There’s this Jean Staley twist. He ran her through R & I. File checks revealed this:
She’s thirty-three. She’s a carhop. She fell behind maryjane, back in ’36. She did six months honor farm and thenceforth kept her snout clean.
He might brace her. She might tattle Tommy for some scurvy misdeeds. She might be bored and het up and sleep with him.
Ed Satterlee might roust Huey Cressmeyer. Ed’s considering it. He’ll write Ed’s script and peep the sweatbox mirror. Ed’s a phone-book man. Huey’ll be hurtin’ for certain.
Huey might hold his mud. Huey might break. Huey might reveal Tommy’s whereabouts or some extraneous dish. Here’s for sure — Dud will get wind of it quick.
Ed hasn’t utilized Brenda’s trick spot. He’s checked the piggyback camera four times to date. Ed’s on some trap-spies crusade. He’s out to honey-bait Fifth Columnists. The wall peek could yield roundabout leads on his case.
Ed’s played out as a white man. It rebuts his nosebleed rep. Ed’s evinced high class per the phone-tap hullabaloo.
“You’re afraid we’ve got wires on you, right? Okay, I’ll give you the chance to listen to any calls you might be on. You can erase them, if we keep it on the q.t.”
Wartime camaraderie. Spy chasers afield. Plus, new folks orbiting through.
There’s Hideo Ashida. He’s all-time tight with El Dudley. There’s Big Joan. She allegedly scares Hideo. Joan haunts Lyman’s and trades looks with Kay Lake. Oooga-booga — she de hellhound on Kay’s trail.
The war’s shifting things. The draft’s depleting the PD. The phone probe’s an undulating undercurrent. Jack Horrall wants to ride the war and probe out and retire. Let Thad Brown or Bill Parker take over then.
He braced Jack at Kwan’s. Rotate me back to Vice, boss. I hate the Alien Squad. Most of these Japs were sandbagged. They ain’t pulled no ruinous shit.
Jack said, “The Squad rates you war-essential. Stick it out, son. If you rotate back to Vice, you’re draft bait.”
Sage fucking advice.
The war’s got folks calculating. Brenda’s pulling away from him. Ellen’s veering back to her husband. Hideo’s running off to Baja. The Dudster’s got his hooks in deep.
Hideo’s feeling his oats. He blows off his bodyguards. Him and Lee Blanchard got pink-slipped there. The crime lab’s fielding a Jap-woman team. The goddamn rain won’t stop.
The Box Man job worked some hoodoo on him. He’s had all these Wayne Frank dreams. Plus dreams of tall redheads in gold lamé gowns.
The war’s a moneymaker. His call biz has gone gold post — Pearl Harbor. Everybody’s scared and fucking willy-nilly. He got plastered and tried to kiss Kay. She pushed him away and said this:
“The war’s got us all by the scruff of the neck. That doesn’t mean we should succumb.”
Sage fucking advice.
He wants to succumb. He’s more hopped up than scared. That’s his dilemma here.
30
(Baja and Los Angeles, 1/9–1/23/42)
He can’t shake the thought. He can’t exploit it for profit. The revelation bodes CATASTROPHE.
Jim Davis slaughters four Japs. He tells his ex-adjutant. Bill Parker keeps mum, so far as we know. Parker is a grandiose drunk. He’s remorseful and suffused with blind ambition. He probably won’t blab. Jim Davis has blabbed twice already.
A gaudy psychopath seeks absolution. Father D. L. Smith grants it. He now knows this:
Lin Chung was privy to the Watanabe snuffs. Ditto Claire’s doctor chum, Saul Lesnick. Jim Davis runs amok. The local Fifth Column bodes, crazily diffuse and politically inclusive.
He’s scared. He’s hamstrung. He can’t kill Jim Davis or Bill Parker. He ran the Watanabe job. Widespread knowledge of Jim Davis’ guilt would create widespread panic. It would keelhaul Jack Horrall and Hideo Ashida. It would ruin one D. L. Smith.
He’d face criminal indictment. He’d forfeit his Army commission. His dear Claire would disavow him. He’d stand condemned.
He’s scared. He’s hamstrung and stalemated there. His Baja work compensates.
He discussed the pay-phone taps with Juan Pimentel. The deciphered codes suggest Jap air bases in San Berdoo County. The specific wording suggests rumor more than hard fact. He forwarded the allegation to Fourth Interceptor. They knew the rumor already. They considered it hogwash.
José Vasquez-Cruz considers it hogwash. He’s got a brand-new hobbyhorse. He wants to infiltrate U.S. diplomatic junkets. The notion consumes him. It’s his #1 intel priority.
El Capitán is politically savvy. He hates FDR. FDR’s Latin American stance is “One Big Red Ruse.” Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld has seduced film folk en masse. He’s sending them out to hawk the Jew Deal and the Allied war effort.
Captain D. L. Smith has blackmailed numerous film stars. Vasquez-Cruz wants him to recruit junketeering informants. Claire finds Vasquez-Cruz suspicious and attractive. They danced, hands on hips. Captain D. L. Smith noticed it then.
Claire lives within herself. He feels her slipping away. She’s a capable woman, underemployed. She pervs on odd beaners and boots morphine. She communes with Joan Klein. Young Joan steals from stores. He’s spot-tailed her and observed her thefts.
She consigns junk jewelry to street vendors and takes a quarter cut. She’s a petty thief and seasoned prevaricator. He was killing British soldiers at her age. He likes the girl nonetheless.
He likes Juan Pimentel. Lieutenant Juan is competent and adroit. He watchdogs Kyoho Hanamaka’s hideaway. He sees Captain Smith visit the premises. Captain Smith locks himself in and lingers loooooong.
He visits the wall cache. He brings the gold bayonet. He poses with it.
He found a discreet tailor in T.J. The man altered wall-cache uniforms to fit him. He’s bypassed the Russian garb. He poses in Wehrmacht gray and SS black.
A cobbler fitted him with jackboots. He bought a sheath for the gold bayonet. His fascist trousseau stands complete.
The bayonet consoles and confounds him. He’s run a magnifying glass down the whole length. He picked up the probable remnants of U.S. mint marks. Buff-out marks also appear.
The provenance. That’s what confounds him. FDR banned gold hoarding back in ’33. The dictate was widely ignored. Let’s indulge fantasy here.
There’s a wealthy U.S. fascist. He employs an artisan. A gold bar is cut into bayonet shape. It makes its way to the Fatherland and Kyoho Hanamaka. Fetishistic horror ensues.
Provenance. A fantasy rendition. Fantasy as necessity and a firewall against chaos.
A man tried to kill him. That made two attempts in two months. He scanned Statie mug-shot books. He ID’d his second would-be assassin.
The Slogan Man. Victor Trejo Caiz. Born Calexico, 1901. Priest killer under Kommisar Calles. Commandant of a Redshirt Battalion. In disfavor under Lázaro Cárdenas. Suspected wheelman for the Leon Trotsky snuff.
Caiz was the Slogan Man. Está muerto now. The Sleek Man killed him. He mug-shot ID’d the Sleek Man. He’s one Salvador Abascal.
The Sinarquista Führer. Born 1910. Blood foe of all Reds and anticlerical slime. Devout Catholic hegemonist. Fiery supporter of the Irish Republican cause.
A man to honor. A man to covet. A man to scrutinize.
He drove south on a whim. He hit Magdalena Bay and surveilled the Sinarquista encampment. He watched a priest perform outdoor Mass for six hundred Greenshirts.
Abascal gave a rip-roaring speech. He stood too far off to hear. He admired the Führer’s fluent gestures and delivery.