Bad Night Is Falling (14 page)

“
Gentlemen, given the onset of evening, may I offer something stouter than water?” DeKovan held his six-foot-plus frame in the doorway, one hand on each knob. His pale eyes flitted over the gathered, a baron taking stock of the nobles under his sway
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“
You okay, Bill?” Yorty said, digging at Parker. This was May, and the chief was scheduled to return to work in June. But the operation, and the heavy shots he'd grown accustomed to after years in the top spot, had ravaged the once-dynamic man
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“
Fine,” the chief laconically managed. His hand was gripping the crown of his cap, pushing it back and forth on the table in short strokes like someone getting his arm ready for a shuffleboard match
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“
Have a seat, H.H.,” McCain intoned flatly. “Let's save the drinks for after the meeting, and see if we indeed have something to celebrate
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“
As you say, Tommy.” DeKovan made sitting down look like a command performance
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Yorty, smiling, patted the side of his greying, but still wavy hair. McCain couldn't abide his blue-blood name being butchered
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“
Yeah, I've got to be out in Gardena by six,” Parker growled. “I got a speech to do before the Satozo Block Club Association
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“
Maybe you should take Lindsey with you,” one of the Merchants and Manufacturers reps cracked. Over a cigar he was lighting he added, “Bad as he likes Oriental pussy, you might have to take that little bastard in handcuffs, Bill.” That brought a round of laughter, except from Toombs, who looked uncomfortable
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DeKovan allowed a proper pause for the guffaws then raised his hand imperiously for attention. “Alright, this is one more in a series of these meetings the committee has had since the unpleasantness in Watts several months ago.” A few more laughs punctuated his statement
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Before DeKovan could continue, the hallway door opened, and a medium-built, bespectacled man with a jiggling stomach entered, handling a thick file folder. He was wearing a plain suit with a checkered bow tie. “Apologies, apologies,” he rushed out, taking a seat near Yorty. “Mr. Mayor,” the hurried man acknowledged
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The mayor nodded briefly at the newcomer. He had a suspicion who he was, seems he'd met him somewhere recently
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“
We had just begun,” DeKovan said for the benefit of the late arrival. “In case everyone here doesn't know him, I'd like to introduce Davis Shaw, producer of the ‘Mannion Forum' radio program
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There were the requisite hellos, and Yorty watched Parker for his reaction. The chief grunted something but otherwise made no other sound, nor did he turn his head in Shaw's direction. Parker was a frequent guest on the show, a program sponsored by the Birchers. Especially in the weeks after the riot last summer, Parker had stepped up his rhetoric about outside agitators and Mao-spouting intellectuals as the instigators of the burnings
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“
So the Committee of Interests has been meeting and mapping out various strategies in the wake of this”—DeKovan waved vaguely in a southerly direction—“and other matters. Last December, with some discreet input from us, and of course the, how shall I say, camisado participation of the chief—a recovering chief, I emphahsize—the December 1965 McCone Commission report offered a palatable version of the causes of the Watts riot
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“
Yeah, it blamed the coons for causing the ghetto,” the man puffing out cigar smoke cackled
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Unfazed, DeKovan went on over soft laughter. “This summer our city will be hosting the fifty-eighth annual governors' conference. A little more than a year ago, it looked as if Pat Brown was a given for reelection as governor. Now, following the riots—and the handy defeat of Roosevelt's son by our mayor to retain his post—the continued regime of the liberal Brown seems precarious
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“
I start with the long view to zero in on the particular. The hot winds of last August have been sniffed by the patricians of the Valley, and they don't like the way the wind is blowing
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“
Now we're getting to it,” Parker groused
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“
Yes we are, Chief,” DeKovan placated. “With our aid, and the aforementioned anxiety from the homeowners and parents who were in World War II or Korea, we can foresee a conservative rise. Indeed, specific to our interests, we can predict an ushering in of a business-friendly climate
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“
But we have to give them preachers and professional Negro agitators something,” Yorty said irritably. Goddamn DeKovan always had to belabor the obvious. “With them kow-towing, or at least satisfied that changes are happening, they become the political buffer against the rock throwers and mau maus
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“
And don't you all forget,” he added, pointing east, “down here across the Fourth Street Bridge, them Mexicans are taking note. This instability isn't confined to just Watts
