Tinker and Blue (37 page)

“What it is, eh, is that all the little countries all around the United States really wish Castro was their prime minister. Not because he's a Communist, but because he doesn't take any shit from you Americans. In the other countries, like mine, say, prime ministers are always kissing somebody's arse down here so we can keep on working up there, American money being what makes the world go round, as the other fellow says, but when we watch Castro we know we'd vote for him if we had the chance.”

“You'll never have a chance to vote for that prick because you need a democracy to vote in and he'll never allow Cuba to be a democracy,” Wise spat. “Someday, our government will overthrow him and Cuba will be free, just like it used to be, the perfect American vacationland. But if you bring that oxygen engine down there, it will upset the balance of the whole world. He'll use it to make engines that don't need oil and gas, and ruin Detroit. If we send our army to try to stop him from producing oxygen engines, he'll blow us up with the oxygen bomb! What do you think will become of the world if it's not American? If you get near Castro, do us all a favour and kill the bastard. Kill him! Avenge the Bay of Pigs and kill him!” Wise was ranting as Blue turned to Tinker in the corner who nodded that he had heard enough. Blue left the beer for Wise to finish as the two of them went back upstairs.

The next morning, Blue parked the van across the street from Fucdepor Towers, watched Reginald Regent III step from his limousine, then moved into the back of the van, sitting ready to record any conversation that might occur in Reginald Regent III's office. An hour later, Blue packed up and pulled away from the curb, whistling his melody to “The Red Lobster.”

62

Blue put the bowl of sunflower seeds down on the table, telling Wise that it was time to go, “but there's a few preparations to be made yet,” he informed his captive, calling up the stairs for some help. An hour later, with Wise tied up in the back of the van, Blue pulled away from the Human Rainbow Commune, glanced in the rearview mirror at the Plymouth following him, Tulip behind the wheel.

A half hour later, Blue pulled the van over to a curb, parked and climbed into the back with Wise.

“Sorry about that bump on the head there, Bud, old buddy, but I forgot to tell you to duck. Headache? Bit of a goose-egg but nothing that'll kill you. I suppose I should of told you to duck, but Bud, old buddy, you were kind of dragging your feet there and resisting and I figured if I didn't run your head into the side of the van, you'd put up a hell of fight. I understand why, of course, so it's nothing personal. If somebody was driving me around San Francisco with practically no clothes on, I be screaming and resisting, too. So I apologize for the bump on your head, but not for the blindfold, or the gag or the handcuffs.

“Know why I don't apologize? Because there was this guy, eh, Bobby Seale, you heard of him right, one of the Chicago Seven. He got treated the same way in a courtroom, gagged and handcuffed. Now, I might of read all about that and not batted an eye, really, because when it comes to police and court business, I try not to make it any of my business, hoping, of course, that they will return the favour and not make me any of their business. Live and let live, as the other fellow says. The last while, though, your side hasn't been following my golden rule, have you? You haven't let me or mine alone at all. Not that Bobby Seale was one of mine. Never met the man.

“But I did meet a guy I really like whose name shall remain anonymous. I have to hide a lot of people when I'm around you, don't I? Anyway, this anonymous friend was really into all this peace and love business that the hippies like to think will change the world because they know a lot less about it than a couple of old horse traders like you and me. So this friend just liked to live on a mountain, meditate, grow a little weed for himself and a lot of hay for his horses and dream about the new Jerusalem, to quote the other fellow. He was looking after a couple of nags up there that weren't worth a tin dime in my world or yours, but in his, those bony excuses for horses were worth loving. I've been thinking about that a lot since then, how he could love something that's not worth anything. Know what he thought freedom was? A bunch of wild mustangs running wild on the range. In my experience, a good mustang that's not free on the range is worth a lot more money than one that is, but each to his own, as the other fellow says.

“Anyway, a bunch of FBI agents raid the place where my friend is living, and they arrest him, handcuffs just like yours. Maybe yours, for that matter. But it wasn't your handcuffs that bothered him. It was when the police took him down from the mountain and showed him what was happening to his people. Bobby Seale in America-the-free tied and gagged to his chair in front of the whole world. It wasn't your handcuffs that changed my friend from a hippie to a angry Black Panther, it was those handcuffs that held Bobby Seale in his chair.

“I still love the guy even though he's changed, and that's not a word I just throw around even with my girlfriend or my best friend. As a matter of fact, it's a lot easier for me to understand Cor— him ... now that he wants to punch somebody in the head than it was when he just wanted to look at a couple of old nags and see something beautiful in them. I have this other friend, a really beautiful girl who tells me that Cor— that this other friend will eventually get back to the top of that mountain I first met him on, but that it would be a rough road, made even rougher by people like you.

“What she says is that what they did to Bobby Seale was a pebble in a puddle. Eventually the ripples made it all the way up the mountain and turned someone who was full of passive peace into someone full of angry action. Nothing we do ever stops rippling, she says, so that's why we should only do the things we would be proud to see rippling on and on forever. She's a believer, eh, believes that peace is inevitable and that someday we're all going to Heaven in a little rowboat, to quote the other fellow. She believes everybody is fated be saved in their own good time. Even you. I'm a Catholic myself, so I just have to believe that if I can get myself off this planet and into Heaven, I've done my job. And I don't think the fact that I have you handcuffed and gagged is going to be held against me when news of it ripples all the way up there, because I think you'll have a lot more explaining to do than me.”

