The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone #13)(98)

Foster: We still have things to accomplish.

King: They’ll be done, just not with me alive. I was once the voice of the Negro in this country. That is not the case anymore. Other voices have risen louder. Ones that, sadly, shout destruction and violence. We have to silence them. As Gandhi said, There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for. We have to make sure our folks don’t forget that.

Foster: Yet you ask me to kill you.

King: Yes, I do. And I apologize for that. But if a man hasn’t found something he’s willing to die for, he isn’t fit to live. My cause. My race. They are both worth dying for. I’m ready to be at peace, Ben. Something else Gandhi said has stuck in my mind of late. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I’m ready to win.

Foster: You have.

King: Not entirely.

[PAUSE]

Foster: Do you ever want the world to know what you did?

King: I’ve thought on that. So let me say this to those listening to this recording. If physical death is the price a man must pay to free his children and his white brethren from a permanent death of spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. But that can only succeed if we take the high road. Leave the low road to others. If we stay the course that has already been set, I firmly believe we will see the promised land. Here’s my answer to your question. Wait fifty years before ever saying a word about any of this. If you survive to that day, make the decision then. My dream is that in fifty years the Negro will be in the promised land. If you come to join me with God before fifty years have passed, then only you and I will ever know what we’ve done. Take the secret to your grave. In this, Ben, I will trust you and you alone.

Foster switched off the machine. “I’ve respected his wish. It’s what he died for, so I could not violate that trust. I knew my life, from that day on, would come with conditions. Prudence being one of those. I’ve kept silent, and that silence included my wife and Coleen. A little over thirty years have now passed on the fifty, and I’m still breathing.”

The implications of what I was hearing weighed heavy. But I needed to know more. “Where did King get the idea to use the FBI to make it happen?”

“That was the ironic part. Hoover himself provided the spark. That note he sent to King’s house back in ’65, which suggested suicide.”

I recalled the wording.

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

“Martin eventually came to believe Hoover was right. Death was the only route that would work, but not for the reasons Hoover wanted. That note, though, did convince Martin that Hoover wanted him dead. It’s what got him thinking in such a dark direction. Starting in late summer of ’67, he had me drop hints and suggestions to Jansen. Test the waters, lead them our way. Finally, as you heard on the cassette, I came right out and proposed it to them. They could have said no. Rejected the whole idea. But they didn’t. No one was more shocked by that than me. I was so hoping they would not go down that road.”

I saw the stress of the past few days etched into his face.

“Martin and I talked many times about mortality,” Foster said. “He meant what he said in Memphis the night before he died. There was something to be said for longevity. He would have preferred to live a long life. But he was smart enough to know when to quit, and persuasive enough to convince me that his way was the right way. So I did what he asked of me.”

“He just walked out on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel and stood there to be shot?”

“That’s exactly what he did. I was below in the parking lot with the others. When he came out to the railing, I said a prayer. He’d been specifically told not to be out in the open like that. But Martin did what Martin wanted to do, so no one questioned him. The mood that evening was light. Everyone felt good. We’d won in court. The second public march was going to happen. Things were working out. We were all headed to dinner at a local preacher’s house. Only I knew Martin would not be coming with us. Two hours earlier, Jansen had told me it was definitely going to happen.”

Foster’s gaze went distant.

“That rooming house, where Ray found his perch, offered the perfect angle to the balcony at the Lorraine. The bathroom had a straight line of sight, so Ray positioned himself there, standing in a tub, the rifle out the window. One shell loaded. That’s all. Just one. The man had confidence.”

Or was just an idiot.

Hard to know for sure.

“Martin was leaning over the railing when the bullet struck, his back toward Ray, proving what he’d said the night before at the Masonic Temple. A man can’t ride your back unless it is bent. Those words flashed through my brain the instant I heard the shot. I also recall him smiling. Just as he turned to go back into his room for a coat. He died with a smile on his face.”

Foster pointed at the recorder.

“There’s a little more on the tape.”

And he switched the machine back on.

King: I entered this fight when I was twenty-six, and destroying Jim Crow has been a hard battle. I’ve known since the first day that my life of nonviolence would end violently. Everyone thinks about dying.

Foster: You more than others.