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always in a mad rush for results and could never understand that finesse

and patience could sometimes be important tools of a good reporter. Nancy

bad both.

She bad been using them since the Golden State Power & Light anrual

shareholders meeting when Nim Goldman suggested to her in anger, "Why not

investigate him?"

"Him" was Davey Birdsong.

Goldman, of course, had blown his cool and did not expect her to take the

suggestion seriously. But, after thinking about it, Nancy bad.

She had been curious about Birdsong before. Nancy mistrusted peo-

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ple who were always on the side of righteousness and the downtrodden, or

would like you to think they were, as Davey Birdsong did. Nancy's

experience was that those kinds of liberal-populist do-gooders were usu-

ally looking out for number one first, with all others trailing a long way

behind and getting the leftover crumbs. She had seen a lot of that at

first hand-in black communities as well as white.

Mr. Milo Molineaux, Nancy's father, was not a liberal do-gooder. He was

a building contractor who, throughout his life, had pursued one

forthright, stated objective: To transform himself from a poor boy, born

of black parents in rural Louisiana, into a rich man. He had succeeded,

had done it honestly, and nowadays Mr. Molineaux was very rich indeed.

Yet her father, Nancy had observed, had done more for people of his own

race-by providing steady employment, fair wages and human dignity-than

a thousand political activists and their kind who (as the saying went)

"had never had to meet a payroll."

She despised some of the liberals, including white ones who acted as if

they were trying to atone personally for three hundred years of black

slavery. The way those idiots bebaved was as if a black person could do

nothing wrong-ever. Nancy amused herself by being rude and bitcby to

them, watching them take it and smile, and letting her get away with the

inexcusable just because she was black. While they did, her contempt for

them grew.

She did not despise Nim Goldman. In fact-though the knowledge would have

amazed Nim-she bad come to like and admire him.

Goldman hated her guts, and Nancy knew it. He hated her

straightforwardly, making no effort to conceal it. He bated her as a re-

porter and as a woman. Nancy was perfectly sure her color had nothing to

do with Goldman's hatred, which would have been just as intense bad she

been white, yellow or a shade of purple. Where his hatred of Nancy

Molineaux was concerned, Goldman was color-blind.

Which was as it should be. Ergo, Nancy respected him.

In a perverse way-which she recognized as perverse-she rather enjoyed

arousing Goldman's anger. It was so goddam refreshing! just the same,

enough was enough. Twice she had impaled him well and truly, but it

wasn't fair to go on doing it. Besides, the son-of-a-bitch had guts and

was honest, which was more than you could say for most of those sleazy

pontificators at the bearing where Goldman bad spoken his mind and

afterward got gagged.

About that hearing, Nancy had written the story she bad to because she

prided herself in being-first and foremost-a good journalist. Which meant

being ruthless, putting emotions, personal feelings, second. But none of

it had stopped her feeling sorry for Goldman and mentally wishing him

well.

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If she ever got to know him better-which was unlikely-someday she might

tell him all of that.

Meanwhile there was a certain logic and justice, Nancy Molineaux thought,

in that having abandoned Goldman as a target, she had switched attention

to Davey Birdsong.

Birdsong she most certainly did not admire, being certain-even at this

early stage of her inquiries-that he was a phony and probably a crook.

She had begun, soon after the GSP & L shareholders' meeting, by quietly

investigating Birdsong's p & lfp. That had taken several months because

she worked in her spare time and there were some extended periods when

she didn't have any. But results, while slow, were interesting.

Birdsong, Nancy learned, had founded p & lfp four years earlier, at a

time when inflation, plus increased oil prices, had forced electricity

and gas rates substantially higher. Without question, the rate increases

caused hardship to lower- and middle-income families. Birdsong had

proclaimed himself the people's champion.

His flamboyance earned him instant media attention and he capitalized on

it by recruiting thousands of members into p & lfp. To accomplish this,

Birdsong employed a small army of university students as canvassers and

Nancy bad managed to locate several-now ex-students -who bad worked for

him. All, without exception, were soured by the experience.

"We thought we were doing something noble, helping the underprivileged,"

one of the former students, an architect, told Nancy. "But we discovered

what we were mostly doing was helping Davey Birdsong."

Her informant continued, "When we went out canvassing we were given

petitions to take with us which Birdsong had had printed up. The

petitions were addressed to the Governor, State Senate and House, the

Public Utilities Commission . . . you name it. They urged 'reduced

utility rates for bard-pressed residential users,' and we went door-to-

door, asking people to sign. Hell!-who wouldn't sign that? just about

everybody did."

Another ex-canvasser-a young woman who had consented to talk to Nancy at

the same time-took up the story.

