by Max Grant
“Nice, huh? He said to relax for a while and he’ll see what he can come up with. But we should keep our eyes open too, so I’ll be asking you to keep digging around with Monica and Lupe. You know I was out there with Moe yesterday. I gave him a full briefing on the New Mexico-Florida deals. Being as the Feds gave us no real help, I saw no need to keep it on the hush from him. He was real excited to find out what his money bought. He got whatever he knows about Shafter’s fate from the newspaper.
“In fact, he’s invited the whole gang to a get together next month at his place in the Palisades. Travel tickets were sent out to Mack and kin, Johnny too, and you and me and Manny are invited.”
“Monica and Lupe, too?”
“Nix on that. He wants to keep this gathering to only those of us that are in the loop operationally. It’s sort of a celebration of our last adventure. Also Vivian Lane is fully recovered and back in production in a starring role. I forget the name of the project. And he wanted us to spend the rest of the month banging heads with Mack and Manny and Veronica Elena and Norton to see if we can come up with some new ideas.”
Suddenly I remembered one loose end I had forgotten to take care of. I pulled the telephone instrument over and asked the girl downstairs for Albuquerque. I poured out a stiff drink and had tossed half of it back before the call rang through.
I picked up the handset and said, “Bernalillo County Sheriff’s office, please.”
The call connected and Mortenson picked up.
“Sheriff Mortenson. Raymond James here.”
“How you doin’ son? It’s been a while. Now, what was it again we were … That’s right. The Clantons. The FBI’s been all over this town.”
“Is that so?” I answered. “Do you think they’re doing any good?”
“I think they done stepped on their dick. They had the Clantons in custody on an espionage charge, but some out-of-town money got them out on bail the same day and they’ve been walking around since like their bulletproof. I can’t see where the Feds have been following up on it too hard, neither, but there does seem to have been a major security lockdown on the local defense industries.”
“Well, that’s a good thing. Too bad about the Clantons though. I was pretty sure they were up to their eyeballs in the Soviet spy business, and I expect they aren’t the only ones. Say, have you heard from Lamar lately?” I asked.
“You know… his mama’s been in here lately bothering me about him. What do you know about it?”
“You might want to call the Yavapai County sheriff over there in Prescott. Ask him what he can find up there at the old Santa Fe bunkhouse out on the Verde Ranch.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a corpse or two. Maybe more.”
“And where did you hear about this?”
“Smoke signals. Word’s out on the reservation that Ma Clanton had a beef with Lamar. If you turn up a body, chances are you can roll one of those two boys. Word is Ma did the killing; the boys did the burying. By the way, what’s the price for first degree murder out your way?”
“You get to choose. Firing squad or the noose.”
“Well, let me know which they choose, will you?”
“Yeah, thanks for the tip.”
“What I heard investigating that place might clear up more than a few unsolved murders.”
“Okay. I’ll give ol’ Josh over there to Prescott a call and see what he comes up with. I might want to follow up with you on the source of your information. How can I get in touch with you?”
I gave Sheriff Mortenson Yuki’s name and the office number and signed off.
Well that should just about wrap things up. Lamar would be fresh enough to identify. One of those boys would crack and, at a minimum, Ma and one of the boys would be facing Murder One. And maybe the Feds would actually find something to pin on Pa.
“By the way, Boss. There’s another loose end you forgot to tie up. But I took care of it.”
“Oh, yeah? What was that?”
“You remember the Clanton girl?”
“Yeah, what about her?”
“Well I figured that girl’s world might be about to come crashing in. She might be needing a new home.”
“That’s good thinking.”
“So I talked it over with Mack and Elena. Elena rode out there and got in touch with her while her folks were in stir and gave her the rundown on her folks’ activities. Mack set it up so she could take a powder and finish up her semester at Southern Methodist. He offered her to summer at the ranch and I understand that she accepted.
“I’m not sure, but she seemed bright enough in addition to being a straight shooter. Maybe later it could be that we can use another researcher around here.”
“Well that’s real nice. And you’re right. I shouldn’t have forgotten about her.”
* * *
Before we’d parted ways with Chief Walters in St. Petersburg I’d asked him to let me know if Cain made it to trial. He called to say that Cain’s trial for first-degree murder was scheduled for the first week of June and he’d call again with a better estimate of when it would go to the jury.
June 1948
Chief Walters called at the end of the week to tell me that Cain’s trial had gone to the jury.
“The prosecutor had an air-tight case. I doubt the jury will be long with it. He’ll be sentenced immediately after conviction. You might want to head out now.
“By the way, with what we dropped in their lap the FBI came up with a lot of dirt on that boy and his cohorts. Seems his real name is Yuri Noborovsky. He’s a Russian sleeper, trained by the GRU and inserted here in the 1920s under that Cain name he’s been using. He was a bit overt for a sleeper, though. Turns out he spent most of his career out your way working for the Comintern down at the harbor.”
This was unexpected news.
