“All right, I’ll bite. Who told you I shanked Dudley?”
Elmer chugged champagne. “I was working the peek in one of Brenda’s trick spots. This Commo doctor blabbed on Claire De Haven. He was poking a college-girl pro. He blabbed, and I picked up on what the De Haven bint said about you.”
Kay blew smoke rings. They trailed sky-high. Kay pulled herself together, quick.
“You tell true, now. What’s with you and Dudley?”
Elmer said, “He’s crowding me. I’ve got a bug up my ass to crowd back.”
“Was the doctor Saul Lesnick?”
Elmer relit his cigar. “He’s a Fed snitch. His handler’s keeping tabs on him, and he needed me to fill in with the camera. He thinks Lesnick’s prone to blab to young tail.”
Kay mulled it. Elmer heard her gears click. She played classical piano and wrote highbrow hoo-ha. She was the smartest—
“The Fed’s right. I met Lesnick during Bill Parker’s incursion. He’s very susceptible to young women, but Claire’s giving me more credit than I deserve. What you’re telling me dovetails.”
Elmer reset Kay’s beret. He set it farther back on her hair and pulled up the stem.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
Kay laughed. “No, Brenda would kill me. Sleep with the college girl. It’s not like you’re not susceptible.”
Elmer laughed. “Who are you holding out for?”
“Bill — once he gets free of the redhead.”
“She gets around, that one.”
Kay said, “Dudley. All roads lead back.”
Elmer said, “I’m gathering information. Shit could play out a half dozen ways.”
Kay sipped champagne. “Operate the college girl. I’d be curious to know what Dudley and Claire are saying about me.”
Elmer said, “You’ve got the darkest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. They hide what you’re really thinking.”
Annie Staples had green eyes. She ran 5'10"/150. She induced loooooooow growls.
They coupled at Brenda’s fuck flop. Elmer made it laaaaast. They basked naked afterward. Elmer lay supine. Annie sat cross-legged on the sheets.
She sipped Cointreau, neat. Elmer dug in his trousers and plucked his flash roll.
He peeled off ten C-notes. He dropped them in Annie’s lap. Annie went google-eyed.
“That can’t be a tip. Brenda says we’re supposed to take care of you for free. ‘You keep Sergeant Jackson well supplied, Citizens. That way, he won’t be demanding on those rare nights he sleeps over.’ ”
Elmer haw-hawed. “You’ve got Brenda down, and I sure would like to make this a regular thing.”
“I see what you’re saying. There’s something else going on here.”
Elmer said, “There’s a certain FBI man that I think you know pretty well. He’s got you prompting old Doc Lesnick, who I also think you know pretty well.”
Annie pointed to the wall peek. “Ed Satterlee’s filming us. You’ve seen the prints. Ed probably screens them at FBI smokers. All these G-men eat popcorn and pull their puds.”
Elmer said, “There you go — but I wouldn’t say Ed’s all that crass.”
Annie lit a cigarette. “All right. I’ll concede that Ed’s got me working Saul. He’s a Fed snitch, and I’m snitching him to Ed. Filming us is something else, which I think Ed should pay me for more than he’s paying me now.”
Elmer jiggled Annie’s feet. “Whoa, now. I’m not going to film you or us, and I promise I’ll get your film back from Ed, and dissuade him from letting his pals take a look-see.”
Annie sighed. “Sergeant Elmer’s a sweetie pie. All the girls know that. He never asks for anything perverted, and he always tips.”
Elmer blushed. “Does Lesnick always blab so much about his patients?”
“Always. We screw for two minutes, then he talks for two hours.”
Elmer zeroed in. He stroked Annie’s hair. He dialed their eyes tight.
“I want to know whatever that woman Claire De Haven and her cop boyfriend say about me, a woman named Kay Lake, and possibly a kid named Tommy Glennon. Old Saul spiels to you, and you spiel to me. There’s a party in Brentwood tomorrow night. You’re going to work old Saul, and I’m hooking you up to a microphone gizmo.”
38
(Tijuana, 2:00 P.M., 1/28/42)
“Hirohito’s hellions rape Rabaul and pound pitiful Palau. The jungle-bred Japs parse peril throughout the Pacific. They cornhole the Carolines and savage the Solomon Isles. Ripsnorting Rommel lashes Libya and causes camel caravans to flee. Here in mucho magnifico Mexico, a furtive Fifth Column keesters coastal inlets. This quivering question remains—”
Father Coughlin cranked it. Dudley sat in the waiting room. Wall speakers popped the padre’s pitch. Glass walls showcased his gesticulations.
XERB Radio. 500,000 watts. It broadcast from Baja to Bangladesh. The whole world heard Charles Coughlin’s shit.
Coughlin cranked it. He threw sweat. His microphone melted. He’d promised a “special guest.” He said, “You’ll love this lad, Dud.”
“...as the lachrymose Left bemoans justified Jap roundups, and Mexico’s cucumber-cool cognoscenti wonders if Prez Camacho has turned righteously right, as evinced by his land grant to the sizzling Sinarquistas. And, since there’s no business like show business, are those ripe rumors about Eleanor Roosevelt and Colored Commissar Paul Robeson true?”
Charging Charlie Coughlin. Uproarious in short doses. T.J. by way of his Detroit parish and the Emerald Isle. Pope Pius pulled his U.S. show. The padre ran rogue and popped south. The Mex right wing loved him.
Dudley tuned him out. He daydreamed. He donned fascist garb and swung the gold bayonet.
He eviscerated priest-killers and nun-rapers. He butchered the British House of Commons. He speared Winston Churchill and noted royals. He decapitated FDR and all the men who’d fucked Claire.
He recalled Joan, two nights back. She tossed her hair just so. She wore gold cuff links. He watched her unfasten them.
He didn’t crave gold as gold or money. The bayonet’s provenance now bored him. He wanted to know who it killed. Only Herr Hanamaka could tell him that.
Joan was six feet tall. She’d be his height in heels. He wanted to dress her in black SS kit.
Her father burned to death. It might have been arson. He wanted to find the killer and offer him to Joan. She’d wield the gold bayonet.
Father Coughlin went reverential. His voice dropped. There’s his trademark pulpit hush.
Dudley watched. Coughlin bowed his head and hosanna’d. A man walked up to him. The two embraced.
Aaay, caramba. Es El Flaco Explosivo. It’s the Sleek Man himself.
He dressed pure Greenshirt. He wore jackboots and the coiled-snake armband. He looked through the glass wall and saluted El Dudster. Dudley stood and saluted him back.
Salvador Abascal. Why equivocate? He’s Saint Ignatius of Loyola, reborn.
Abascal straddled a hair and grabbed the microphone. He spoke perfect English. He addressed the World Grand Jury and laid down indictments. He demanded true bills penned in blood.
He defamed President Putarco Calles and his Red regime. He ridiculed Lázaro Cárdenas and his “godlessly gutless” reforms. He maimed modernism. It was “perversion perpetrated by the Jewish/atheist/nihilist Left.” He quoted the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. He critiqued communism as Jew-derived. He lashed Uncle Sam’s imperialista forays in Latin America. He urged the U.S to embrace the Catholic Church and reform from within.
He spoke straight to Dudley. Their eyes held through the glass.