Our Man in the Dark (27 page)

I pour another . . .

And another . . .

Until my drink decides to drift into song, somehow becoming a guitar, and my bed a car driven by a white woman. She's attractive in a very plain and conventional sort of way. She smiles at me, “Play,” she says. “Play more.” I go back to work, plucking and strumming a blues song I've never heard, but her smile disappears when she looks in the rearview
mirror. I look behind us and see a pickup truck gaining on us very fast. We're on a desolate stretch of road, just us and trees and the truck.

She looks at me with dread in her eyes, “Don't stop playing,” she says.

I continue, even as the truck pulls up alongside us and reveals its occupants. Strobe drives with both hands at the wheel, never taking his eyes off the road, while Mathis aims his shotgun at us. When he pulls the trigger, I spill what's left of the scotch in my lap.

They were already in my life and in my head before I was even aware of it. Now they are in my dreams. I look around my place and begin to find its simplicity deceptive. I grab the lamp on the nightstand and run my hand along the inner circumference of the shade, unscrew the bulb and inspect the socket, then remove the felt from the bottom and look inside. Nothing. I remove the phone from its cradle and dismantle the receiver. I inspect the perplexing wires and magnets like a flummoxed caveman, and then when I realize there is nothing sinister inside, I put the casing back on. I feel foolish. I was so sure I'd find something.

“John?”

At first, the voice strikes me like that of God coming from a burning bush, then I come to the horrific realization that the agents have planted something in my head—some sort of transmitter while I was asleep. Then I leave that scary place and come back to reality, back to the reassembled phone still in my hand, and hear my name come from it once more.

“Hello,” I say, placing it to my ear.

“John?”

“Yes.”

“I hope I'm not interrupting you while you were reading your Bible . . .”

“No, you're not. I was just—”

He lets out a laugh. “Well, anyway, brother, I'm just calling to tell you I appreciated those suggestions you made regarding Chicago a while back. I've been meaning to tell you for some time now. Although you met some resistance in the room, I've been thinking about it myself, and I want to thank you for your commitment. Of course, some details need to be ironed out, but I am thinking about it ever so seriously. There's a lot of good we can do up there, and I am glad you made us aware of what our focus should be, and not just the politics. We sometimes get caught up in
the mere strategy of things while ignoring our responsibility to humanity in general. So I just wanted to say thank you.”

“You're welcome, Martin, of course.”

“Well, that's that. I guess I'll let you get back to your Bible.” He laughs again, says, “Bye, now,” and hangs up.

Chicago? The word sounds foreign as it bounces around in my head, trying to adhere itself to a meaning—but then I remember. Chicago. The ideas of the old me, before I knew myself better.

After work, my Cadillac and the smoky smell of its leather interior usually offer a welcome retreat, but as I drive home, I only feel uncomfortable and conspicuous. Gant offered no tell of his decision—or that there was even one to be made—and his haughtiness had already returned.

“King Criticizes Hoover, FBI. Cites Lack of Negro Protection.” Since Martin's criticisms of the FBI went public, everyone at the SCLC has been bracing themselves for the inevitable retaliation.

“One of the great problems we face with the FBI in the South,” Martin said, “is that the agents are white Southerners who have been influenced by the mores of the community. If an FBI man agrees with segregation, he can't honestly and objectively investigate.” Obviously, Mathis and Strobe are not Southerners, but I didn't bother to point that out. The tension has already prompted a meeting between Martin and Hoover, and I'm sure Hoover made Martin aware of his inaccuracies.

I pull up to my building and see a white man parked in front. I get out, and as I walk closer, I realize that it's Mathis. I didn't recognize him at first. He's not in his usual G-man suit and tie, but a plaid hunting shirt and denim pants. Why is he here? He should receive my photos soon—if he hasn't already.

“Hello, Mathis . . .”

“Get in, John,” he says.

I don't move. I'm not sure what to make of his tone. I take a moment to read the potential consequences in his eyes. His poker face is excellent. “Get in,” he says again.

We are both silent as he drives. I think of Martin and the night those policemen put him in the back of their car: how they wouldn't tell him where they were taking him once downtown Montgomery and its jail faded behind them; the fear he felt,
like the closest thing to death while living,
as the dark unfamiliar roads only promised the most sinister destinations; and the absurd relief he felt once the sign that read
MONTGOMERY JAIL
became visible, and he realized that they had been toying with him.

I think of the woods where I saw Pete and that burning cross: how dark they were, and how many Negroes have disappeared never to be seen again. I wrestle with asking him where we are going, but I don't really want to know. That would just make the ride even more intolerable.

I don't have to suffer long as we approach his office. He parks in back, and then we go inside.

“Have a seat,” he says. I grab a chair, and he walks over to the file cabinet, reaches into the bottom drawer, and pulls out a bottle of liquor. “I guess we'll finally be having that drink,” he says. Two tin cups, the kind used for camping, follow the liquor. He wipes the dust off the cups with his shirt, places them on his desk, and starts to pour.

“I hope rye's okay,” he says.

“Yes, that's fine.”

He hands me the cup, I take a swallow, and it quickly fills me with enough heat and courage to ask questions.

“What are we doing here, Mathis?”

He brings his seat closer to mine, and we sit face to face, only an arm's length apart. He looks down while cradling his cup in his palm. “How do you people do it?” he asks.

“I don't know what you mean, Mathis. Do what?”

“How do you people pursue what you want—every impulse—no matter what people think of you?”