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“
The Black Panthers have already opened an office on Central Avenue,” Davis Shaw blurted with impatience like a hyperactive child. “We have unimpeachable documentation that proves they're receiving $4,000 a month from the Soviet Politburo.” Shaw started to assemble some papers from his file
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“
We'll get to that in its proper time, Davis,” DeKovan said, eyeing the Bircher hard
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He heard, but continued to collate his “facts
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“
Anyway,” DeKovan continued, “as the mayor has reminded us, we're here today to map out the next steps for the following four months. For as we know, not only is there a continuing yammering from the likes of those living south of the Coliseum, there's the incessant demand from the members of the Johnson Administration to have some of these New Deal/Great Society policies implemented in Los Angeles
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“
I don't give a rusty fuck what bone we throw the wooly-heads or the beaners.” Parker reared back in his chair, his face an unhealthy hue from anger and alcohol and sickness. “I got my ass over here today to tell all of you there's some heads to be put on the spike in front of City Hall if we ‘re going to make sure things don't get out of hand again
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“
But we have to be subtle,” Toombs warned
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Parker snorted. “Like you, huh?
”

Toombs's face became wood, his hatred for the man evident. “Everyone here doesn't think like you, Parker. Some of us actually believe there's some valid issues raised by responsible negro leaders like Bayard Rustin
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“
You would use him for an example,” the man with the cigar piped in, snickering
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DeKovan made a cutting gesture with the flat of his hand in the manner of John Kennedy as he talked. “Nonetheless, Mr. Toombs is on point. We want what's good for business and the law wants order. Conversely, pragmatic negro leadership knows change will come, but it has to come at a pace to accommodate the will of the majority. They, like us, also realize as business blossoms, so do opportunities for black workers in blue-collar, factory situations and public sector employment. And many of this deliberate leadership agree that progress will only happen by excising this radical element. An element that ultimately holds the negros' aspirations back while advancing a foreign philosophy antithetical to their culture
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“
Wilkenson,” Parker barked
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“
Easy, Bill,” Yorty soothed mockingly
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“
Fletcher Wilkenson,” DeKovan echoed. “Somehow, Mr. Wilkenson escaped the spotlight during the realignment of forces that took place here in the late fifties when our friends in the real estate concerns helped get the good mayor elected.” DeKovan made sure the gathered saw his pale orbs float in the direction of Parker, then back to center
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The LAPD chief, beads of whiskey sweat collecting on his temple, hadn't missed the slight. “Wilkenson was small potatoes in those days. A greenhorn college boy who was little more than a file clerk
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“
So was Hiss, before he became head of the Carnegie Foundation,” McCain reminded everyone
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“
Exactly,” DeKovan interjected, forestalling further verbal tangents. “The reality of 1966 finds Fletcher Wilkenson as a regional manager in the Housing Authority. He's got an office down in the Rancho Tajuata Housing Projects not five miles from this boardroom
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“
Sumabitch's been all over the place since the riots,” Cigar Man said derisively. “Cover of Look, interviews with goddamn Walter Cronkite, debating Joe Pine—hell, making Pine seem like a loon on his own radio show. All the time talking about changes he wants to institute in the public housing program in bettering the status of poor people. Onsite job training centers, vouchers to encourage hillbillies down in Maywood and Bell to come live there in interracial harmony. Goddamn,” the man finished, as if the very notion of such a thing was blasphemy
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“
He's also taken members of gangs and put them to work in various projects.” Shaw leaned forward earnestly. “He's got coloreds and Mexicans painting and plastering in a couple of those projects like they were meant to be working together. And afterwards, he has them attending classes at these projects supposedly for reading and writing and discussion of community issues.” Shaw spat out the words like a bad taste. “But it's really indoctrination sessions like King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference did down South
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Toombs said, “Not all of his ideas come out of Moscow or Peking. Hell, I've heard some of you talk about instituting similar efforts after the riots. Harwick here”—he pointed at the sharp-dressed man—“has talked about the need to train workers for the future to stay ahead in the world marketplace
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“
And I stand by that,” the other man emphasized. “The question is, can we tolerate a crimson pirate like Wilkenson being in the position to raid our ideas, twist them, and get credit for them?
