Dangerous to Know

by Renee Patrick

  “You went up to his apartment?” Vi gasped.

  “I think you’re missing the bigger picture.”

  “And I think you only dallied with Simon because you don’t want to talk to Gene about Abigail.”

  Leave it to a friend to see right through you. “When did you get to be so wise?”

  “I’ve always been wise. But when you’re cute and blond, nobody notices.”

  * * *

  I WAS BRIGHT of eye and bushy of tail when Addison found me at my post. His spirits had improved considerably.

  “Hedy and I are experimenting with an idea of hers,” he announced, dropping several scientific catalogs on my desk. “I’ll need you to order the capacitors I’ve circled and a voltage-controlled quartz crystal oscillator. Don’t forget the crystal part. That’s important. And schedule a visit from the fellow who installed the air-conditioning in the lab. Hedy noticed some spurious frequencies during yesterday’s round of testing.”

  “I thought things felt off in there.”

  “Very funny, Lillian. It’s all quite temperature dependent, you know.” He tapped the catalogs with satisfaction. “Perhaps this break from frivolity has put me back on my true path. More research. Hedy’s right. The world’s in a bad way, and I can use my training to help.”

  A laudable impulse, but if the future at Chez Rice held fewer parties and more equipment I couldn’t pronounce, it might be time to get my references in order.

  I had secured my second capacitor when Gene called. “How’d it go yesterday?” he asked.

  He didn’t need to hear about the breakfast’s descent into shambles, and I couldn’t share my suspicions about Simon without admitting I’d visited his apartment. That conversation required being face-to-face.

  “Never a dull moment. What’s the latest with Marthe?”

  “She’s sticking to her story, such as it is, so we’re charging her with Jens’s murder. It’s about Felix now. The thinking is he’s dead, too.”

  Not knowing how to respond, I said nothing at all.

  My uncharacteristic silence threw Gene. After a moment, he said, “I heard from Carl Wingert. He’s still pretty sore, but he’ll give you five minutes if you insist on talking.”

  “I do. Anyplace, anytime. Tell him to name it.”

  “He did. Today, the Deutsches Haus downtown.”

  “The—wait, isn’t that the headquarters of the German-American Bund? The ones who support the Nazis?”

  “Or harmless social club for American citizens of German descent, depending on who you ask. Wingert’s a member in good standing. They’re having some kind of Oktoberfest Christmas celebration to show they’re jolly and not fascists. All are welcome, although if my name ended in ‘-stein’ or ‘-berg’ I wouldn’t be in a hurry to belly up to that particular wunderbar. Show up any time after three. Wingert will find you. Lots of people will be there. You won’t require an escort.”

  Or at the very least, I noted, Gene wasn’t offering to serve as one.

  * * *

  I KNEW I’D loitered long enough in Addison’s Cadillac when Rogers violated protocol and addressed me from the front seat. “What is this, a stakeout?”

  The three-story house outside the car should have had bicycles and toys on the patchy front lawn. Instead a steady stream of people moved toward the portico and the broad double doors beneath a sign proclaiming DEUTSCHES HAUS in the friendliest Teutonic typeface.

  “Hold your horses,” I told Rogers. “I’m going. I’ll find my own way home.”

  Rogers, that master of subtlety, replied by gunning the Caddy’s engine. The car rounded the corner before I reached the sidewalk.

  I joined the flow of people heading into the haus. The substantially remodeled building served as home to a host of enterprises. The Aryan Bookstore occupied much of the first floor, copies of Father Coughlin’s Social Justice visible through the window. I slipped into the rear of a meeting hall given over to a band relying heavily on a heavyset percussionist whose ham-fisted technique wasn’t keeping Gene Krupa up nights. Handbills by the entrance threatened folk dancing, and floor space had been cleared. The crowd included several families with extremely ruly children. A sizable contingent nodded in time with the music as if fervently agreeing with it. These true believers strutted instinctively, even to the coffee urn for a refill. They were on the ascendant, confident in their hygiene and their ideals.

