“Blast it, man, one or two? I defy you to find that few in any other tuna-packing operation from Monterey to San Diego. This is wartime. Sometimes little health regulations get overlooked in our zealous pursuit to move tuna from the ocean to the table quickly as possible. You won’t find a more hygienically run ship than our Americal plant. It’s shipshape, has been since my father’s day. Clean as a shark’s tooth. We use only the most modern methods of canning. It’s not Russian herring we’re packing, you know. Excuse me.”
The Admiral picked up the ringing telephone. As he spoke softly into it Younger turned his back on him, trying to give the impression he wasn’t eavesdropping. Younger glanced over the photographs covering one entire wall; aircraft carrier ships, convoys of destroyers, submarines, the Admiral graduating from Annapolis, and one photograph that seemed out of place amid the glossy sea of photographs populated only by naval men and their seagoing regalia. The glossy picture clearly depicted a delighted Charles Lindbergh being decorated with the Service Cross of the German Eagle by a most improbable Santa Claus, Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Göring, chief of the German Luftwaffe. Younger stepped closer to the curious photograph to determine if it was a fake. He slipped a piece of Juicy Fruit into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, pressing his nose next to the glass protecting the photograph. He couldn’t determine if anything had been retouched, or if Lindbergh’s head had been transposed onto the body of a German war hero. Yes, the photo was real. Younger turned around, chewing steadily on the gum as he tried to ignore the pistol the Admiral had leveled at him.
“That’s a very intriguing picture, Admiral. Did Lindy give it to you himself?”
“Who the devil are you?”
“I told you, Admiral, I’m with the Department of Health.”
“I know from my telephone conversation with my plant manager that isn’t true. Now you speak plainly or this gun is very likely to go off, and the police will come to pick up one very dead liar.”
“My name is Younger, Nathan.”
“Go on.”
“I investigate un-American activities.”
“Who the devil for?”
“State Senator Kinney. He heads up the secret joint fact-finding committee funded by the state legislature.”
“I’ve never heard of such a cockeyed committee.”
“If you don’t believe me, Admiral, you can call Senator Kinney up in the state capitol at Sacramento right now.”
The Admiral rested the handle of the gun on the desktop. “If this is true, why would you sneak in here to spy on a retired rear admiral of the United States Navy? Why wouldn’t you be out spying on Communists? These Beverly Hills are full of them. These mansions around here are nothing more than glamorous Liberal fronts. If you want to spend your time spying on un-American activities, why don’t you try breaking into a few of them?”
“Well, sir.” Younger spit his gum out, wadding it into a sticky ball between his fingers. “Excuse me, can I drop this in that ashtray there on your desk?”
“Yes, drop the damn stuff.”
Younger plopped the gum into the silver ashtray and sat down on the edge of the desk. “The reason I came in like this is I didn’t see any real reason to alarm you at this point in our investigation.”
“Investigation, man! You don’t have to investigate me! You don’t have to subpoena me! I’m a patriot. I’ll gladly share with any fact-finding committee any and all information I have on subversive activities in this country.” The Admiral shoved the gun carelessly away from him like a half-eaten plate of food. “And I can tell you, Mr. Younger Nathan, there’s one hell of a lot more Reds in our own backyard than just what’s running loose right here in Beverly Hills. If something isn’t done about it pronto, mister, there’s going to be the devil to pay. Here, you look at this, today’s headlines in the Examiner.” The Admiral pushed the front page of the newspaper at Younger.
Younger glanced down at the headlines:
Zoot-Suit Gang Rape and Rob Navy Wife
Continued Violence in East Los Angeles
Pachucos Run Down Motorcycle Cop
Younger looked back up at the Admiral. “You know how many rapes there are every day in a city this size during wartime, Admiral?”
“As many rapes as there are Pachucos allowed to roam the streets.”
Younger pushed the paper back across the desk. “Headlines like these are meant to sell newspapers. Every time the LA cops come up empty handed without a suspect for a rape they immediately pin it on the Zoots. The fact is, it’s usually the sailors cruising the Barrio’s Zona Roja who do the raping of teenage girls unlucky enough to live around there. That’s one of the biggest reasons for the war going on between sailors and the Zoots.”
