by James Ellroy
Elmer shook his head. “I don’t know where I can go with any of this, without it causing a big upscut and getting shot down, because it’s all too damn embarrassing for everybody concerned, and the smart thing to do is make it all vanish. I’d like to find out the whole story on my brother and get a clean klubhaus solve, and running you in wouldn’t help me any there.”
Jean said, “Okay, then. I’m fifteen years old and crapping out in a Jesuit college dorm in San Francisco. I meet Fritzie Eckelkamp, who likes his stuff underage, and one thing leads to another. It’s ’27 now, and Fritzie goes down behind his robbery string in Alameda. He’s up in Quentin now, and we correspond and keep in touch. Fritzie wangles a retrial in L.A. and gets on that train that’s all loaded up with gold. Before you ask, I don’t know if Fritzie got hipped on the gold before or after he escaped from the train, or if he had anything to do with the heist. All I know is that he sure got hipped on it in good time, and this gold bar you promised me didn’t come from nowhere.”
Elmer sipped spiked coffee. Jean sipped spiked coffee. She scooched her legs and surefire vamped him.
“Don’t stop there, now.”
Jean caught some breath. “Fritzie told me there might be a crash-out, and he said to wait by the phone. I did, and I sure as hell got the call. I was twenty-two then, and I dressed all high school girl. I stole a car in Sacramento and picked Fritzie up in San Luis Obispo. There were roadblocks all the way southbound on the 101, but the cops bought my schoolgirl act and neglected to check the trunk. The roadblocks were lifted, north of Malibu and this swanky nuthouse. I got Fritzie into L.A. and dropped him at a fleabag hotel in Echo Park. That’s when I met Meyer Gelb, and that’s when Fritzie stopped being the so-called man in my life, and Meyer took over the job.”
She’d played kosher so far. The last part felt rehearsed. Her Fritzie-Meyer spiel played too pat.
“Keep going. You’re doing good in my book.”
Jean said, “Some time passed. I’d been selling maryjane in Sacramento and moving it through Tulare County, into Nevada. That made it a Federal bounce. A Fed named Edmund J. Satterlee popped me, and I gave up Meyer as a Commo to buy my way out. Ed fed me a diet of Communist tracts, and I faked a conversion and joined Meyer’s CP cell in L.A. Ed got me a screen test at Paramount, because he was chums with the studio cops, and that’s when I entered my silly-starlet phase. The deal was, Ed learned that Meyer recruited for the Party at Paramount, and that he ran a handbook there, and he wanted me to keep tabs on him. That’s how I became a so-called movie actress.”
Elmer tossed a tweaker. “What’s Fritzie doing while all this is going on?”
Jean rebuffed it. “I told you. Fritzie walked out, Meyer walked in.”
It still played hinky. It still played too pat.
Elmer said, “Keep going. You’ve got me tantalizized.”
Jean removed her glasses and buffed them on her skirt. She was buck-toothed and half cross-eyed. She was still a hot dish.
“So, I met a prop man at Paramount and married him. Ralph D. Barr. I lied the first time we talked. I was afraid you’d roust me if you knew I was hitched up with this big arsonist and Griffith Park fire suspect. Of course, Meyer and Ralphie were two peas in a pod, and they both loved fires, floods, cataclysms, and storms. Ralphie was an active firebug, but Meyer was just a fire talker and a gasbag. He was preaching apocalypse before the big fire, working up the rubes at garment workers’ marches and the like. Then the fire occurred, and Meyer and me and the other fools in the cell got leaned on, and it all went away until you knocked on my door.”
Elmer sighed. “So that’s it, then?”
Jean sighed. “That’s it.”
“Wayne Frank Jackson, Karl Frederick Tullock, Kyoho Hanamaka. Ring any bells for you?”
“Well, Wayne Frank’s your brother, who I didn’t know from Adam—and you still haven’t told me why you thought he was murdered and not just burned up by accident. I don’t know the second guy, and Kyoho was pals with Meyer, but I hardly knew him. Meyer said he swung right and left, and that he was some big-deal spy for the Jap Navy.”
Elmer brain-drained it. “Gelb and Hanamaka have got these allegedly burn-scarred fingers. I’m wondering if they got them in the Griffith Park fire.”
Jean shook her head. “Meyer was with me the day of the fire. Him and Kyoho were strange-o types of the first order, and they burned their fingers doing print-eradication dips, if you can feature that kind of action.”
Elmer beagle-eyed Jean Clarice Staley. She read 96.6% kosher overall.
“Let’s get back to Gelb, Tommy the G., and that spy shit we discussed.”
Jean squirmed. She was hot to grab the gold and scram.
“Like I said, I’m strictly from shakedown. I pulled jobs with Tommy, mostly on political types, but I just sent incriminating photos and wire recordings through intermediaries, so I never knew who the marks were. I’m really just a courier and an informant. I finked Saul Lesnick to Ed Satterlee, years before Ed exploited his daughter’s vehicular-manslaughter beef and turned Saul as his own snitch. All I’ve done spywise is forward mail for Meyer through Bev’s Switchboard, which is the Grand Central Station of spy mail, because it’s 1942, and everybody and his spotted dog is Fifth Column and thinks this new world war is the gateway to untold riches. Also, Bev’s is in L.A., and L.A.’s close to Mexico. Meyer says the alleged el jefe of this alleged right-left conspiracy is a Mex, but I think it’s all fantasia, because I think Mexico’s a repository for all of Meyer’s nutty get-rich-quick schemes and political notions. Bev’s is Sheriff’s-protected, and—”
Elmer cut in. “Why’d you send me them postcards? Why’d you pretend to be traveling?”
Jean turned on her baby browns. Jean laid on the oooh, baby and soft-soaped him.
“You’re a cop, Elmer. I sure go for you, but that’s what you are. I told Meyer you were nosing around, and he told me to scram for a while. I had a bunch of microdot postcards I was supposed to forward, so I decided to send them through you, because I knew you’d save them, and then I could retrieve them. Also, Bev Shoftel was starting to think that Sheriff Biscailuz was souring on their protection deal, so sending the cards to you seemed safer, because then I could resend them through Bev, if her biz was still protected.”
Jean, baby. Say it ain’t so. You exploited my redneck ass and ran me in circles.
“Ed Satterlee requested a search warrant for Bev’s. How does that snatch you?”
“It doesn’t snatch me at all. Ed’s business is Ed’s business, and thanks for the tip.”
“Where’s Meyer live? Nobody can pin an address on him.”
“Nobody knows where Meyer lives. He’s just that secretive. We communicate through Bev’s.”
“What’s Fritzie doing now?”
“I told you. Fritzie walked out, Meyer walked in. Fritzie’s out in the vapors.”
“You arranged a party at Otto Klemperer’s place in the winter of ’39. Tell me about that.”
Jean foot-stroked the gold bar. Her nylon stockings went screee.
“I know the Maestro through Meyer. He contributed to Meyer’s Free Spain funds, which were all scams to begin with. The Maestro was holed up at Terry Lux’s dry-out farm in Malibu, because he’d been suffering from these bad headaches. Some America First guy, a priest from a wealthy family, came to me through Tommy Glennon, who I already told you was my kid brother Robby’s squeeze. The priest laid out the theme of the party. It was supposed to be all about some event in Nazi Germany four or five years before. There was supposed to be costumes and masks, and it all sounded strange-o to me. That’s it. I set the party up, but I didn’t attend it. I heard rumors that something went very bad—but everyone I knew who was there held their mud about what all happened.”
Elmer brain-strained it. “Was the priest a man named Joe Hayes?”
&nbs
p; “Yes.”
“Do you know a man named Dudley Smith?”
“No, but I’ve heard of him. He’s supposed to be a hatchet man for the L.A. Chief of Police. People are afraid of him.”
“Klemperer and Meyer Gelb. Give me some more there.”
“What’s to give? Otto throws parties, and Meyer attends.”
“You attend, too. Here’s my guess there. You’ve got these music and movie hotshots passing through, and Meyer trawls for his marks.”
Jean said, “Bingo.”
Elmer said, “Bingo how?”
Jean said, “Meyer’s always trawling for marks, and he’s got no conscience in that regard.”
Elmer smiled. “Rat him, then give me something I can use, in case this whipdick and I ever meet.”
Jean lit a cigarette. “Otto’s befriending these refugees. They’re all Jewish musicians, let out of Germany. Meyer’s set to run a squeeze on them. He says it’s all hooked into some mysterious cabal, but I think he’s just in it for the gelt.”
Kay knew those folks. They were okay by her. They’d endured too much grief as it was.
Elmer said, “No soap. No shakedown, no extortion. That’s straight from me. Tell Meyer I’m looking to hurt him. Tell him I’ll put him in the shit if he goes ahead.”
Jean said, “Okay, sweetie. I’ll pass it along.”