Excusing himself, Blue made his way to the front of the van, turned on the radio and listened to the music, waiting. Half an hour later, the deejay interrupted a song to bring a special announcement. Describing a tape recording that had been anonymously dropped off at the station, he announced that it would be broadcast next. Tinker turned up the dial and told Wise to listen.

“Is this Mister Regent?” a voice on the radio asked.

“Who is this?” a second voice answered.

“Special Agent Wise,” was the reply, a reply that caused Special Agent Wise to make a muffled screaming denial behind his gag. Blue acknowledged the denial, pointing out that his friend Tinker “is one talented man, isn't he? Listened to you when he was a soldier and when you were in the basement, and now he sounds just like you.”

“Wise! I thought you were being held hostage.”

“Before I go on, I need to confirm who I'm talking to,” Wise said. “Who are you?”

“Reginald Regent III, but can we dispense with the cloak-and-dagger and tell me where you are?”

“I escaped. Actually, I did much better than escape, I took my captors captive.”

“Capricorn and Tinker? You have them?”

“I do. Now my sworn duty is to bring the two of them into the FBI office where they will be charged with enough federal offences to keep them both in prison for the rest of their lives. Christ, they even took an FBI agent hostage! Me!”

“Fuck your sworn duty to some silly flag. Have you found the plans to the oxygen engine?”

“When you find yourself in a rat's hole, you usually find everything that belongs to the rat. I have the plans for the oxygen engine. I should bring them into the FBI office as evidence.”

“And let the whole world get a look at them?” Reginald Regent III, shouted. “Don't be stupid, man. Here's what you're going to do. You are going to shoot the two of them, head shots to be sure that they are dead beyond doubt, then come to my office with the plans. Once they are safe in my safe, you will return to the scene of your unfortunate captivity and call the FBI. They will confirm the deaths, justified in your effort to escape, pin a medal on your chest, and promote you. I'll see to it. Once enough time has passed, then you can retire or quit, whichever doesn't matter, and take over as head of security for Fucdepor Petroleum. By that time, a substantial amount of money will be added to your account to demonstrate Fucdepor's appreciation for your services.

“Now get rid of those bastards but get those plans to me, not the FBI or any other government agency!”

The rest of the tape, thanks to Capricorn's editing, continued to run with conversations between Reginald Regent III and the heads of three other oil companies discussing price-fixing and how to gouge the American car owner of millions of dollars with unnecessarily inflated prices.

As the radio broadcast went on with Wise squealing behind his gag, the Plymouth pulled to the curb in front of a telephone booth two blocks up from the van. Tulip got out and stepped into the booth, dropped her dime and began dialing.

“Time to go, Bud, old buddy,” Tinker said, pulling the FBI agent to his feet, leading him blindly from the van onto the sidewalk where Blue opened one of the handcuffs, placed it around a No Parking sign and snapped it shut again, tying Wise to the metal pole. Blue got back into the van and pulled away. Watching in the rearview mirror, he saw the doors of the television studio open as cameramen and broadcasters, curiosity raised by an anonymous phone, found Special FBI Agent Bud Wise in front of their building. What they found, and filmed, was the special agent in his tie-dyed underwear, face painted in peace signs, the graffiti on his chest and back reading “Make Love Not War” and “Hoover Is No Groover” respectively.

While still handcuffed to the pole, one woman thrust a microphone in his still blindfolded face and asked if he was the person who made the phone call to Fucdepor Petroleum president Reginald Regent III's office. Wise made a fervent denial, but his distinctive voice, the very voice the news people had aired not ten minutes ago, convinced them that he had indeed made the call.

As the van and the Plymouth disappeared from the proximity of Wise's release, the newscasters were asking the FBI agent if he had already carried out Reginald Regent III's orders to kill Capricorn and Tinker.

63

Media interest in San Francisco rapidly focused on Special Agent Bud Wise and Fucdepor Petroleum president Reginald Regent III. Wise had been suspended without pay for the duration of an investigation into his handling of what the papers were calling the Tinker Affair. Both the FBI and the Attorney General launched investigations into Reginald Regent III for corrupting one of its agents, issuing execution orders for Tinker and Capricorn, and for price-fixing.

The heat on the two Human Rainbow Commune members continued to drop like a thermometer in a deep freeze when the chief of the FBI branch in San Francisco held a press conference to announce that Wise's obsessive pursuit of Capricorn over the years appeared to have been a personal vendetta. The statute of limitations had run out on the arson charges in the factory fire in New York for which Capricorn had been a suspect. As far as the FBI was concerned, the Human Rainbow Commune would receive no more surveillance than any other organization that protested the official policies of the United States Government.

