Tommy thunked around in the trunk. Buzz jumped in the car. Elmer got behind the wheel and burned tread. They had a spot all picked out. The caustic-sewage dump behind the Point Loma base.
Elmer wheeled them there, rapid. The spot adjoined an air-artillery range. The dump was barb-wired up. Caustic gack bubbled and gurgled. Evil swamp creatures gamboled within.
Elmer brodied up to the fence. He got out and unlocked the trunk. Buzz got out and jerked Tommy up on his feet. Tommy was beat-on and green at the gills. Buzz tossed him in the backseat and scooched him toward the middle. Elmer got in and sandwich-jobbed him on the other side.
Tommy huffed and squirmed. Elmer tapped the roof light and halo-lit him. Buzz pulled his throwdown piece. He popped the cylinder and flashed the six-bullet load.
Elmer said, “We got some questions.”
Tommy quiver-quaked. Buzz dumped five bullets and spun the cylinder. He snapped it shut and winked at Tommy. He put the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger twice.
The hammer hit empty chambers. Tommy wriggled and squealed. Elmer said, “We got some questions.”
Buzz held up his piece. He spun the cylinder and snapped it shut. He winked at Tommy.
Tommy said, “Fuck your mother.”
Buzz put the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger. The hammer hit an empty chamber. Tommy wriggled and squealed. Elmer said, “We got some questions.”
Tommy wriggled and squealed. Tommy bleated and squealed. Tommy said, “Okay, okay, okay.”
Elmer said, “You dropped your address book New Year’s Eve. I guess you figured that out.”
Buzz said, “There’s some names we were curious about.”
Elmer relit a cigar. “Let’s start with Eddie Leng. The number to his slop chute was right there in your book.”
Tommy coughed. He was bruised and contused. He talked, squeaky-frail.
“Eddie was an old pal of mine. He was a terp man. He was all tonged up, and he got snuffed in C-town on New Year’s Eve. You’re climbing the wrong tree if you think I did it. It was this Jap, Don Matsura. He had a terp still at his place in J-town, and he peddled terp to the Japs and the Chinks. He hung himself in the Lincoln Heights Jail, but Ace Kwan might have helped him.”
Buzz said, “You’re in the know, son.”
Elmer fed Tommy a jolt of 151. Tommy gulped and coughed out residue. Elmer caught a residual spritz.
“What else you got on Eddie and Don Matsura? You got any KAs for them?”
Tommy coughed. “How’s Cal Lunceford sound? He was this shitheel cop on the Alien Squad, but he’s dead now. It was in the papers. Some ex-caped Jap shot him. Cal was Fifth Column, and he was in with Eddie and Don Matsura, plus a whole lot of other shitheels. Before you ask, I ain’t got no proper names.”
Elmer fed Tommy a jolt of 151. Tommy sucked it in and kept it down.
Buzz said, “St. Vibiana’s. What’s going on there? What’s with you and Monsignor Joe Hayes?”
Tommy said, “Come on, don’t make me say it.”
Buzz said, “I’ll say it for you. You and the monsignor travel the dirt road together. You’re both Coughlinites and Jew-haters. Let me hazard a guess here. Being tight with priests got you juice with Dudley Smith.”
The roof light haloed Tommy. He got this caged-mick look.
“I snitched for Dud. I’m pals with Dud’s boy Huey Cressmeyer. I ran wets for Carlos Madrano, so you could say I been around and know some people you might be interested in. Dud visited me in Quentin, last November. I put the squeeze on him, which I shouldn’t have done. Dud put your cracker pal, Mike the B., and Dick the C. on me, but I got away, because your cracker pal here didn’t have the stones to shoot me.”
Elmer brain-strained it. Tommy extorts Dudley. Let’s call his shakedown wedge this:
Winter ’39. That Nazi costume bash. Tommy gets a biiiiiiiiiiiig eyeful. Dud slays that he-she bitch.
Buzz pat-patted Tommy. Good snitch dog. Let’s give him a treat.
He snatched the 151 and fed him two jolts. Tommy coughed and joy-kicked the front seat.
Buzz said, “Let’s get back to the address book. What’s with that hot-box phone, by the Herald.”
Tommy said, “I was relaying gibberish calls. It was all dot-dash-dot, dog-cat-pig, code shit that means something if you know how to decode it. My call scripts got patched through to a bookie drop in Ensenada, and I got the scripts at my mail drop in L.A. It was all through what you call cutouts, so I never knew who was writing the scripts or giving the orders. I got this sort-of tip from a Mex bookie who was forwarding the messages. He told me they were going to this political guy and his sister in La Paz, but then he clammed up.”
Elmer said, “Come on, there’s got to be more there.”
Tommy coughed. “Okay, okay, okay. The bookie guy zipped it, but I extrapolated some shit, because Fifth Column’s Fifth Column, and it’s all one big sort-of-happy family, which sure loves to talk. I know Deutsches Haus guys, guys with the Mex Staties, and guys from that nutso 46th Street place. I know things just as good as I know all these guys. I know Dud killed Carlos Madrano, I know there were some sub-berth killings in Baja, and it was all part of a play to pass Japs off as Chinks, and—”
Elmer cut in. “Eddie Leng was tight with a Chinatown doctor named Lin Chung. You’re a guy who knows guys, so I’m wondering if you know him.”
Tommy smirked. “I know Lin. Everybody knows Lin, including a notable dead guy named Eddie Leng, who don’t know him no more.”
Buzz poked him. “Don’t string this out. Finish whatever it is that you got to say.”
Tommy resmirked. “Okay, okay, okay. Eddie was tight with Lin, and Lin was tight with these rich white guys who were behind that first sub landing. Eddie introduced me to Lin, and Lin said the second landing was the work of a left-wing/right-wing alliance, and they were setting up some kind of postwar reconciliation deal. They’re pulling all sorts of evil shit in the here and now, but they intend to make themselves look good by exposing it after this war is over.”
Elmer brain-braced it. “Was Dud embroiled in any of this?”
Tommy laughed. “Nein to that. Dud leans Fifth Column, but it’s just a cocktease. He loves Nazi threads and regalia, but he ain’t no saboteur. He’s just some kind of fetishist.”
Buzz said, “Let’s revisit the klubhaus.”
Tommy said, “Goody. That sounds like kicks.”
Elmer said, “Link Rockwell. Them smut pix he planned to send from his mail drop to yours.”
Buzz flashed the key pix. Elmer shot good camera dupes. You’ve got two women. One’s white, one’s Mex. There’s that klubhaus backdrop.
Tommy shrugged. “If you’re asking me who the two janes are, I don’t know. They’re just jazz-club chippies out for distraction.”
Elmer said, “We’re here, and we’re all ears. Give us some more on the klubhaus.”
Tommy said, “I’m parched. Give me another nip first.”
Buzz grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. It stretched his mouth wide. Buzz juked in the juice.
Tommy gargled it and kept it down. Buzz wiped his hand pomade-free. Tommy’s mouth snapped shut. He went electrizized. He looked sloshed, slammed, and slathered to shit.
“I like this stuff you’re slipping me. It makes me want to hot-prowl and commit some swell misdeeds.”
Elmer said, “The klubhaus. Let’s get back to that.”
Tommy squirmed. He was cuffed tight. Steel ratchets gouged his wrists. The evil punk bloodied up the backseat.