Annie said, “Well, sister, you’ve got most of it.”
“Ed was interested in sexual and political dirt, wasn’t he? Mr. Hoover gets his jollies that way, and you never know when dirt like that can be useful.”
“Yep. That’s the gist of it.”
“Confirm this, will you? That first night Elmer ran the camera. Dr. Saul was discussing his patient Claire De Haven.”
“That’s right. Claire, the rich-girl Communist. Her and her cop lover, down in Mexico. Claire said you tried to kill the lover, but old Saul didn’t believe it. The upshot is that Elmer heard all this, and he offered me money to wear a microphone and go to Otto Klemperer’s parties, and ratchet up my pump job on old Saul.”
I said, “Because Elmer wanted to keep tabs on Dr. Saul, and Claire always attended those parties, and Elmer was curious about what she might say regarding Dudley Smith.”
Annie smiled. She was truly big-girl lovely. Call her Ingrid Bergman, with ten thousand chromosomes askew.
“Elmer was very curious about Mr. Smith, and I think he’s got some kind of vendetta going against him. I told Elmer a little tale that old Saul told me, where Mr. Smith beat up Orson Welles, because he had a sort-of deal going with Claire. Elmer said he’d like to wire me up to pump Mr. Welles, which I’d do for free, if Mr. Welles lost some weight.”
Brenda called Elmer “shakedown happy.” This jibed with something I knew about him. He was a canny judge of character and voyeuristically inclined.
Annie ordered a second malt. Brenda thought she looked best on the sturdy-milkmaid side. I asked her how Sid Hudgens played into all this. She told me Sid was shakedown happy, all on his own, apart from Elmer and Ed. Join the crowd, Sid. Annie Staples knows from shakedowns.
Sid wanted dirt on film folk and politicians. He was putting out a sub-rosa scandal sheet and wanted dirt too hot for the Herald. He tried to recruit Annie as his very own Venus flytrap. She was still considering his pitch.
Annie’s second malt arrived; she dunked her straw and siphoned the goo in a wink. Annie played a cameo role in Joan Conville’s diary. Joan observed her futzing with her microphone outside Otto Klemperer’s guesthouse. I teethed on the nexus of the whole three-case megillah. It was Meyer Gelb’s cell and how the four surviving members still hovered in plain sight. The Cell. What old Saul might know and might have written down.
And Annie Staples was sitting right beside me. She’s a one-woman nexus. In the market for a shakedown shill? Annie’s the tops.
She had malted-milk residue on her upper lip. She’s about five-foot-ten and built like a discus queen. I grabbed my napkin and daubed the goo off her lip. Annie likes people to touch her.
“I know that old Saul is a Federal informant, and that he reports to Ed Satterlee. Do you know if his informant duty went back to the early ’30s, when he was in a Communist cell?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think he signed on with Ed more recently than that, because his daughter was in prison for vehicular manslaughter, and Ed used that as a wedge to turn Saul out as his fink.”
I lit a cigarette and thought about Elmer. He’d gone AWOL from Crash Squad briefings; Lee told me this.
Annie said, “Penny for your thoughts.”
I said, “I was thinking about Elmer.”
“What’s there to think about? I’m in love with him, and he’s in love with you.”
I laughed. Elmer and his dead brother, Elmer and his shakedown girl. Early wartime L.A. The pursuit of the big main chance.
Annie jiggled the charms on her charm bracelet. Little dogs, doghouses, arrows piercing hearts.
“But Ed did have a snitch in Saul’s cell back then, and Saul and Andrea didn’t know it. It was this woman named Jean, and she was no kind of Red. Ed dished her to me. He said she’s still in cahoots with this Meyer guy who ran the cell, even though the cell’s dissolved. Jean used to be married to some crazy firebug. This Meyer guy’s going to get her to shake down these exile musicians.”
I said, “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to make wax impressions of all the keys that Dr. Saul carries.”
Annie detached a little dog charm. She placed it in my hand and gave me a squeeze. She said, “For luck, sweetie. Because where you’re going with all this, you’re sure going to need it.”
“Annie, will you—”
“Sure, sweetie. It’s not like I’ve never caught him with his trousers off.”
93
(Los Angeles, 3:00 P.M., 3/10/42)
Army brass. War-hire cop now. His luck holds. He’s serendipitous and fuckstruck.
The Hollenbeck muster room was cluttered and cramped. The reduced Crash Squad was all ears.
The boys straddled chairs and faced Thad Brown. Ashida, Elmer Jackson, Buzz Meeks. Lee Blanchard and Bill Parker. Cigarette and cigar smoke/one big iron lung.
Ashida side-eyed Elmer J. Elmer’s outburst still rankled. Jap, Jap, Jap. Elmer stooped to that.
Thad said, “We’ve got nine male Mexicans on our roust list. We need to determine whether or not Rice and Kapek sold them Japanese-confiscated guns. They filed no gun-confiscation paperwork, so we’ve got no comparison sheets to check against any guns we bag tonight. What we do have is the threat of illegal possession of firearms and possibly related armed robberies, to use as a wedge to extract information on our homicides.”
Blanchard said, “Say it, boss. 211 pops will make us look good, if this whole job dips south.”
Elmer said, “Blanchard’s a pessimist.”
Buzz said, “Blanchard’s a Bolshevik.”
Thad rolled his eyes. “We’ve got three squads tonight. There’s Captain Parker and me, Jackson and Meeks, Blanchard and Ashida. On a related topic, that Navy chump Link Rockwell’s in custody down in Florida. A naval district judge should be issuing an extradition ruling soon.”
Elmer said, “Anchors away, whipdick.”
Buzz said, “Link’s tight as ticks with the Reverend Mimms. They’re the world’s foremost salt-and-pepper act.”
Parker said, “We’re going out tonight, and we muster here at 1930 hours. Shotguns, riot gear, and one paddy wagon per squad. Go home and sack out. We’ll be stretching these humps all night.”
Buzz whistled. Blanchard whooped. They dogged Parker and Brown out to the hallway. Elmer kicked the door shut. Ashida gulped. Elmer pulled his chair up close.
“I’m sorry, Hideo. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was plain wrong of me, and I apologize.”
Ashida stuck his hand out. Elmer bone-crushed it. Ashida mock-winced.
“I understand. You’ve been seething since you met with Kay, and I more than warranted your outburst.”
Elmer displayed an envelope. He waved it and pulled out a sheet of soft-bond paper. Ashida saw faint spots. They resembled pinpricks dipped in soluble oil.
“Where did you get this?”
“At Bev’s Switchboard. You know, that loopy mail drop in West Hollywood. It was in Meyer Gelb’s mail-holding file, and it was addressed to a PO box in La Paz, down in Baja.”
Ashida touched the sheet. It was high-rag content and top-grade absorbent.
“It’s microdots. We’ll need a microdot camera to bring up the text.”
Elmer whooped. “I knew that was it. I saw a piece about that shit in Reader’s Digest.”
Mail drops. Meyer Gelb. The dicey Lazaro-Schmidts hailed from La Paz.
“Hideo’s in a trance. He’s hanging out the ‘Genius at Work’ sign.”
Ashida laughed. “We can’t bring up the text without that camera.”