As for the inventor known as Tinker, the FBI chief reported, all the agency had been able to establish was that he was an illegal alien and, as far as it was concerned, his presence in the United States was a matter for immigration officials. His invention, if it existed, suggested nothing illegal.

Neither Blue nor Blue Cacophony merited any mention.

“The least he could of done was said that Blue Cacophony was just as innocent as Tinker,” Blue moaned as he read the paper. “Now this is going to be just Tinker's story when we go home because he'll have the documented proof and I won't.”

“Blue,” Karma reminded him, “you've got half a scrapbook of clippings about Blue Cacophony. Your picture's been in the paper and you have a hit song. You have lots to tell people back home.”

“I've been singing with a dog, for the love of God. But the FBI, Karma! Tinker's the first Cape Bretoner on the FBI's Most Wanted list since Baby Face Nelson, although there was this one guy from back home who used to ride with the James brothers, and Farmer told me once that the first cattle rustler ever hung in the state of Texas was from Cape Breton. Couldn't remember his name, though, but he swore it was true. Must of been the Texas Rangers that caught him, since there was no FBI back then, but that wasn't a bad way to go, I guess. Getting caught by the Texas Rangers is as good as being chased by the FBI who weren't even around when Jesse James was a legend. Tinker's story's going to shrivel mine like a dick in ice water, to quote the other fellow.”

—

Fretting over his undocumented role in the saga of Tinker and Capricorn was a waste of Blue's time. While he was lamenting the unfairness of it to Karma, Peter? was already coaxing his connections in journalism to feature Blue Cacophony's role in the events that took down one corrupt FBI agent and a petroleum president. Within days, stories about Blue Cacophony appeared in two newspapers, both based on interviews with the band's manager. There's nothing like associating with an exonerated victim to improve one's image, Peter?, who was enjoying the risk-free romance of being in the spotlight without worrying about police search lights, explained to Blue. What other bands, Peter? had asked reporters, had the courage to write and sing songs like “The Ballad of Tinker” while he was the hottest criminal in the country? What other band member went on the radio to talk about Tinker's and Capricorn's innocence? And, he mentioned to one reporter, Blue and Tinker had history, a friendship reaching back to the island nation from which they had journeyed together to explore the United States of America.

Blue read the newspaper accounts of the band's underground exploits while sitting on the front step. For several days now, and for the first time since the commune moved across the street, its members were entering and leaving by the front door, free people. Karma and Tulip, standing on a staging of chairs and boards, had painted above the front door the words Human Rainbow Commune.

“Hello,” said someone passing by.

Blue, looking up from the paper, replied, “Hello again yourself.”

Lighting a cigarette, Blue asked Karma, who was sitting beside him sketching ideas for her ninth life into a small pad, “Know what this reminds me off?” Exhaling thoughtfully, he formulated the answer to his own question. “Summers back home sitting on the show hall steps watching the cars drive by. A whole convoy of cars driving over street, tooting when they went past and everybody sitting on the step waving back, then they'd turn at the Fina garage and toot on their way back to the Irving garage where they'd turn again. This is not much different, you know. That guy who just went by? Five times he said hello. Coming or going, everybody says hello here just like home. If we don't say hello back they'll think we're stuck up or mad at them. But look at this Ford Falcon,” Blue said, drawing Karma's attention to a slow-moving vehicle very unlike the Haight-Ashbury choice of transportation. “This is his third or fourth time going by, but he hasn't been waving. He's parking.”

Out of the Falcon stepped a heavy-set man dressed like a construction worker. He made his uncertain way toward Karma and Blue.

“Excuse me, but is this where Al Dempsey, ah, Tinker lives?”

“You a cop?” Blue asked.

“No, he used to work with me in the tunnel. I need to see him about something.”

“Hey, Tinker,” Blue hollered into the open door, “there's a guy here looking for you.”

“Mike!” Tinker called from an upstairs window. “What're you doing here? I'll be right down.”

The two tunnel workers walked away from the curiosity they had raised on the front step. Blue kept a close eye on them over the top of a page he had time to read several times before Tinker and Mike shook hands and parted. Mike got into his car and drove away nodding acknowledgment to Blue, who nodded back.

“What was that about?” Blue asked as Tinker neared the step carrying an envelope.

“He brought me my back time. I don't have a job anymore, of course, being illegal and all that, but when Mike saw my picture in the paper and read about me and Capricorn and the commune, he told the boss he would bring me my pay. Good thing, too, because I'm about busted. They didn't have to pay me, you know. The company could have just kept it and there's nothing I could do about it, but they gave Mike my cheque and my vacation pay, anyway.

“But that wasn't the only reason why he was here, Blue. Remember last fall, I told you about this guy at work who was going to invite us to his daughter's wedding? Well, that was Mike, and one of the reasons he was here was that he read in the paper about me having something to do with Blue Cacophony. He's not into rock music, at all, strictly Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Ryman Hall stuff, your kind of music. But his daughter is a big fan of rock and roll and Mike thought that if he could get a famous rock band to play at her wedding it would, well you know, he's a father—” Tinker ended, letting his Acadian hand gestures finish the statement for him. “I told him you'd be glad to do it. It's in June.”