Satterlee called Tommy Glennon’s L.A. hotel room. Satterlee called Tommy’s La Jolla crib. Mark that forty-two times, total. Satterlee and Lesnick called Jean Staley’s Hollywood place. Mark that twenty-three calls.
Here’s an El Scorcho. Ed the Fed called Baja’s governor, Juan Lazaro-Schmidt. Mark that fourteen calls. Hideo said El Juan was jungled up with El Dudster’s rackets. El Dud was bonking Juan’s sizzling sister. Hideo said the seditious sibs were spy-ring complicit.
Doc Saul and Ed the Fed called AX-4869. It’s a darktown exchange. They called the number twenty-four times, total. Dig: it’s the hideout-house number. Kyoho Hanamaka holed up there. Cal Lunceford died there. The klubhaus was just up the street.
Ed the Fed called Martin Luther Mimms. Twice at his crib, thrice at the Congregation of the Congo. Mimms was deeply gold heist — embroiled. Ed and Doc Saul called Wallace Jamie — fourteen and nineteen times apiece. Both gents placed umpteen calls to Drs. Terry Lux and Lin Chung. Both gents called the C-town flop of James Edgar Davis.
A final head-scratcher scratched. Ed the Fed placed a recent spate of late-nite calls. He called all-nite eateries and cop spots. As in Lyman’s and Kwan’s. He called them interchangeable. Who you lookin’ fo, Brutha Ed?
Elmer paid the bill. He schlepped over to 416 Bedford and donned his B and E wig. Buzz was parked curbside. Elmer got in and tossed him a french-dip sandwich. Buzz snarked it.
Beverly Hills. The psych-doctor district. Pitch your woes to Doc Saul. He’ll fuck you up worse than you are.
416 was a mock-château job. Lobby, elevator, stairs. Offices above. Kay made keys off Annie Staples’ wax mounts. It was a walk-in caper.
Buzz said, “The building’s empty. Everybody up and left two hours ago.”
Elmer grabbed their tool kit. It was two grocery sacks, double-wrapped. Buzz jiggled the keys. They choked back B and E giggles and charged.
They crossed the sidewalk. Elmer lugged the bags. Buzz held the keys. The lobby door opened easy. They checked the directory. Saul Lesnick, M.D.: suite 216.
They took the stairs. The second-floor hall was pitch-dark. Elmer flashed his flashlight and read door plates. There’s 216.
Buzz unlocked the door. They stepped in and locked themselves in. Elmer hit the lights.
The waiting room featured agitprop art. Workers Unite!!! Beefcake boys waving scythes. Elmer made the jack-off sign. Buzz unlocked the inner-office door.
Elmer hit the lights. There’s the psychee’s couch. There’s the psych doc’s desk. There’s file cabinets. There’s more Commo wall art. Tanks rolled through Red Square. Butcher Stalin screamed. The Russki alphabet resembled DT hieroglyphs.
Buzz yanked at the file drawers. They were locked. Elmer dug into his bag. He pulled out the two silencers and tossed one to Buzz.
They tap-screwed their roscoes and stood back. They aimed in unison and blasted the drawers. The silencers went pfffft. Bullets pierced the file locks and ricocheted through the drawers. The office got all gunsmoked up.
They slid the file drawers open. They both went wooooooo. They thought they’d find patient folders. Nix to that. They found wire-recording spools.
Elmer grabbed all of them. He dumped them in the bags. Buzz hit Old Saul’s desk. The drawers were locked. Buzz aimed tight and blasted them open. Gunsmoke smoked the whole room now.
Elmer dug through the drawers. Old Saul stashed his jerk-off books there. It was Nazi shit. Hopped-up Hildegards in black tunics whipped terrified Jews. The Hildas wore jackboots and had tits out to here. The Jews wore skullcaps with propellers on top. Full-page ads hawked dick-size enhancers and eugenics brews.
