Chapter 6: Gunner

I knew now, knew without the slightest doubt, what my subconscious had been trying to tell me. The Oasis aftermath. The Gunthers. Or the Meriwethers. Or maybe both. Almost certainly Gunner.

I had been the instigator of the Gunthers’ downfall. Was probably the symbol. Hated symbol. And the Gunther collapse was tied directly to the arrests of David and Charles Meriwether.

The Buckshot Video was similar to the FaceTime video I’d saved on my laptop. When Greta Gunther blew the head off one of my operatives - Birdy Cummings. A grandmother.

Not many people had seen the FaceTime video. Daddy. And a handful of FBI agents. And that laptop was permanently sealed in the FBI evidence locker. I didn’t want it back, not ever.

The Hank Morristown murder hadn’t been done by Greta Gunther. She was deep in federal custody. For the rest of her life. But she had directed the hit; the FBI agreed with me on that. Or I agreed with them.

Over the past several weeks she’d had only one visitor - her attorney, Bob Randolph. An independent contractor. Gunther’s previous lawyer had quit. Because her firm also represented the currently-incarcerated Meriwether brothers. And because the Gunthers were supposedly broke.

The Meriwethers now wanted no part, no overt part anyway, of the Gunthers and the remnants of their FreedomRiders movement. The Meriwether brothers were appealing their convictions with the full vigor that only the very wealthy can muster.

And a key to overturning any legal matters meant severing all obvious connections with the American Nazi movement. It had been the financial ties to the FreedomRiders that landed the Meriwethers in the graybar hotel. The country club version of course.

So, no connection between the two families. A tidy theory. Except the Three Amigos - Sam, Strom, and Sarah Meriwether - were back in play. Was their PAC, RightWorld, funding Greta Gunther’s attorney? Someone was; Bob Randolph had moved from Dayton Ohio to Dallas Texas. Gunther was his only client.

And the SING public relations campaign to exonerate the Meriwethers was in full swing. Would there be a Gunther edition? Probably not openly connected. And probably not until the Meriwethers were cleared. If they were.

After 9/11, after the Twin Towers collapsed, American law enforcement changed dramatically. Federal agencies made a tectonic focus-shift from crime to terrorism. Budgets were increased, operational restrictions were loosened or eliminated, courts became more cooperative.

Some believed that the 9/11 refocus had inadvertently saved the Mafia.

Locally, CompStats can be manipulated - accountants are like masseuses, they know how to arrive at a happy ending.

But in Kansas City, after the Buckshot Video, the FBI laser-beamed its resources on the Hank Morristown murder. Islamic terrorism hadn’t just been ruled out; it hadn’t even been considered. DC flooded the local office with manpower, equipment, money. Aimed at catching one specific murderer. Or killing him. Preferably, in my opinion.

Not only had one of the FBI’s own been slaughtered ... it had been done in a callously hideous manner. Taped and publicized. The video had been digitally sent to hundreds of international outlets. A classic PR move. Was the RightWorld PR firm, SING, operating secretly behind the scenes? One thing was clear - the Buckshot Video, the media rollout anyway, had been professionally engineered.

Simultaneously, an anonymous tip to the FBI hotline gave detailed directions to where Morristown’s body could be found. In Salina Kansas, the same town where Birdy’s body had been discovered. A direct Fuck-You to the Feds.

The top floor of the J. Edgar building sent some hard, seasoned, determined, agents to Kansas City. Mostly men, but a couple of women too. Hank Morristown had headed up the office; now the DC contingent would be running things.

In what I believed to be a calculated move, a sort of Fuck-You back to the American Nazi movement, the FBI placed a black man to head up the Morristown operation.

The new SAIC, Ash (No Comment) Collins, didn’t waste any time. Hank was murdered on a Tuesday. Daddy had his own FBI office by Wednesday morning. He would report to Collins, but run a parallel investigation. Full time.

Daddy knows Kansas City better than anyone in the FBI. Even those who had been originally stationed here with Hank. Over 30 years on the Job, that kind of knowledge. And contacts. Local instincts honed over the decades.

I would be part of Daddy’s official team. So would Jessie and Jesse Sullivan. All of us had contributed to the Gunther’s downfall. All of us could be in mortal danger. Is there any other kind?

The FBI turned its immediate focus to Garrett (Gunner) Gunther. Greta’s cousin. Who had disappeared from the compound at the same time she had.

The other cousin, Otto, was back at work at his stock brokerage office in Philadelphia. He’d never, so far as could be determined, visited the Idaho headquarters. But Gunner had more than visited; he had lived there full time with the rest of his family. And a couple of thousand American Nazis.

Ash Collins didn’t commit to Gunner full time. Yes, the majority of his task force would join the Gunner search. But other teams, like Daddy’s, would run oblique investigations.

I started by handing out Gunner Gunther photos. To Bulldog Bannerman whose Kansas City connections were broader and deeper than anyone else’s. Mayor Tom Lynch, President of the Police Commission, had the locals searching as well.

Even though Hank Morristown had been Federal, the Kansas City police would be especially diligent. Some maggot had killed a lawman. At a moment like this, everyone is a brother in blue.

I have only a dozen or so Irregulars who freelance for me, but they know people who know people ... every little bit helps. May help. The Gunner photos were distributed in digital and paper forms. Not everyone is comfortable with new technology.

In Raytown, Buster and BJ looked at the pictures, shook their heads. He said, “Not in my town, Winter.”

BJ sharp-elbowed him and said, “Our town, clown.”

