“I know the Maestro through Meyer. He contributed to Meyer’s Free Spain funds, which were all scams to begin with. The Maestro was holed up at Terry Lux’s dry-out farm in Malibu, because he’d been suffering from these bad headaches. Some America First guy, a priest from a wealthy family, came to me through Tommy Glennon, who I already told you was my kid brother Robby’s squeeze. The priest laid out the theme of the party. It was supposed to be all about some event in Nazi Germany four or five years before. There was supposed to be costumes and masks, and it all sounded strange-o to me. That’s it. I set the party up, but I didn’t attend it. I heard rumors that something went very bad — but everyone I knew who was there held their mud about what all happened.”
Elmer brain-strained it. “Was the priest a man named Joe Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know a man named Dudley Smith?”
“No, but I’ve heard of him. He’s supposed to be a hatchet man for the L.A. Chief of Police. People are afraid of him.”
“Klemperer and Meyer Gelb. Give me some more there.”
“What’s to give? Otto throws parties, and Meyer attends.”
“You attend, too. Here’s my guess there. You’ve got these music and movie hotshots passing through, and Meyer trawls for his marks.”
Jean said, “Bingo.”
Elmer said, “Bingo how?”
Jean said, “Meyer’s always trawling for marks, and he’s got no conscience in that regard.”
Elmer smiled. “Rat him, then give me something I can use, in case this whipdick and I ever meet.”
Jean lit a cigarette. “Otto’s befriending these refugees. They’re all Jewish musicians, let out of Germany. Meyer’s set to run a squeeze on them. He says it’s all hooked into some mysterious cabal, but I think he’s just in it for the gelt.”
Kay knew those folks. They were okay by her. They’d endured too much grief as it was.
Elmer said, “No soap. No shakedown, no extortion. That’s straight from me. Tell Meyer I’m looking to hurt him. Tell him I’ll put him in the shit if he goes ahead.”
Jean said, “Okay, sweetie. I’ll pass it along.”
Elmer kissed his fingers and brushed back Jean’s hair. La Jean swooned a bit. It felt half real/half fake.
“Take the gold and go someplace safe. This whole deal could blow up in our face.”
Jean dumped the bar in her purse. She dropped a wet one on him and booked triple quick. The bar was triple fat and heavy. Her purse sagged down to her feet.
99
(Los Angeles, 1:00 A.M., 3/12/42)
The mad eugenicist. The butcher plastic surgeon and tong affiliate. Your host, Lin Chung.
Slumlord Lin. The crazy sawbones owned half of Montebello. He packed Chink refugees into gimcrack cribs and charged usurious rent. An opium den flanked his office. “O” fiends test-trialed Lin’s “Youth Forever” blends. Lin and Dr. Saul Lesnick synthesized them. Let’s build a hophead master race.
Lin’s office was Führer bunker — sized and all knotty-pined. Physical-culture posters drooped off the walls. Norse vixens performed calisthenics. It refracted Leni Riefenstahl and Triumph of the Will.
Dudley watched Herr Doktor work. Lin jacked a spike with sodium pentothal and geezed up Jim Davis. Chief Jim was strapped to a gurney. He’s a suckling pig at a luau. A sock is stuck in his mouth.
Chief Jim went loosey-goosey. He was prone to run his mouth and blab impolitic. In truth serum, veritas. Let’s see what results.
Lin bowed and left the office. Chief Jim looked knocked-down euphoric. Dudley lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his face.
Hideo called him, postsweep. It spurred the abduction. Mondo Díaz snitched Davis as his spy-ring conduit. Lee Blanchard observed the snitch. Blanchard will likely resnitch it to Bill Parker. Hideo further revealed this:
Elmer Jackson showed him a microdot letter. Hideo ran first-round tests and failed to raise the text. Elmer refused to forfeit the letter. Hideo grabbed it and dropped it in the crime lab mail slot. It was addressed to a Baja PO box. La Paz/box 1823.
Elmer snagged the letter at Bev’s Switchboard. Bev’s stood self-indicted now. It’s a seditionist mail drop. Dudley called the La Paz post office. He spoke Spanish and came off Army-SIS brusque. He picked up a ripe tidbit. Miss Constanza Lazaro-Schmidt rented box 1823.
Chief Jim looked ripe to pluck. Dudley pulled his gag. Jim coughed and gurgled euphoric. Jim looked gaga guileless and eager to please.
“I’m anxious to hear your thoughts about several events and the numerous people who may have attended them, Chief. We have a celebrated gold robbery in 1931, the celebrated Griffith Park fire of 1933, the recently celebrated klubhaus murders, microdot communiqués, the Sinarquistas, and individuals named Tommy Glennon, Meyer Gelb, Jean Staley, Fritz Eckelkamp, Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie Archuleta, Karl Frederick Tullock, Martin Luther Mimms, Leander Frechette, George Lincoln Rockwell, Kyoho Hanamaka, Eddie Leng, Donald Matsura, Mondo Díaz, Miguel Santarolo, Frankie Carbajal, Juan Lazaro-Schmidt, and his sister, Constanza.”
Chief Jim deadpanned the names. He said his pet rat Lucifer fucked his pet rat Brünnhilde. Dr. Saul fed them eugenics potions and imbued them with eternal youth. He planned to name their ratlings Hitler, Stalin, and Saul Junior.
Dudley said, “You’re veering off a bit, Chief.”
Davis said, “Lucifer raised money for some far-right boys. Meyer Gelb’s a kosher cowboy. He’s right-left and who knows what else. Meyer gave a speech at this Mexican confab. Vodka and schnitzel. The ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’ and the ‘Internationale.’ Meyer’s a goldbug. He wants the gold, but who doesn’t? There’s good colored trim at the klubhaus, but I like fourteen-year-old white girls myself. There ought to be a law — and, frankly, there is. Preacher Mimms preaches the new gold standard. Meyer’s a kosher extortionist. Kyoho refueled Jap planes at the Blue Fox on the Day of Infamy. He took Ernst Kaltenbrunner and some apparatchiks to the Fox his own self. Lucifer’s a muff-diver. That’s a rare trait in rats. Is this the DTs, Dud? I’ve had the DTs before.”
The confab. Goldbugs. Blathering nuts and realpolitik. Oddball egalitarianism. Aus der Neuen Welt.
“I wonder if I might ask you a few more specific questions, Chief.”
Davis said, “No. I won’t let you. They’re my DTs and my pretty pictures I’m seeing. I fucked Theda Bara and Vilma Bánky, and you didn’t. I fucked your Irish mama. Lucifer fucked Marlene Dietrich in Dresden. There were these white boys and spic boys in this college there. Wallace Jamie, Joe Hayes. Juan Pimentel and Mondo Díaz. You want microdots and phone relays? They’ve got them. Jamie’s America First. Father Joe blows Father Coughlin. They own a drop in West Hollywood, but Blow Job Bev’s got her name on the deed. This Juan spic was there at the confab. Talk about your spy brain.”
Aus der Neuen Welt. Realpolitik. Lucid instants couched in dross.
Postwar-strategy talks at a donkey club. We all want the gold. That means you. We’re all goldbugs. We’re all in this together. It’s all one story, you see.
100
Kay Lake’s Diary
(Los Angeles, 2:30 A.M., 3/12/42)
My émigré friends lived in adjoining bungalows. They were night owls to begin with; they required no urging to stay up late, socialize, and make music. Elmer called me at home an hour ago and told me that he had braced Jean Staley. He said we should discuss the fruits of the interview, and told me I should pass a message to “those refugee chums of yours.”