutters “Goddamnit” as he trips over an axe handle with no axe: the defiant symbol of segregation made popular, once again, by L. G. Maddox.
Mathis tears the place apart, throwing clothes and knocking pictures of horse-mounted Confederates and old white people of the Grant Wood variety off the wall.
“I don’t see anything incriminating, at least not any evidence,” Strobe says, peeking under a shirt with his foot. “What are we looking for, exactly?”
Mathis turns to him. “Don’t do this to me now. Not right now. Do you need me to tell you how to be an agent? We’ve got two murderers on our hands. They killed two people—a couple—and that poor girl in our trunk. Do you really need me to tell you what we’re looking for? We need the guitar that Pete said Cullworth couldn’t part with,” says Mathis.
“Mathis, what the hell is happening to you? We’ve got a dead colored girl in our trunk and you’re looking for a goddamn guitar? He probably pawned the fucking thing already.”
Our Man in the Dark Page 23