"As soon as we had a signature-not before-we were told to explain that

organizing petitions cost money. So would everyone please help by

donating three dollars to the campaign, which included a year's mem-

bership in p & lfp? By that time, the people we'd been talking to figured

they owed us something for our trouble-it was smart psychology,

Birdsong's good at that-and there were very few, even poor families, who

didn't come through with the three bucks."

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"There was nothing really dishonest, I guess," the young architect said,

"unless you call collecting a whole lot more money than was needed to run

p & lfp dishonest. But what really was cheating was what Birdsong did to

the students who worked for him."

"Birdsong promised us, as wages," the young woman said, "one dollar out

of every three collected. But he insisted all the money must go to him

first-as be explained it-to be entered in the books, then we would be

paid later. Well, it was later, much later. Even then we only got a

fourth of what he'd promised-twenty-five cents instead of a dollar out

of every three. We argued with him, of course, but all be would say was

that we had misunderstood."

Nancy asked, "You didn't have anything in writing?"

"Nothing. We trusted him. After all, he was on the side of the poor

against big business-or so we thought."

"Also," the architect added, "Birdsong was careful-as we realized

later-to talk to each of us separately. That way . . . no witnesses. But

if there was a misunderstanding, all of us made the same one."

"There was no misunderstanding," the young woman informant said.

"Birdsong is a con man."

Nancy Molineaux asked those two ex-canvassers and others for estimates

of bow much money was collected. In his own public statements, Birdsong

had reported p & lfp as having twenty-five thousand members. But most

whom Nancy talked to believed the real figure was substantially

higher-probably thirty-five thousand. If so, and allowing for the amount

paid out to canvassers, the first year's receipts of p & lfp were

probably close to a hundred thousand dollars, mostly in cash.

"You're not kidding," the architect had said when informed of Nancy's

estimate. "Birdsong has a profitable racket." He added ruefully, "Maybe

I'm in the wrong one."

Something else Nancy discovered was that collection of money by p & lfp

was continuing.

Davey Birdsong was still hiring university students-there was always a

new generation which needed part-time work and money-and the objective

was to get more p & lfp annual memberships, as well as have existing ones

renewed. Apparently Birdsong was no longer cheating the students;

probably he realized he couldn't get away with it indefinitely. But, for

sure, a potful of cash was flowing into p & lfp.

What did Birdsong do with it? There seemed no simple answer. True, he did

provide an active, vocal opposition to Golden State Power & Light on

several fronts-at times successfully-and many who belonged to p & lfp

believed they were getting their money's worth. But Nancy questioned

that.

With help from an accountant she had done the arithmetic and, even

allowing for the most generous expenses and a personal salary for

Birdsong, there was no way he could have spent more than half of what

26o

was coming in. So how about the remainder? The best guess was that

Birdsong, who controlled p & lfp totally, was siphoning it off.

Nancy couldn't prove it, though. Not yet.

Her accountant adviser said that eventually the Internal Revenue Service

might demand an accounting from p & lfp and Birdsong. But the IRS, he

pointed out, was notoriously understaffed. Therefore lots of so-called

non-profit organizations were never audited and got away with financial

skulduggery.

The accountant asked: Did Nancy want him to tip off the IRS con-

fidentially?

Her emphatic answer: No. She wasn't ready to tip off anybody.

The accountant's services were available to Nancy because her father was

an important client of his firm. The same applied to a lawyer often

retained by Milo Molineaux, Inc., and Nancy took the ex-university stu-

dents to him and had them swear out affidavits. They co-operated

willingly.

She was building her dossier carefully.

Nancy Molineaux knew about Birdsong's other income from university

lecturing and writing. There was nothing wrong with that, or even

unusual, but it reinforced her curiosity about what Davey Birdsong did

with all that money.

Then there was a vague rumor-she overheard it at a cocktail partythat

Birdsong and p & lfp had appealed to the Sequoia Club for financial

support. Nancy considered that unlikely and, even if true, was certain

the wealthy and prestigious Sequoia Club would have no truck with the

likes of Davey Birdsong. just the same, because she made a habit of

covering all bases, Nancy had put out feelers. So far, no results.

The most intriguing question of all came up one day in January when Nancy

was driving her Mercedes 45oSL and happened to see Davey Birdsong walking

on a downtown street. Without stopping to reason why, she decided to

follow him. She whisked her car into a handy self-serve parking lot and

went after him on foot, keeping a discreet distance behind. What came

next was like something out of an espionage novel.

Although Nancy was positive Birdsong had not seen her, be behaved as if

be expected to be followed and was determined to shake off pursuit.