Born in Salt, page 28
Second time went a lot better. “‘Whiskey Before Breakfast’?” I suggested afterward.
She chuckled. “I don’t recommend it. You don’t wanna end up like Mr. Haskins.”
“Why not? He’s happy and does what he wants.”
When Sarah was elsewhere, I wrote love letters to Talitha, although I couldn’t give a return address. My hand shook, making my bad handwriting worse.
I asked for more morphine, but Beth would only give me the bare minimum, not enough to get high.
“You’d get a lot sicker quitting outright,” she said. “It might even kill you. But if I give you any more, your system won’t clean.”
Jake and I conversed frequently. Even after death he was a talker.
I’m glad you found a replacement for Rachel. It was creepy, you trying to replace me.
Rachel’s smart and brave and beautiful. Nothing to do with you.
You never were any good at self-control.
You should never have left her and re-enlisted. That’s the stupidest thing anyone in our family’s ever done, and we’ve done a lot of stupid things.
I know. Forgive me. I hope Rachel will forgive me.
You’re in my head. I have to forgive you.
I closed my eyes and pretended Talitha was in bed with me and we lived in my farmhouse and there were no banks or Insects or Pinkertons.
* * *
When we weren’t playing music, Sarah and I read from the books Paul had brought from Chicago.
“When Rachel and me first joined up,” I told her, “Paul said there’d be a big attack this August, to disrupt the 50th anniversary celebrations.”
“Yep.”
“Is our cell taking part in that?”
“Everyone is. We haven’t decided the particulars yet, though.”
Or maybe she wasn’t supposed to tell me. “What if it’s a setup? Aaron said Biafra’s working for the government.”
She huffed. “And you believe a word that man says? Besides, the cells are all independent. No one knows what we’ll do. Hell, we don’t even know yet.”
Smash cravings amplified my anxieties. “August is eight months away. Rachel should be the priority now. I don’t know how much time she has.”
Sarah reached over and patted my knee. “I’m working on it.”
* * *
Someone rapped on my bedroom door. Sarah entered before I could respond. Paul followed her, carrying a typewriter and stack of white paper. He set them on the small desk in my room. “Happy 1984.”
I sat up. My sheets were soaked with sweat again. “That was days ago. And I’ve got nothing to be happy about.”
“You look like shit, that’s for sure.”
I hadn’t shaved since Talitha left, and didn’t have much energy or appetite. At least the hollowness and cravings were less desperate now, like I’d settled into acceptance, and Beth’s pills helped me sleep.
Sarah sat on the foot of the bed, squeaking the springs. “Here’s something that might make you happy. We’re postponing Beth and Mary’s missions and we’ll find a way to help Rachel.”
My fatigue disappeared. I squeezed her hand. “You are the best.”
Sarah smiled but Paul didn’t. He adjusted the brim of his fedora. “There’s too much scrutiny from Internal Security and Pinkertons now, so we decided to stay quiet a couple of months. And see if we can get them to leave. We can’t let them interfere with the 50th anniversary campaign.”
I threw aside the damp sheets and swung my legs onto the floor. “You’ll help Rachel, though? Like you promised?” My nose started to run, one of my countless withdrawal symptoms.
Paul stayed still as a statue. “That was a promise to a comrade, not a government snitch.”
I wiped my nose with a handkerchief. “I never snitched on you. I’m on your side. Didn’t I prove that with Aaron?”
“Maybe.”
Sarah interrupted. “Okay, enough. I trust Ben, and we’ve already decided we want Rachel freed.”
Paul shifted on his feet. “Yes, we did. But it’s a lot more difficult and complicated than anything else we’ve done so far. We’ll have to agree on each facet, probably split up the work. And we can’t get caught, that would make all our efforts pointless.”
“We won’t,” I said. “Let’s get started.” I’d promised Talitha I’d been done in two weeks—stupidly optimistic of me—and had already wasted nearly half of that. And Lewison wasn’t exactly patient; the longer I took, the more likely he’d give up and have Rachel lobotomized.
I sat at the typewriter to give myself something less panicky to think about. It was black and silver and tinged with rust. “What’s this for?”
“There’s one for Aaron too,” Paul said. “June bought them. Old, but they still work.”
He fed in a sheet of paper and turned the roller. “Both typewriters have quirks. Yours skips a space sometimes. Aaron’s has misaligned ‘d’ and ‘s’ keys. June bent the type bars with needlenose pliers so they’re slightly above the other letters. It will help identify his typewriter later.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “In case we want to type something that can be pointed to Aaron?”
“June said we’ll need a copy of something he wrote so we can duplicate his typing style too. So we’ll give him a typing book to practice with, and keep his discarded exercises.”
I hoped Paul didn’t plan to set me up the same way. “And why would he switch to a typewriter?”
“I’ll tell him orders from above. Reports have to be typed from now on. Easier to read.”
I tapped a key, printing a question mark on the paper. “I’ve never used one of these before.”
“Beth can teach you.”
