Abascal cranked it. His spiel borrowed from Huey Long and Gerald L. K. Smith. He pumped his fist à la Conde McGinley and wailed like Klan preachers and El Führer himself. His voice rose and fell. He’d studied the soapbox orators of Weimar-era Berlin. He knew when to purr and when to SHRIEK.
The Protestant Reformation? “Wholly genocidal” and “the Christian Diaspora.” Martin Luther? “A tyrant to rival Josef Stalin.” Adolf Hitler? “A great, if unruly, leader, and a beatific beacon to the Western world at large.”
Abascal cranked it.
He mourned the martyred Cristeros. He described the Redshirt tortures inflicted upon them. He detailed a Sinarquista death list. The torturers would be slaughtered, one by one.
Dudley walked up to the glass. He placed his hands on it. The glass vibrated. The Sleek Man’s words did that.
Abascal walked to the glass. He placed his hands even with Dudley’s. The glass seemed to melt.
They were this close. Abascal spoke to a ceiling mike. Abascal said this:
“I vigorously condemn the British-Protestant imperialism levied against the sovereign Catholic people of Ireland. I call for all-out Irish revolt against the British beast.”
Dudley wept then.
39
(Los Angeles, 7:00 P.M., 1/28/42)
Star-studded bash meets field study. Know your foe. Observe her habitat. You’re a scientist and a thrill seeker. This could be fun.
She read up on Klemperer and his guests. The Herald previewed the party. She had the address and the pedigrees. The piece featured pix and boxed bios. It’s a slick study guide.
Pretend it’s a frat bash. You’re the new girl on campus. Breeze in and blend in. Crash the party.
Joan surveilled the Lake-Blanchard house. It was streamline moderne and just north of the Strip. It was turned out, c’est bon.
The house intensified rumors. Ex-boxer Lee took dives and reaped big payoffs. He was a name heavyweight. He raked it in for a spell. The cop rumor mill stamped it true.
Joan sat in her car. Her beat-to-shit ’36 Dodge. It still bore New Year’s Eve dents. She’d had the cracked windshield replaced.
Kay Lake drove a ’41 Packard. It sparkled and gleamed up her driveway.
Joan lit a cigarette. Her thoughts tumbled. She tossed words and characterized the excursion. Words came and went. Voyeuristic and Inconsequential stuck.
She watched Kay’s front door. She wore a green cocktail dress and high heels. She felt too tall/gawky girl at the prom. She went sleeveless. She missed her gold cuff links.
Her thoughts retumbled. They went party-to-party. She jumped back to the Biltmore. New-Captain Smith and new-Lieutenant Ashida. Behold the gold bayonet.
Possible mint marks. A raised swastika. She studies Ashida as he studies her. It’s a holy shit moment. Ashida photographs the bayonet. It’s evidence now.
Joan stretched and kicked off her shoes. Kay Lake stepped out on her porch. Kay, you’re a knockout. That black cashmere dress really works.
Kay walked to the Packard. She pulled out and swung down to the Strip. Joan U-turned and caught her at Doheny.
It’s a two-car caravan. It’s heading west through Beverly Hills. It’s all voyeuristic and inconsequential.
Joan reviewed her study guide. She respooled that Herald piece. Sid Hudgens penned it. He laid in a sidebar on Claire De Haven.
Dudley’s screwball lover. A “former Las Madrinas Ball debutante.” “Scrupulously scrutinized in 1940. State HUAC reads Red Claire the ripe riot act.”
Claire looked highborn and haughty. Buzz Meeks dished her at Lyman’s. He said she was snooty goods and rode the white horse.
Westbound on Sunset. Two women/two cars/one schoolgirl prank.
Joan lagged back. They passed the Bel-Air gates and UCLA. They swung through Brentwood and cut north on Mandeville Canyon. The terrain went posh rural. Recessed lawns and topiary. These rich folks had spreads.
Spanish haciendas. French châteaux. All-glass-cube moderns. Tall eucalyptus trees and terraced backyards.
Kay cut west. Joan followed her. Kay slowed and braked. There — that’s the spot.
A massive adobe. The Sidster’s “Maestro Manse.” Bright windows and lantern-lit yard. Blackout-reg violations up the ying-yang.
A wide porte cochere. Mexican valets. Loudspeaker music — gloomy and dissonant.
Kay swung in. Joan hung back and let a Coupe de Ville pass her. Kay ditched the Packard. She tossed her keys. A Mexican kid snagged them.
Joan swung in. She stepped into her shoes and out of the car. A little Mex gawked La Gringa Grande.
She gave him her keys and a dollar bill. He said, “It’s free.” She said, “It’s a tip.”
The porte cochere was spiffed up. Three flagpole banners rotated in sequence and supplied a drape effect. Stars and Stripes/Loyalist Spain/hammer and sickle. Red guardsmen flanked the front door. They looked like winos hired off skid row.
The front door stood open. Joan breezed inside. Kay played whirling dervish. She whooshed and disappeared.
Now, the looks. They’re all standard-issue. Who’s that? Check the big redhead.
Joan rebuffed looks. She checked the Maestro Manse. Holy moly. Somebody lives here.
There’s a foyer. It’s stark Deco and Nuremberg-sized. Living room, nein. It’s a Bauhaus beer hall. It’s all pillared and bas-reliefed.
Brass statuary. Backlit and floodlit. Beethoven and Wagner, splashed in workers’ red. It’s all distinctly modernist. Note the Picassos and Mirós on the walls.
Black leather couches and chairs. Silk tapestried carpets. Cut-crystal tables. A forty-foot fireplace. Mounted polar bears standing guard.
Joan just stood there. Guests mingled in clumps. War blah-blah bombarded her.
Hitler was wicked. Stalin was swell. Their recent pact was all rightist ruse. Hear those piano chords? That’s Otto’s sneak peek. He got V-mail from Shostakovich. It’s his new symphony. Nazi tanks attack Leningrad. Listen close — you can tell.
A waiter swooped by. Joan snatched a champagne flute. She imbibed Pernod and absinthe. It went straight to her head.
She stood her ground. She looked around. She matched faces to newspaper pix.
There’s the Maestro. That’s easy. Talk about tall. He suffered a brain tumor, circa ’39. He’s got a half-frozen face.
There’s Thomas Mann, Kurt Weill, and Bertolt Brecht. There’s Lotte Lenya and Arnold Schoenberg.
Sid Hudgens defamed them all. He wrote a private-PD dirt sheet. It covered his poker losses to Jack Horrall.
Lenya was a loin-lapping lezbo. Weill traveled Estrada Chocolato with George Cukor. Mann and Schoenberg ran Red. Brazen Brecht brought the bratwurst to Leni Riefenstahl.
Joan laughed. She snagged another Pernod and absinthe and quaffed it. Short men dipped by and gawked her. She looked left and saw José Iturbi. She looked right and saw Claire De Haven.
She’s patrician and near-translucent. She’s got hophead eyes. She’s Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Dudley Smith’s bed.
Claire evinced screechy nerves. She fretted a handkerchief. Her eyes darted. Guests swirled by her. Joan saw her eyes land.
On a small old man. Playing courtier. Perched on a black leather couch.
He sported a Sigmund Freud beard. He held a doctor’s bag. He pontificated on overdrive. A big blond girl cleaved close to him. She wore a tweed skirt and a brown crewneck sweater. She wore prep-school saddle shoes.
Joan sidled over. She perched in eavesdrop range. The old man gasbagged. Partygoers dropped by and said hi. They called pops “Saul” and “Dr. Lesnick.”