Elmer kissed his fingers and brushed back Jean’s hair. La Jean swooned a bit. It felt half real/half fake.
“Take the gold and go someplace safe. This whole deal could blow up in our face.”
Jean dumped the bar in her purse. She dropped a wet one on him and booked triple quick. The bar was triple fat and heavy. Her purse sagged down to her feet.
99
(LOS ANGELES, 1:00 A.M., 3/12/42)
The mad eugenicist. The butcher plastic surgeon and tong affiliate. Your host, Lin Chung.
Slumlord Lin. The crazy sawbones owned half of Montebello. He packed Chink refugees into gimcrack cribs and charged usurious rent. An opium den flanked his office. “O” fiends test-trialed Lin’s “Youth Forever” blends. Lin and Dr. Saul Lesnick synthesized them. Let’s build a hophead master race.
Lin’s office was Führer bunker–sized and all knotty-pined. Physical-culture posters drooped off the walls. Norse vixens performed calisthenics. It refracted Leni Riefenstahl and Triumph of the Will.
Dudley watched Herr Doktor work. Lin jacked a spike with sodium pentothal and geezed up Jim Davis. Chief Jim was strapped to a gurney. He’s a suckling pig at a luau. A sock is stuck in his mouth.
Chief Jim went loosey-goosey. He was prone to run his mouth and blab impolitic. In truth serum, veritas. Let’s see what results.
Lin bowed and left the office. Chief Jim looked knocked-down euphoric. Dudley lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his face.
Hideo called him, postsweep. It spurred the abduction. Mondo Díaz snitched Davis as his spy-ring conduit. Lee Blanchard observed the snitch. Blanchard will likely resnitch it to Bill Parker. Hideo further revealed this:
Elmer Jackson showed him a microdot letter. Hideo ran first-round tests and failed to raise the text. Elmer refused to forfeit the letter. Hideo grabbed it and dropped it in the crime lab mail slot. It was addressed to a Baja PO box. La Paz/box 1823.
Elmer snagged the letter at Bev’s Switchboard. Bev’s stood self-indicted now. It’s a seditionist mail drop. Dudley called the La Paz post office. He spoke Spanish and came off Army-SIS brusque. He picked up a ripe tidbit. Miss Constanza Lazaro-Schmidt rented box 1823.
Chief Jim looked ripe to pluck. Dudley pulled his gag. Jim coughed and gurgled euphoric. Jim looked gaga guileless and eager to please.
“I’m anxious to hear your thoughts about several events and the numerous people who may have attended them, Chief. We have a celebrated gold robbery in 1931, the celebrated Griffith Park fire of 1933, the recently celebrated klubhaus murders, microdot communiqués, the Sinarquistas, and individuals named Tommy Glennon, Meyer Gelb, Jean Staley, Fritz Eckelkamp, Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie Archuleta, Karl Frederick Tullock, Martin Luther Mimms, Leander Frechette, George Lincoln Rockwell, Kyoho Hanamaka, Eddie Leng, Donald Matsura, Mondo Díaz, Miguel Santarolo, Frankie Carbajal, Juan Lazaro-Schmidt, and his sister, Constanza.”
Chief Jim deadpanned the names. He said his pet rat Lucifer fucked his pet rat Brünnhilde. Dr. Saul fed them eugenics potions and imbued them with eternal youth. He planned to name their ratlings Hitler, Stalin, and Saul Junior.
Dudley said, “You’re veering off a bit, Chief.”
Davis said, “Lucifer raised money for some far-right boys. Meyer Gelb’s a kosher cowboy. He’s right-left and who knows what else. Meyer gave a speech at this Mexican confab. Vodka and schnitzel. The ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’ and the ‘Internationale.’ Meyer’s a goldbug. He wants the gold, but who doesn’t? There’s good colored trim at the klubhaus, but I like fourteen-year-old white girls myself. There ought to be a law—and, frankly, there is. Preacher Mimms preaches the new gold standard. Meyer’s a kosher extortionist. Kyoho refueled Jap planes at the Blue Fox on the Day of Infamy. He took Ernst Kaltenbrunner and some apparatchiks to the Fox his own self. Lucifer’s a muff-diver. That’s a rare trait in rats. Is this the DTs, Dud? I’ve had the DTs before.”
The confab. Goldbugs. Blathering nuts and realpolitik. Oddball egalitarianism. Aus der Neuen Welt.
“I wonder if I might ask you a few more specific questions, Chief.”
