Wendell Rice. George Kapek. Archie Archuleta. You know these guys? John Harold Miciak. You know him? You dig the Sinarquistas? You like nigger jazz? You been to this hot spot on East 46th?
Nobody bit. Herr Doktor Vengeance hunkered in and observed. He attended a eugenics lecture. A three-hundred-pound porker extolled the master race. He attended a lecture on postwar reconciliation.
The Nazis and Russkis kiss and make up. They’ve got some mysterious gold cache. They hatched a plan in Mexico. Let bygones be bygones. The real foe is democracy.
Herr Doktor yawned through the lecture. His luck fizzled then. Some just-out jailbird busted him.
This Klan fool’s a cop. I saw him last month. He’s on the Alien Squad. I was locked up in Lincoln Heights. He was hauling in Japs.
Deutsches Haus — auf Wiedersehen. Fat fräuleins, adios.
He misses Jean Staley. He sleeps with Brenda and thinks about her. He sleeps with Ellen and thinks about her. He sleeps with Annie Staples and thinks about her.
He thinks about Dudley Smith. He got terped at Ellen’s place and woke up on the floor. A speckled bug started talking to him.
The bug rebuked his promiscuous ways. The bug said shit like “You’re scared — but somebody’s got to take that mick booger down.”
The bug egged him on. He started tapping the piggyback mounts at Brenda’s trick spot. He’s been playing the recordings of Annie S. and Saul Lesnick. He heard gasbag Saul gasbag this:
His analysand Claire De Haven’s been running distraught. She’s miffed at her lover man, Dudley. She thinks he killed a passing fling of hers. The man was a Mexican State Police captain. His name was José Vasquez-Cruz. That name played out pseudonymous. He was really a Commo named Jorge Villareal-Caiz.
Old Saul found this flabbergasting. He said, “I knew Jorge! He was in my CP cell with Meyer Gelb! Remember? I introduced you to Meyer at Otto Klemperer’s party!”
Annie remembered it good. He remembered it good. He planted Annie at that party. He hot-wired her. He heard that introduction as it transpired. He thought nothing of it then.
Old Saul regasbagged. Annie reran her gee-whiz shtick. Old Saul resnitched his analysand.
Claire told him that Dudley beat up Orson Welles. Lover man added insult to injury. Dudley made Orson his informant. Orson told her all of this. He’s now finking leftists on his OIACC tour. Dudley forbids Claire to see Orson. She sees him anyway. Fuck lover man. He’s screwing a red-haired tart in L.A.
Old Saul re-regassbagged. He dropped the kicker then.
“Claire was very agitated. She kvetched throughout the whole session. She said, ‘Kay Lake will surely be at Otto’s next party. I’m going to make up to her and talk to her about Dudley. The girl is a seasoned gossip. I’m sure she knows things about Dudley that I don’t.’ ”
The recording spritzed out. He spent three full days restitching this:
Klemperer’s party. In Brentwood. Huey’s Night of the Long Knives party. In Brentwood. “North of Sunset, daaarlings.” Orson Welles was there. “He was pals with the guy who owned the house — some music maestro.”
He let it sit for a week. He rehashed it with Buzz Meeks. They grabbed a reverse directory and looked up Klemperer’s address. Yep — it’s Brentwood, north of Sunset.
They brainstormed their next move. Eyewits didn’t apply here. All the Long Knife party guests wore masks. Huey and Tommy G. saw it. Their “dates,” ditto. Dudley pulls his bayonet and chops the he-she.
Huey and Tommy. Call them hostile eyewits. Huey wouldn’t reblab. Tommy wouldn’t blab at all. Their dates were unknown. It was a perv bash. There’d be no formal guest list.
They checked dead-body reports. West L.A. Division. Winter ’39. Up near Brentwood. North of Sunset Boulevard. Up in that très posh turf.
They snagged a dumped-body decomp. It was up in Mandeville Canyon. It was out in some woodsy preserve. A male stiff got chomped by coyotes. The critters ate his feet and his dick. The dump site was half a mile from Klemperer’s crib.
The DB report was dated 3/5/39. The stiff was roughly two weeks DOA. The cops ID’d him. The coroner tagged cause of death. The hump died from stab-wound trauma.
He’s Cedric Francis Inge. Age twenty-seven. White male/6'3"/135. Sixteen sodomy beefs. Drag-revue performer. “Gene the Queen” Harlow to his-her friends.
So far, so goooood. Here’s the next angle. Dudley Smith’s got his nuts in a vise. Who would he call? Who else? He’d call Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle.
Buzz and him checked old duty rosters. Breuning and Carlisle worked the Bunco night watch then. There it is — 2/19/39.
Breuning and Carlisle clock out. It’s “personal business.” They vamoose at 11:20 p.m.
Buzz and him hashed it out gooooood. He said, “Do you really want to blackmail Dudley Smith?”
Buzz gulped and popped sweat. Buzz said, “Not right yet, I don’t.”
They let it sit for a week. He called Annie Staples then. She met him at Scrivner’s Drive-in on 6th and Vermont. They slurped pineapple malts and discussed Annie’s crush on Orson Welles.
He said, “I foresee a date at Brenda’s trick spot. I’ll be in the camera hole. Notable woof-woof may well ensue.”
Annie said, “Orson needs to lose weight.”
He said, “I’ll slide you a grand.”
Annie said, “Let me guess. You want me to pump him for certain information.”
He said, “Winter ’39. A party at Otto Klemperer’s place, and a movie he screened. Put the spurs to him. I want to see how he reacts.”
70
(Los Angeles and Baja, 2/12–2/25/42)
The Wolf licked the blood off his gold bayonet. It consecrated his conversion.
He’s a reborn apostate. He mimed History and reprised the Night of the Long Knives. It erased his wretched moment at Herr Klemperer’s house. He’s a fascist now. He’s more specifically a Sinarquista.
The Wolf decreed a commemorative rampage. He enlisted Salvy and Juan Pimentel and issued the Wolf’s directive. They staged a raid and stole Cruz-Caiz’s heroin stash. He killed El Communisto’s key henchmen. Sinarquista Greenshirts cut up the bodies and buried the offal. He kept Hideo out of it. Hideo would have had qualms.
The rampage continued. Salvy had kill-listed eight former Redshirts. They were torturers and nun-rapers of the Calles regime. They lived in seclusion throughout Baja. El Dudster and Plucky Salvador slaughtered them. Stout Juan fed their guts and limbs to greedy ocean sharks.
Traitors and rapists, all. Thirteen deaths in all. He filed thirteen notches on his bayonet. The Wolf drank thirteen drafts of blood.
Reprise and revision. Munich, ’34. Brentwood, ’39. The lakeside spa and Herr Klemperer’s house. The Brentwood bash spawned chaos. Mike and Dick salvaged him. Tommy Glennon forced him to relive the nightmare. San Quentin, last November. Tommy’s smirky blackmail pass. He’ll find Tommy and kill him. He’ll nullify all impediments. He’ll kill Buzz Meeks and Elmer Jackson as whim dictates.
He told Salvy about the gold. He omitted nothing. He pledged 15 % of all gold profits to the Sinarquista cause. Salvy joined the gold-questing band. He’ll tell Hideo and Joan in due time.
Said band is egalitarian. There’s an Irishman, a Japanese, a woman. A Mexican lawyer and rightist firebrand now join them. Está la nueva familia and cause to exult.