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east.”
    â€œMaybe you’re right.” They headed out of the door after LaBas had picked up his bags.
    As they left, LaBas saw what he took to be two beggars standing in front of the airport doors, badgering and taunting passers-by; LaBas couldn’t stand proselytizers. They were rude to be beggars, LaBas thought. Snappy. In New York the panhandlers had developed begging into an art form: “Can you lend me fifty cents? I just killed my mother-in-law and don’t want to repair the axe.” Wit. But beggars with no art must be something else. He mentioned them to Wolf. “Those men won’t collect a dime if they keep harassing passers-by like this.”
    â€œThose are Moochers, followers of my sister Minnie. They’ve tried to get into our Business. They hate the fact that we’re selective; and they hate industry. It’s an old old conflict.”
    â€œYes, I know.” Another Minnie? What a coincidence! I can do my research and work on a case too . “What progress has been made in capturing Ed’s killers?”
    â€œNone. They’ve disappeared.”
    â€œPhantoms again. You could call it crowd delusions and the black man,” LaBas said. “They pop up so often in American history.”
    He remembered when John Kennedy was shot. “Two black men running from the scene” was the first report. When George Wallace was shot. “Two black men running from the scene.” He wondered was this a real murder or just a case of “two black men running from the scene.”
    Wolf introduced the chauffeur to LaBas. Amos Jones was the head of the fleet of small cars Gumbo Works used to pick up customers, a custom Solid Gumbo Works picked up from Kiehl Pharmacy, Inc., 109 Third Avenue, in New York. Some of the customers were infirm or violent; they were afflicted with the disease of Louisiana Red which sometimes caused them to fly off the handle. Others wanted to keep their identity secret. LaBas believed in masks. Amos introduced himself, and LaBas returned the greeting. Amos was a pro. LaBas liked pros. While his colleagues wanted to mooch and ended up riffraff, Amos Jones was providing his family with an education, reading his daughter Xmas stories. No matter how the professional rivals and industrial spies and unchecked criminal element referred to, euphemistically, as organized crime sought to block him, Amos got the customers to the Gumbo and the Gumbo through.
    Â 
    Wolf and LaBas were in the back seat on the way to an inspection tour of the G.W.
    â€œAccording to my instructions, Wolf, I am supposed to check your Business and weed out the industrial spies, and if it turns out that they are responsible for your dad’s death, then they will be punished; if not by me, then the old Company.”
    â€œI appreciate that, LaBas. Dad always spoke highly of you; he said you were the leading Business troubleshooter in the country and if there were some bad spirits in the Gumbo, you would certainly X them out. By the way, I think you’ll need this.”
    Wolf showed LaBas a pistol.
    â€œA Saturday Night Special?”
    â€œYou need it out here. Lots of niggers from Texas and Louisiana. Get hateful real quick.”
    â€œThanks, Wolf, but I think I can get by without it.”

CHAPTER 10
    Berkeley’s known as Literary Town, maybe because Bret Harte once read a poem at Berkeley’s School for the Deaf or because Frank Norris (“McTeague”) flunked math at U.C. Berkeley. However, the real talent came from the town of oyster pirates whose skyline was “gothic gable.” Oakland, California, produced Jack London, Gertrude Stein, Joaquin Miller. Berkeley was a traditional “dry town”—there was a scandal very early when Cal founder Doc Durant found that his helpers were selling bootlegged booze out of his Oakland School for Boys.
    Since LaBas arrived, he has seen the sights. He traveled once to Santa Cruz, once