Ashida coughed. “Sensei, when did Meyer Gelb and Wayne Frank Jackson meet?”
Hanamaka said, “Wayne Frank met Meyer in his Fritz Eckelkamp incarnation. They met in the Alameda County Jail in 1928, before Fritz was sent to San Quentin. Wayne Frank was serving time for plain drunk and vagrancy, and Fritz Eckelkamp was plain Fritz. That jail became a point of convergence for the gold heist — Fritz, Wayne Frank, and Leander Frechette. That was the genesis of the robbery. That was the moment that Fritz inculcated Wayne Frank with Marxist rhetoric and converted him. It was culminatingly the moment when Fritz and Wayne Frank saved Leander from a gang of race-baiting jailhouse thugs, and ensured that the robbery would actually occur.”
Wayne Frank Jackson. Elmer’s Klansman brother. Revealed as a Comintern dupe.
“Something troubles me, Sensei. It’s Wayne Frank’s statements pertaining to the robbery. His brother Elmer speaks of Wayne Frank as no more than a sad fantasist.”
Hanamaka smiled. “You are quick to note that, Sensei. Let me add that Wayne Frank was then a man of intemperate appetite, and is now a man of strict circumspection. He went on a bender shortly after the robbery, and awoke one morning in an opium den in San Francisco. A nosy Chinese man told him he had been mumbling about the robbery while in his opiate haze. Wayne Frank was already a seasoned treasure dreamer, albeit one who had now transcended his sad origins. That moment in the opium den shocked him. He incorporated the gold robbery into the repertoire of his once-obsessive persona. He used it as a means to publicly express ‘I could not have done this.’ ”
Explication. Revelation. Ashida had clenched himself numb.
“You torched the klubhaus, didn’t you? You were holed up down the block. You used the same accelerant that Ralph Barr used in Griffith Park.”
Hanamaka said, “Yes, and those were taxing days for me. Some unknown person killed Rice, Kapek, and their friend Archuleta, and the puerile Cal Lunceford was chaperoning me. They were all manipulated and given tasks via mail drop, and the murders felt like yet another preordained catalyst. I felt you, Major Smith, and the other policemen converging. I took advantage of the Negro riot and burned the klubhaus. I wanted to divert your investigation and create a new level of chaos, and the angry Negroes proved themselves to be convenient scapegoats.”
Ashida said, “Whose body stood in for Wayne Frank’s? A dental-plate substitution must have been worked.”
Hanamaka smiled. He was Sensei Death. He was Mr. Death’s-Head.
“Wayne Frank’s assignment was to kill Karl Tullock during the fire, and then disappear. We were afraid that Tullock had informed other Santa Barbara policemen of his suspicions, so Wayne Frank’s disappearance was deemed a necessity. Wayne Frank decided to kill a second man during the fire, and pass that man off as himself. Wallace Jamie was quite young then, but he was already acquainted with another comrade named Joe Hayes. Wallace and Father Joe were fellow travelers on the Right, and dabbled on the Left. They would reunite a few years later, at a German technical college. Wallace had a meddlesome younger brother named George. Wayne Frank got George a job on the CCC work crew. George ran a German-American Bund cell, and began recruiting at the work site. George was also about Wayne Frank’s size and build. Wayne Frank decided to kill him and disguise it as his own death. George only came to work occasionally, and was never carried in any sort of official CCC log.”
Gears snapped in place. Ashida heard clicks. He’d guessed abstract parts of it.
“And then?”
“Then Meyer had Terry Lux build prosthetic dental work off of Wayne Frank’s actual teeth. Then the fire occurred. Then Wayne Frank beat George to death, knocked out all his teeth, and inserted the prosthesis. Meyer preinserted forged dental records for Wayne Frank at a downtown L.A. dentist. It facilitated the coroner’s decree. Wayne Frank died in the fire. Then Wayne Frank deftly disappeared.”
Ashida said, “Leander Frechette?”
“Last seen in San Francisco, some years ago.”
“And the gold? Where is it now?”
Hanamaka went C’est la guerre. “Meyer entrusted it to a Mexican Stalinist. I think he was a money conduit for the assassination of Leon Trotsky. The gold was transported to Mexico, to be deployed for political purposes, with one bar left in a Los Angeles storage facility, to cover pertinent expenses. Meyer has hoarded the gold, and now it is pledged to the cause of postwar resettlement. Only Meyer and the Mexican Stalinist know where it is. Meyer trusts the Stalinist, because he made him endure a rigorous initiation. Meyer had him butcher forty Trotskyite priest-killers, and make it look like fascists did it. The man fawningly complied.”
Ashida watched the fluid bag drain. The mixture was down to mere drips.
“Where is Meyer Gelb hiding?”
“No one knows that.”
“Let’s return to the gold.”
Hanamaka shrugged. “It has lain fallow, and has exponentially increased in value. A good deal of time has passed. A convergence in Dresden brought about an enlargement of our original band of Kameraden. Wallace Jamie brought Joe Hayes, Mondo Díaz, and Juan Pimentel in. You killed Pimentel, and I’m sure you know of the other men.”
Ashida checked the fluid bag. It had drained dry.
“Would you call Meyer Gelb the key architect of the gold robbery?”
“No. It was Wayne Frank.”
“Where is he now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Are the Kameraden really Communist or fascist?”
Hanamaka said, “At this point, who can tell?”
110
(Los Angeles, 9:00 P.M., 3/28/42)
Oooga-booga. The DTs, dead sober. It’s like this gag song. I gots jitters like Jell-O in an earthquake.
Ashida called him and Kay. He relayed his talk with Kyoho Hanamaka. Wayne Frank masterminded the gold heist. Wayne Frank was sure as shit alive.
Elmer boozed and noshed at Linny’s Delicatessen. His table fluttered. The pickle jar leaped. The walls talked back to him. He is Risen, He is Alive.
Buzz was three blocks over, on Bedford. They were set to 459 Saul Lesnick’s office. Buzz brought cans of paint and brushes. Buzz brought pistol silencers. The rendezvous time was 9:30.
Elmer snarfed Old Crow and pastrami. Him and Buzz had spent the day at Kay Lake’s place. Kay dished Buzz her version of the whole story. It put Buzz up to speed with him, Kay, Whiskey Bill, and Thad Brown. Buzz buzzed straight to Meyer Gelb. He vowed to find that whipdick.
Whiskey Bill showed up. He brought subpoenaed phone bills for Ed Satterlee and Doc Lesnick. He wrote a quickie writ and ran it by a PD-lapdog judge. PC Bell kicked loose bills going back six months.
They divvied up the bills and worked at Kay’s dining room table. The bills listed the callees’ names and phone numbers. The tally job took four hours. It revealed this:
Doc Lesnick and Ed the Fed called each other boocoo times. They were snitch and snitch runner. There was no surprise there. Ed called Bev’s Switchboard nineteen times. Woo-woo — it’s a spy mail drop. Ed called Padre Joe Hayes fourteen times. Hot potato — El Padre went waaaaay back with the spy-ring boys and owned points in Bev’s.
Here’s a scorcher. Doc Saul and Ed the Fed called the Baja phone-relay number fifty-nine times, all in all. Up till Ashida and Pimentel torched the relay room. Those calls indict both callers up the ying-yang.