Unwritten Laws 01(53)

“On Valentine’s Day in 1964,” he said, “a man named Albert Whitley was abducted from the Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company and horsewhipped.”

“Shit, Henry. A whippin’s small potatoes. Too small for us.”

Henry noted this in his Moleskine. “Two weeks later, a black employee of the International Paper Company was shot to death in his car with a machine gun. Were future Double Eagle men involved in that?”

Morehouse made a face as though he’d eaten something bitter. “You’re talkin’ about Clifton Walker, out on Poor House Road. Flashy nigger. A coupla them shooters eventually wound up in the group, yeah.”

A fillip of excitement went up Henry’s spine, but he patiently noted the answer in his book. Then, without the slightest change in tone, he said, “Five months later, on July eighteenth, Albert Norris’s music store was burned to the ground with Norris inside during the attack. He died four days later from his burns. Was that a Double Eagle operation?”

The old man sucked his teeth and studied Henry in silence.

Henry wondered whether his voice had given him away. He did not fidget. He did not breathe. He gave up nothing.

At length, the former Klansman nodded thoughtfully. “That was a damn shame, there. Albert was a good nigger. A mighty good nigger.”

Henry waited, hoping Morehouse would elaborate. But the old man held his silence.

“No mainstream Klan group ever claimed responsibility for Norris,” Henry went on. “The FBI thinks the killers used a flamethrower that night. A flamethrower is a pretty exotic weapon, but I’m guessing some World War Two vets might have been able to get hold of one.”

The sickly eye regarded Henry with an expression akin to disappointment. “Shit, man. With all the Cuban exiles training in Louisiana back then, my mama could have bought a flamethrower at a garage sale.”

Henry wondered why the old man was reluctant to claim responsibility for the Norris attack after he’d been so forthcoming about the other killings. He decided to try a different tack. “The day after the store was burned, an employee of Norris’s—a young black man named Pooky Wilson—disappeared.”

Morehouse shrugged. “I always thought Wilson robbed his boss’s store, then set it on fire and hightailed it out of town. Standard procedure for jungle bunnies. Especially hophead musicians. He’s prob’ly livin’ on welfare in L.A. right now, with ten kids suckin’ on the government tit.”

Henry squeezed his left hand into a fist. He’d played a lot of music with Pooky in the summer of 1964, and he’d never known a gentler soul, except Jimmy Revels.

“In 1966,” he said in a neutral voice, “a Klan informant told the FBI an interesting story. He was a member of the Brookhaven White Knights. The day after Norris’s store burned, his klavern got a call telling them to watch for a black boy who might be trying to make it to the train station over there, to catch the train to Chicago. They found the kid, snatched him right out of the station. A tall kid with one drooping shoulder. That was Pooky Wilson. I know, because Wilson had severe scoliosis. That drooping shoulder made him a natural bass player.”

Morehouse stared back at Henry with bovine indifference.

“The Brookhaven Klansmen handed Pooky over to three men they believed were Klansmen from Natchez. But I think those men were future Double Eagles.” Henry looked the old man straight in the eyes. “Were you one of those men, Mr. Morehouse?”

Henry saw a flicker of emotion in the man’s eyes.

“Klan informants worked for money,” Morehouse growled. “They made up whatever their FBI handlers wanted to hear, whatever kept the cash coming. You can’t trust a story like that.”

“I’ve heard two reliable stories about Pooky’s death,” Henry went on. “One says he was flayed alive. The other says he was crucified.”

“Oh, bullshit. There were a dozen rumors about that kid. I’ve heard he was driven out in a field and shot thirty times with a rifle.”

Something in the old man’s gaze belied his tone of voice. Henry was certain Morehouse knew something about Pooky Wilson’s death. As he stared into the rheumy eyes, a blast of intuition told him that Morehouse had seen Pooky die. Henry cleared his throat. “I have an FBI report that details a meeting with a different Klan informant. When this man was blind drunk, he told an FBI agent that Pooky Wilson had been crucified at a big cypress tree out in the Lusahatcha Swamp, called the Bone Tree.”

The old man’s eyes flashed, then went dull again.

“This informant mentioned the names of two men who were there,” Henry went on, “but the names were redacted in my copy—blacked out with a Magic Marker. Were you at the Bone Tree that night, Mr. Morehouse?”