“You’re nothing but a naive boy scout if you believe that’s the case, mister.” The Admiral tried to control the angry shaking of his hands by picking up the gun, rubbing the cold barrel quickly up and down between the circle of his fingers. “Every day now, these kinds of headlines.” He banged the gun down loudly on the newspaper. “Zoot-suit Pachucos are being used as a Communist front; they’re getting bolder every day. It won’t be long before the Commies get the Zoots to start a war right here in America. You take me to your committee. I’ll tell them a thing or two. I’ve been telling the public since before Pearl Harbor, myself and men like Colonel Lindbergh, we are fighting on the wrong side in this war. The enemy is not the Fascists who have tried to contain Communism in Europe. Only the Fascists have ever had courage to fight the Communists where they threaten most, on the home front.”
“You know who the Sinarquistas are?”
“Yes, I most certainly do. They are Mexican Fascists.”
“Do you know they are operating in America?”
“Just what I’ve been saying, only the Fascists are man enough to stand up to a Communist threat like the Zoot-suiters. More power to them. The Zoot-suiters have already killed two FBI men.
“You know what some newspapers say about the Sinarquistas? That they are the ones behind the Zoot gangs. They’re using these boys as part of a Fascist plot to develop race hatred on the West Coast.”
“They’ve got it all wrong; it’s Communists behind the Zoot-suiters. The Reds are the ones trying to get white to fight brown. If I were Attorney General Biddle, I’d ask for permission from Roosevelt himself to let loose all our servicemen stationed around here on these gangs, turn them out in the Barrio to clean up the problem once and forever.”
“Thank you, Admiral.” Younger stood up and walked to the door. “I apologize for the ruse earlier.”
“You tell that committee of yours.” The Admiral came around the desk and rested his hand in a fatherly fashion on Younger’s shoulder as he showed him through the door. “You tell them anytime they want the true facts on what this war is really all about, I’ll be happy to donate my time to them.”
“Oh, one other thing before I go, Admiral. Does the name Chiquito Banana ring any bells?”
The Admiral stopped before the painting of Washington, D.C., rubbing his chin as a blank look came across his face; behind him the capital of America was still in flames. “Chiquito Banana? No, I’m certain it doesn’t. I forget faces sometimes, having been a career officer commanding so many men, but a name like that I’d never forget. Why?”
“Just curious, Admiral. The FBI thinks he might be involved in covert Sinarquista operations here on the West Coast.”
“No, Mr. Nathan, I wouldn’t have knowledge of a thing like that, but I will tell you one thing you can take back to your committee.”
“What?”
“If I ever meet this Chiquito Banana after the war’s over, I’ll pin a medal on him.”
23
“Mankind must unite if it is to have a hope, a chance, a possibility for survival!” Kathleen looked so far away. The harsh spotlight shooting down out of the high rafters of the Shrine Auditorium pinpointed her on the barren stage like a butterfly needled inside a large glass display
case. The enraptured crowd before her in darkness hung on her every gasping syllable booming from enormous loudspeakers in every corner of the great domed auditorium. The crowd was dead silent as Kathleen sipped at a glass of water, light dazzling the curls of her red hair like a radiating halo. “And if we heed the Sponsors’ word… join the Valiants at the gates to Brotherhood City of the Future… desire with all our spirit to become pioneers in the new age of peace… then we must prepare for moral, physical, and spiritual combat such as mankind has never witnessed. Forces of Good and Evil have never fought as they fight now.” Kathleen pulled back from the lectern. Even from his seat high in the crowded balcony all Younger glimpsed of her was the haloed brilliance of red hair; strong light penetrating from the darkness erased the paleness of her skin. Her face appeared invisible. Only her words came forth, disembodied, slowly, deliberately, articulating an urgency that charged the air of the hall like a clouding summer sky preparing to storm and aim fabulous bolts of lightning into damp earth. Breathlessly she announced, “He is here among us today. The One who can translevitate to any spot on this troubled globe within three hours, from Moscow to Cairo, New York to Rio, Peking to Paris. The omnipresent One who carries the torch of knowledge made manifest to the original Sponsors. The One… True… Voice. The Voice of the Right Idea.”