I turned the desk chair so I could see Sarah too. It scraped against the wooden floor. “You’re positive Dr. Biafra is on the narrow?” I asked Paul.
“Yes. You know Sarah and trust her. She trusts me, and I trust Solomon. Therefore, you should trust Solomon.”
Sarah raised a thumb.
Those were a lot of links that had to be solid, but on the other hand, I had no reason to trust the Insects. They sowed suspicion of Biafra, manufactured atrocities like the Kansas City bombing, and got people to inform and spy on each other.
We could be sneaky too, only without committing mass murder. “I think one of Internal Security’s strategies is to spark internal war amongst the resistance,” I said.
“That is apparent,” Paul said.
“Then why don’t we do the same, create internal war among the elite? Unravel the threads that hold them together?” Something I’d been thinking about for a while.
He rubbed his chin. “We have a game plan already. But what you said—how would we do it?”
I thought back to twined snakes and The Charles Lindbergh Story. “The coup was carried out by politicians and paramilitary troops, organized and financed by rich industrialists and bankers, and supported by church leaders like Charles Coughlin and Gerald Smith. Those are still the three corners of the oligarchy—State, Business, and Church. What cracks between them can we pry open?”
Sarah gave me her ‘I’m impressed’ smile, which I’d only seen a handful of times the past nineteen years. “Jesus said it himself, ‘It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’”
“Yeah, and he threw the money changers out of the temple and called them thieves,” I said. “Why do Christians support the bankers then?”
“Religion is a distraction,” Paul said. “Always has been. Religious dogma keeps the elite in power, keeps the downtrodden from fighting injustice. If they turn the other cheek, their brainwashers say, everything will be perfect in some fairy-tale afterlife.”
Sarah shook her head as he spoke, then stared at him. “I pray you see the light before it’s too late.”
Paul huffed but otherwise ignored her. “I’m still working on Sarah,” he told me, “but you strike me as a fellow skeptic.”
“Let’s just say if there’s a God,” I responded, “he hasn’t done me any favors.”
Paul picked up my copy of The Roots of Injustice and held it like a secular Bible. “Religion is exploited by the powerful. Groups like the Dominionists say our leaders are blessed by God and everyone else should obey, like in medieval times.”
The Dominionists supposedly had a lot of influence with the elite, but they were only one church of many. “I still think we can turn these groups against each other,” I said. “You still have access to books or a printing press, right?”
“Why?”
“Can you get some anti-Christian books? Like about using witchcraft or devil worship to get ahead in business?” I had never seen any such books, but one of my Sunday school instructors insisted there were dangerous people out there who followed Satan.
Still sitting on the bed, Sarah scowled and leaned forward. “How’s that supposed to help anything?”
I scooted my chair closer and tried to explain. “We can plant evidence of Satanism and drug dealing that implicates Sheriff Johnson and First Consolidated Bank.”
Paul’s lips nearly formed a smile. “Revenge, huh?”
“The evidence doesn’t have to be strong enough to hold up in court, only in public opinion. Especially the opinion of zealous churchies. New Bethany isn’t Chicago.”
“I know,” he said. “I grew up here.”
“People talk. Tell someone a story, and before long, everyone in town knows it.”
Sarah nodded. “They sure love to gossip at my church.”
I remembered her complaining how ladies at First African Baptist had asked her mother why Sarah spent so much time hanging around white boys, whom she couldn’t marry.
“Is there anyone you can pass information to, without them mentioning your name?” I asked her.
Her forehead furrowed. “Keeping my name out will be the hard part, but I can think of some folk.”
“We have to reach white folk too.” They were the majority by ten to one and there wasn’t much socializing between blacks and whites.
“There’s also the barn circuit,” she said. “We know all the musicians and fans.”
“Yeah. And Preacher Bill’s church ladies, if I can find a go-between.” They gossiped more than anyone. I turned to Paul. “And maybe you could drop some hints at the bar.”
“The Deer Head’s a deputy hangout, you know. I have to be cautious.”
“We just need some gentle conversation nudges,” I said. “Like when you were recruiting me and Rachel, only less obvious.”
“I’d have to be a lot more subtle. You were already open then, and just needed a little structure.”
“We’re still on your side,” I reminded him again.
This was only the first phase of my plan to free Rachel and bring down my family’s persecutors, a plan still partly shrouded in mist. I had to be careful, though—anger the Insects while they still had Rachel, and they’d scoop out her brain.
* * *
Once Beth taught me how to use the typewriter, I tapped out a letter to Lewison. I made a lot of mistakes but didn’t correct them, to maintain his unimpressed opinion of me.
Dear Special Agent Lewison,
Got a typewriter. Takes longer but easier to read and more oficial looking.
I have news. Your coleague Agent Gray sent an informer also. His name is Aaron Little. I thought he was a subverive and turned him in to you, along with all those other people who you should have released Rachel for, but realy he works for Agent Gray. Maybe you know this. His job is to spy on me and try and take credit for any subversive that we find.We can work together though. He is very good at manipulation.
