The journey slogged. The driver and gun guard shot the shit and yakked over engine throb. The buses refueled at a filling station outside Visalia. The guards passed out sandwiches and declared a piss stop. The Sierras loomed off to the east.
The stop consumed an hour. The captive Japs hogged both rest rooms and pissed the local yokels off. Hooligans went Banzai and made like the Zeros at Pearl. The gun guards pulled their billy clubs and moved them along.
The slog resumed. The temperature dropped. The caravan chugged through steep mountains. Ashida shivered. The gun guard passed him a blanket.
They hit the Owens Valley. It was wide, flat, and bleak. Tall mountains bordered it. The air was dry and cold. Snow covered the peaks and iced up the ground.
There it is. Manzanar War Relocation Center. It’s all the way off by itself.
There’s all these claptrap buildings and all this barbed wire. The family huts extend a mile out. It’s perfectly symmetrical. It’s all jerry-rigged.
There’s all these wide streets. They’re unpaved and squared off. The crisscross goes on forever. It’s cold today. There’s nobody out and about.
Fifty-odd buses were parked by the guard gate. MP’s in hooded greatcoats smoked and chewed the fat. A first lieutenant stood off by himself. Ashida recognized him.
Al Wilhite. Ex-Burglary hardnose. Known Dudley Smith toady and apologist.
The new buses pulled up to the bus line. Wilhite approached the lead-bus door. The gun guard kicked it open. Ashida walked out first.
Wilhite saluted him. “Welcome to Manzanar, sir. Major Smith has requested that I show you to your quarters.”
They were jailhouse de-luxe. Dudley Smith vouched good hotels. The Biltmore in L.A. The del Norte in Baja. This three-room Manzanar suite.
A bedroom. A well-equipped lab. A workroom with built-in shelves and a large desk. A fresh set of three-case paperwork, all neatly stacked.
Plus a kitchenette. Plus an Army scrambler phone. He could make and receive his own calls.
His suite was detached. He had stormproof windows and a Mount Whitney view. Central ducts supplied heat. He had privacy. The shack rows stood a full hundred yards off.
Al Wilhite pointed to the paperwork. “That’s your job, for as long as it takes you. And, there’s a man at the Lone Pine Hospital. Major Smith would like you to interview him. He’s being treated for severe burns there.”
Dusk settled in. A mountain gale stirred loose snow. It swirled high and obscured rooflines. Manzanar went arctic cold. Steam heat warmed the suite.
Ashida dozed. Al Wilhite brought him his dinner. The MP’s mess hall employed local cooks. Those guys knew their stuff. The jailbirds rated Army cooks. They got substandard fare.
The meal was good. It included French champagne. Relentless Dudley. Ever the Dudleyesque touch.
Ashida heard voices outside. He checked his front-room window. Three young men stood by the steps. They wore Belmont High letter jackets and held whomping sticks. Go, Mighty Sentinels. Green-and-black, 4-ever.
He walked outside.
He said, “As you wish.”
He motioned them forward to beat him.
They came at him low and knocked him flat on a snowdrift. They arced their sticks and brought them down hard. They thumped his arms and legs. Swirling snow covered their faces.
106
(Los Angeles, 9:30 P.M., 3/25/42)
Ruth kicked him out. Lazy love gave her the frets. She cited her violin and an audition. You have other women, Liebchen. Go, pester them for a while.
Elmer hoofed it. Ruth dispensed good advice. Make the rounds. Visit the girls. Ask those questions you should have asked before this.
He hopped east. He split Santa Monica and cut back to L.A. proper. The SaMo PD ran shoreline blackouts. That meant doused traffic lights and house lights. He drove out of it and lit a cigar.
He passed the SaMo-city border. He went from no lights to muted lights and cellophane-dim stoplights. Folks drove faster. Wilshire opened up.
A light rain kicked in. He cut north to Laurel Canyon. He caught Brenda in her robe and up for a chat. She drew the line there. No transitory woof-woof tonight.