  I explored on, entering a room that had been turned into a reasonable facsimile of a Bavarian pub. A portly man behind the bar filled an impressive collection of steins with German beers. Alpine scenes decorated the walls, along with a portrait of Adolf Hitler. A surprising number of the men wore Bund uniforms of black pants and puttees with gray shirts, Sam Browne belts a sought-after accessory.

  I received a few cursory smiles, superficial friendliness and bratwurst being the order of the day. A man rose from one of the tables, saying a few words to the old-timer next to him before heading my way. His head was shaped like a lightbulb, the stubble staining his narrow jaw giving him a haggard appearance.

  “You’re Lillian Frost.” He didn’t expect me to disagree.

  “How did you know?”

  “Morrow described you pretty well. And you’re the only woman here doesn’t look like she eats pork twice a day. Carl Wingert.” He cast a look back at his companion at the table. “I’m here with my father. Name was Weingarten once, ’til some clerk at Ellis Island got bored. He misses the music and food in the old country. Although this pickled stuff doesn’t agree with him anymore. Suppose we’d better sit down.” He sounded like he dreaded the prospect. “Enjoying the festivities? It’s the same bands and dancers every time. I’m hoping Leni Riefenstahl crashes the place to liven things up.”

  “Could that happen?” I’d been following the filmmaker and alleged Hitler confidante’s trip to America in the papers, an ongoing misadventure intended to promote her mammoth sports documentary Olympia that only led to her being embroiled in controversy at every stop.

  “She’s holed up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Couldn’t check into her first choice, the Garden of Allah, with all the protests. Rumor is the bürgermeisters here invited her, but I’ll eat a pig’s ass if she shows. Pardon my French.”

  I sat opposite Wingert’s father, who looked enough like his son he was practically a vision of things to come. Little wonder Wingert fils was careworn, confronted so starkly with his destiny. Wingert père bowed gravely to me as if I were Otto von Bismarck, then spouted a few words in German. Wingert dabbed his father’s chin with a napkin. “Nein, Papa, nein.” To me, he said, “Don’t mind the old man. He’s losing his marbles. Never had too big a collection to start with.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” I said. “I can’t help feeling responsible for any hardship you’re experiencing.”

  Wingert waved a hand. “Forget it. I’d catch hell whenever the body was found. You knew him? Lohse?”

  “No. I was doing a favor of sorts for Marlene Die—”

  “Hey!” Wingert’s single syllable stopped me short. “Nix on her name in here. She’s not exactly popular with this crowd.”

  Again I marveled at Marlene. Known the world over, non grata everywhere she went.

  “So you pitched in by calling Gene Morrow. Guy’s supposed to be a straight arrow, but you hear stories. Any truth to the one about him and his partner, the twenty-grand haul from California Republic a while back?”

  “None,” I said.

  “Sez you. And him.” Wingert smirked and sipped from his stein. His father rambled in German again; Wingert deciding the words didn’t merit a reply.

  “Can you tell me about your investigation?”

  He sparked a cigarette. “That’s too strong a word. I got a call from a captain who got a call from some big noise at Columbia. I talked to your friend, thought what she said was sketchy. Still, I went to the rattrap where Lohse lived and spoke to the landlady, what’s-her-name.”

  “Mrs. Fuch
s.”

  “Yeah. It was clear in a big damn hurry there wasn’t much for me to do. Lohse got the bum’s rush because he’d stopped coming across with the rent. The old lady took messages for him. She and her son had cleaned out his place. I walked through it. Nothing there. I left my number, and that was that.”

  “What about Jens’s car?”

  Wingert’s eyes narrowed through the smoke. He was losing patience. His father drummed the table, keeping time with music only he could hear. “Yeah, searched that, too. Another goose egg.”

  “Did you check the trunk? It was locked.”

  “When a captain tells me to do something, I leave no trunk unopened. I picked the lock, saw nothing but some papers, closed it up tight again. Looked exactly the same when I went back this morning.”

  He reached over and stilled his father’s hand, then deposited two pieces of paper on the checkered tablecloth. Each had a ragged edge where it had been torn away from its binding. Both were weathered from exposure to the elements.

