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Dudley chained cigarettes. “You pulled Rice’s and Kapek’s Personnel files. That severely restricts our access to their arrest records. I’ll hazard a guess here, sir. They ran bag for you when they worked the Narco Squad back in the Davis regime.” Call-Me-Jack tipped scotch. The pills kicked in. His color receded. “They covered niggertown for Jim D. and yours truly. Envelopes changed hands. My old Army pal the Reverend Mimms greased the skids south of Slauson. That’s the drift, and here’s the upscut. I burned the Personnel files and the Narco files. Leave Mimms alone, and get me a clean solve
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slurped scotch and wagged his eyebrows. “You’re working angles in Baja. My best guess is that Ace the K. is covering you here. By my calculations, I should be in for 8%.” Dudley smiled. “12%, sir. With a codicil attached.” “Would that be latitude on everything we’ve just discussed?” “Yes, and I would like you to detach Lieutenant Ashida, effective immediately.”
Dudley pinned his hand. “Wake up, Captain. We’ve a serious matter to discuss.” Parker blinked and rubbed his eyes. He had boozehound breath. Dudley passed him a mint lozenge. “You woke me up.” “Yes, and with good cause. Jim Davis told me that he killed the Watanabes. He told you in December, and I’m wondering who else he might have told.” Parker crossed
The Wolf urged his return. The Wolf told him to check the other caves near the death cave. The Wolf wondered this: Juan Pimentel. Did he torch those saboteurs with undue haste? Herr Juan was the slow-torture type. French-fried Japs and spics played out of character. The Wolf was most emphatic here. Dudley trekked
FC?
It’s the same setup. A deep cave. Numerous forks. Beachfront recessed. Wave-free access. They explored the cave. The Wolf chased enticing scents. They saw this: Empty food cans. Two dozen bedrolls. A smashed and thus useless shortwave radio set. Plus this: Charred airplane parts. Oddly flimsy. Rivet perforations. Incongruous construction. The wings snapped onto the fuselage. Flimsy wires secured them. They resembled model-airplane parts. The
nests. All abandoned. Smashed radios/empty cans/dumped bedrolls. No more jig-rigged airplane parts. The Wolf possessed a keen intellect and sharp fangs. He gnawed on this: Did Herr Juan torch those shits judiciously? Did he torch them to warn off other cave dwellers? Dudley
do this: Study photo-device footage. Check the northbound passages only. Look for covered vehicles and exposed license plates. Test the efficacy of Hideo Ashida’s grand creation. The
trucks. Overpacked trucks. Trucks riding low on their axles. Fleeing Japs. Internment-dodging Japs. Saboteur Japs. Dudley scrolled and rescrolled. His mind scrolled
He plate-scrolled up to 10:14 p.m., 1/25/42. He caught a northbound bumper plate and truck grill. The camera lens jerked upward. He caught an up-to-the-windshield shot and caught this: Wendell Rice and George Kapek—right there in the cab. They’ve got three fucking nights left to live.
“Yes, and ‘all of this’ means that ‘half of this’ is down in Mexico. I told you about Kyoho Hanamaka and Dudley’s fixation with him, and we’re not going to turn leads on him here in Los Angeles.” Joan shook her head. “That’s not what you’re saying.
Ashida shook his head. “All right. Here’s your denouement. Dudley’s in Mexico, and we don’t stand a chance without cutting him in. He uncovered the Mexican lead, but I know he hasn’t connected the bayonet to the heist.
He has to be told, and he has to share in whatever gold we take possession of.” The room spun off-kilter.
(LOS ANGELES, 11:00 A.M., 2/3/42) He hid from Reckless Girl. The klubhaus as
Ashida shot baseboards and closet corners. He worked with and without flashbulbs and lights. He got the walls. He got stacks of Thunderbolt and Stormtrooper Magazine. He should print-dust them. They hadn’t been dusted. There was no powder residue. He shot every page. Thunderbolt featured hate diatribes and cheesecake pix. Ashida saw Wendell Rice’s wife in fishnet stockings. He recognized a contributor’s name. George Lincoln Rockwell penned a back-to-Africa screed. He praised “Ebony Führer” M. L. Mimms at great length. Elmer Jackson and Lee Blanchard braced Mimms and Rockwell. They’d posted
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USS Negro
floorboards. He saw shoe scuffs on both sides of the bed. The bed engaged heavy traffic. He knew that.
“Come on, Jack. Mimms. You and Sid must know something.” Jack ticked points on his fingers. Jack aped the Sidster’s gruff growl. “Okay, boychik. He’s the white sheep of a prominent Negro family. He bilks his own people with that return-to-our-homeland shuck. He’s got a southside network of snitches reporting to him, and he reports to Jack the H. exclusive, because
they’re pals from ‘The War to End All Wars.’ As a snitch himself, he always bypasses the Dudster and goes straight to Jack. He’s got his minions pushing maryjane, in corrosive counterpoint to these Armenian shits who push white horse under Jack’s aegis, with Dud as the middleman. Both these factions service an all-jig clientele, which is the way Jack H. and his unillustrious predecessor, Two-Gun Davis, think narcotics should play out in our town.” Ashida
Mimms drama. He’s this Navy flyboy named Link Rockwell. He’s the white Abbott to Mimms’ Costello. He passes through L.A. when he’s on leave, and he’s a bagman for these rich white guys who back the Rev’s deport-the-spooks agenda.” Ashida
He’s a left-handed killer. He walks Rice, Kapek, and Archuleta downstairs. He walks them individually. His victims are terped to the gills. He’s got his ice pick pressed to their necks. His victims flail and bounce off the walls.
His victims have ingested carbolic acid. All three are near death. He positions them on the couch. He’s got his ice pick to their necks. He steadies them with it. He one-hand strangles them. Or—he has help. Ashida went back upstairs. He reversed field and walked from the bedroom door to the stairway.
Let’s shoot close-ups now. Let’s shoot those floor-juncture points. He did it. He snapped scuff-mark indentations. They were low on the wall. They were sharp-point indentations. They’re in with the dumped pictures. Dent, dent, dent—here to there:
Straight across from the bedroom doorway. Dent, dent, dent—all along the right-side wall. Dent, dent, dent—terminating at the steps leading downstairs. Man Camera. Let’s hypothesize. Let’s hazard a guess. They’re scuff-mark indentations. They’re sharply pointed. They connote a woman wearing high-heeled shoes. It’s all theoretical. It’s inconclusive and unprovable at
to determine that. Ashida donned his headband light. He bent over the bed and went in close. He quadrant-scanned and saw five small hairs. He’d run two prior scans and missed them. Dark hairs, curled hairs. Surely pubic hairs. The three victims were dark-haired men. He
determined this: Three hairs are male. Two hairs are
female.
Negro ensembles. The klubhaus rolls heterodox. Ashida dusted. He powdered twenty-one album covers. He got
badly distressed latents. He got one partial latent—a top-half fingertip. Ashida tape-lifted it and
The partial looked near-familiar. He checked it against his elimination prints. No loops, whorls, and ridges matched. He saw the two Statie print cards that Dudley supplied. Hector Obregon-Hodaka and Kyoho Hanamaka. He instantly nixed Hanamaka. All his fingertips bore burn scars.
got smudges and glossy-surface smears. He got out Tommy Glennon’s address book. Ray Pinker pulled two Glennon latents off the front cover. He didn’t dust the pages. They were semigloss paper. They might sustain prints. Ashida flipped through the book. He got hackle bumps. Something seemed wrong. He noted four names. All four played wrong.
Dr. Lin Chung. Dr. Saul Lesnick. Orson Welles. Wallace N. Jamie. Tommy
his powder and brushes and jumped— He got thumb-ruffle smears on page one. He got straight smears on page two. He got zero on pages three, four, and five. He got something on page six. It looked familiar. I’ve seen you before. You look like a smooth-glove print, but—
You lie flat below the top-digit line. Glove prints don’t do that. I’ve got a hunch that I know what you are. Man Camera now. Strike an all-objective pose. Observe yourself as you do this. It’s auspicious. You’re trembling. Open your evidence kit. Pull that print card Dudley sent you. There it is. You willed it. Yes—it’s a perfect match. Kyoho Hanamaka. His burn-scarred right forefinger. The ghoul touched Tommy Glennon’s address book.
(LOS ANGELES, 2:30 P.M., 2/3/42) The boys are back in— Elmer and Buzz hit the Gordon Hotel.
clerk said, “Gentlemen?” Buzz said, “We’re looking for Tommy Glennon. This is his last known address. We figure he might have come by for old times’ sake, or he might have had folks coming by to say hi.” The clerk eyeballed Elmer. Buzz retrieved the look.
Buzz tattled his own Dudley tale. It’s the Watanabe job, post–Pearl Harbor. Dud’s working a land grab. He’s out to snatch Jap property and promote boocoo gelt. Buzz extorts the mick fucker. He gets cash plus a biiiiiiiiiiiig bonus. Buzz had three pregnant girlfriends. Dud was
crib and saw Dud lead Huey outside. Huey’s face was glue-smeared. Huey was glued to the planet Mars. Dud tossed him in his car and drove off. Address-book duty loomed. Elmer had dropped Buzz at
Blanchard posted a background-check note. Jean Staley was allegedly an ex–Paramount starlet. She works as a carhop now. Blanchard attached a mug-shot strip. The Jeanstress
Blanchard closed out his note: “Additional file at Red Squad
Oooga-booga. That’s food for thought. The Red Squad was hush-hush. It was cloak-and-dagger and a one-man show. Lieutenant Carl Hull lock-and-keyed the files at the Wilshire DB. Hull was in the Navy now. Hull was an ardent anti-Red and pal of Whiskey Bill Parker. Hull hoarded one file set only: The Communist Party (U.S.A.), its own self. —
Staley, Jean Clarice. White female American. DOB: 1/28/09/Beaumont, Texas. Jean graduates high school, 1926. Jean migrates to L.A. Jean’s mom and dad kick in a dust storm, summer ’32. Jean’s got a kid brother. Robert Arthur Staley’s a homo prostitute. He does a two-spot juvie bounce at Preston. Jean does that reefer bounce. Before that, there’s this: She’s live-wire CP. She’s in a cell with four other Reds. She carries the card. She toes the Red line and wears the Red beret. She’s a part-time starlet and full-time Red reptile. The cell boss is one Meyer Gelb. Jean’s cellmates are a beaner
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Glennon
Staley, Jean Clarice. White female American. DOB: 1/28/09/Beaumont, Texas. Jean graduates high school, 1926. Jean migrates to L.A. Jean’s mom and dad kick in a dust storm, summer ’32. Jean’s got a kid brother. Robert Arthur Staley’s a homo prostitute. He does a two-spot juvie bounce at Preston. Jean does that reefer bounce. Before that, there’s this: She’s live-wire CP. She’s in a cell with four other Reds. She carries the card. She toes the Red line and wears the Red beret. She’s a part-time starlet and full-time Red reptile. The cell boss is one Meyer Gelb. Jean’s cellmates are a beaner
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Assassin?
Elmer skimmed file sheets. They ran threadbare. He ran dozy. An occurrence sheet jerked him awake. October ’33. That very hot month. The PD Arson Squad rousts the cellmates. Per the Griffith Park fire. The blaze that scorched Wayne Frank. It’s all Meyer Gelb’s fault. He made “apocalyptic remarks.” He predicted “big antifascist chaos.” The rousts
Elmer sipped a pineapple malt. He spiked it with Old Crow and three bennies. Jean Staley hopped cars in his perv-view. He watched her sling burgers and glom tips. She skated
She was East Texas/barn dances/male kousins all Klanned up. Kay’s Spiritus Mundi. He saw his shit and Jean’s shit, entwined.
It perplexed him. He grabbed Tommy G.’s address book. Jean Staley’s initials are in there. That Vice clerk got him her full name. He glommed her PD sheet last month and tumbled to her weed roust. He planted the address book to fuck with Dudley Smith. It’s fake evidence in a real murder case. He planted names in the address book. Lin Chung and Doc Lesnick radiate Fifth Column. The klubhaus is Fifth Column. Jean’s revealed as Red now. Old Saul was her ’33 cellmate. The cell got braced per the ’33 fire. Spiritu...
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(LOS ANGELES, 4:30 P.M., 2/3/42) Ruth Mildred held court. She excelled
twitched. He slurred verses of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied” and “Lili Marlene.” He babbled up the Deutsches Haus and its habitué, “Mitch.” “Model-airplane man, model-airplane man.” Huey made no sense. Dudley
Dudley twirled his ashtray. “You may have heard that two policemen and a Mex pal of theirs were murdered late last month. Your friend Tommy Glennon may have been involved. Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie
The Deutsches Haus. It appeared in Tommy’s address book. The PD raided it in December. It was now Fed-infiltrated. That nixed an approach. Rice
fuzz obscured the license plates. Dudley chained cigarettes. “Far right to the extent that they’d run fugitive Japs?” “No, that don’t beat no tom-toms for me. But Rice used to brag that he was running wetbacks—if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.” Dudley