I'm taken aback by his question. I'm not sure if it is a compliment or an insult. “I don't know how to answer that, Mathis. I rarely think of ‘us' collectively—at least not in that sense.”

“Well, look at you. You're an accountant, but . . .”

I take a sharp short breath, my shoulders tighten, and I sit up in my chair.

“And even King,” he continues, “he's a preacher yet whenever he wants a woman—if she wants him—he just has her. Restraint. How do you people live without restraint?”

He's being sincere, but I still laugh. “I'm sorry, Mathis, but I can't get over a white man asking a Negro how we live without restraints.”

He smiles slightly. “Don't make fun of me,” he says. “When I think about Hoover and the rumors about him—and the life I think he would want to lead, but doesn't—part of me sees a hero. But then I think of the pain he must be under. The constant agony of not going after what he desires, then the other part of me thinks he's a fool.”

“Maybe he is a fool,” I say. “What is life without happiness?”

He lets out a short sigh. “You probably don't know what I'm getting at, but to hell with it. Nothing goes better with whiskey than a good secret. There were these rumors going around influential circles that Director Hoover was . . . a homosexual. Trusted agents were told to look into it and discredit the source. Some divorcee of a very wealthy man, a professional socialite essentially, told me that Hoover and Tolson, his assistant director, had attended an orgy in complete drag—dressed as women—demanding to be referred to only as ‘Mary' and ‘Alice,' and engaged in acts of sodomy. We had already known the woman was not credible, even before her interview—morphine addict, shock therapy, crazy stuff—so I let it pass. But then someone sends me this picture anonymously.”

I take a quick, hard swallow of my drink.

“Photographs of Hoover and Tolson having sex—if you can call it that. Photos. This goes way beyond some crazy woman saying she saw Hoover prancing around some hotel room in a dress. There were multiple photos of the two of them on the beach. Granted, they were blurry, and you couldn't quite tell it was Hoover, but the mind sees what it wants to see, especially after I learned of my Southern assignment. I didn't say anything; a good agent knows when to keep his mouth shut. But I wanted it to be true, goddamnit. If he was weak enough to go after what he wanted, it would have lifted a burden off my shoulders. I wanted the details, but damn that photo was grainy.
Not a concrete detail on it—just one vaguely masculine blur wrapped around another. Even now I think of that picture. I go over it in my mind, seeing if I missed some aspect that might give Hoover away.”

I think of Mrs. Mathis in the backseat of Lester's cab, smelling of gin and lavender perfume and spilling Hoover's nasty little secret. Even I had heard, and disregarded, those rumors about Hoover, but Mrs. Mathis's drunken candor gave them a new validity.

It must have infuriated Hoover no end when he learned of Martin's sexual habits, not because of the presumed moral objections, but out of envy. I don't know him, but he seems like a frightened man, rigid and unwilling to act on his desires. He has created an image for himself and the FBI that is inextricable. To be risky, even momentarily, is to risk everything. So then, how does he explain Martin, a man he views as a nuisance, and with at least as much at stake?

Listening to those tapes with Martin and a woman exchanging sounds of pleasure like pocket-sized notes, Hoover must have been a motionless, yet attentive, audience. Rewinding the reel over and over again, he listens. He's uncertain at first, but then he listens closer:
Yes, that is him
. He listens to Martin acting impulsively, indulgently, like a beast—a child—a man. He must not know whether to scream or applaud. Tolson, always the supportive one, must have placed a comforting hand on Hoover's sloped shoulder.

Martin's critical assessment of the FBI prompted the meeting with Hoover. Since there was no press in the room, who knows if Martin and Abernathy are being truthful when they offer the occasional detail at the office. But the encounter must have been hard for the old man. While they exchanged niceties and words limited by the formality of the setting, Hoover in the back of his mind must have been adding a visual narrative to the secret tapes of Martin.
Those sexual things . . . and with white women.
Some part of him, I'm sure, must have wanted to seek counsel from the young Negro. How does one maintain a fulfilling private life separate from the public one without people knowing? But Hoover stops there when he realizes that he himself knows, and that alone is one person too many.

Even though Mathis talks about Hoover, this is really about the girl. He wants to gossip about the fairy so he won't have to talk about himself.
Maybe I acted too harshly—the photographs may have been over the top. I'm not used to this, but I think he's reaching out to me. He's trying to connect. I'm no expert, but it seems that despite everything, he wants me to see him as human.

I don't add anything, I just nod knowingly. For some reason, that takes Mathis out of his conversational mood.

“It's funny,” he says, “but you don't seem surprised. Why is that?”

“I guess I expected it,” I say.

“How?” he asks quickly.

“After working with Gant I looked for signs, characteristics. Hoover seems a bit . . . foppish, don't you think?”

His face relaxes and he leans back in his chair. “Yeah, I guess it is noticeable if you know how to look. You do know that Hoover's going to go harder on him, right? And it's not just the comments in the press, and the women—he knows what King really thinks of him. That he's senile and too old and broken down to continue as director. That pressure should be put on the president to censure him.”

“I've never heard Martin say anything like that.”

“Maybe you haven't, but I have.”

“Why bring me here and tell me all of this, Mathis? You don't have to do this. I
know
you don't want to do this. You still have a choice. Freedom or servitude. Instead of meeting in secrecy, we can get out of here and have a drink together in public. We're both caught up in some shit we're better than, Dick. Right now, we can be more than just the men we want to be; we can be the men that we are. Let's get out of here, you and me. I know a place where guys like us can have a good time.”

“Guys like us? You think we're the same?”

“I know that we are.”