Herr Bill snored. He was unkempt and looked stale overall. Note the photograph taped to the dashboard.
Joan Conville, hometown seductress. She’s posed on a split-rail fence. Note her fetching huntress ensemble.
Fierce Joan. Note the shotgun. She blew a randy redskin’s foot off with it.
The passenger door stood ajar. Dudley slid in beside Parker. He rattled him awake. Parker flinched and went for his gun.
Dudley pinned his hand. “Wake up, Captain. We’ve a serious matter to discuss.”
Parker blinked and rubbed his eyes. He had boozehound breath. Dudley passed him a mint lozenge.
“You woke me up.”
“Yes, and with good cause. Jim Davis told me that he killed the Watanabes. He told you in December, and I’m wondering who else he might have told.”
Parker crossed himself. His eyes zipped to the dashboard.
“There’s the issue of who you’ve told, Captain. Have you confessed to Monsignor Hayes? Have you told your wife or the twin sirens, Miss Conville and Miss Lake?”
Parker recrossed himself and reogled the dashboard. Of course — the sodden shit told Joan.
Sea winds bore down. Bad rain threatened. Wave chop doused his boots. It rendered the beach trek unpleasant.
He drove back last night. He left pressing biz in L.A. A deal with Bill Parker. A bedroom chat with fair Joan.
The Wolf urged his return. The Wolf told him to check the other caves near the death cave. The Wolf wondered this:
Juan Pimentel. Did he torch those saboteurs with undue haste? Herr Juan was the slow-torture type. French-fried Japs and spics played out of character. The Wolf was most emphatic here.
Dudley trekked north. He carried a flashlight and a tommy gun. He saw the death cave and smelled it concurrent.
The scorched flesh. The stale stomach gas and burst entrails.
He entered the cave. The Wolf growled. They walked back and viewed the charred-corpse mound. The Wolf wagged his tail and gnawed flame-bleached bones. Dudley counted thirty-four dead.
They walked back to the beach and turned north. Dudley spotted a cave cove fifty yards up. They walked over. Dudley racked his tommy gun and stepped in. The Wolf walked point ahead of him.
Yes. It’s the same setup. A deep cave. Numerous forks. Beachfront recessed. Wave-free access.
They explored the cave. The Wolf chased enticing scents. They saw this:
Empty food cans. Two dozen bedrolls. A smashed and thus useless shortwave radio set.
Plus this:
Charred airplane parts. Oddly flimsy. Rivet perforations. Incongruous construction.
The wings snapped onto the fuselage. Flimsy wires secured them. They resembled model-airplane parts.
The engine compartment laid there, exposed. Four small cylinders leaked gas. There’s a flywheel and an automotive gear train attached. There’s hammer-and-sickle decals on a wing plate.
The Wolf cocked his head and perked his ears. Dudley said, “Yes, I know — it’s quite the mad contraption.”
They left the cave and trekked farther north. The Wolf frolicked and chased beach rats. They found four more saboteur nests.
All abandoned. Smashed radios/empty cans/dumped bedrolls. No more jig-rigged airplane parts.
The Wolf possessed a keen intellect and sharp fangs. He gnawed on this:
Did Herr Juan torch those shits judiciously? Did he torch them to warn off other cave dwellers?
Dudley had sharp fangs. He gnawed on it.
A thunderstorm blew in. The Wolf stayed home with Claire and the Klein girl. Dudley teethed and drove back out in the rain.
He gnawed on the Jim Davis snafu. He gnawed on the klubhaus job. He gnawed on his nascent Baja rackets and José Vasquez-Cruz. He gnawed on his L.A. versus Mexico duties and his Army mandate. He gnawed on Kyoho Hanamaka and the gold bayonet.
He took Benzedrine and gnawed with revived gusto. He drove to T.J. and bootjacked a Border Patrol office. The Benzedrine induced brainstorms. It said do this:
Study photo-device footage. Check the northbound passages only. Look for covered vehicles and exposed license plates. Test the efficacy of Hideo Ashida’s grand creation.
The Staties had stockpiled eight photo boxes. Trip wires caught approaching and departing bumper plates. They’d rigged a viewfinder thingamajig in the office. It was crank-scroll operated. Plate numbers appeared on a bubble screen. Date markings ran below them.
Let’s look for suspect vehicles. Let’s study upward-jerking pix and nail suspect trucks.
Overpacked trucks. Trucks riding low on their axles. Fleeing Japs. Internment-dodging Japs. Saboteur Japs.
Dudley scrolled and rescrolled. His mind scrolled and unscrolled as he descrolled license plates. He saw Joan Conville naked. He saw her dressed in SS black. She swung the gold bayonet. She killed the man who killed her father.
License plates abundant. License plates redundant. Front plates, rear plates. Car plates, truck plates, all heading-adios plates.
Dudley got eyestrain. He went through two full boxes. He scrolled up to 1/25/42. He kept seeing Jap goblins who weren’t really there. He kept seeing Joan naked and the Wolf abed with naked Claire.
He fed in the 1/25 pix. He scrolled through boring turistas waving good-bye and leering jarheads sated from the Blue Fox. His brain scrolled/unscrolled/rescrolled/descrolled.
He kept seeing Joan naked/Joan naked/JOAN NAKED. He blinked to rescroll reality. He reinstilled the imposition of boring license plates. He plate-scrolled up to 10:14 p.m., 1/25/42.
He caught a northbound bumper plate and truck grill. The camera lens jerked upward. He caught an up-to-the-windshield shot and caught this:
Wendell Rice and George Kapek — right there in the cab. They’ve got three fucking nights left to live.
51
(Los Angeles, 9:00 A.M., 2/3/42)
Cramped quarters. They verged on SRO. Lyman’s back room as Crash Squad HQ.
The crammed-in chairs. The food table and coffee urn. The Teletype and phone lines. The corkboard-hung walls.
The booze table. The sweat room upstairs. A bolted-down chair for recalcitrant suspects. Rubber hose and phone-book-thumping tools, on call.
Joan sat between Elmer and Buzz. Ashida sat beside Dr. Nort. Breuning, Carlisle, and Blanchard hogged the back row. Bill Parker and Thad Brown stood and faced their crew. Brown summarized.
We’re six days in. We’ve ID’d the Mex. He long-term snitched for Kapek and Rice. Jack Horrall dumped their Personnel and Narco files. The Mex topped out his paroles. We’ve got no leads there.
We’ve got two rogue cops. They’re embroiled in a secret life deal. We’ve got Tommy Glennon’s address book and jizz-stained sheets. We’ve established a unique cause of death. The lab folks are still at the klubhaus. We need names. We’ve got to stretch this goddamn thing.
Joan ignored the spiel. She jotted gold-heist notes and snuck looks at Bill Parker. Call him lover #1. Dudley was here in L.A. She was seeing him tonight. Call him lover #2.
Brown haggled with Breuning and Carlisle. They wanted to haul in “jazz-club niggers” and “put the boots to them.” Brown told them to pipe down. Joan tuned most of it out.
She doodled. Her thoughts scattergunned. She had breakfast with Kay. They discussed Kay’s diary. She started it the day before Pearl Harbor. Bill Parker knocked on her door that night.