”

The sepulchral smiles on the men's faces provided the answer
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“
Then what's the plan?” the Merchants and Manufacturers representative asked, stubbing out his smoked cigar
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“
Graham Greene wrote, ‘Any victim demands allegiance.' Wilkenson is popular, inside and outside of Los Angeles. His removal must be seen as a desire on his part to go. Our hand in this must, by necessity, be nigh invisible
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Shaw erupted excitedly. “Through our media contacts, we can leak his membership in Communist front organizations, the Civil Rights Congress, his board position with the ACLU, and his strident support of school integration
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Yorty disliked—and distrusted—eager overachievers. His climb had been steady, if somewhat distracted in his brief fling as a New Dealer in the thirties. Sure, he aligned himself with the right crowd, rode the strong horse to ford the too-often dangerous waters of big-city politics. He'd done alright for himself since those hardscrabble times growing up in Nebraska. He spoke for the whites who'd worked hard to be part of the God-fearing, mortgage-paying, middle-class Valley stock. His own group, the Lydia Homeowners Association, were a concrete example of his aspirations and fears
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The Birchers may have their use, but to his Midwestern soul, they were just a bunch of armchair conspiracists who'd never had to dig an aqueduct or weld mufflers to make ends meet. And what if he took a helicopter to work now and then, or headed out after lunch to his “retreat” apartment on the Strip? Hadn't he earned such perks? Hadn't he stared down the professional negro agitators and Che Guevera–spouting long-hairs? Los Angeles was a provincial city, and under his watch it would remain so. He was the one standing between order and chaos, he was the one holding all these forces together; Sam Yorty was doing the thankless task no one else would or could do
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“
Is that right, Mr. Mayor?” DeKovan was saying
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“
Yes, Harwick, we need to apply the pressure on the back end against Wilkenson,” Yorty opined, not having missed the flow of the conversation. “We move on him, and at the same time institute some safe, measured programs to keep things happy below Crenshaw, and we've got a successful formula
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“
But”—and Yorty rose for attention—“it's important we ring in the colored moderates to endorse these programs. They have a stake in this too. They want calm like we do. Those are the people we can work with in the black community. Those are the cool heads who know the course is slow, but their ship will dock one day
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The men in the room gave the diminutive mayor questioning looks. His sincere expression squelched rejoinders
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“
Not to mention you might help them with a federal grant or two. Next to sniffing after white poon tang, there's nothing like feeding off Johnson's tit for some of these Cadillac-drivin' bos,” Cigar Man added sagely
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“
Wilkenson's not the only wild card we'll need to deal with down in the dark side of town. You got some bleeding heart allies,” Yorty cautioned. “Just look at that New York writer Schulburg going down to Watts and opening up a writers camp or some such thing. That free expression shit is the kind of thing that leads to these younger bucks inciting others with that Zulu, bushy-haired poetry, how bad Mr. Charley is, and all that hoorah
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“
He's just doing that because he still feels bad about ratting out his little Hollywood Commie pals to that faggot Cohn,” Parker observed coldly, slightly shifting his bloated face toward Toombs, who remained placid
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“
And we have documented files that the Watts Writers Workshop is a front for radical thought that is luring susceptible white girls, free-love types for the most part, to join up with them,” Shaw remarked, the fear palpable in his voice
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