  “That’s all there was. Go ahead, touch ’em. Rain got into the trunk, along with mice from the looks of it. Morrow said you’d be interested.”

  Gingerly I picked up each brittle sheet in turn. One bore a dozen or more penciled measures of music, the odd word in German scribbled alongside. The second featured what I took to be an entire song, notations spilling the length of the page.

  “Too bad I can’t read music,” I told Wingert.

  “Neither can I. They’ll go in the file in case somebody makes head or tail of them.”

  Wingert Senior eyed the second piece of paper and said a few words in German to his son. Wingert perked up and asked a question. His father scanned the notes and then, to my amazement, began humming a familiar melody.

  “I recognize that!” I exclaimed. “‘It Looks Like Rain in Cherry Blossom Lane,’ Guy Lombardo.”

  “Papa used to be in a band.” Wingert couldn’t completely damp down the pride in his voice.

  I was looking at one of Jens’s famous musical cribs, a sketch of a song enabling him to bluff his way through it.

  Wingert’s father nudged his son and pointed at me. Another inquiry followed. This time I knew one of the words. Juden. Wingert replied in perfunctory fashion.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “Nothing. He wanted to know if you’re married.”

  “No, I don’t think he did.”

  Wingert looked pained. “Ignore him. He’s an old man.”

  I turned to take in the rest of the tavern. Two men by the door, their starched uniforms more like costumes, gave each other the stiff-armed Hitler salute.

  “That’s your father’s excuse,” I said. “What about everybody else here?”

  “So there are a few buffoons. That’s true of every outfit. Don’t lump us all in together. The Bund celebrates German heritage. Honors our contributions to the world.”

  “Including the work of my friend whose name I can’t say?”

  “She asked for help, I gave it to her. Plenty of people here wouldn’t lift a finger for her.”

  “Exactly my point. What do you think of Hitler?”

  Wingert’s father sat at attention at the name. “I think he runs the country, like Roosevelt runs this one. I don’t care for either of them. But somebody’s got to be strongman of Europe or else the Reds will take over. Adolf’s the only one after the job. I say let him have it.” Wingert squinted at me. “What kind of name is Frost, anyway?”

  “My people are Irish.”

  “Listen to your own. Father Coughlin, Joe Kennedy. They know what’s what over there.”

  “And what’s what is letting Hitler do whatever he wants. That’s what you’re celebrating here.”

  “I’m here to get my old man out of the house. Most of these folks just want community, a chance to remember the homeland they’ll never see again.”

  I started as Wingert’s father pounded the table. He roared at me in German, making a series of elaborate motions with his hands, vacant eyes suddenly alive with decades of discontent. Wingert spoke over him in commanding tones to no avail.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “He thinks you’re my sister.” He took his father’s hand, but the old man shook him loose and fixed me with a murderous glare. We were drawing scrutiny. I stood awkwardly, thanked Wingert for his time, and rushed for the door. Behind me I heard the detective negotiating with his father, the note of pleading evident even in another tongue.

  In the hall, I caught my breath and my wits. Wingert’s argument that the Bund’s activities were akin to Salka’s salons agitated me. This swaggering soiree in no way resembled those gatherings of émigrés, aside from the participants being far from home. But then Los Angeles was a city of exiles, everyone escaping something. Even me. Granted, I hadn’t fled fascism but fate. My mother had died when I was young, my father took a run-out powder, and at times it seemed everyone in Flushing knew. I wanted to live someplace where that history wasn’t an unspoken part of every conversation. I’d been dealt a bad hand, and as Donald Hume regularly advised, I’d checked my cards, my dealer, and my emotions. Then I dealt myself into a new game in a land where the sun was always on my face, putting the shadows behind me.

  A door at the end of the hall stood open to an alley. Two men toted bundles of paper on their shoulders to a closet. Something about their movement—swift, with a sense of mission—cut through my sulk. I waited for the street door to bang shut, consumed by curiosity.