Kathleen walked off stage. The spotlight did not follow her. The great golden fall of the heavy brocaded curtains pulled back behind her, exposing a man alone, standing in the far recess of the stage like he was at the mouth of a vast cave, like he was the first man on earth, except he was wearing a neat blue business suit, his back to the expectant crowd, who after three hours of waiting patiently through speeches were still fresh and anxious, perched on the edge of their seats, a thousand hungry birds in a mammoth nest, waiting to be fed, waiting for the One True Voice to speak, to acknowledge their existence.
At the back of the stage three separate movie screens unrolled like glittering silver flags. The silhouette of the One True Voice reflected its slender black image on all screens, the shadows of his hands spreading as if to embrace the entire auditorium. Across the audience bright eyes of light shot from three film projectors onto each movie screen, filling the stage with the faces of Hitler, Churchill, and Roosevelt. The words of a title marched across the faces until it towered on the stage:
DEALERS IN DEATH
The title faded before large crowds applauding the three leaders in each one of their screened sections, people cheering frantically and silently. There was no sound, except for words from the Voice. As the real crowd in the auditorium watched cheering crowds on movie screens, they gasped at the first words of the Voice.
“You need Us… We need You… Now!” The words of the Voice did not boom from loudspeakers or scream from the stage. They came like the breath of a baby, the wings of a dove striking air in peaceful flight, fingers of a lover moving intimately on naked flesh. “This is a challenge to mad ambition.” The Voice tingled every spine in the house. “Accompanied by an invitation to sane men and women.” Each word was spoken as if from the lips of several different people: father, mother, lover, friend, brother, wife, husband, sister, ally, confidant. “Give instructions to a wise man and he will yet be wiser. Teach a just man and he will increase in learning.” The three screens loomed with the images of Christ, Gandhi, Buddha. “Be a Way Shower, a Spiritual Doer. Act in accordance with revelations for survival made by our International Vigilantes. Defy warlords and money changers who do the work of Hidden Rulers, who released sparks of this war by a worldwide holocaust of bombs, gases, poisons, death rays, germs, and shattered dreams.”
Hitler reappeared on one of the screens, locusts of airplanes darkening the sky above him. Churchill joined Hitler on the next screen, christening a fleet of destroyers. Roosevelt flashed on the next, passing review of West Point graduates. All three faces dissolved in flames. New faces emerged, saluting, smiling, reviewing: Mussolini, Franco, Hirohito.
“Men are not inarticulate beasts of the field, incapable of voicing protest against injustice. Intelligent creatures must drag from cover forces of greed, insane ambition, and cruelty. On that immortal December day in 1885, when our Sponsors established the International Institute of Universal Salvation and Administration, the end was marked for centuries of domination by worldwide rich families.”
The imposing faces of John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, William Randolph Hearst flashed on the three screens.
“War on warlords has been declared. Our Sponsors have proof every national government, political party, major utility, and natural resource is controlled by Hidden Rulers who plan revolution and war.”
The silver screens flashed vast horizons of factories: Krupp munitions factories in Germany, Kaiser shipyards on the California coast, steel plants of Hiroshima, Japan.
“No other way than by murdering educated and religious classes could Hidden Rulers hope to gain world control. They had to take control before their wars exhausted all precious earth resources. Greed and cruelty are bred by a system of private profits and unscrupulous competition. Fabulous families of wealth fear that their unquestioning patriotic minions, their pathetic worker ants, their armies of self-made moral idiots will also dream of owning the last of earth’s resources. Our Sponsors know this beautiful home planet is equally everyone’s. They aim accusative arrows not at individual hearts but at the true monster’s heart: class antagonism. Let arrows fly into the fetid heart of the private-profit monetary system, then there will be no nations, only one world home: Brotherhood.”
The movie screens went dark. The Voice’s words came from pitch blackness, soothing like the voice of an adult calling out to a terrified child afraid of the dark.
“How do we wrest control from Hidden Rulers? By dedication to the Thirty-Day Program our Pacific Coast bureau chief, Kathleen La Rue, described earlier. The inevitability of an eight-month work year, free health care, global home for the aged, is our universal society promise. More crucial to you gathered here is how to battle against this latest attempt to annihilate us. Tonight I will speak of things shocking and hideous, miraculous and true.”
