Clandestine

"You, Marcella and I are the natural elite. You must respect Marcella for saving you from Tunnel City, Wisconsin, and respect her as your blood; but know that she has her faults. She is weaker than we on the level of action; you and I have reached for the beast within ourselves and have externalized it. We will always do what we have to do, regardless of the consequences to others, rendering ourselves above all of man's laws and moral strictures designed to keep that beast at bay. Marcella will never reach that point, yet she is a valuable comrade for us at the level of wife and sister. Respect her and love her, but keep your emotional distance. Know that ultimately she is not of our morality.

"The Navy has you now, John, but soon we will have the Navy. Keep your uniform neatly pressed and shine your shoes. Play your part well, and you will be a rich man for life. Your sister is pregnant with the child who will be your nephew and my son and our moral heir. Watch your intake of hop and you will have the power of hop over millions. Listen and trust me, John. You must acquiesce more, and when you do that I will tell you of the literal power of life and death I have exercised over many people."

I saw where that paragraph was taking me, so I flipped ahead in time to August, 1945. What I already knew was strongly confirmed: John DeVries, Eddie Engels, and Lawrence Brubaker had robbed the infirmary of the aircraft carrier Appomattox of forty-five pounds of undiluted morphine. Doc Harris was the mastermind. DeVries, Brubaker, and Engels were questioned, then released. Doc's intimidation of Johnny was so absolute that Johnny never cracked under questioning. The diary indicated that Engels and Brubaker were equally cowed, equally in the grip of the incredible Doc Harris's stranglehold. What I had strongly suspected was also confirmed; Marcella Harris did not participate in the crime—she was in the naval hospital in Long Beach miscarrying her expected child.

It was then, for the first time, that Johnny saw Doc Harris shaken. Due to complications, Marcella would now be barren for life. It was then that Johnny came to his mentor's aid to offer to him what Doc would never himself achieve with Marcella—Johnny told Doc that the girlfriend of whom Doc had disapproved was now pregnant in Wisconsin, and due to give birth in two weeks.

Doc and Johnny flew there. Doc delivered the child in a house trailer parked in a wheat field south of Waukesha. Maggie had wanted to keep the baby, but Doc, aided in the birth by Larry Brubaker, had terrorized her into releasing the child to him, for safe delivery to a "special" orphanage for "special" children. Doc returned to Los Angeles and his wife with the child she so desperately wanted and his own "moral heir."

Again I skipped ahead in time, only to find that time abruptly stopped, shortly after Johnny described the events of August, 1945. But there were at least a hundred sheets of paper remaining, undated but crowded with words. Johnny had inexplicably switched to red ink, and in a few moments I realized why: Johnny had sought Doc's absolute knowledge, and Doc had given it to him in gratitude for his moral heir. Here was the story of "the literal power of life and death" that Doc had exercised over many people. Here it was, appropriately in red, for it was the story of the insane Doc Harris's murderous ten-year career as a traveling abortionist on the underside of skid rows throughout the Midwest, armed with scalpel for cutting, cheap whiskey for anesthesia, and his own insane elitist hatred as motivation.

Johnny continued to quote his teacher verbatim: