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(SANTA BARBARA, 12:30 P.M., 1/6/42) Dissemble now. You’re here ex officio.
Ellen Marie Tullock. Fifty-five and too thin. The wife of Karl Frederick. He’s on the CCC survivor list. He’s the probable Box Man. “I don’t
“Did you know that your husband was present at the Griffith Park fire of 1933? Many men died, but he survived.” Mrs. Tullock
Joan said, “October.” “Well, Karl took off in August of ’33, and I’ve never heard from him since.” “You waited five months to report him missing. Was there a reason for that?” “Well, Karl just took off, and it took a while for me to start to miss him.” “Do you know why he took off?” Mrs. Tullock smirked. “He took off to pursue buried treasure, which was the onliest thing he ever did when the Sheriff’s Department canned him.” Joan said, “Could you explain that?” “Well, Karl was a treasure seeker. If you don’t know the type already, you should take heed. Brazilian diamonds and pearls in Jamaica.
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They discuss Elmer Jackson’s dead brother. He was torched in Griffith Park. He was this nutty rumdum. He was torqued by that big mint-train heist. “Young
tweeds. “I’m saying he read treasure magazines written for bums with big dreams, and he believed everything he ever read. The amazing thing is that he only got in trouble the one time—but it up and cost him his job.” “Would you explain, please?” “That gold robbery. Karl worked on the Santa Barbara end, and he got this fool notion that this dimwit colored boy was
the thief. He did some beating on that boy, but some colored preacher with police friends in L.A. went to bat for the boy and got him released, and Karl got the ax for the whomping he did.” Joan
Elmer the J. His dipshit brother died in the Griffith Park fire. This alky drifter. Always the big dreams. This big hard-on for that gold-train heist. We
One ex-cop, one drifter, one idiot dream. Two violent deaths in concurrence. The ex-cop worked the gold heist. That event preceded and might have precipitated catastrophic arson. And she
(LOS ANGELES, 9:30 A.M., 1/7/42) A college kid approached.
No one else heard. The kid strolled off. Ashida scanned his page book. He’d ordered up the L.A. Times. A clerk brought him bound photostats. From May 19–23, 1931. From October 4–12, 1933.
I found a gold nugget in that box you left me. He found it. He’s hoarding the lead. He’s studied under Dudley Smith. He’s learned to lie. He’s a Jap. He’s shifty and stealthy. He called Thad Brown last night. Thad was
He withheld from Thad. He omitted the gold nugget and two-dead speculation. Karl Tullock and Wayne Frank Jackson died at the same time and place. Both were gold heist–fixated. He knew the full Wayne Frank story. Joan had picked up bar scuttlebutt.
The Frisco-to-L.A. mint train. Eight Quentin cons on board. There’s a track-switch snafu. Four masked men swarm the train. They overpower the crew. The cons escape en masse. The escape precedes the robbery. Seven men are hunted down and shot and killed that day. The unwritten law holds sway. Escape mandates death. One man eludes the dragnet. He’s still at large. Fritz Wilhelm Eckelkamp. DOB 10/12/98. He’s German-born. He’s a Great War stalwart. He wins the Iron Cross. He goes bad in ’20s Berlin. He toes the Sparticist line and skirmishes with Brownshirt
thugs. He robs banks and jewelry stores. He stows away on a steamship and comes here. It’s ’27 now. He migrates to California and settles in Oakland. He reverts to armed robbery. Liquor-store jobs. There’s always cash on hand. It’s high risk for low yield. Fritz falls behind multiple counts. He gets twenty-five to life at Big Q. Fritz becomes a virtuoso jailhouse lawyer. He learns to write Federal writs. He secures a retrial. The Federal court’s in L.A. Fritz Wilhelm Eckelkamp. Missing since 5/18/31. Karl Frederick Tullock. Reported missing 1/12/34. Ashida chalked brain notes. He reviewed his
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the blaze. Meyer Gelb urged “a workers’ revolt.” “One line burned memorably at a Pershing Square stump speech.” Gelb railed. He called out, “This storm, this savaging disaster.” The line drew oohs and aahs. The Times got pissy here. “The flowery sentence might hav...
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A well-dressed man was glimpsed in Mineral Canyon. Eyewits described him as “Chinese or Japanese.” He vanished as the blaze whooshed. A studio carpenter got popped the same night. He set a blaze in Fern Dell Park. Eyewits nailed his car’s license plate.
