Spiritus Mundi? Yeah, he gets that. Beyond that, there’s just this:
Jean Staley. Barn-dance femme fatale. She sure can sling hash on skates.
54
(Los Angeles, 4:30 P.M., 2/3/42)
Ruth Mildred held court. She excelled at screwball comedy. Her office proved the point.
The dippy Deco furnishings. Props scrounged from Dinner at Eight. The cheesecake wall fotos. Ruth Mildred’s nice-girls-in-a-jam.
Ruthie pointed to Joan Crawford. She said, “I scraped her. A coon trombone knocked her up.”
Dudley roared. Juan Pimentel went tut-tut. Huey Cressmeyer snoozed on mama’s couch.
Ruthie pointed to Katharine Hepburn. She said, “I scraped her. I sold locks of her snatch hair for a C-note a pop.”
Lieutenant Juan grew a Hitler mustache. It sprang up dark and thick. He wore Statie blacks north of the border. He lived to cause fear, wherever he went.
Huey snored. He required resuscitation. Model-airplane glue laid him low. He built a Messerschmidt squadron and succumbed.
Ruthie pointed to Sylvia Sidney. She said, “I scraped her. I licked her bush while she was anesthetized.”
Dudley yanked Ruthie’s cord. “Regretfully, I must call for an intermission. I have questions for your grand boy before the lieutenant drives him south.”
Ruthie dug out her dope spike and filled it. Nazi-issue amphetamine possessed pop. Harry Cohn swore by it. Ruthie injected his starlets. They toiled in grade-Z turkeys all day and Harry’s private stag flicks all night.
“The Dudster’s a killjoy. My baby needs his beauty sleep, and his mommy loves to strut her stuff.”
Lieutenant Juan said, “Dr. Cressmeyer should resettle in Tijuana. I would see to the reinstatement of her medical license. We are currently battling a VD epidemic. Our vivid nightclub acts have spawned this medical plague. Donkeys, you see. You never know where they’ve been and who they’ve been with.”
Dudley roared. Ruthie roared big. She swabbed Huey’s arm and tied him off. Huey snored. Ruthie tapped the spike and fed him the juice. She went There, there and held her baby’s hand.
Lieutenant Juan timed the wake-up. His wristwatch ticked off three minutes. Huey babbled and twitched.
Dudley shooed Ruthie and El Fasco out. He bolted the door and pulled a chair up to the couch. Huey twitched, babbled, twitched.
He slurred verses of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied” and “Lili Marlene.” He babbled up the Deutsches Haus and its habitué, “Mitch.” “Model-airplane man, model-airplane man.” Huey made no sense.
Dudley lit a cigarette and blew smoke in Huey’s face. Huey coughed. His eyes popped open, wide.
“I have questions, lad. Prompt compliance will earn you a pat on the head. Evasions will earn you a beating.”
Huey pouted. “I want to go home. You’ve got me on some jaggedy hop, and I’m zorched to the gills. I want to mess with my pin map. I’ve got the Russian campaign all doped out.”
Dudley twirled his ashtray. “You may have heard that two policemen and a Mex pal of theirs were murdered late last month. Your friend Tommy Glennon may have been involved. Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie Archuleta. Do those names sound your chimes?”
Huey picked his nose and admired a loose nugget. Huey pulled out a paper clip and excavated his ears.
“I don’t know no Archuleta. I’ve seen Rice and Kapek at the Deutsches Haus, but we just sling a few barbs at the kikes, and let it go at that. They’re far right — but who ain’t? If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
The Deutsches Haus. It appeared in Tommy’s address book. The PD raided it in December. It was now Fed-infiltrated. That nixed an approach.
Rice and Kapek appeared in T.J. They wheeled a truck toward the border. He ran photo-device pix and saw them. Photo fuzz obscured the license plates.
Dudley chained cigarettes. “Far right to the extent that they’d run fugitive Japs?”
“No, that don’t beat no tom-toms for me. But Rice used to brag that he was running wetbacks — if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
Dudley said, “Lad, how do you know this?”
Huey shrugged. “Fifth Column’s Fifth Column. We all drink at the same trough and pick at the same fleas.”
“On that note, then. Where’s Tommy Glennon?”
“I ain’t seen him since he left Quentin. That was back in November.”
“Do any Japs habituate the Deutsches Haus? I’m thinking of a man named Kyoho Hanamaka.”
Huey scratched his balls. “Japs on the loose, since the Day of Infamy? Japs who ain’t already in stir for the war’s duration?”
“Can you connect Tommy G. to the Deutsches Haus, or Rice and Kapek?”
“Nein — ’cause the Deutsches Haus didn’t open up until sometime in ’37, and Tommy was in Quentin then. As far as Rice and Kapek go, you’ve got Rice bragging that he ran wets, and Tommy used to run wets for Carlos Madrano. It’s like the Fifth Column concept. Everybody knows everybody — if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
Dudley cracked his knuckles. “Let’s talk about Tommy’s address book.”
“Okay.”
“Let me run a few names by you. Lin Chung, Orson Welles, Dr. Saul Lesnick, Wallace N. Jamie. Can you relate these men to Tommy, or to anyone else that you might consider Fifth Column?”
Huey made the jack-off sign. Huey grabbed his crotch and went Consider this.
“Moving along, then. Monsignor Joe Hayes, a woman named Jean Staley, the hot-box phone by the L.A. Herald building, and fourteen pay phones in Baja, rumored to receive coded calls of a suspicious nature.”
Huey squirmed. He was bored. The psycho thrill killer wants his diesel-dyke mommy.
“No, nix, nein, and nyet, Uncle Dud. All us fascist types use phone drops, but I don’t know nothing about pay phones in Baja.”
“Your name was in Tommy’s address book.”
“That ain’t no large surprise. We used to correspond, from here to Quentin.”
“He wrote ‘Big Dick’ beside your name. I’m wondering if you lads might have traveled the Hershey Highway at any time during your reform-school or on-the-loose sojourns.”
Thrill-killer Huey. He kills Jews, kills jigs, kills Japs. He kills behind pique, ennui, and glue withdrawal. Now, he’s aghast.
“It’s a fucking lie! He ain’t never seen my dick!”
Dudley flashed his photostat. There’s that address-book page. Tommy extolls Huey’s big dick.
“That ain’t Tommy’s printing! He used to write me! Tommy don’t print that way!”
Huey was credible. He oozed indignation and righteous affront. He went Greek. Tommy went Greek. They sought the Greek grail — but not together.
The address book had been altered and planted at the klubhaus. That seemed evident now. Who performed these misdeeds? Puerile Elmer Jackson comes to mind.
Dudley sat in Luke’s Shanghai. It was Bill Parker’s C-town haunt. Parker disdained the ritzier Kwan’s. Uncle Ace vexed him no end.
Dudley sipped green tea. He’d dropped by Lyman’s en route. The address-book pages were photostated and tacked to a bulletin board.