They crossed the border and cut through T.J. Beth went agog. His sheltered lass viewed raucous Revolución. She orbed the nude barkers outside the Blue Fox. The famed negrito waved his two-foot dick and drew stellar crowds.
Dudley swung south on the coast road. Half-assed beauty washed out the T.J. stink. High cliffs and sea swells. Fishing craft and Statie speedboats. Full-scale Jap cove alert.
He’s meeting Juan Lazaro-Schmidt in La Paz today. Juan Pimentel’s flying him down. El Governor wants to talk turkey. He wants El Dudster to attend a moving wingding. His cable included a postscript. “You will see through it, of course.”
He misses Hideo. Hideo’s his brilliant son, in with all his daughters. Major Melnick signed a dual-duty chit. Hideo has been assigned to probe spy mischief in L.A. He convinced Melnick that Baja fiends lurked there. “Hideo’s our man, sir. I strongly recommend him.”
It’s a white lie. Hideo will hit L.A. and work the klubhaus job. Lee Blanchard will watchdog him. Field interviews loom.
The case slogged on. They were thirty-two days in. Jack H. fretted the gun angle. Rice and Kapek glommed Jap weapons, wholesale. A great many were likely sold to Boyle Heights pachucos. Thad Brown proposed an East L.A. youth sweep. Roust local cholos. Stress the gun angle. Note this downside:
Some Sinarquista lads might draw heat. That’s discomfiting.
Beth said, “Mexico is hard to fathom. I can’t quite believe everything that I’m seeing.”
“Ensenada is a bit more genteel. I have to fly down to La Paz, but Claire and Young Joan will give you a proper first look.”
“You say ‘Young Joan’ like you’re not sure you should trust her.”
“She’s sui generis, that one. She lacks your grace, but she’s possessed of grit in abundance. I can’t imagine how she’ll turn out.”
Beth smiled. “You take guff from women that you’d never take from men.”
Dudley smiled. “It’s my Achilles’ heel — but don’t tell anyone.”
La Paz.
Off the south Baja coast. Swell Pacific and inland gulf views. Tuna boats and shack shanties. Grand white houses and yet-more-grand churches. Thick foliage and gargantuan insects. All quintessentially Mex.
Captain Juan dropped him at the Statie airfield. They discussed their plans on the flight down. Wetbacks and heroin. Jap slaves, to boot. Captain Juan urged caution. Lazaro-Schmidt was no pendejo.
He’d dropped Beth off at the del Norte. Claire swarmed her and laid on the love. Young Joan was less effusive. Ever watchful, that one.
Dudley cabbed to El Governor’s casa. It was sunny and gulf warm. He wore a tropical-weight suit and a belt piece. Flaunt your allegiance. He wore his swastika lapel pin, face-out.
The casa was built up a hillside. Lazaro-Schmidt knew from flaunt. It was double-deck, peach-pink adobe. The pitched roof was inlaid with hand-painted tiles. Big-name artists’ work on glazed cement. Picassos, Klees, and Kandinskys overlapped. Squiggles and doodles baked in the sun. The effect was modernist chaos.
The front door was flush with the street. Dudley walked up and rang the bell. It sparked shrieks from Strauss’ Elektra. The door clicked open, full automatic.
Dudley stepped inside. The front room dipped below sea level. Four steps took him down. The room was done up fasco moderne.
Thronelike chairs. All brown leather. Ebony tables and settees. Hammered-bronze lamps and Axis-flag-motif carpets. Mussolini’s lair meets Better Homes & Gardens.
Recessed wall paintings. Lit by pink neon tubes. More Picassos, Klees, and Kandinskys. Der Führer and Red Beast Stalin would frown. It was decadent art.
“Franco’s men sacked a train passing through the Pyrenees. These paintings and my roof tiles were to be sold to raise funds for the Loyalist cause. The general and I are old friends. I appreciate art in a way he does not, which explains his most generous bequest.”
Dudley wheeled. The thick carpet threw sparks. There’s Lazaro-Schmidt. Note his cashmere lounge suit. It befits Hermann Goering at play. His swastika pin beams, face-out.
“I’m impressed, sir. Your lovely home expresses a grand theme.”
Lazaro-Schmidt plopped into a throne. Buffed leather engulfed him.
“Which would be?”
“These times we live in. Art as the sole voice that will transcend the clash.”
“ ‘This savaging disaster.’ A friend of mine exhorts crowds with those words.”
Dudley plopped into a throne. He faced Lazaro-Schmidt head-on. The fasco motif disfavored his host. El Governor ran elfin. He lacked Il Duce’s notable heft.
“You may recall our brief chat at the recital, sir. I have schemes to propose and resources to pledge. I can vouch your immediate profits, and all I require is your promise of protection and a wave of your official pen.”
Lazaro-Schmidt smiled. “Wetbacks. We must not euphemize here. I am set to sign the guest-worker pact with California’s Governor Olson in August. It will effectively legalize the temporary immigration of Mexican braceros, who will pick crops in the verdant San Joaquin and Imperial valleys. You wish to move wets north more urgently. All that the traffic will bear. You are prepared to offer me a price per head, and I am prepared to consider offers.”
Dudley smiled. “Yes, but that’s just one operation I have to propose.”
El Governor plucked lint off his lounge suit. He was dainty. He lacked Il Duce’s feral depth.
“Let me anticipate your other proposals. You wish to defray the cost of the Baja internment by housing our resident Japanese in U.S. internment camps and municipal-police road camps for the war’s duration. You have a plan to hide wealthy Japanese in Los Angeles, under the protection of Hop Sing and Uncle Ace Kwan. You plan to implement the heroin racket you took over from José Vasquez-Cruz, belatedly revealed to be Jorge Villareal-Caiz. My official signatures will provide the unrestricted travel visas that you require. They will free you to move wets, Japs, and dope north, free of scrutiny.”
Dudley flicked lint off his trousers. Monkey see, monkey do.
“You know my plans in advance of my comradely pledges and supplications, sir. Have you had me surveilled?”
Lazaro-Schmidt said, “Yes, and I am aware of the purging of Cruz-Caiz’s men that you and Salvy Abascal performed in the wake of El Capitán’s death. I know that you killed Carlos Madrano, in advance of your army posting here in Baja. I have assessed you through secondhand sources, and have largely extrapolated your designs. I am ready to do business with you, should we come to felicitous terms.”
Dudley scanned the room. He saw gold statuettes on a wall ledge. Tigers, panthers, jaguars. Perhaps solid gold.
“I’m chastened, sir. I thought I’d walk in here and knock you off your feet.”
Lazaro-Schmidt laughed. “I am not easily dislodged.”
“Nor am I easily chastened, sir.”
“I will add that I know you are quite concerned with the whereabouts of my friend Kyoho Hanamaka, and further add that I did not facilitate his exit from Mexico, nor do I know where he is now. I know that you have discovered Kyoho’s hideaway, and are spending considerable time there.”
Dudley said, “Yes, and I discovered a gold bayonet in a cache hole. It was swastika-adorned, and I’ve come to learn that there’s a companion piece, adorned with a hammer and sickle.”
It was a curveball. El Governor deflected it.
“I would call Kyoho ambidextrous. He plays the totalitarian field, and he does not know which beast will prevail in the end.”
Dudley said, “The Red Beast, I fear.”