Elmer tossed all the drawers. He thought he’d find correspondence and an address book. Nix to that. He found more Nazi shit and a jack-off suction device.
Buzz flashlight-flashed the walls. He said, “Looky here.” Elmer tracked the beam.
He saw wires spackled to wainscot strips. He saw wires stuck to wall junctures and tucked under rugs. He saw painted-over wires stuck to lamp stands.
“He’s bugging his patients. I don’t see no other explanation.”
Buzz said, “Let’s fuck that fucker up.”
They pulled the wall wires. They unspooled the rug wires. They dumped the lamps and yanked the microphones. They got out their paint and brushes and refestooned the walls.
Buzz painted swastikas and hammer and sickles. Elmer painted X marks over them. Buzz painted “Death to Traitors!!!” Elmer painted “America Forever!!!”
111
(La Paz, 10:00 A.M., 3/29/42)
Cocaine and cigarettes. Their standard breakfast. Rut and talk. Their standard MO.
They stuck to Constanza’s bedroom. Peons puttered, just outside. Constanza motormouthed. She plumbed two topics. Her brother and the gold.
Dudley played attentive lover. His thoughts ran afield. Al Wilhite found Kyoho Hanamaka. Hideo was debriefing him. Hideo had failed to report.
The bed sagged and grazed the floor. It succumbed to overuse. They banged the headboard loose last night.
Constanza said, “I was thinking of the brand you stamped upon my brother. I would imagine he’ll employ Terry Lux to prettify the damage you did.”
Dudley sniffed cocaine off a bread plate. He shivered. He got the chill, the numb teeth, the whoosh.
“Terry’s the best at what he does. I could hardly begrudge your brother his services. I’m dining with Orson Welles in Ensenada tonight. He utilized Terry recently. Terry deftly allayed some damage I inflicted.”
Constanza lit a cigarette. “Fierce you. Such utility. Such brutal agency.”
Dudley kissed her breasts. Constanza and cocaine. His morning bifecta. She seized his body. His mind whooshed elsewhere.
The microdot letter. The planned sabotage. He’d warned off brother Juan. He did not report possible attacks to Fourth Interceptor. Kyoho Hanamaka. Constanza’s former lover. He’d described Kyoho’s self-torch job. Constanza said he saw too much in Deutschland and Russia. It was his time to die. He simply gave up.
“You haven’t mentioned the gold in at least three minutes, darling. Are you relinquishing your grasp?”
Constanza primped him. She wiped his face with a bedsheet. The whoosh raised a sweat.
“Allow me to gloat over my brother. You enacted a long-overdue revenge.”
Dudley lit a cigarette. “I pentothaled a rather sodden Kamerad. He described a convergence at a German technical college. The late Juan Pimentel, and young men named Díaz and Jamie. Joe Hayes, whom I’ve mentioned before, was a member of their bund. The mid-’30s, I think. I’m wondering if the overall cabal was formed then.”
Constanza said, “No. I believe it all began to germinate before the fire. I would call the meeting of Kyoho and Meyer Gelb the point of germination. Meyer was recruiting for the Comintern at the Paramount Studio. People fell under his sway. The Kommisariat was Meyer’s idea. He predicted the world conflict, as we see it today. His prophecy preceded Kyoho’s sojourn in Germany and Russia.”
The Wolf cocked his head. Constanza’s scent aroused him. He probed Constanza’s mind. She disclosed just so much. This vexed the Wolf.
Constanza said, “I have a lead on the minutes for the Baja conference. What would you pay for them?”
Welles was late. Film folk ran breezy and tardy. He knew that beast inside and out.
He’d extorted them. Harry Cohn paid him well. They misbehaved. He snapped furtive photographs. They starred in Columbia cheapies, resultant.
Johnny Weissmuller jumps jailbait. Tallulah Bankhead snarfs muff at lezbo hot spots. Duke Ellington sires Kate Hepburn’s mulatto love child.