Lastly, I have some tro uble with the Pinkerton Dtective Agency and maybe county police. As I told you in my last letter, the First Consolidated Bank took my family farm and my father was killed when the sheriff and deputies came to throw everyone out. His death was an accident but it shouldnt have happened.
Heres the new info. The bank would not let me and my aunts have our family belo ngings even though there ours. So I went into the house and took some things. There was no one there to stop me and its my stuff so why not? I went to meet with Aaron and some Pinkertons chased me. They work for the bank and so does Sheriff Johnson and his deputies.
I cannot carry out my duties with Pinkertons and sheriff chasing me. And I cant go to my pops funeral if they come make a mess. Can you tell them to back off and leave me alone?
Your faithful servant,
Benjamin Adamson
* * *
I was in the kitchen chopping potatoes and carrots for dinner when I heard the front door unlatch. My fingers gripped the knife even though it was probably Micah or Beth.
“Just me.” Micah entered the kitchen—I’d guessed right. He had his white doctor’s coat on and was carrying his leather briefcase. “What are you making?”
“Stew. Enough for everyone.” I laid the knife on the cutting board.
Micah pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase. “Can I borrow your tape recorder?”
“Why?” My nose started running again and I wiped it with a damp handkerchief.
“Paul told me about your plan to drive wedges between the churches, banks and government. I can start the process.”
“How?”
He slid some glossy color photos out of the folder and arranged them on the counter. It was the man Aaron and I had dropped off at the hospital. His calf was rotted away, maggots crawling over blackened flesh and oozing red pulp and exposed bone. Remembering the stink nearly made me heave.
“We amputated the leg,” Micah said, “but he’s going to die anyway. His internal organs are failing. I’m going to give copies to the Bugle and the local churches, and talk to them about the drug scourge in town. I thought I’d record the conversations—maybe someone will criticize the government.”
“Good idea. Don’t say anything about Aaron, though. Or me.”
“Who should I say is responsible?”
“The addicts are making it themselves, but the government isn’t doing anything to stop it, and the pharmaceutical and chemical industries are hauling in money selling the ingredients. There’s no incentive to do anything.” This was all true as far as I could tell.
“What about Aaron being a government agent, recruiting addicts to spy on people?”
I did want to reveal that at some point, but the time wasn’t ripe yet. “Let’s save that for later.”
I went into the living room, Micah following, and lifted his wool overcoat off the hat stand. I tucked my tape recorder and microphone inside, and showed him how to use it.
“I’m taking the day off tomorrow,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
Hard to believe this was the same guy who’d pointed a gun at me. “Remember,” I said, “it’s a lot easier to say you don’t know the answer to a question than try to make up a lie.”
He nodded, but sweat beaded on his forehead.
* * *
The next night, while I was in bed re-reading On Leadership, Micah returned my tape recorder. He grinned. “June made copies of the tapes. Paul’s listening to them.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
“There was a lot of disgust. And questions why the government hadn’t banned the sale of the ingredients. The Methodist pastor thought we should treat the addicts. The Dominionist wanted to send them all to work camps.” He sighed. “Nothing blatantly seditious, though.”
I played the tapes on the recorder. Micah’s voice sounded tinny through the pinhead-sized speaker.
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” the newspaper editor said. “We can’t print a photo like that.”
As I was listening, the back door opened and closed. Sarah entered the bedroom. “Thought you’d find this of interest.” She unfolded two flyers and tossed them on the bed.
One had a photograph of the dead Pinkerton detective, with the name Everett Sherman beneath. The other had a picture of the dead woman, Veronica Burns. There was a $10,000 reward for their whereabouts.
Shit! “Where’d you find these?”
“A man in a gray suit was passing them out at the grocery store and talking to people. I acted busy and only mildly curious.”
“This man, was he a Pinkerton?”
Her eyes dropped into a ‘duh’ expression. “Wasn’t the milkman.”
Probably their families were frantic by now. “I wish Paul hadn’t killed them.”
She looked down and sighed. “Me too.”
The bodies were well hidden for now, beneath twenty feet of murky water and a layer of ice. But once the temperature warmed, people would start fishing and boating in the reservoir again. Would someone find the car, maybe snag it with a hook?
* * *
Paul arrived with a duffel bag, heavy by the grimace on his face. He set it on the bedroom floor and unzipped it. “Here’s your witchcraft books.”
“Where’d you get them?”
“Dropped at a cache upstate. I don’t know who does the printing and I don’t want to know.”
I wondered where his supply drop was, but he’d never tell me if I asked. I emptied the duffel bag, finding dozens of books, mostly duplicates.
The first, a short pamphlet, was titled Inno A Satana (Hymn to Satan). The left column of text was in some foreign language, the right column in English.
“Nineteenth century Italian poem,” Paul said, “a toast to Satan.”
Sounded as illegal as you could get. I picked up one of the thicker books, Principles and Practices of Black Magic.
