Dudley smiled. “You have my consent. I will add that you know a great deal about my business dealings here in Baja, and I would ask that you steer clear of them as they might pertain to your investigation.”
“Yes, I agree.”
Dudley fondled his oak leaves. They were solid gold.
“I would advise caution on a second front, as well. Dick Carlisle called me and described your contretemps with Elmer Jackson, including the vile comments he made to you and the beating he inflicted on our friend Mike. Dick said that Elmer made a garbled reference to gold, which I find discomfiting. Please be careful there. Beyond that, I would like you to draft an extensively detailed report on our three cases, for my exclusive review. Requisition any and all files you need, under your SIS sanction and my signature as your new commanding officer. Interpret all the evidence and theorize as to how the three cases cohere. Have the report to me in one week’s time.”
El Rancho de Narcóticos was ten miles east of T.J. Carlos Madrano built it. Dudley and José Vasquez-Cruz usurped it. Juan Pimentel now sub-Führer’d the ranch.
Dudley and Captain Juan dropped in. Sinarquista goons straw-bossed the operation. Statie noncoms patrolled the perimeter. They packed tommy guns and Brazilian mastiffs on short tethers. The dogs hunted feral cats and mauled dope-worker slaves on command.
The conversion lab was up-to-date and unhygienic. Four chemists brewed Mexican poppies into Big “H.” Low-peso peons packaged the shit. A slave barracks adjoined the lab. The slaves worked sixteen-hour shifts and got Sunday mornings off. A local priest performed Mass. He was hooked on Big “H.”
Dudley toured the grounds. Captain Juan played tour guide. Governor Lazaro-Schmidt had joined the cabal. He’d requested a progress report.
Four large trucks and three large buses stood by the barracks. Their big-scoop wheelwells would move the shit north. Interned Japs would ride the buses. Legally vetted wetbacks would crowd up the trucks. Hideo Ashida would watchdog future border crossings. He’d speak Jap to the Japs. He’d tally confiscated gelt and secure property lists.
Wets, Japs, dope. A trenchant trifecta. El Governor would vouch the three fronts. He’d grease the skids with the U.S. Relocation brass. Their Jap jails would overflow. He’d sign on California farm bosses. He’d exploit his office and sell them cut-rate wets.
Dudley spot-checked vehicles. He kicked tires, popped hoods, tightened loose spark plugs. Juan Pimentel watched. He said, “You haven’t told me the governor’s percentage.”
Dudley swung a wrench and cinched up wobbly lug nuts. Slack tires just wouldn’t do.
“15 % of our combined ventures. He provides the official sanctions, while we provide the work.”
“Do you not find the governor’s relationship with his sister quite strange?”
Dudley winked. “I would call it outré, and perhaps perverse.”
They dined at Neptune’s Locker. It was a driftwood and barnacle barn on Avenida Costeño. Native swells and U.S. stiffs loved the place.
Their table overlooked the yacht pier. Film moguls cruised down from L.A. and went slumming. Nude starlets baked on warm teakwood. The governor openly stared.
He wore a trim-cut navy blazer and white ducks tonight. The London Shop dressed him. He shopped in Beverly Hills once a month.
They drank absinthe frappés. Constanza wore a yellow sundress. Dudley wore his ODs. He felt dowdy beside these two.
They toasted Dudley’s precipitous promotion. They toasted their business deal and a certain German jefe. Constanza hummed the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.” The table was set with mock-gold flatwear. Lazaro-Schmidt raised a mock-gold fork.
“To new friends and acquisition. To that precious commodity we seek.”
They tapped forks over the table. The absinthe had Dudley light-headed. Constanza ran a hand up his leg.
“Tell the major about Kyoho, Juan. He’s quite naturally curious, and I need to gauge whether or not he’s the jealous type.”
Lazaro-Schmidt laughed. He lit a cigarette and shot his shirtcuffs.
“It may dismay my sister, but I think of Kyoho as a conspirator more than I think of him as her lover. As a conspirator, I would surmise that he was the most adroit and politically savvy of all those in the left-right cartel. He was always tight-lipped, especially as it pertained to the gold. He was here for the conference in November of ’40, and I recall that he seemed to be very much within himself, amid the few instances of camaraderie that I witnessed.”
Constanza lit a cigarette. “Juan was there for the opening ceremony and the departures only. He was not there for the formal meetings where the strategies pertaining to the gold itself were discussed.”
Dudley said, “Do minutes for the conference exist?”
Lazaro-Schmidt said, “Yes, but they are not to be found. They would be a priceless discovery, of course.”
Constanza dipped a hand under the table. Dudley threaded their fingers up.
“It would delight me to have you drop some names, Governor. The conference has me starstruck.”
Lazaro-Schmidt waved the gold fork. “The Russians were without significant style or substance. Molotov, Beria, a few elevated apparatchiks. They were there to betray Butcher Stalin and the Communist International, and I credit them only with their ardent belief that informed leftists and rightists must unite to survive a certain postwar apocalypse. Our Nazi Kameraden were quite another barrel of fish. They shared the revelation with comparable urgency and comported themselves with inestimable class. Wilhelm Canaris was most cultured and gracious. Ernst Kaltenbrunner was thin, gorgeously attired, and six and a half feet tall. My acquaintance Meyer Gelb drove the German contingent around Ensenada, without their ever once suspecting that he was a Jew.”
Red Meyer, redux. Dudley pondered it.
“Gelb attended the conference?”
“I’m sure he was there as a rogue Stalinist, and the tool of an enlightened faction within the Comintern. He served as a chauffeur, but was not privy to the conference itself.”
“But minutes of the conference do exist?”
“Yes. An American man took them with him at the end of the conference. I know nothing about this man, but I saw him leave for the airfield with a briefcase cuffed to his wrist.”
Dudley said, “Please describe the man.”
Lazaro-Schmidt said, “He was tall, and he had a southern accent.”
Constanza booked a suite at the del Norte. It was insolently close to his suite and Claire. They walked through the lobby, entwined. Beth and Young Joan sat in lounge chairs and saw them. Beth scowled. Young Joan scrutinized.
His body revved, his mind raced. They’d sniffed cocaine in the cab. The seditious siblings, the gold, some elliptical gap. They hadn’t discussed the heist/the fire/the gold’s full origins. They assumed each other’s lust for possession and possessive intent. The sibs went back with Kyoho Hanamaka. Governor Juan attended the confab and knew Meyer Gelb. His body revved, his mind raced. Tell me everything. He almost shrieked it.
They elevatored up to the suite. Constanza pushed him into the back wall and held him there with her mouth. She kissed his eyes and his neck. The doors slid open. She grabbed his waistband and pulled him down the hall. He fumbled the key out of her clutch and unlocked the suite.
The front room was all dark shapes and shadows. He kicked the door shut and pushed Constanza into a chair. He dropped to his knees and held her there with his mouth.