Davis said, “No. I won’t let you. They’re my DTs and my pretty pictures I’m seeing. I fucked Theda Bara and Vilma Bánky, and you didn’t. I fucked your Irish mama. Lucifer fucked Marlene Dietrich in Dresden. There were these white boys and spic boys in this college there. Wallace Jamie, Joe Hayes. Juan Pimentel and Mondo Díaz. You want microdots and phone relays? They’ve got them. Jamie’s America First. Father Joe blows Father Coughlin. They own a drop in West Hollywood, but Blow Job Bev’s got her name on the deed. This Juan spic was there at the confab. Talk about your spy brain.”
Aus der Neuen Welt. Realpolitik. Lucid instants couched in dross.
Postwar-strategy talks at a donkey club. We all want the gold. That means you. We’re all goldbugs. We’re all in this together. It’s all one story, you see.
100
KAY LAKE’S DIARY
(LOS ANGELES, 2:30 A.M., 3/12/42)
My émigré friends lived in adjoining bungalows. They were night owls to begin with; they required no urging to stay up late, socialize, and make music. Elmer called me at home an hour ago and told me that he had braced Jean Staley. He said we should discuss the fruits of the interview, and told me I should pass a message to “those refugee chums of yours.”
“Jean was in on some shakedown deal with Meyer Gelb,” Elmer said. “And I figured out he had an eye on your chums. Tell them to breathe easy. I paid Jean off and sent her back on the lam again. She’s indispensable to that shitbird Gelb, so he won’t be squeezing your chums, no way at all.”
I called the Koenigs and relayed the good news. Hence this impromptu celebration. My refugee chums had learned one aspect of the L.A. gestalt very quickly. When in doubt, throw a party.
Magda Koenig whipped up a pot of goulash; Ruth Szigeti journeyed out to a liquor store and stocked up on booze and mixer. I called Elmer back and told him he’d be a fool not to attend. He said, “We both know I’m a fool, but I’ll be there anyway.”
Bill called me a few minutes later. He relayed the latest sweep leads and closed with “For what it’s worth, I love you.” He hung up, just as I started to swoon.
The party was running full steam now. Ruth had invited four of her most recently acquired lovers, two of each sex. There was an usherette from the Aero Theatre and Miss Barbara Stanwyck. There was Brenda Allen’s sought-after male prostitute, “Ten-Inch” Tony Mangano. There was sepia songster Billy Eckstine, hot off
a record-breaking engagement at the southside Congo Club.
The goulash was spicy and tasty; Miklos Koenig made mean rye-whiskey Manhattans. Ruth shared brief bedroom intervals with Babs and Tony, and returned from them both looking pooped. The disparate batch of folks seemed to get along swell. Ruth played Paganini’s 24th violin caprice; Billy Eckstine held pace with her and warbled an a cappella “Ebb Tide.” Elmer the J. walked in the door and withstood a refugee stampede.
Miklos Koenig and Mr. Abramowitz pumped his hand and pounded his back; Magda demurely kissed both his cheeks. Elmer and Ruth shared a look that might best be described as lustful and opportunistic. Miklos force-fed Elmer a bowl of goulash; Elmer told him it was savory, but ain’t this the sort of grub the Communists eat? Babs asked him to fix a slew of her unpaid traffic tickets—which Elmer graciously agreed to do. Elmer addressed Billy Eckstine as “Sir.” He apologized for the Vice Squad raid on the Harlem Hutch in August ’38. Sir Billy impulsively embraced him.
Elmer and Ruth fell into each other’s gravitational pull. I eavesdropped on their screwball conversation. Elmer said things like “You’re Jewish, right?” and “I’ll bet Hitler’s boys were right on your tail.” Ruth asked Elmer how many Negroes he’d lynched and if his mom and dad bullwhipped their slaves. Elmer told Ruth she had green panther eyes. Ruth told Elmer he had beady eyes and said that she preferred circumcised men.
Dawn came up. I played hesitant Liszt on Miklos Koenig’s piano while Magda Koenig scrambled two dozen eggs. It was a very fine party. I looked out the front-door window and spotted a Ruth-meets-Elmer vignette. They leaned up against a wilted palm tree. I watched the not-too-dumb cracker and the Jewish refugee kiss.
101
(ENSENADA, 7:00 A.M., 3/12/42)
He worked all night. SIS maintained a small crime lab. Their photographic gear excelled. He examined the Jean Staley/Elmer Jackson postcards. He found microdots on two out of six.