“Things maybe had gotten a little hot for him there and he came out here to continue coordinating industrial and military espionage through the Comintern. The Feds found out that he’s been thick with the maritime unions here in Florida, operating out of the Tampa shops as it would be less conspicuous than Miami.
“Lately, though, he’d branched out to infiltration of the garment workers through their union. There was some evidence he was putting together a new network targeting the public schools. Apparently he’d done such a good job with the smuggling cells that they were working autonomously out of Miami with minimal oversight. The FBI has made several arrests and is investigating shipments made since the war.”
“This bird sounds like someone I met recently. We’ll be there tomorrow night,” I promised.
“I’ll have one of the boys meet your plane and drive you to the city garage. There’ll be a car there you can use for a few days. He’ll give you my address and you all can come out for Sunday brunch. I’ll get you caught up in the afternoon.”
Yuki and I were at the International Airport early Saturday morning and took the first Transglobal flight to Miami. We arrived in Tampa around dark and were met by Officer Mercer. He’d had a colleague bring the city car by earlier and Yuki and I settled into the Seminole Lodge.
By Sunday evening I’d put it all together. We spent Monday morning sequestered in the Chief’s office awaiting news from the jury. After two and a half hours of deliberation the word came down that the jury had brought in a verdict of guilty. Chief Walters made a few phone calls.
Presently he said, “Ray, sentencing is scheduled for early afternoon. I’ll make sure you’re there when they bring him out.”
True to his word the Chief had us around back of the courthouse when they led the prisoner away from sentencing. I had Yuki secreted away among the press hounds. They’d already heard that the death sentence had been handed down and the small mob was stoked into an anticipatory frenzy. Chief Walters and I were positioned inside the small foyer when he turned in from the hall, shackled and cuffed, in prison transport garb. He passed, head bowed, in the firm gr
ip of his minders.
Noborovsky,” I shouted. His head whipped around. “Pablo Fontanez sends his regards.”
He stared, unfocused, for a second. Recognition clicked. His eyes bored into mine. Then he dropped his gaze and was led away.
It was an open and shut case. He was going down for Murder One. And in Florida that’s an automatic date with Old Sparky. There was always an outside chance the Russkies would try to bail him out with some kind of hostage swap and the Feds would fall for it, but this was a state rap. Florida had him dead to rights. He wasn’t going to get sprung by any fellow travelers in the US State Department.
With Yuki’s assistance I spoke by telephone with Lupe the following day.
“We’ve identified the man responsible for the killing of your father. He’s an underground Russian GRU agent named Yuri Noborovsky that worked out of San Pedro before coming out here to Tampa. Yesterday he was convicted of murder in Florida and sentenced to death for another killing. He’s scheduled to be executed upstate in June.
“He issued the order for your father’s murder, and we’re pretty sure that the people who carried out the murders have either died or been incarcerated on other charges. We did learn that Shafter, whom you rightly suspected of planning the hit, was acting on orders from the Profintern. Noborovsky was his Profintern control at the time. We haven’t identified whether the orders originated overseas, but it is a safe bet they came from Moscow.
“Of course the chain of guilt goes all the way to the top. Your father’s death was ordered to satisfy policies developed by the Comintern at Stalin’s behest. If the Party works true to form, anyone in Russia involved with this will be tortured or murdered at some point and you might find some measure of justice. Or the son of a bitch dies in his sleep, and you can join some 50 million odd other people that got robbed.”
It occurred to me that no doubt the old survivor Joe Stalin possessed the luck of the Devil and would survive to die in his sleep some day.
* * *
Yuki and I were at the International Airport the next Friday afternoon when Mack, Veronica Elena, and Norton descended from the plane. They were all in jovial spirits and we caught up on the lounge for a couple of hours before wheeling over to Moe’s hooch high on the bluffs in the Palisades.
Moe answered the door himself and showed us in, settling everyone comfortably in his California room before calling for drinks. His touch was evident in the furnishings and décor. The room was a high-ceilinged expanse with a massive quartz stone fireplace set centrally in a darker stone wall occupying the north face. Several high-quality mounts of large game fish hung in various action poses from the stone. On the opposite side an enormous wall of plate glass offered a stunning view of the Pacific. French doors at either end opened onto a redwood balcony that stretched the length of the house. The lighting was muted and set into both the side walls and ceiling. Inch-thick plush carpeting of an eggshell white hue covered the floor from wall to wall.
After enjoying the view from the deck and making the appropriate comments, we occupied a foursome of matched divans arrayed this time of year on either side of the fireplace facing the center of the room and the sea. The evening was still young and the drapes remained fully open. The ever-present Southern California sunshine was glinting off the waves in Santa Monica Bay and creating undulating patterns on the stone behind us. The mounted fish glistened and shimmered in the light. The fireplace quartz tossed off colors like giant diamonds.
After the drinks were secured Moe took a long swallow and opened the discussion.
“So Ray, what was the final score?” he asked.
“The way I figure it, we got two big commie fish that are gonna hang or asphyxiate or fry for Murder One, three inept killers from San Pedro feeding the worms, and one union thug doing life for murder. And the murder of one of his own, no less.