His name was Ralph D. Barr. He was a known firebug and public jack-off man. He was alibied up for the big blaze. He worked at Paramount all day. That was it. The PD tapped out. The fire department tapped out. Nobody proved arson or disproved it. Local leftists were grilled and released. News coverage fizzled.
Get more on the YSA. Get more on Meyer Gelb. Track the gold chunk. What does “648” mean? Does the attached key correspond to a storage locker someplace? He walked
He runs. He gets away or burns to death. The converse now. He’s lured. He’s stabbed and shot. He’s the probable Karl Tullock. He’s dead in the box. He did or did not know Wayne Frank Jackson. Rest in peace. The two men die the same day. Ashida walked back to the parking lot. The wind
He hit four separate angles. A fifth angle gave him this: The letters L.U.S. It was scratched on. It was diamond-scratched. The scratcher scratched the letters below-the-surface deep. He bought a rough diamond and carved, assiduously. The abrasive dip raised the letters. It had to be that. He had the gold chunk/the L.U.S./the key fob marked “648.” He had storage-locker listings. He’d pulled two pages’ worth. The pages were half wet and
You had transient renters. You had come-and-go traffic. You rent 648 in ’31. You rent it lifetime. There’s no-questions-asked. It’s still your locker today. Ashida scanned listings. Bring-Your-Key Storage. Capitol Storage. Carthage Storage/open-all-nite. He jumped to page two. He quick-skimmed to the L’s. He hit Larry’s Lockers, Len’s Lockers, Lucky Lon’s Locker Vault. Wait, now— Lock-Ur-Self Storage. 829 North Glendale Boulevard. “U Store, U Karry the Key.”
The bullet now. It was skull-smash/up-close flattened. He naked-eyed six impact crimps. He attached bullet forceps to both ends and pulled. The clamps held. He got a half stretch. Four crimps flattened out. He naked-eyed very faint lands and grooves. The microscope now. He studied the bullet. He eyeball-measured millimeters between the stretched crimps. He slide-clamped the bullet and dialed his lens deep. Magnification
differential. The bulletins now. Ignore the crime summaries. Go straight to the microscope pix. Juxtapose your imagination and extrapolate. Miss Conville had arranged the stack chronologically.
reads tweaked him. He skimmed into ’33. Winter, spring, summer— Wait— The bulletin was dated 8/12/33. It summarized four liquor-store heists. “UNSOLVED” was stamped on four bulletins. “STILL UNSOLVED” was stamped on 8/12/36. The summary brief detailed this: Wilshire Division. Four near-southside locations. No gunshot wounds. Shots fired into wood-plank ceilings. Flat, flatter,
your skull-flat spent. Compare it to your plank-flat-spent photos. Add your imagined differential. Ashida did it. Ashida brainworked this: Five spents. All time and sheer-impact degraded. Four from the liquor-store planks. One from Karl Tullock’s skull. Consider all angles. Stir it all up, you get this: Almost three-to-one identical markings. Call it 72%. It’s a possible, if not probable, match.
The door wiggled and popped wide. He stepped inside and shut himself in. He walked back out of sight. There were no first-floor lockers.
boys gym, the showers, the locker room. He walked the rows. He pegged 648. He strolled the rows and saw no one. He walked back to 648. The
The padlock snapped. He opened the door. It was right there on the shelf. May ’31, redux. Memo to Karl Tullock and Wayne Frank Jackson. You’re dead and I’m not. I’ve got what you don’t. It’s solid gold and weighs thirty pounds. You died for this.
(LOS ANGELES, 1:30 A.M., 1/8/42) Late cocktails at Brenda’s.
Kay said, “Satterlee’s in with Hop Sing. I picked that up when I was deep off in Bill Parker’s incursion. Bill told me he was selling leads on Japanese confiscations.” Brenda
capitalized. “Toss me a little one. How dirty’s Ed Satterlee? I know you trick with him, and I’m not jealous.” Ellen twisted up two fingers. “He’s like that with the Chinks.”
griddle.” Ellen mulled it. Thunder slammed the windows. Junior squalled one room over. “He’s bragging about all this Fifth Column work he’s doing. Mr. Hoover wants to extort some key guys, and he wants Ed to run sex shakedowns.” — Lyman’s
Breuning, Buzz Meeks from Robbery. Elmer hit the back room. He evicted Catbox Cal Lunceford. He called chez Satterlee. He woke up Ed the Fed. He told him this: “If this probe of yours is a shuck, why are you working it so hard?”
