Pete kicked the bedpost. The stat board fell.

"Have Mesplede interrogate the rest of the slaves. We might learn something that way."

Wayne stood up. "Get some rest, boss. You look tired."

Pete smiled. Pete grabbed Wayne's chair. Pete snapped the back slats.

Wayne clapped.

Pete said, "Rest, shit."

Barb danced. Barb obliged horny sailors. They swarmed her. They cut in. They swarmed three per song.

Canned songs/all staples/service club stock. "Sugar Shack"/surf shit/the Watusi.

Wayne watched. Barb's hair bounced. Wayne saw new grays in the red. "Surf City" tapped out. Sailors clapped. Barb walked on back.

Wayne pulled her chair out. She sat down. She lit a match.

"I want a cigarette."

Wayne plucked those new grays. Barb made an uggh face. Wayne sheared a few reds.

"You'll get over it."

Barb lit the grays. They pooled and burned up.

"I should go home. If I stay, I'll start seeing things I don't like."

"Like our business?"

"Like the boy three wards down with no arms. Like the boy who got lost and got napalmed by his own guys."

Wayne shrugged. "It goes with the job."

"Tell Pete that. Tell him, 'The next one might kill you, if the war doesn't get you first.'"

Wayne plucked a gray. "Come on. He's better than that."

Barb lit a match. Barb lit the hair. Barb watched it burn.

"Get him out. You and Ward know the guys who can make it happen."

"They won't go for it. Pete's in hock, and you know why."

"Dallas?"

"That and the fact that he's too good to let go."

A sailor bopped by. Barb signed his napkin. Barb signed his jumper sleeve.

She lit a match. "I miss the cat. Vietnam gets me mushy for Vegas."

Wayne checked her hair. Perfect--all red now.

"You'll be home in three days."

"I'll kiss the ground, believe me."

"Come on. It's not that bad."

Barb snuffed the match. "I saw a boy who lost his equipment. He was joking with a nurse about the Army buying him a new one. The second she walked out, he started to cry."

Wayne shrugged. Barb tossed the match. It hit him. It stung. Barb walked. Sailors watched her. Barb walked to the john.

"Sugar Shack" kicked on. Time warp--that song on Jack Ruby's jukebox.

Barb walked out. A sailor braced her. He was colored. He was tall. He looked like Wendell D.

Barb danced with him. They danced semi-slow. They shared some contact.

Wayne watched.

They danced nice. They danced hip. They danced by the table. Barb was loose. Barb was cool. Barb wore white dust on her nose.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 9/16/65. Verbatim FBI telephone call transcript. (OPERATION BLACK RABBIT Addendum.) Marked: "Recorded at the Director s Request" / "Classified Confidential 1-A: Director's Eyes Only." Speaking: Director, BLUE RABBIT.

DIR: Good morning.

BR: Good morning, Sir.

DIR: Let's discuss WILD RABBIT's work in Mississippi. The oxymoronic phrase "Redneck Intelligence Network" comes to mind.

BR: WILD RABBIT has been doing well, Sir. Our stipends have allowed him to recruit and secure intelligence, and FATHER RABBIT has supplied him with funds as well. He told me that he's donating a portion of his hate-tract profits to WILD RABBIT's incursion.

DIR: And the well-funded WILD RABBIT is achieving results?

BR: He is, Sir. His Regal Knights have been infiltrating other hate groups and supplying WILD RABBIT with information. I think we'll have some mail-fraud indictments before too long.

DIR: FATHER RABBIT's donations are in part self-serving. He aids WILD RABBIT's cause and depletes the resources of his hatetract rivals.

BR: Yes, Sir.

DIR: Is WILD RABBIT remaining tractable?

BR: He is, although I've learned that he's running weaponry to Pete Bondurant's narcotics cadre. As I understand it, he secures the weapons from armory heists and army base pilfering, which is odd, because I haven't been able to find any recently filed reports on such incidents, anywhere in the south.

DIR: Yes, odd does describe it. That said, do you think WILD RABBIT will retain an acceptable level of deniability pertaining to his gun-running activities?

BR: I do, Sir. But should I tell him to stop?

DIR: No. I like his connection to Bondurant. Remember, we'll be approaching Le Grand Pierre when we move BLACK RABBIT into the shakedown phase.

BR: I heard that he had a heart attack last month.

DIR: A pity. And the prognosis?

BR: I think it's guardedly positive, Sir.

DIR: Good. We'll let him recover and then add some stress to his overtaxed arteries.

BR: Yes, Sir.

DIR: Let's discuss CRUSADER RABBIT. Have you accrued any substantive data?

BR: Yes and no, Sir. We've gotten nothing off the spot tails and the trash and mail covers, and I'm convinced that he's too technically skilled to bug and tap. He's retained his friendship with PINK RABBIT and visits him in D.C., which is hardly incriminating, since you urged him to do so.

DIR: Your tone betrays you. You're tantalizing me. Shall I hazard a guess?

BR: Please do, Sir.

DIR: Your revelations pertain to CRUSADER's women.

BR: That's correct, Sir.

DIR: Expand your answers, please. I have a lunch date in the year 2000.

BR: CRUSADER has been seeing Janice Lukens, FATHER RABBIT's ex-wife, in Las-- DIR: We know that. Pray continue.

BR: He lives with a woman in Los Angeles. Her alleged name is Jane Fentress.

DR: "Alleged" is correct. I helped to establish her identity two years ago. A New Orleans agent planted her college transcript.

BR: There's much more to her, Sir. I think she could serve as our wedge if we need to disrupt CRUSADER.

DIR: Expand your thoughts. The millennium bodes.

BR: I had her spot-tailed. My man took a set of prints off a glass she left at a restaurant. We ran them and got her real name, Arden Louise Breen, B-R-E-E-N, married name Bruvick, B-R-U-V-I-C-K.

DIR: Continue.

BR: Her father was a left-wing unionist. The Teamsters killed him in '52, and it's still a St. Louis PD unsolved. Allegedly, the woman held no grudge against the Teamsters, allegedly because her father forced her to become a call-house prostitute. She absconded on a KCPD receiving stolen goods warrant in '56, at the same time her husband embezzled some money from a Kansas City Teamster local and disappeared.

DIR: Continue.

BR: Here's the ripe part. Carlos Marcello's front corporation bailed her out on the Kansas City bounce. She disappeared then, she's got a bookkeeping background, and she's rumored to have had a long-term affair with that old Mob hand Jules Schiffrin.

DIR: Boffo news, Dwight. Well worth your vexing preambles.

BR: Thank you, Sir.

DIR: I think your tale boils down to one salient truth. Carlos Marcello does not trust CRUSADER RABBIT.

BR: I came to that conclusion, Sir.

DIR: Pull the tails, along with the trash and mail covers. If we need to get at CRUSADER, we'll go through the woman.

BR: Yes, Sir.

DIR: Good day, Dwight.

BR: Good day, Sir.

86.

(Saravan, 9/22/65)

Torture: Six slaves strapped down. Six Cong-symps wired. Six hot seats / six juice buttons / six testicle feeds.

Mesplede worked the juice box. Mesplede ran the juice. Mesplede asked the questions. Mesplede talked franglogook.

Pete watched. Pete chewed Nicorette gum. It was wet and hot--rainstorm boocoo. The hut sponged heat. The hut stored heat. The hut was a hot-plate boocoo.

Mesplede talked gook. Mesplede talked threat. Mesplede talked fast. His words slurred--gobbledeGOOK.

Pete knew the gist. Pete wrote the script. Pete read six faces.