Younger barely made out the shadow of the Voice outlined on all three empty movie screens. He strained to hear the sounds of the Voice floating softly above rows of people afraid to move for fear of destroying the path of words.
“The world is ready for the free Thirty-Day Program. If we fail, it will take thousands of years before civilization is restored to spiritual justice. If one piece of equipment developed by our Research Department falls into wrong hands, if our Sponsors’ principles are decoded by wrong-thinkers, then civilization will remain a starving illiterate mass.”
The sound of bombs falling drowned the words of the Voice. Bright spears of projected light struck the silver screens. Planes flew, bombs whistled and exploded, warship guns pounded and thundered across the screens before the Voice in a roar of destruction. Then the Voice’s words rose steadily, surmounting the fearful sound of falling bombs, until dominating the man-made din of disaster; on the screens images of holocaust appeared without letup.
“They tried to pry from me secrets of the future. They subpoenaed and interrogated, trying every devious trick to intimidate me. They brought me before their clandestine committees because they knew I had the power to know when war in men’s hearts would break into a war of the worlds. These sinister Senators who led mankind into mindless world slaughter asked if after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor the bureaus of Mankind Incorporated were ordered to lay in supplies of food and clothing, secure blankets and water, make maps of airplane factories, shipyards, police and radio stations, hospitals, roads, railroads, and bridges. The interrogators questioned if this planning was for a takeover of America.”
Roosevelt came onto three screens before the Voice, talking and smiling to Churchill, talking to a smiling Ambassador Kichi-saburo Nomura of Japan, talking to a smiling Charles Lindbergh—Lindbergh talking and smiling with Willy Messerschmitt
on a tour of German aircraft factories.
“I confronted the sinister Senators. Why would Mankind Incorporated sow confusion in America? History would record, and dead sailors witness, that President Roosevelt knew the Japanese secret codes and plans and provoked them into bombing Pearl Harbor, leaving his naval fleet unprotected, inviting catastrophe. Roosevelt dispersed our young manhood on two sides of the world to fight, ordered bombing of Tokyo because he desires the Japanese to retaliate by bombing unprotected American cities. Roosevelt plans to bring America into line with other dictatorial states. Why would Mankind Incorporated engage in seditious activity when the saboteur of peace is Roosevelt himself? We prepare for the day in this country when there will be an uprising of fifth columnists synchronized with an invasion from outside. We rely on no man’s army. We have no need to sabotage, since we already hold in our hands power to bring about a new world. We have equipment capable of suspending animation in a human being, disarming whole armies. If it was not for this equipment, Hitler would already be in America. Hitler fears us more than all armies combined. Imagine all technology of modern warfare rendered useless. Hitler can. Imagine humanity’s reaction to a plan rendering useless all machines of death. Mass cooperation will be the reaction. The Sponsors developed a weapon the size of a card deck that can be screwed into an ordinary lightbulb socket. A weapon so awesome its radiating power can destroy everything within a hundred-mile radius. The Army generals were shown this weapon; Henry Ford was given a demonstration. They knew it would put warmongers out of business. This weapon was intended not as a death ray but as a life ray. Its radiating energy can be harnessed to power civilization. In the past inventions like this have been stolen and stored away by Hidden Rulers who fear to lighten the workingman’s load, lest he have time to think of his enslavement. People realize Roosevelt has placed himself above God Almighty. People realize they have no protection from a government that is not trying to stop war. People have been left with no protection. America’s fighter planes are gone, armies and warships are gone. We could be bombed into atoms. The Hidden Rulers are laughing. They have you buying war bonds to support the war effort. War bonds don’t end war; war bonds prolong war. Hidden Rulers have made our nation into a whorehouse, forcing our daughters into USO work to entertain sailors, forcing our daughters into the WACS, the WAVES. Where in history do women go into battle with men, unless it is to be camp followers and spoils of war? Where are your children? Your sons are dying on indifferent battlefields and impervious oceans; your daughters are dying of sin. Where are the children of the rich? Wars rage all around, but Rockefellers still ice-skate in Rockefeller Plaza. You must take your place in a new civilization. The dog-eat-dog profit system that has the world running blindly on a timetable of chaos is doomed.”
Zoot-Suit Murders Page 12