Everybody set up and lit up. The room got smokeified. Everybody pushed buttons. Wire spools spun.
Elmer heard static and line fritz. It cleared inside six seconds. Doc Saul and Orson Welles schmoozed the big Leningrad siege. They exhausted that topic. Welles bemoaned his weight. Doc Saul said he’d prescribe pharmaceutical cocaine.
It got boring then. Welles pitched boo-hoo. He was a genius. Boo-hoo. America was a philistine encampment. Boo-hoo. “I get more ass than a toilet seat, Saul. How come I’m so damn unfulfilled?”
Boo-hoo. The government should subsidize his movies and pay him a hundred Gs per. Boo-hoo. “I should lose weight. A hatcheck girl at the Trocadero blew me. We steamed up the hatcheck booth.”
Kay pulled off her earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Elmer dumped his earmuffs. Buzz and Whiskey Bill followed suit.
Kay said, “Claire’s weeping. Dudley takes his pleasure, and then ignores her. He spends hours tending to his clothes. A cobbler custom-fitted him for jackboots.”
Buzz said, “That’s a good one. All I’ve got is your maestro chum haranguing the doc about Beethoven. The late quartets are some shitfire ‘Apotheosis.’ Lesnick told him Beethoven’s got certified coon blood, which accounts for his rhythmic stance. He read it in some eugenics journal. Herr Goering is going to exhume the body and take bone samples. They’ve got some Nazi breeding farm in Norway. Kraut wenches and Norse-god men screw all day. The wenches pop frogs for the Fatherland.”
Elmer said, “Count me in.”
Kay laughed. Whiskey Bill rolled his eyes. They redonned their earmuffs and went back to work.
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo. Orson Welles talked drivel. Elmer listened in. Boo-hoo. The plight of the artist. Boo-hoo. The burden of social consciousness. “I drilled Norma Shearer, Saul. That old girl shtups with the best.”
Elmer switched spools. He swapped Welles for Claire De Haven. Claire defamed El Dudster and Joan Conville. “Really, Saul. She’s beyond Amazonian. She’s something out of the National Geographic.”
Parker pulled off his earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Elmer dumped his earmuffs. Kay and Buzz followed suit.
Parker said, “Klemperer’s telling Lesnick about the headaches that he diagnosed as a brain tumor, and he’s fawning over Lesnick for saving his life. Then there’s a gap, where the two discuss the war, and then it gets good. Klemperer begins talking in fragments. He says that a man was ‘hectoring’ him and ragging on him as a Jew and a leftist, and the man says that he knows ‘Meyer’s girl Jean.’ Klemperer tells Lesnick that this man is taunting him, and he ‘plays horn’ in Negro jazz clubs. Klemperer repeats the phrase ‘He’s taunting me’ at least a dozen times. Then he states that he beats the man to death. Then he begins fawning over Lesnick again. Then he states, ‘And you took care of it, Doctor — you and your FBI friend.’ ”
Elmer went wooo. “The FBI friend’s sure as shit Ed Satterlee.”
Kay said, “Otto told me that story. He confirmed that Satterlee was the FBI man, but the story itself was fragmented to the point of incomprehension.”
Buzz said, “The part about this guy being a horn player gores me. For one, it takes us back to the jazz strip again, and we all know our current klubhaus suspect is a queer and a jazzman.”
Parker shook his head. “Our homicides occurred on January 29. This Klemperer-Lesnick session occurred the week after Pearl Harbor. That exonerates this particular jazzman, and it’s not like he’s the only jazzman in captivity, queer or otherwise.”
Buzz shook his head. “Yeah, but this guy tells the Maestro he knows Meyer’s girl Jean. That’s fucking significant, and it takes us back to the klubhaus job and the whole shooting match again.”
Kay lit a cigarette. “Yes, and I’m not convinced that Otto killed anyone, which means that this particular jazzman could be our jazzman, who’s good for the klubhaus job and possibly a whole lot more.”
Parker shook his head. “Jazzmen are jazzmen. There’s millions of them. Gelb and Staley aside, I don’t consider this any sort of real lead.”
Elmer said, “We’ve got Hideo deposing Kyoho Hanamaka now. He’s our key source. Somebody should talk to Hideo and see what Hanamaka spilled on the klubhaus angle, and if any of it pertains to our queer jazzman and his Jap playmate.”
Buzz lit a cigar. “Meyer Gelb. This whole deal comes down to him. He’s Fritzie Eckelkamp cut into Gelb, which takes him back to ’31 and the gold job. He’s all over this whole thing, and I am currently doing everything within my power as a member of this white man’s police department to find him and have a long chat with him.”
Parker sighed and redonned his earmuffs. It cued the gang. Talk gets us nowhere. Let’s get back to work.
Elmer redonned his earmuffs. Kay and Buzz followed suit. Elmer fish-eyed Buzz. El Buzzo radiated the lynch mob gestalt. Buzz had Meyer Gelb on the brain. Ditto El Dudster. Buzz figured Dud would kill him soon. Buzz figured he should kill Dud first.
Elmer switched spools and spun spools and smoked himself hoarse. He played the analysand field. Orson Welles boo-hoo’d and bragged up his conquests. Claire De Haven boo-hoo’d and skewered Dudley Smith. The Maestro extolled the Bruckner symphonies and the upcoming “exile migration.” Elmer perked up and took note.
Well, shit. There’s Meyer Gelb, again.
Elmer pulled off his earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Kay dumped her earmuffs. Parker and Buzz followed suit.
Elmer said, “Here’s the Maestro. He’s talking up his comrades Ruth Szigeti, the Koenigs, and old man Abromowitz. They’re being repatriated to L.A., and he wants to help out. Lesnick talks the Maestro into getting them jobs as movie-studio musicians, then says to have them keep their snouts down and report to Comrade Gelb.”
Buzz cracked his knuckles. “I intend to have words with that whipdick.”
Kay said, “That entails finding him first.”
Parker four-eyed Elmer. He tapped his wristwatch. We’ve got pressing biz downtown.
They reconvened outside the Fed Building. Elmer lapel-pinned his badge. Parker displayed his search warrant.
“A Fed district judge signed it. He’s an old law school classmate, and he hates Fey Edgar like death itself.”
Elmer skimmed the legalese. Limited premises/custody vault only/all wire recordings on-site. On-site listening consent granted/one day only.
“We’ve got to erase the whole kit and caboodle. That’s the only sure way to cover ourselves and Sheriff Gene’s guys. It’s a whole shitload of work, with the Fed squadroom right down the hall.”
Parker pinned up his badge. “The judge called ahead. We’re covered there. We’ve got the means to scotch the whole probe, but they’ll know it was us. We’ll have to ride out whatever shit hits the fan.”
Elmer gulped. “Fey Edgar will wet his pink-lace undies. He’ll be on the horn to the U.S. attorney inside half a second.”
Parker winked. It fell flat. He possessed no savoir faire. He lacked Dudsteresque panache.
They breezed in and breezed up the side stairs. The Bureau owned the full third floor. A desk agent manned the lobby. They walked up. He looked up. Parker passed him the paperwork.
He read the full writ. He said, “The vault, huh? You fellows must be turncoats. A whole lot of PD guys are going to burn in this deal.”
Parker said, “We’ve been detached to the grand jury. We’re on your side as far as this one goes.”
The agent yawned and stretched. He passed the paperwork back. This rebop left him nonplussed.