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removed, but the tack holes remain.
    The agents offer me the seat, and introduce themselves as Mathis and Strobe. Their names surprise me. The physical features of these two men suggest something more exotic. Mathis, the older of the two, has very dark, sun-beaten skin, and though his hair is short and anchored with Brylcreem, there’s still a suspicious curliness that is apparent. I suspect his real name may have a considerable number of vowels. The same with Strobe—maybe “Strobinsky” or “Stroberg”? He’s younger, maybe close to my age, fresh-faced, with a broad athletic build. I suspect that he is only second-generation American.
    â€œCommunism,” says Mathis. “The Soviet Union is using America’s race problem to further its evil agenda.”
    â€œMembers of the Communist Party,” says Strobe, “are aligning themselves with groups and leaders of the Negro movement in order to influence and manipulate them.”
    â€œI’m listening,” I say.
    â€œMr. Estem,” Mathis says, “we believe that the SCLC is one of these groups and that Martin Luther King is one of these leaders being corrupted with communist ideology.”
    â€œWe know that King and the SCLC are being corrupted,” says Strobe.
    Mathis walks over to the file cabinet and pulls out a folder. “Our sources have confirmed that, in a previous life, Aaron Gant was a high-profile member of the Communist Party.”
    I lean forward, elbows on knees.
    â€œHe introduced King to another high-ranking communist, a lawyer, Stanley Levison.”
    â€œI’m familiar with him. Loosely.”
    â€œOf course you are. King is becoming increasingly dependent upon him. Every speech, every sermon, bears Levison’s mark. Even after Attorney General Kennedy warned King about Levison’s threat to the civil rights movement. The money you took? An instrument of persuasion obtained by Gant from Levison’s sources. Levison claims not to be a communist, but this is false. Similar to the way that Gant denies being a communist . . . and a homosexual.”
    Homosexual? The word makes me dizzy. It took a moment to deal with the possibility of Gant being a communist, but now I feel nauseated while I try to grapple with all of Gant’s personas. I feel foolish for underestimating him. I’ve always been suspicious of Gant, but now I’m suspicious of myself, of my ability to read people.
    Mathis hands me two photographs from the folder. In the first, Gant is in a parked car, touching the chest of a very pale and muscular white man. In the other, he’s much younger and seated at a small desk in the first row of a classroom filled with other attentive Negroes. In bold stencils, a sign behind them reads HARLEM COMMUNIST PARTY . Now I see why Gant acted so strangely about the money.
    â€œNot only did Gant introduce King to this wicked ideology,” Mathis continues, pacing now, as if remembering lines from a script, “he exposed him to moral degenerates as well. Bayard Rustin, another advisor to King, is also homosexual. We haven’t determined with certainty whether or not he’s a communist, but he’s definitely a homosexual.”
    I hold the photos casually, trying my best to appear indifferent.
    â€œJohn,” Strobe says, “we need you to alert us of any suspicious activity within the SCLC. Conversations, meetings, interoffice memoranda—we need it all. The future of your race and your country is resting on your shoulders. Are you with us?”
    I don’t respond, but I can see that this may be my opportunity to become an asset to Martin. If Gant is compromising the success of the movement, don’t I have an obligation to try to stop it? Maybe I’ve been silent too long . . . or Strobe reads something from my face; before I give him an answer, he says, “I hope that you are. It would be disappointing to us—to everyone—if