They shared rank now. Two uniformed captains/two august agencies. They drew stares at Kwan’s.
Parker slouched. Dudley sat stiff straight. Joan would notch rank soon. Jack H. shot her an Academy slot. Captain J. W. Conville, Los Angeles PD.
Parker sipped coffee. His glasses were Scotch-taped. He’d chewed his nails raw.
“I read the posted summary at Lyman’s. The stolen guns constitute a shitstorm.”
Dudley lit a cigarette. “Yes, and a discomfiting and potentially scandalous one.”
“Was that what you wished to discuss?”
“Among other matters, yes.”
Kwan’s buzzed. It was a lawyers’ lair this a.m. Fletch B. and counsel. Ray Pinker and counsel. It refracted Whiskey Bill’s snitch ploy. The Fed probe snarls and shows teeth.
Parker said, “I’m listening.”
“Please restate your promise not to reveal Jim Davis, per a certain quadruple homicide.”
“So stated, with a codicil. We still need to put him under pentothal, voluntarily or coerced. There’s the currently pending matter of the klubhaus job, and what he might know.”
“I’ll do it. Would you care to witness the interview?”
Parker nodded. Archbishop Cantwell walked in the door. He wore kelly green golf togs and drew delighted stares.
“Do I have your word that you will not seek to countermand my efforts in l’affaire klubhaus?”
“End it. It’s a lake of shit our police department will drown in.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Parker lit a cigarette. “Let me anticipate your next salvo and nip it in the bud. No, I will not recant at the grand jury — even if Jack Horrall pulls his support of Thad Brown.”
The Archbishop worked the room. He swapped jokes with Battling Gomez. He ogled Betty Grable and winked at Harry James.
Dudley said, “Would you reconsider if I offered to walk away from Joan?”
Parker said, “Emphatically no.”
J. J. Cantwell sidled over and approached their table. He looked vividly elfin today.
“What are you two brilliant lads discussing so heatedly?”
Dudley said, “Women, Your Eminence.”
Cantwell winked. “That’s a topic I know nothing of, regardless of any rumors you may have heard.”
The drive back protracted. There were flash storms and coast road tie-ups. The jaunt ran six hours, door-to-door.
He got a late start. A bayonet search postponed his departure. He badged the widows Rice and Kapek and tossed their houses, floor-to-floor. He searched two domiciles and two detached garages. The Widow Rice said two shitkicker cops had already been through.
No gold bayonet appeared. The widows knew nothing of it. They’d dumped Wendell’s and Georgie’s Nazi gear. Their loony husbands gored their goats. Goodbye to all that.
Alas.
Dudley parked and lugged his grip upstairs. Music surged within his suite. It was dank and dissonant. Claire and Young Joan doted on Shostakovich.
He unlocked the door. Young Joan blasted the dour maestro. She sprawled on the couch. The Wolf sprawled beside her. Young Joan ruffled his coat.
Dudley doused the Victrola. Loud brass diminuendoed. Bass cellos swooped and died.
Young Joan said, “Hi, Uncle Dud.” She patted a folder on her lap. The Wolf stirred and nuzzled her hand.
“I have something to show you.”
Dudley smiled. “Perchance?”
“I found an L.A. Police intel file, in with some blank forms. It’s good you came home when you did. Aunt Claire’s out, and she wouldn’t want you to see it.”
The girl Mata Hari. His very own Hebraic offspring. She’s always concocting intrigue.
Dudley dropped his grip and perched on the couch. Young Joan passed him the file.
“It’s a CP cell, back in the ’30s. I recognized one of the pictures.”
Dudley opened the folder. It was standard Red Squad paper. A cover note prefaced it. Five suspect sheets and photographs were included. The note listed five CP members. The names stood out.
Saul Lesnick, M.D. Claire’s psychiatrist and confidant. Her L.A. dope conduit. Plus Andrea Lesnick. Plus Meyer Gelb, plus Jean Staley and Jorge Villareal-Caiz.
It’s the cell. Hideo and Joan uncovered the lead. The cell drew heat per the Griffith Park fire. Said heat cooled and died. It was stale news today.
Sicknik seditionists. Dr. Saul’s schizy daughter. Florid cell boss Gelb. Red pawn Jean Staley. Priest-killer Villareal-Caiz. Reviled by the great Salvy Abascal.
Young Joan said, “Look at the pictures.”
Dudley flipped through the suspect sheets. Four pix beamed, innocuous. Villareal-Caiz stood out.
As he well should. Here’s the punch line. He’s really José Vasquez-Cruz.
Claire found Vasquez-Cruz familiar. She’d “seen him somewhere, maybe a demonstration.” She found him attractive. He concurrently repulsed her. Claire viewed all men that way.
Young Joan stroked the Wolf. He hated priest killers and Communists. His hackles flared.
History. Munich, ’34. The Night of the Long Knives. Brentwood, ’39. A costume party replicates slaughter. Ensenada, now. History as fused circuit and final reprise.
Dudley brought the gold bayonet. He wore SS black. Salvy brought two stilettos. He wore Wehrmacht gray. They took Salvy’s car. The Wolf lounged between them. He wore his spiked collar, swastika-pinned.
3:00 a.m. Calle Diamante. The priest-killer lives in a bluffside casa. It’s bleached-white adobe. There’s a wide front lawn and eucalyptus trees.
Dudley knew the floor plan. Cruz-Caiz threw a party. Claire danced with El Communisto. He was El Fascisto then.
Salvy parked across the street. The Wolf growled and flashed his fangs. He told them to carry their weapons unsheathed.
They walked over. They veered toward the right-side front of the house. French doors marked the master bedroom. Gargoyle doorstops held them open. A breeze stirred sheer drapes.
Dudley heard snores and smelled stale perfume. It was Claire’s scent.
They walked in. Salvy patted the side wall and tripped a light switch. The room went too bright too fast. The priest-killer sleeps, the priest-killer stirs.
He’s wearing silk pajamas. The bedsheets are mussed. He’s almost awake.
Dudley stepped up. He gripped the bayonet two-handed. The priest-killer opened his eyes. Dudley slammed the blade into his face.
It crushed his skull and tore one eye out. Blood exploded. It sprayed Dudley’s tunic and drenched the pillows and sheets. The priest-killer gurgle-screamed. Dudley slammed the blade into his mouth.
It choked off all sound. Severed bridgework snagged the blade. Dudley yanked it free. He stabbed the priest-killer’s face and smashed into his brains.
Salvy stabbed. He arced two knives, in and out. He stabbed one flailing arm and severed it. One knife blade broke off in his hand.
Dudley swung the bayonet crossways. He shattered the priest-killer’s ribs and lanced through to his heart.
All that blood. Comunista red. All that offal and blood stink. Dudley smelled Claire through all of it.
67
(Los Angeles, 2/12–2/25/42)
I will take fate by the throat.
Beethoven said it. Dudley passed the maxim along. She repeated it to Kay. Diarist Kay loved epigraphs and thus lectured diarist Joan. She said, “It consecrates your opportunism. This war honors arrivistes. So does Los Angeles.”
She should be in Wave training now. She should be field-dressing wounds and reading male VD charts. Fate intervened. A new set of should be’s unfurled. She got drunk and caused four deaths. She should be in Tehachapi now. Elmer Jackson said, “You’re the world’s luckiest white woman, Red. You plowed some wetbacks hauling maryjane.”