Buster patted my butt. Little fucker. I grabbed his wrist and whipsawed his arm behind his back, causing him to wince and rise up on his tiptoes.

BJ looked at Buster fondly and said, “Slim Shady have your lunch. Ain’t no Brady Bunch.”

I put in an intense two weeks right after the Buckshot Video. Long hours, seven days a week. But that leads to diminishing returns. Loss of focus, lack of clarity. Burn out.

So I began pacing myself. Spending time with my family. Keeping up with other cases. Living.

But Talking Heads had seeped into my brain:

“Psycho Killer Qu’est-ce que c’est Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better Run run run run run run run away oh oh”

Gertie and I met again with Harold, this time in her office. A couple of floors below mine in the Livestock Exchange Building. Where she could smoke.

She pointed to one mortgage contract, then the second one. Red, paste-on arrows showed him where to sign. Neither Harold nor Columbo thought to read the copy. It wouldn’t occur to them, not when their vaunted financial advisor told Harold, “Sign here.”

He was wearing a brown blazer, not the most fashionable look. Or maybe it is in certain circles. And a now-inevitable tie. He’d added a pair of non-prescription rimless glasses. Maybe he’s planning to hop in the WayBack machine and visit the 50s.

Gertie said, “The Beaumont Apartments will be for your new whores. How many do you have?”

Harold sat up straighter, proud, “Sixteen can start tonight. Four more on the way.”

“Good. Dr. Madeline seen them?”

“Yes ma’am. They clean, clean as a whistle. She’ll put the girls on the Pill when...”

When they’re old enough to need it.

“Fine. Move them into the Buena Vista, start them earning their keep. Bring your original whores home while the Beaumont is being remodeled.”

“Should I have them back working the Paseo?”

“No, Harold, you know better. We’ve moved them upscale, don’t want word getting out that they’re fucking scumbags again. Wrong market image.”

Harold mouthed, ‘market image.’

Gertie said, “Rotate the two groups back and forth at the Buena Vista. A week on, a week off.”

Harold nodded briskly. Like he’d just been thinking the exact same thing. Walker does that too.

It still felt odd to me that Gertie and I were allowing, no abetting, the trafficking of barely legal ... stop. It is what it is.

Gertie looked to Columbo, “How’s that chart coming?”

The bruiser hurried a crumpled-up sheet of paper out of his front jeans pocket. Smoothed it out on Gertie’s desk. She ran a practiced eye down the handwritten columns. Looked up at Harold, “You should have been whoring boys out years ago.”

He was embarrassed, “I’m sorry, Gertrude. I just didn’t think ... I was worrying ‘bout market image. You know how I’m all about marketing.”

“Hmm.”

Columbo tried to cover for his boss, “We was fucking boys, Gertrude. Right from the jump. Just didn’t think they’d be ... that big a market.”

“Well, lesson learned. Pussy is pussy.”

The attendance for Hank Morristown’s funeral exceeded even that of Sister Mary Packer’s. The nun that KC had fallen in love with.

The number of law enforcement personnel - federal, state, and local - was in the hundreds. And dozens of undercovers would be studying the crowd. Which probably wouldn’t do any good; anyone who watches TV is on to that one.

Vanessa, Walker, Pilar, and I attended. A family unit. Daddy and my mother had known the Morristowns more closely, so they sat near Agnes and her three children.

Years ago, pre-Vanessa, Bear and I had attended a Mafiosa funeral. He had been a local kingpin back when the Italians controlled the West Bottoms. Long before gentrification marched through.

He died peacefully, if one can do that, in his sleep. At 87-years of age. Bear and I knew his granddaughter. She had put in a quiet word to a liquor distributor. The hard liquor wholesale prices at BEAR on Broadway were lowered by 18%. Overnight.

I was thinking back to that funeral, remembering Bear’s comment about the Italian women in mourning. “Like crows on a wire.” Of course my mind was gadding about, trying not to think of Hank.

I’ve never been sure who funerals are for. Who benefits? Is there such a thing as closure? Does shared grieving ... oh, fuck it. We’re here.

I’m not sure why I was crying. I didn’t even know Hank that well. But ... mournful bagpipes, a folded flag, black ribbons across badges. Must have been those fucking bagpipes. Yep.

Requiescat in pace, Hank.

Pilar: When do you kick a midget in the balls??

Walker: When he is standing next to your girlfriend saying her hair smells nice.??

I was credentialed, for the first and probably only time in my life, with an official FBI badge. It said ‘Temporary’ in letters small enough to be covered by my finger. I was pretty sure that wasn’t an accident. The new SAIC, Ash Collins, doesn’t strike me as the casual type.

Daddy and I were invited to sit in on some of the FBI briefings. It gave me a small pang to see Collins sitting at Hank’s desk. But time marches ... and all of that.

Daddy was included because Hank Morristown had already brought him into the federal family. Collins invited me, or at least tolerated me, because Hank had meticulously chronicled my contributions in the Oasis case. And done so generously. I hadn’t read the actual reports, but Collins referenced them enough for me to understand that my activities had been appreciated. Officially.

When I remember to, I try to follow Steve Martin’s advice, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” Hank hadn’t ignored me and, for now anyway, neither is his replacement.

Ash Collins looks like a movie version of an FBI agent. Square jawed, no more jut-jawed. A profile as aggressive as his posture, his stride. Black, black skin. Tall, a couple of inches over six feet. Wide shoulders, thick chest, thick waist, thick legs. Large hands with thick wrists. Large feet. Large shoes anyway.