“The smut pix were just some Link Rockwell deal. Beyond that, the klubhaus was just this place where anything goes.”
Elmer gnawed his cigar. “Our lab guy found jizz stains and fecal matter on an upstairs bed. That reads ‘queer shit’ to me.”
Tommy went C’est la vie. “I hid out at the klubhaus for a week, after you blew that stakeout on me. Okay, I knew Wendell Rice and Georgie Kapek, but just to say hi to. I knew they were cops, and I knew they were Fifth Column, but then so’s everybody else in the exalted Thomas Malcolm Glennon’s world.”
Buzz sighed. “The ‘queer shit,’ Tommy.”
Elmer sighed. “Chop, chop, you pervert. It’d delight me to put some hurt on you.”
Tommy yawned. It was I’m-so-bored stagy. Elmer bitch-slapped him. Tommy licked blood off his lips and rebounded quick.
“Okay, ‘queer shit,’ a topic dear to my heart. I didn’t really know Rice and Kapek, but I knew they were afraid of this queer kid who hung out on the jazz strip and brought boys to the klubhaus for some pokey-pokey. He was a blondie kid, sort of tall, maybe some kind of musician, and he was pals with a crazy Jap that Rice and Kapek busted, but the Jap made habeas and got himself sprung. Now, Mr. Jap was a sword man. Rice and Kapek popped him with this big blood-caked sword, and after he waltzed, he became a sure-as-shit klubhaus regular. He used to kill chickens for all these slop chutes in J-town, and he licked the blood off the swords that he used.”
Elmer brained-snagged it. He witnessed that log-in. Rice and Kapek/the blood-flecked sword. This could be good. Paperwork might still exist.
Buzz said, “The haus, Tommy. Keep going there.”
“What’s to tell? It was too crazy for me, so I vamoosed.”
Elmer said, “What did you squeeze Dudley with?”
Tommy said, “Brace yourself, daddy. Dud snuffed a drag boy at a party. Huey C. and I witnessed the whole thing. I’ll give you my long-held opinion on that, for what it’s worth. Dud knew that she was really a he, and he was looooving the encounter until something flipped his switch.”
Elmer looked at Buzz. Buzz looked at Elmer. They both orbed Tommy G.
Buzz said, “Kyoho Hanamaka? Ring a bell?”
Tommy said, “Nix.”
Elmer said, “José Vasquez-Cruz. His aka’s Jorge Villareal-Caiz.”
Tommy said, “Ixnay.”
Buzz said, “Archie Archuleta?”
Tommy said, “I knew that pendejo. I used to see him at the klubhaus, and from what I heard, he was a notable J-town and C-town crawler. He was cinched up with more strange-o’s than you can count, and he veered Fifth Column right. He knew Mex girls who’d pose for smut pictures, and he knew Sinarquista heist guys and set them up with Rice and Kapek, to buy these guns they’d confiscated from these Japs they’d tossed in the clink. RIP, Archie. He was a white man, as much as any Mex can be.”
Elmer soft-lobbed it. “This Commie girl, Jean Staley. How come she’s in your book?”
Tommy drop-jawed that one. He’s gone on 151. He’s all stage ham now.
“Jean’s been known to play Red, but she’s been a Federal snitch since the ice age. She was in a CP cell back in the ’30s, while she was meanwhile tattling to her handler and running shakedowns on movie people and her fellow Reds with this yid, Meyer Gelb. Meyer’s a ganef and a penguin-fucker from way back. There’s nothing he ain’t done or considered doing. He got Jean shaking down these Trotskyites he hates, because he’s a Stalinist, and these Red-faction humps hate other Red-faction humps more than they hate confirmed fascistos like yours truly.”
Elmer digested it. Tommy credentialed it. Jean, baby — say it ain’t so.
Buzz wiggled the 151. “Bottoms up, Tommy.”
Stage Ham Tommy. He goes all rubber-faced.
“I’ve heard that one before, but I have to add that I’m the brunser, more than the punk.”