Elmer tossed a curveball. It swerved low and inside. “There’s a doctor named Lin Chung. Your name’s on his intel file. The routing stamp’s recent.”
Satterlee lit a cigarette. “If there’s something in this for me, let me know. If it’s we’re brothers under the sheets, fuck off and let me go home.” Elmer
“All right, here’s what this is. A, we’re picking up code intercepts from Baja. We think it’s some kind of subtle Jap-Chink Fifth Column gang, and we’re trying to separate the tract pushers and Sieg Heil boys from the real menace. B, I’m not naming names, not for two months’ or ten years’ worth of the best gash on the planet. C, Chung knows lots of well-heeled right-wingers, and he’s got a communist doctor pal that he talks eugenics with. D, I don’t care that he was jungled up with that dead Chink Eddie Leng, or that guy Don Matsura, who stretched his neck at Lincoln Heights.”
Elmer waved his cigar. “Have you got a file on a punk named Tommy Glennon?” Satterlee shook his head. “No dice. Tommy goes back with Dudley Smith, and my policy with Dud is ‘hands-off.’ ” “Tommy used to run wets. I’m thinking he ran them with Carlos Madrano.” “He did, so I’ll issue a warning here. Tommy was
it.” Elmer blew smoke rings. “Does Dud think Tommy will come after him for clipping Madrano?” “Well, there’s that. But mostly I think Dud’s afraid that Tommy will try to ingratiate himself with whoever took over Madrano’s wetback biz, which I bet Dud’s
got his eye on himself.” Elmer said, “That little birdie told me something else.” Satterlee sighed. “You confide to a woman in the sack, and it’s on the Teletype within twenty-four hours.” “Sex shakes. You want to put the squeeze on some Fifth Column geeks.” “Es la verdad, daddy.” Elmer said, “I’ve got a fuck spot, all wired up. Right on Wilshire, upside the tar pits. Wall peek—the whole deal.” “I’ll take it. It puts you in contention for White Man of the Week honors.” Elmer
hot-blood seditionist. To me, he’s just a Sieg Heil boy, looking for giggles. He’s a Coughlinite, and he’s in with these Mex right-wingers called the Sinarquistas.
They’re righteous Catholics and anti-Reds, and their boss is some cholo lawyer named Salvador Abascal. Tommy’s in with
(ENSENADA, 8:00 P.M., 1/8/42) Polyglot. That said it. We’re this
Joan Klein—Jewish waif extraordinaire. Red dress and Red Youthbund dialectic. Dos fascistas—José Vasquez-Cruz and Juan Pimentel. His dear Claire. Besotted by her new daughter. Kyoho Hanamaka—present but unseen. The restaurant stood on the Malecon. Waves
He found a second-floor trapdoor. It supplied quick access and was well devised and disguised. He refitted the boards and replastered the wall he broke in through. He celebrated his seamless job. He stole the gold bayonet. Table talk
Hanamaka/all Mexican states/hold and detain. He studied the photos in his Statie file. Hanamaka’s hands were burn-scarred. It was not explained. He studied the file. No Baja address was listed. Hanamaka lived at the hideaway. That seemed certain now. Hanamaka. Fifth Column warlord. Es la verdad. Embroiled in two sub fiascos. Allied with leftists and rightists abroad. Es la verdad, as well. The Fatherland and Mother Russia greet him. They
Lieutenant Pimentel is his watchdog. He’s ensconced in a nearby house. He’s got chez Hanamaka surveilled. Lieutenant Juan’s a technical whiz. He developed a plan to tap incoming calls to
Baja pay phones. SIS has shot him a hot work assignment. Decode suspect slug calls from the U.S. Table
That dance in London. 1922. The Irish Citizens Army sent him in to plant bombs. A protty boy asked his date to dance. He said, “You don’t mind, do you, Paddy?” The boy danced with her. He encircled her waist. Dudley Liam Smith, age sixteen.
Background
Here’s a dilemma. The dance crowd dwindled. His date drifted off with her sister. He followed the boy down a dark road and blew his brains out. Vasquez-Cruz
