“Hot tubs and peacock feathers? Uuuh-we, brother. You moving into the fast lane. But don’t forget us out here. You know how brothas do. They move in with whitey and leave their ghetto roots behind.”
“Hey! Nobody stays in the ghetto if they can get out, especially if you grew up around junkies, thieves, and gangs. And now, well, I don’t have much more in common with bluppies than with yuppies. When you move, you just have to make sure you don’t move into a den o’ rednecks.”
“I heard that, brotha. Give me a number where I can reach you.”
“I’ll be down in LA for a bit, and when I get a phone in Marin, I’ll call you.” Ozay wrote down his LA motel phone number.
Ozay had one more contact to make after he left Emily’s. He called Paul Ferris, another buddy from his political activist days. Paul was a writer and teacher, although he didn’t teach much since he started writing. If anyone knew about the Weather Underground, Paul was the man. He was writing a book on the subject.
“Paul. Ozay here. I need to see you right away, before I leave town. I’m on the Bay Bridge now heading that way. Can I drop in? I need a favor.”
“Sure Ozay, come on by, I don’t teach today, so I’ll be here writing.”
Paul lived in the rent-controlled St. Francis Square Apartments in the Western Addition. When Ozay arrived, Paul immediately started talking about his book on the Weathermen. He talked about the members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) who had joined the more radical Weathermen faction at the 1969 Chicago conference, where they took over the leadership of SDS.
“I was almost taken in by the Weathermen’s logic and rhetoric at the conference,” Paul said, as he gesticulated and paced in a courtroom fashion. “But when the wild destructive spree took place afterward—the senseless bomb accident in Greenwich Village and robberies—I came to my senses.”
“Paul,” Ozay cut in, “there’s this guy, Lenny James, a businessman and a good guy. There aren’t many businessmen who are willing to give as generously as he did to good causes. He, like many of us, is pissed off at our government’s domestic and international policies. Well, now he’s disappeared and his ex-wife wants me to help her find him. I need to know if he’s still alive. And if he is, I want to try and get him out of the mess I think he’s in.”
“What do you think he’s up to?”
“So far, I know only bits and pieces. He may be involved with the left underground, the Weathermen or worse. That’s where you may be able to help. Hopefully my trip to LA will provide more clues.”
“You’ve heard of Tony Antonino, haven’t you?”
“Who hasn’t? A real friend of the oppressed.”
“We go back a ways. We worked for the same post-grad firm in the city, years back. He’s a close friend and a valuable resource I can check out,” Paul recalled. “Hey, I’ll do my best to help, but I must warn you Sherlock, without police involvement, things could get rough. You’d better watch your back.”
“What if the police are involved already?”
“Then you may have bitten off more than you can chew, Ozay. I’ll see what I can find out from Antonino and get back to you.”
“Thanks Paul, I’ll owe you.”
“Forget it, it’s pro bono.”
That evening, Ozay confirmed the flight to LA and left the next morning. On the plane, he had a little time to ruminate about Marina. He looked out the window, scanning the south bay communities below getting smaller, and thought of Marina’s story of German Luftwaffe bomber planes flying over London when she was a young girl of ten. Marina had told him that she remembered the bombings, the air raid sirens, the giant searchlight beams sweeping the night skies for bombers, and her family going underground. She remembered the walls and ground shaking to the terrifying noise of the explosions. She recalled being very hungry and coming out of hiding to see rubble and dead horses. At one point she saw two men carrying away what she knew was a dead body. It was the first dead person she had ever seen. She knew, instinctively, by the limpness, the way the body just hung in their arms, that the person was certainly dead. The dead horse images in particular kept replaying in Ozay’s mind, until a stewardess announced that the plane would arrive at LAX in approximately ten minutes, waking Ozay from his short snooze.
By noon he was having lunch with Marina at Pierre’s, a popular restaurant a block or two from LA’s oldest street, the famous Olvera Street. Pierre’s was an old French-style deli with long tables, benches, and stools, and sawdust-covered floors. The place specialized in French dip sandwiches. Because she didn’t have much of an appetite, Marina just ordered a salad, and Ozay ordered one of his favorites, a French dip pork sandwich.
It had been about ten years since their fast and passionate affair had ended. Going to jail together had made a strong bond between them, but the affair ended when both realized that pushing their clandestine relationship any further was too risky. Marina was too comfortable where she was. And when they both looked at the ten-year difference in their ages and their very different lifestyles, the affair fizzled.
Marina, as if dressed for a funeral, was all in black: a black silk scarf tied around her head, fitted with wrap-around sunglasses, her hair black, a black tailored suit coat emphasizing her ample breasts, and a skirt that showed off her dancer legs. A rush of sexual excitement warmed Ozay. Exciting as it was for him to be with an older, attractive, and intelligent woman, Ozay thought it would be best right now to stay cool. Marina’s thoughts, too, unexpectedly flashed back to the passion she had for the younger Ozay. He had changed. No longer a college student, he now sported a growing beard and longer hair. He did wear a sport jacket and jeans, similar to what he wore during the days of protest.
They sat on high wooden stools at a long wood slab table to eat their food.
“Marina, it’s really great to see you again. You look as lovely as the day I met you.”
“You were always charming and loose with flattery, Ozay. So keep it flowing, I love it. If I look good it’s because I started taking good care of myself. Good food, exercise, you know. I must say that I have to return the compliment. You seem to be as fit as ever.”
“Sex, drugs, and funky music,” Ozay smiled. “I too watch what I eat, exercise and dance. But when I eat out, well, you can’t always be a saint.”
“Lots of sex, huh?”
“Remember that ‘premature’ problem I had? Well, I still can’t keep my hands off my parts, but, let’s say I’ve matured a bit.”
“Is that a come-on, Ozay?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that you look great.”
“I know, you expected a haggard, wrinkled old ‘has-been.’ It’s OK! But now we must get down to business. First, I really don’t know what Lenny was up to. I went through his files searching for clues.”
“Message machine and note pads?”
“Yeah, got a couple of numbers to call, and that’s about it.”
“What about the Indian land grant research?
“I did find a note in a file titled “American Indians” with a phone number, the name Jeremy White Cloud, and the words CALL BY FRIDAY—but no date.”
“It’s a good place to start,” Ozay said.
“One other thing—I found a savings account passbook in one of his drawers with regular deposits and regular withdrawals in cash for the last year, in some cases for thousands.”
“Could be payments to someone or some group,” Ozay speculated.
“I was up most of the night with this stuff, and I’m a bit tired. Maybe if I go get some sleep we could start fresh later.”
“Fine,