Envelope #3. The Red Swastika, by Salvador Abascal. It’s a catchy title. Pithy subtitles cover a full page.
A Polemic on the Potential Brotherhood of Dispossessed Totalitarians.
A Utopian Vision of Hoarded Monies and the Promulgation of a New Gold Standard to Assure the Solvency of Catholic Nationalists Worldwide.
Joan skimmed the text. Abascal was a devout papist and proponent of Sinarquismo. The tract extolled Nazis and defamed Jews. It extolled the Spanish Falange and defamed the Loyalist cause. It extolled Irish nationalism and defamed the British-Protestant oppressor. It was anti — U.S. imperialist. It was pro — Catholic workers worldwide.
Abascal veered hard right. He added hard-left hoo-ha and spiced up the brew. His first subtitle stated the theme. He described its first “radical implementation.”
November 1940. A secret conference is held in Ensenada. The Hitler-Stalin pact flows in full bloom. Nazi and Soviet high-ups attend. They pooh-pooh their political divisions. They blare their antidemocratic ideals. They discuss fascism and communism. They define it as one philosophy, united. They acknowledge the curse of factionalism. They defame the divergent rhetoric that individuates and self-defines them. They redefine themselves as nonopposites. They are as one in their hatred of the democratic West.
Hitler will breach the pact. The Germans and Russians both know this. Hitler will invade Russia. The cost will be ghastly. America will enter the war. America will align with Russia and turn against Russia should the Allies win. How will WE survive such a catastrophe? How will WE surmount the horror of an Axis victory? What will WE do should der Führer decree Russia’s annihilation?
The dialogue extends. Postwar strategies are discussed. What should WE do? WE must probe beneficial solutions. WE must assure totalitarian survival.
Joan caught the upscut. The all-caps WE said it. How do WE prepare for contingent postwar shitstorms? What do WE enlightened few do?
Abascal was crazy draconian. Rockwell and Mimms were race-baiting buffoons. They were collectively ridiculous. All three “Polemicists” were booby-hatch bait.
Joan slit envelope #4. She slipped out a tract. The title packed punch:
New Implementations of Air Attack in the Coming World Conflict, by Mitchell A. Kupp.
Bill talked a blue streak. Joan tuned him out. They lay in bed. She heard every third word he said.
Mitch Kupp. The airplane nut and Charles Lindbergh boon companion. Her father’s death. Her personal vendetta. Kupp was her one hard suspect.
Kupp charters a plane in Duluth. He flies over Monroe County, Wisconsin. A blaze consumes Big Earle Conville that day.
There’s a fuel spill nearby. She cannot prove that it caused the fire. She traces the fuel to the charter service. She cannot attribute motive. Mitch Kupp did not know Earle Conville. It all goes away.
She built her own arson file. She worked on it all through grad school. She moved to L.A. and neglected the file. Kupp’s tract brought it all back.
Bill talked a blue streak. Joan heard every fourth word. She read the airplane pamphlet. It was not a hate tract or a political screed. It was scholarly and technically dense. Mitch Kupp believed that everyday Joes could fly model planes. He did not advocate race hate or seek to barbecue Jews. He advocated an armed civilian air corps. Airplanes could be built from prefabricated parts. Automotive drivetrains and rivet-forged wings would do the trick.
Bill talked a blue streak. It was all Dudley Smith and Werewolf Shudo and Look what I did. It was all Don’t you love me for it?
She couldn’t think. She was back at Big Earle’s wake. She pried off the casket lid and viewed his charred corpse. She made herself look.
“You haven’t been listening. I’ve been talking to the bedpost.”
“I’m sorry. I know what you’ve been saying, though — and I admire what you did.”
Bill flinched. “You don’t act as if you feel that way. You act like you’re somewhere else entirely.”
She touched his face. “I’m here, and I’m with you. We’re in bed, and we’ve just made love, and I don’t know why you require more than that.”
His eyes glazed up. He knuckled back some tears.
“I know you’re sleeping with Dudley. I figured it out today. You know what he is, and you still dishonor me in that way. I tell you that I saved a man’s life that he tried to destroy, and you aren’t even listening.”
Joan brushed off his tears. “Don’t ask me to love you for a self-absorbed grand gesture, when you make such gestures routinely. I won’t let Dudley go, any more than I’d let you go. The difference between the two of you is that he wouldn’t ask.”
60
(Ensenada, 11:00 A.M., 2/8/42)
Stakeout.
They perched on Avenida Floresta. They packed zoom-lens cameras and box lunches. They sat in a surveillance sled and orbed the White Dog Klub.
Sid Hudgens supplied the lead. Wallace Jamie supplied the phone-relay perspective. Dudley supplied the ’34 Ford. Ashida and Lieutenant Juan wore tattered civvies.
The bookie front worked out of a two-story row house. The house was bright peach stucco. Brisk foot traffic traipsed in and out.
Ashida had the front seat. Lieutenant Juan had the back. They raised their cameras and shot the basement entry.
Lieutenant Juan said, “It’s supposedly a forty-man operation. I’ve seen these places. There might be as many as forty phones hooked to a relay board. Look how many men we have walking in.”
Ashida shot sidewalk loiterers. He’d shot four rolls of film already. Lieutenant Juan ran his mouth. He was an invert. He was a pederast/péde/maricón. Ashida replayed the surveillance haus moment. “We Love You” tapped out in Morse code.
Men dawdled by the basement steps. El Lieutenant shot them.
“I’ve got thirty-odd scalps on my belt, you know. I burned up some saboteurs in a coastal cave. I saw loose teeth expelled. Their abdominal cavities burst.”
Ashida reloaded his camera. Lieutenant Juan draped his arms off the seat back.
“I hope you enjoy gossip. You’ll become bored with me if you don’t.”
A woman stood at an upstairs window. Ashida shot her. Lieutenant Juan made a face. Women — ick.
“Wendell Rice and George Kapek ran wets for Carlos Madrano. I’m not sure that Dudley knows that. They did a trial run for Captain Vasquez-Cruz, too. Dudley distrusts Captain José, because he thinks he has designs on his Claire. She injects morphine, in case you didn’t know. I know the pharmacist who supplies her.”
The window woman shifted. Her robe fell open. Ashida saw her breasts.
Lieutenant Juan went Ick. “Nice, if that’s your sort of gambit.”
Ashida shot the woman. A man appeared behind her. He slipped off her robe and kissed her neck. Lieutenant Juan sighed.
“Mexican men run teensy. You know that old joke? How can you tell a Mexican man in the dark? He’s got a big belt buckle and a small pee-pee.”
Ashida squirmed. La Juan’s hands were too close.
“Salvy Abascal’s seducing Dudley. Not in that way, of course. Salvy’s killed a great many priest-killers, which I applaud him for. He’s muy guapo. Don’t you think he’s got a big—”
Ashida muzzled him. “Dudley told me a story about a gold bayonet. It was inlaid with swastikas.”