“Don’t forget,” Mack interjected. “We also put that Clanton mob out of business. At least three of ‘em are up on first-degree murder charges. I make that ten.”
“And the driver,” Manny chuckled. “Oh, yeah, and one minor miscreant singing to the Feds.”
“That’s right,” I chimed in. “Ol’ Lenny wasn’t so bad. Maybe he’d like us to check in on him some time!”
Manny howled with laugher, and we all got a chuckle out of that.
“Not a bad haul,” Mack summed up.
I decided it was time to kick this ball a little further down the field. I caught Moe’s eye and gave him the nod.
“So Yuki,” Moe intoned. “I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time with Lupe going over what’s behind all of this. Would you care to tell us where you think it is going?”
“Well, I wish I had good news to follow this up with. But personally, guys, I have no question in my mind that this will continue to be a never-ending struggle between decent Americans and our foreign and domestic enemies working in tandem. In fact we can expect it to get worse, much worse. People just have no idea how dangerous ignorance and tolerance of this treachery really is.
“I mean look at where the Red fifth columns have been successful in infiltrating thus far: the trade unions, the public schools, the churches, the libraries, Hollywood. These vile people, who by any reasonable measure should be hung for treason, will someday occupy our corridors of power. There is no question in my mind that they will escape justice and eventually come to power.
“It’ll follow the same pattern as through all human history. Good versus evil, in never-ending conflict, with one dominating the other as weaknesses develop and are exploited. As Lupe theorizes, where free enterprise, property ownership, and family are encouraged peace and freedom thrive. But when men are compelled by totalitarian authority there is only poverty, terror and suffering for all but the oppressors. These Communists are highly motivated elitists. They wish to dominate our lives and enrich themselves off our productivity, and eventually I believe they will.”
“It’s obvious to me that even today these sorry sons-of-bitches are plotting to destroy our way of life any way they can,” Norton growled. “Sorry to interrupt.”
“How do you think this is going to play out, Yuki?” Sally prompted.
“Well, I can pretty much tell you what all this is leading up to. It’s a recurring pattern with the Communists because they operate like any other despotic aristocracy. In a nutshell, our good ol’ US of A government will one day be placed in the hands of a ‘Cult of Personality’ of the Stalin type, based around some obscure mutt that will be groomed to lead the ‘revolution.’ He won’t amount to much more than a mouthpiece for a very tight gang of criminals intent on consolidating absolute wealth and power, individuals lacking conscience and character. An immoral bunch, like in Russia, whose only satisfaction is theft and domination.”
“So the actual power will be held by some shadowy cabal of like-minded informal advisors vested with concealed powers?” Veronica enquired. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“To some extent. His politburo will work using autonomous and purposely ill-defined powers. But the entire administration will actually be in service to the ideological zealots and money men that pull their strings from the shadows.
“The front man will be little more than some slick weasel that can talk a good line when they stick a speech in front of him. He will be touted as an intellectual of unparalleled genius, but will prove to be mediocre beyond belief. An overeducated fool with no practical intelligence whatever. They’ll sell him as an intellectual but ensure that his school records or any other descriptive background never see the light of day.
“He will be chosen and receive his initial financing from foreign enemies, probably the USSR, but he will be nurtured in his ascent to power by domestic enemies. He’ll try to sell Americans on the idea that we should adopt socialism to make us more like other countries. But he will in fact implement Leninist policies of chaos and economic upheaval to gut the middle class and precipitate a fairly abrupt communist revolution.
“Their immediate goal will be to tear down the country, through its economy and institutions, in service to their foreign and domestic enemy sponsors. Some day the domestic enemy will be so numerous in Congress and the courts that it will be impossible to stop it from happening.
“This cabal will eventually have the numbers to be able to legally loot the treasury and steal the wealth of the middle class. They’ll steal every taxpayer dollar not nailed down and impoverish the middle-class through devaluation of their assets and theft of their savings. They’ll engineer a stranglehold on credit availability, energy production, and other economic driving forces. They’ll create a climate of economic uncertainty to thwart what would usually be a rebound, and use taxes and bureaucratic obstacles to prevent a recovery. The money losses alone will amount to high treason.”
“They will find enough Congressmen to whore their votes in exchange for taxpayer dollars, the only difference for the taxpayer being that when he buys a whore he usually gets something for his money. But in this case the people’s wealth will be used to fund their children’s slavery.”
“The Senate? You’re talking about the same class of cretins that belched and farted while Rome burned,” grumbled Mack.
“You could put it that way,” Yuki giggled. “But those old boys were amateurs compared to what we’ll see coming. As recent history has shown there is no kind of absolute corruption like Commie corruption. These guys will also have appointed all the judges they need to thoroughly subvert the Constitution.”
“And these turncoat bastards will all have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Moe groused.
“Violating their oaths means nothing to this kind. You know we have people like this in government today, appeasing the Russians and selling out the Eastern Europeans. Now they’re trying to help the Reds take over China. They are both un-American and anti-American.