“Jean was in on some shakedown deal with Meyer Gelb,” Elmer said. “And I figured out he had an eye on your chums. Tell them to breathe easy. I paid Jean off and sent her back on the lam again. She’s indispensable to that shitbird Gelb, so he won’t be squeezing your chums, no way at all.”
I called the Koenigs and relayed the good news. Hence this impromptu celebration. My refugee chums had learned one aspect of the L.A. gestalt very quickly. When in doubt, throw a party.
Magda Koenig whipped up a pot of goulash; Ruth Szigeti journeyed out to a liquor store and stocked up on booze and mixer. I called Elmer back and told him he’d be a fool not to attend. He said, “We both know I’m a fool, but I’ll be there anyway.”
Bill called me a few minutes later. He relayed the latest sweep leads and closed with “For what it’s worth, I love you.” He hung up, just as I started to swoon.
The party was running full steam now. Ruth had invited four of her most recently acquired lovers, two of each sex. There was an usherette from the Aero Theatre and Miss Barbara Stanwyck. There was Brenda Allen’s sought-after male prostitute, “Ten-Inch” Tony Mangano. There was sepia songster Billy Eckstine, hot off a record-breaking engagement at the southside Congo Club.
The goulash was spicy and tasty; Miklos Koenig made mean rye-whiskey Manhattans. Ruth shared brief bedroom intervals with Babs and Tony, and returned from them both looking pooped. The disparate batch of folks seemed to get along swell. Ruth played Paganini’s 24th violin caprice; Billy Eckstine held pace with her and warbled an a cappella “Ebb Tide.” Elmer the J. walked in the door and withstood a refugee stampede.
Miklos Koenig and Mr. Abramowitz pumped his hand and pounded his back; Magda demurely kissed both his cheeks. Elmer and Ruth shared a look that might best be described as lustful and opportunistic. Miklos force-fed Elmer a bowl of goulash; Elmer told him it was savory, but ain’t this the sort of grub the Communists eat? Babs asked him to fix a slew of her unpaid traffic tickets — which Elmer graciously agreed to do. Elmer addressed Billy Eckstine as “Sir.” He apologized for the Vice Squad raid on the Harlem Hutch in August ’38. Sir Billy impulsively embraced him.
Elmer and Ruth fell into each other’s gravitational pull. I eavesdropped on their screwball conversation. Elmer said things like “You’re Jewish, right?” and “I’ll bet Hitler’s boys were right on your tail.” Ruth asked Elmer how many Negroes he’d lynched and if his mom and dad bullwhipped their slaves. Elmer told Ruth she had green panther eyes. Ruth told Elmer he had beady eyes and said that she preferred circumcised men.
Dawn came up. I played hesitant Liszt on Miklos Koenig’s piano while Magda Koenig scrambled two dozen eggs. It was a very fine party. I looked out the front-door window and spotted a Ruth-meets-Elmer vignette. They leaned up against a wilted palm tree. I watched the not-too-dumb cracker and the Jewish refugee kiss.
101
(Ensenada, 7:00 A.M., 3/12/42)
He worked all night. SIS maintained a small crime lab. Their photographic gear excelled. He examined the Jean Staley/Elmer Jackson postcards. He found microdots on two out of six.
The cards were two-ply pasteboard. He separated the pieces and got microscopically close. The dots looked like pinpricks. He dialed down and exposed them at maximum power. They remained dots. No text was revealed.
Ashida swigged coffee. He pondered ways and means and got an idea. He walked to the photo room. He pulled a Minox Riga camera and loaded it with high-resolve film. He shot twenty-four exposures. He photo-snapped the postcard pieces and developed the film.
The darkroom was well stocked. Ashida did the cut-and-dunks inside four hours. He hang-dried the prints. He got all cardboard grain. No microdots were exposed.
He found a paint atomizer. He sprayed a large piece of posterboard black. He taped the twenty-four photographs to sheer sheets of paper and placed them on an easel stand. He placed the posterboard on its own easel. Both stands were frame-only and hollow-backed.
He poked pinholes in the posterboard and placed the two stands close together. He rigged the posterboard easel in front of the photo easel. He aligned the stands just so.
He squinted through the pinholes. He saw the taped photographs just so. He dragged a forensic arc light up into position. He hit the juice and illuminated the back-easel sheets from behind.
It was very sheer paper. Ashida naked-eyed the flaws in the bond. He reloaded his camera and cut the overhead lights.
Black room, blinding arc light. He placed the camera lens up to the pinholes and snapped shots into the flare. The pinholes limited his photographic field and homed it in on the invisible dots.
He shot twenty-four exposures.
He developed the film.
Microdots appeared.
They were naked-eye visible. The text appeared as a blur.
Ashida microscoped all twenty-four prints. He dialed deep and brought up bursts of visible text. It wasn’t coded. It was Spanish language. The sentences ran out of sequence. He poked his pinholes randomly and photographed the dots that way. He juggled prints and microscope slides and rigged up a first-draft sequence.
He quick-translated to English. He scanned words and cribbed up a text. Said text was all LISTS.
Of U.S. defense manufacturers.
Of pro-Communist and pro-Axis comrades/Kameraden within.
Of gold prices now.
Of gold prices predicted, up through ’44.
Of sub berths on the Baja coast.
Of secret airstrips geared for takeoffs and landings. All situated north of L.A. All in the San Joaquin Valley. All near agricultural-crop properties.
This admonition. Typed in boldface:
“EYES ONLY. DO NOT REVEAL TO JLS & CLS UNDER ANY CIRCS.”
JLS, CLS. Surely the Lazaro-Schmidt siblings.
Ashida jumped microscopes and rigged up fresh slides. He dialed down to maximum power. He brought up more text. It was all numbers and single letters.
The import hit him. It was Bible code. He’d learned the rudiments in grad school. Chapter and verse listings. King James page listings. Substitutions to transpositions to coherent text.
Ashida combed the lab and squadroom. He found a KJV Bible in the watch sergeant’s desk. He worked with scratch pad, pen, and microscope.
He jumped Bible-to-scope. He fought eyestrain. He jumped Genesis-to-Revelation and covered all sixty-six books. Numbers-letters, numbers-letters. Chapters and verses. Sacred text to microdot text.
He worked for five hours straight. The translated text read thus:
“My trusted Comrade, or should I say Reichsführer, second only to me. We have veered left and right as this storm rages. Tovarich and Kamerad mean the same to us now. The NKVD and Gestapo are as one. ‘Hail’ or heil, makes no difference. I say both to you — Captain Juan Pimentel.”
Ashida pulled up to chez Hanamaka. Genesis to Revelation. A recent memory perks. Cause and effect perk, in retrospect.
The bookie-drop raid. The phone-relay system identified and destroyed. Forty-odd men burned alive. Pimentel acts boldly. He incinerates evidence and kills co-conspirators. Comrade, Kamerad, tovarich. The perverse brotherhood survives.
Plus, something Dudley told him. A cove cave south of Ensenada. Pimentel acts boldly. He flamethrowers saboteurs. Comrade, Kamerad, tovarich. The perverse brotherhood survives.
Ashida parked in the carport. He’d called Pimentel and suggested a meet. Pimentel suggested this place.