  In the closet, stacks of pamphlets had been arranged with efficiency. The cover bore a grotesque caricature of a vulture, with a human face and a hooked nose, blood streaming from its mouth. A star of David loomed ominously above the skullcap on the bird’s head. WHAT PRICE THE FEDERAL RESERVE? bellowed a headline over the smoking ruins of a church. READ THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION AND UNDERSTAND THE NEW DEAL.

  I slipped a pamphlet free as I heard the back door open again. I emerged from the closet hurriedly, flustered excuse already on my lips—

  And looked into Simon Fischer’s eyes. Another bundle of loathsome literature on his shoulder.

  He stared at me for a moment before saying my name.

  I fled past him and down the hall, flying out the front door. Oompah music followed me onto the street. Nothing around but used car lots and funeral parlors, the neighborhood a destination to seek bargains or eternal rest. But two blocks up I glimpsed a façade I knew well: the colonnaded entrance of Claassen’s Department Store. I ran toward it, not slowing when Simon called after me.

  Passing through the revolving door I dashed to the Millinery department and camouflaged myself with an enormous straw beach hat. Simon entered and slowed to a standstill, flummoxed by the feminine fixtures on display. He shook his head at an approaching salesgirl and revolved his way back outside.

  A clerk complimented the chapeau I’d tried on, only to grimace when she saw the pamphlet still in my hand. To remedy the situation I put the offending circular in my purse and said I’d take the hat. It did look rather good on me.

  26

  GENE PRESSED HIS thumb and index finger to his temples and squeezed. Hardly the reaction I sought. “What are you asking me to do, Lillian?”

  “Arrest Simon. At the very least grill him about this.”

  “This isn’t the song you were singing after he took you to Club Fathom.”

  It was the latest awkward moment in an awkward conversation. The most uncomfortable element: our tête-à-tête transpired on the back porch of Abigail Lomax’s house.

  From a pay telephone in Claassen’s, I’d called Gene. Nobody home. I swallowed my pride, fed in more change, and tried Abigail.

  Gene answered. Abigail was fixing a light supper in the kitchen, he’d said.

  I taxied to her house, my response to her greeting curt enough to warrant a scowl from Gene. And that was before I laid out why he needed to take Simon into custody.

  “I don’t understand your resis
tance,” I said. “You were suspicious of him all along. Do you need to hear me say you were right?”

  “It’s music to my ears, but nothing’s illegal about being a member of the Bund. Hell, Wingert’s one. That’s why you were there. Maybe when the war starts it’ll be a different story.”

  Not if the war starts, I noted, but when. The prospect of the country drawing up sides, the people in the tavern with Wingert and his aged father aligning with the enemy, made my stomach roil.

  “Fine. But explain why a member of that organization, who believes what they’re saying enough to circulate this garbage”—I waved the odious pamphlet at him—“would arrange to become the driver for a Jewish composer?”

  “It’s a corrupt city. Everyone spies on everyone else. I guarantee the LAPD has informants inside the Bund, and for all I know Wingert told the Krauts about them. The mayor, at least the old mayor, had people inside the department. Maybe Fischer’s doing his bit for the organization, getting close to Felix to find out if he’s a communist. Doesn’t Father Coughlin say all Jews are Reds?”

  I sat on the porch’s single low step. After a moment, Gene joined me. “What do you think Simon did?”

  “I think he killed Jens.”

  “Why? What’s his motive?”

  “I don’t know. But nothing he’s said or done makes sense.”

  “Neither does what you’re suggesting. If he killed Lohse at the Auerbachs’ cabin, why drive you there?”

  “Because it’s his job. And maybe he wanted the body to be discovered. To implicate Felix, or Marthe, or both of them.”

  Gene looked dubious, but at least he was listening. “Then why throw the body off the balcony to make it look like suicide? He’d be better off leaving Jens in the house.”

  “Maybe he did. Suppose Simon killed Jens at the cabin. The Auerbachs show up, find Jens, and they throw his body into the canyon for the reason you suggested. They’re strangers here, and it’s not like things are cozy between America and Germany at present. They panicked.”

  Gene said nothing, so I did some panicking of my own. “Can you ask Marthe if that’s what happened?”