They sipped Cointreau and noshed salted peanuts. They discussed their hot-sheet biz. Elmer snagged his chance and steered the talk.
“Bev’s Switchboard keeps popping up in the klubhaus job. I was wondering if you knew who actually owns the place.”
Brenda blew smoke rings. “This priest Joe Hayes has a small percentage, but the Ness family’s got more of a percentage on the books. You know — that racket buster Eliot Ness, and his nephew, Wallace Jamie. That twerp who’s in the shit on the phone-tap probe.”
That hitches up. Jamie and Hayes. It bespeaks Fifth Column calumny. Thad Brown turned bonus paper on Mondo Díaz. The INS compiled it. Dig: Hayes and Jamie attended Dresden Polytechnic. Likewise, Mondo Díaz and Juan Pimentel. Sieg Heil — it’s Deutschland ’35.
“Bev’s is Sheriff’s-protected, right? Gene Biscailuz is taking a few points there.”
Brenda said, “Eight points, Citizen. One more than we’re paying Jack Horrall. That doesn’t mean that Gene don’t have misgivings. The rumor is that he’s been rethinking the protection, because Bev’s is so damn flat-out crooked.”
Elmer sipped Cointreau. “That’s some tasty dish. It’s funny how these things drop on you out of the blue.”
Brenda laughed. “You came here to pump me, Citizen. And I’m not talking about in the sack.”
Ellen kept late hours. The baby bawled nonstop and shitcanned her sleep. She was shooting some back-lot oater. Her hubby was off with the Air Corps. He might catch her bored and eager to yak.
Elmer cut to Hollyweird. He parked outside the Green Gables and elevatored up. He peeped the fire-escape window. The lights were on. Ellen wore a shorty nightgown. Ellen paced and smoked.
He climbed back inside and door-knocked her. Ellen opened up and went Ssshhh. He knew the drill. The baby’s sleeping, you dipshit.
They sat around and tipped Lucky Lager. Ellen cited a migraine. It quashed a stint in the kip.
They kept their voices low. The baby had keen ears and lived to disrupt. Elmer steered talk to Jean Staley.
This job I’m on. It’s strictly routine. Her name popped up. You two were fellow starlets, huh? Right here on the Paramount lot.
Ellen inveighed. Insomniacs ran talkative. Ellen lived to dissect and rehash.
“Jean was a strange-o. She fell into her actress gig, but I always made her for a grifter at heart. She had a strange-o kid brother. His name was Robby, and he wanted to be an actor, but he couldn’t get his foot in the door. He was a swish, and I think he was in with some swish boys who rolled pathetic old queens for kicks.”
Elmer cinched it. Robby was Tommy Glennon’s ex-squeeze. Jean told him that. He lashed up loose strands. The queer white boy, the Jap sword man’s pal.
“Was Robby tall? I’m working off witness descriptions of some fruit kid I’ve never seen.”
Ellen lit a cigarette. “Robby was short. He was a shrimp in the mode of Alan Ladd, but without the charm and good looks.”
Elmer said, “Jean and men. There’s got to be a story there.”
Ellen said, “Sure, if you don’t mind Communist no-goodniks and firebugs.”
“Shit, don’t stop now.”
“Who’s stopping?”
“Ellen, come on. Don’t—”
“Jean had this strange-o lover named Meyer Gelb. He recruited for the CP at Paramount, and he was hawking a pro-Red script titled ‘This Storm,’ which Jean told me was strictly from hunger. Meyer exerted a sick-o power over Jean. He made her marry a sick-o grip named Ralph D. Barr, who set fires and whipped his pecker out on the girls at Le Conte Junior High. Ralphie used to rig explosives and set contained fires for the cheap-o westerns the studio used to shoot out in the Valley. This was strange — because Meyer had these burn scars on his hands, and the rumor was that Terry Lux and some Chink plastic surgeon did skin grafts on him.”