Elmer cringed. Buzz bottle-fed Tommy. The stage ham smacked his lips. The backseat socked in heat. Elmer rolled down his window and breathed deep.
“What’s Meyer got Jean doing now? There’s a picture of you three at the Club Alabam, just last week.”
“Souvenir pictures are the blahs, hoss. They send girl photographers around, and Meyer always succumbs.”
“I asked you a question, fucker.”
“Okay, okay, okay. The answer is shakedowns. That’s the Jean and Meyer bailiwick. This time, they’re putting it to these left-wing musicians that got so-called rescued from der Führer’s clutches, to make the so-called rescuers look good when Uncle Sambo wins the war. You sound me, muchacho? Meyer’s setting Jean up to extort them and recruit them as informants.”
One more time. Jean, darling — say it ain’t so.
“How dirty is she?”
“She’s a mud hen from way back, hoss. She goes back to that Kraut hump, Fritz Eckelkamp. Does that name ring a bell? He ex-caped from that gold train that got robbed back when I was still in pigtails. Jean got around and gets around, and she sure plays Jezebel in the process. She was married to a pathetic geek named Ralph D. Barr. Ralphie set fires and yanked his crank when the fire engines showed up. He was a suspect for that big Griffith Park fire, but he was a small-blaze specialist and got absolved. Jean told me he was hung microscopic.”
Elmer looked at Buzz. Buzz looked at Elmer. They both orbed Tommy G.
Buzz said, “ ‘Fifth Column’s Fifth Column.’ We get that. Past that, have you got a specific source for what you been feeding us?”
Tommy made horn-call sounds. Tommy blew a loooooong fanfare.
“Hold your hats, race fans. We’re at Del Mar, and my #1 nag is at the gate. He’s my #1 source for Fifth Column scuttlebutt, and he’s none other than your ex-chief, James Edgar Davis.”
Buzz looked at Elmer. Elmer looked at Buzz. They both orbed Tommy G.
Buzz sighed. “It’s getting late. Tell us something we don’t know.”
Tommy blew a long fanfare. He wet his pants for such shtick.
“All in all, I’ve raped twenty-three women. I killed two bags in Frisco and a thin cooze at a truck stop in Visalia. I killed an old Jew lady in South Beach and did a necrophile job on her. I made like Dracula and drank her blood, and I yanked out all her gold teeth.”
Buzz grabbed a loose seat cushion. He clamped it over Tommy’s head and pulled his belt piece. He pumped a full clip into Tommy’s face. Blood and cushion stuffing exploded. Shots tore out the trunk ledge and ricocheted. A skull chunk hit Elmer’s cheek.
Buzz said, “I got me an old granny who’s one-sixty-fourth Jewish. I don’t condone that sort of grief.”
91
(Santo Tomas, 12:00 P.M., 3/9/42)
The Wolf growled and paced. This bluffside spot vexed him. Swooping gulls and salt spray. A dirt parking lot. Tables perched close to a cliff.
Dudley sat outside. The spot induced vertigo. He’d called the meet. Salvy suggested this cantina. They served Baja’s best mariscos.
Mucho carros jammed up the lot. The Mex Army favored El Dumpo. It was their place. They ignored the rats clustered by the kitchen. The cantina was subramshackle. Army staff cars brodied on loose dirt. Dudley ate exhaust fumes.
He sipped lukewarm beer. His table overlooked the lot and a hundred-foot drop. Mex soldiers chortled all around him.
He was furious. He conceded Fear. Bill Parker enlisted Thad Brown and applied a vise squeeze. Parker levied his no-false-solution decree and sandbagged Jack Horrall. He violated the Smith-Parker truce. He slammed Jack H. and offered up an irresistible concession. Parker said he’d erase every bug and tap recording now in Fed custody. This action would spark courtroom acquittals for Jack and his gang. Fletch Bowron, Ray Pinker, the Jamie kid. All the lesser defendants. Poof! — all would go free.