Freaky Deaky

"Here it is… were arrested and charged with kidnapping and beating a fellow member of the party. Young guy, eighteen years old. He said they beat him with, quote, blunt instruments and then burned him with cigarette lighters and poured scalding water on him mixed with grease.

The victim admitted himself to New Grace and the hospital called the police. Upon being questioned he told them the names of his assailants, including Donnell, saying they had accused him of breaking rule number eight of the Black Panther Party. But then in court, at the pretrial examination, he changed his mind. He said he couldn't identify his assailants and that the police coerced him into signing the complaint. So Donnell and his buddies were released. He was picked up right after that on a federal gun charge, convicted and sent to prison."

Chris said, "What's rule number eight?"

Greta looked at the sheet again.

"It's written out.

"No party member will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all, and cannot steal or take from the people, not even a needle or a piece of thread."

" They looked at each other, heads turned on their pillows.

"I learn interesting facts in bed with you," Greta said.

"When I was little, Camille and Robert Taylor and I would get in bed with our dad and he'd read the Bobbsey Twins to us."

Chris said, "Now you get the Ricks brothers and other crazies." He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at Robin's journal.

"Here's the part about Mark, her opinion of him. Robin says, "Mark digs the sound, the cant, the beat of revolution. He wants to be part of it, but political science-wise knows next to nothing, zilch. He asks if I believe in the Movement, if I'm a member of the Communist Party. Why sure, Mark. He's either dumb or naive, but, man, is he loaded! I tell him to come by my tent tonight and I'll lay it out for him. So to speak."

" "Her tent?"

"This is when they were at Goose Lake. The Ricks boys slept in the limo they rented and Robin had her own tent.

She says in case she met somebody interesting."

"Mark wasn't interesting enough?"

"She was using him. Listen." Chris looked at the journal.

"She finishes with Mark by saying, "This guy is so impressionable. He's dying to be a star. If you want him, take him." Then she has written in capital letters, "TAKE

HIM FOR EVERYTHING HE'S GOT!"

" Chris imagined Robin looking through old journals, this one, reliving those days, coming to this page and the words reaching out to grab her.

It was worthless as evidence, but it let you look into her head. Chris closed the journal. It was quiet, Greta not saying a word. He was thinking she'd fallen asleep as he turned his head on the pillow, expecting to see her eyes closed.

She was staring at him. She said, "Is that what I'm doing? With Woody?"

Robin had become the ice woman, blowing her smoke out slow, stroking her braid, a thoughtful act, stroking in time to "Little Girl Blue" in the background, Robin looking at Donnell with quiet eyes, saying, "Man, it's been a long time coming."

"What has?"

"Getting on track and feeling good about it. Yeah, now, finally I can see where we're going." Saying the words with a slight nod of the head, moving with the mellow beat.

Donnell liked how she did that. The woman was in time and looking good, for her age.

"I'm not saying we don't have a problem," Robin said.

"If this Polack, Mankowski, is acting officially, and that was the impression I got, then it's a major problem. Not because he's especially bright-I don't think he is. The way he tried to set me up, get me to talk, didn't show a lot of finesse. But if he's got the whole fucking police force behind him-" "He was kicked off the police,"

Donnell said.

"I've told you that, and he don't like it one bit."

"You think he doesn't like it or you know it?"

"I know it. I talked to the dude."

"Well, if all he wants is money…" She gave a little shrug with the beat.

"He's working for himself, nobody else."

"He told you that?"

This woman could be irritating.

"It was he didn't tell me. He had, I might suspect him.

Look, the dude bumped me up to twenty-five thousand to get your bomb out of the swimming pool. He's in it for bread, nothing else, and he'll keep coming back. I know, I've seen the kind." Donnell hunched over the table on his arms.

"Listen to me. The dude will come back and he'll come back. He'll leave the police if he hasn't done it already. The man smells a score.

But that's only the one problem. I see another one. I see too many people."

"You mean Skip," Robin said.

"Exactly. Your friend Skippy. What do we need him for? See, he's the kind of problem you can tell goodbye and it's gone. Like you say to him you not interested in the deal no more, you give up on it, he leaves."

"I don't think it would be quite that easy," Robin said.