They never spoke. They hadn’t been introduced. They knew each other secondhand. Cops supplied two-way drift and tantalized them.
Joan sipped highball #3. Kay bootjacked Elmer Jackson’s stool and eased him down the bar. Lee Blanchard pulled his stool close. Kay leaned into him. They discussed household hoo-ha. Kay made her voice carry.
Kay always did that. Kay wanted her to hear. Kay telegraphed her moves. Kay Lake, grandstander and ham actress.
The backed-up sink. Otto Klemperer’s party, next Wednesday night. Name-dropper Kay. Bertolt Brecht and Orson Welles. Spy-mistress Kay. A symphonic score, smuggled from Russia.
Joan hexed Kay Lake. Shut up or drop dead, you poseur. She killed off her highball. Bill Parker walked in.
He passed by the bar. He wore leave-me-the-fuck-alone blinders. He spotted Kay and dumped them. Kay saw him. Their hands laced up for one second.
Parker weaved to the back room. Joan stood up and shoved her way over. She hit a waiter. His drink tray flew.
Some Shriners got booze-doused. A whole table, spritzed. A fat man eeked and wiped his face with his fez. Joan hit the door at a sprint. The hinges shook.
Parker stood by the Teletype. He held a photostat and a cold beer. He saw Joan and blinked.
Joan slapped the beer out of his hand and ripped up the photostat. She got this close to him. Parker just stood there.
They were this close. Joan said, “Whose man are you? Are you your wife’s, mine, or Kay Lake’s?”
They were this close. Joan said, “How dare you tell me that Jim Davis killed those people, and you refuse to reveal it? How dare you lay that burden on me?”
They were this close. Joan said, “Or, did you dream it all up? Does that make Dudley Smith and Hideo Ashida credible? Is Fujio Shudo’s life worth saving, given his established transgressions?”
This close:
“Whose man are you?”
“How many women do you plan to entrap before this war is over?”
“Why haven’t we made love?”
“How can you live with what you know and do nothing?”
“What do you think you’re doing with me?”
Parker swerved out of the room. Joan slammed the door and threw the bolt and locked herself in.
She dug in her purse. She pulled out a terp vial. She drank the terp and shuddered. The terp burned going down.
There’s the heat and the whoosh. There’s the gleaming gold bars right behind.
32
(Los Angeles, 8:30 P.M., 1/24/42)
His photostat popped from the tube. The PD and FD shot him paperwork. The Griffith Park fire. Two agencies weigh in.
He’d forged the stat request. He signed Ray Pinker’s name. Mr. Pinker was off somewhere. He was Fed bait. He was scrounging lawyer money. He shined his lab duties on.
Ashida unrolled the photostat and read at his desk. He saw a Fed-routing code. He jumped on the text.
Two agencies weighed in. Two agencies zeroed in on the Young Socialist Alliance.
The YSA was a Red front. The membership fluctuated. College kids came and went. The state AG’s Office deemed the group harmless. One fact bothered them.
The YSA cloaked a Communist cell. It was live-wire CP. It was cloistered and clandestine. A nameless Fed snitch finked it out.
Ashida recalled an L.A. Times piece. The YSA boss man was one Meyer Gelb. He was a Pershing Square slogan shouter and didactical creep.
Gelb’s really Comrade Gelb. The Comintern bankrolled the cell and presumably issued directives. Bold obfuscation spawns bold cover.
Gelb, the florid buffoon. Gelb, the cell Führer. Kommisar Gelb, the Red cell master of:
Jorge Villareal-Caiz. A Mexican national. No further facts.
Jean Clarice Staley. No further facts.
Saul Lesnick, M.D. No further facts.
Andrea Lesnick. No further facts.
Ashida broke a sweat. He got the mean megrims and the shakes.
He knew the Lesnicks. He’d observed them at a Claire De Haven party. Saul Lesnick was a Beverly Hills psychiatrist. He was a left-wing eugenicist. He was a pal of right-wing race man Lin Chung. Andrea Lesnick was Dr. Saul’s daughter. She’d been convicted of vehicular manslaughter. She served a brief term at Tehachapi.
Ashida wiped his face. He fought off the mean megrims and stifled some shakes. He went through the L.A. phone books. The lab kept a full set.
There was no Meyer Gelb listed. There was no Jean Staley and no Villareal-Caiz. Dr. Saul’s office was listed. There was no Andrea Lesnick listing.
The cell names felt seductive. They confirmed the pervasive presence of the 1930s Left. Police-file names were police-file names and most often no more. They lived in the non sequitur void of snitch-out information. This new lead felt seductive and inconsequential. It was more than trivial and less than germane.
Ashida plumbed the lead. He vowed to withhold it from Joan Conville. She craved the gold to his exclusion. He held the upper hand there. He possessed a gold bar and she didn’t.
The bar troubled him. It was casually but expertly stashed. The heist occurred almost eleven years ago. The bar remained unutilized.
He’d checked ’31 and ’42 gold prices. The bar had nearly doubled in value. Heist men ran long on impulse and short on circumspection. He saw circumspection here. He sensed motives that contravened pure greed.
“Hello, lad.”
Ashida wiped his face. His hands jumped. He squared his shoulders and patted his hair. Stop it — you’re primping.
He checked the doorway. Dudley wore a tweed suit now. His uniform flattered him more. He turned heads at the grand jury.
Ashida kicked his chair back. I’m nonchalant and indifferent. What’s your name again?
Dudley held a suit coat on a hanger. Dark cellophane covered it.
“I couldn’t go back without dropping this off. It’s a moment to celebrate.”
Ashida stood up. His legs held. He said, “Dare I ask?”
Dudley unveiled the coat. It was Army OD. Second lieutenant’s bars gleamed.
“Fourth Interceptor has approved your commission, and there’s a great many papers to sign. Your mother and brother have been granted Mexican amnesty for the war’s duration. You will serve as my adjutant in Baja. You will interpret the Japanese language, assist in the roundup of resident Japanese, and work to further our antisabotage mandate.”
Ashida walked over. Dudley unbuttoned the coat and held it open. Ashida slipped it on.
It fit perfectly. The lieutenant’s bars were pure gold.
Dudley said, “My Japanese brother.”
Ashida said, “My Irish brother.”
33
(Los Angeles, 11:00 P.M., 1/24/42)
J. Kurakami/DR #8619641/one console radio, one snubnose .38.
Check.
D. Matsushima/DR #8619642/one spring-loaded sap, twelve Nazi armbands, one lead-filled baseball bat.
Check.
H. “Hophead” Hayamasu/DR #8619643/one hypodermic syringe, one rising-sun flag, twelve Mr. Moto novels, twenty-nine vials of terpin hydrate.
Check.
Elmer prelogged confiscations. He called out the juicy bits. Rice and Kapek ran their mouths. Catbox Cal Lunceford picked his nose and watched.
They slogged through a late duty stint. The fucking squad pen froze. The fucking janitor fucked with the heat vents. Rice and Kapek habituated the squadroom. Their fucking wives tossed them out like the fucking shitheels they were.
A. Takamina/DR #8619644/one vial of Spanish fly, fourteen smut books, 142 Japs-kill-Chinks atrocity pix.