Bill and Mondo Díaz sat at the #1 table. Why mince words? Díaz looked beat to shit. The gang tossed back corn-liquor shots. A preperformance hush enveloped us. We crowded up to the see-thru and watched.
Bill dispensed commiseration. Those hayseed cops sure thumped you. I don’t feature that, myself. Mondo, you’re looking at a gas-chamber bounce. We’ve got you for eight counts of Murder One, easy. Plus capital-charge sedition and treason. You’ll suck gas inside six months.
The gang cheered. “Suck gas” spurred the ovation.
Díaz said, “Your mama sucks Chihuahua dicks.”
The gang booed. “Chihuahua dicks” spurred the response.
Bill pulled out his pocket flask and urged Díaz to take a few pops. The gang rumbled; they admired the ploy; the city-slicker cop knew his stuff.
Díaz chugalugged Old Crow. Bill spoon-fed him. Things look grim, Mondo. I won’t lie to you there. One hand washes the other. There’s a few things I’d like to know about Salvy Abascal and the Sinarquistas. If you’ll provide a few answers, I’ll see what I can do for you.
Díaz said, “Okay, pendejo. Ask me something simple first, so I don’t get all gun-shy talking to you.”
Bill slid his cigarettes across the table. He smiled as Díaz lit up.
So, Mondo. Tell me this, Mondo. Why would a right-wing cabal like the Sinarquistas blow up a Bund hall? I’m perplexed, Mondo. I’m out of my depth here. Call me a pendejo — but you’re taking me beyond my ken.
Díaz killed off the flask. Entranced cops pressed up to the see-thru and left nose prints on the glass.
“Here’s your primer on the new dialectic, pendejo. Sinarquismo’s left as much as it’s right. Suppose I told you La Causa’s financed by the NKVD, out of Moscow? Suppose I told you the Hitler boys contribute to the Redshirt Brigade in Ensenada? Suppose I quote this Greek guy, Aristophanes? He said, ‘Whirl is king.’ ”
A fat deputy said, “What’s ‘dialectic’?”
Big Bob said, “This guy’s the guy talking Greek, not that Aristo-whoever guy.”
Mrs. Big Bob said, “This is wearing me thin. Bob, you get in there and phone-book that creep.”
I said, “Hush, now. You don’t get a show like this every day.”
Bill enacted deep befuddlement. I can’t piece this together, Mondo. I know you went to this German technical college. You’re educated, so you know all about the Greeks and all this other highbrow shit. I’ve read your green sheet, Mondo. You can’t be a Red and a Nazi at the same time. Any fool with a high-school education knows that much.
Üntermensch Bill baited the hook. Übermensch Mondo snapped up the bait.
“Here’s the thing about History, pendejo. Every so often someone comes around and explains that what’s what ain’t what. This is by way of saying that Salvy Abascal gave a talk at Dresden Poly. It was pro-Nazi, which wowed my little clique. He had this Jewish pal named Meyer Gelb, which conversely ticked us off. He explained the rudiments of totalitarianism, which allowed us to see that the Reds saw things the same way we did. He pointed out that Jew Hatred and Workers Unite was all the same shuck. Do you know what ‘prescience’ is, pendejo? It’s when you predict the future and it comes true, against all empirical evidence. Which is by way of saying that Salvy predicted this war we’re in, along with a U.S. and Russian victory, which necessitates the need for a potently inclusive new totalitarian alliance to surmount the inevitable postwar chaos and monkey-wrench the world’s new idiot taste for democracy.”
Bill said, “I read a Federal subversive summary. It described a conference, along the lines of what you just described. I’m wondering if you were there.”
“Of course I was there. I was there when they signed the Magna Carta and when Moses parted the Red Sea. I was there when your puto forefathers signed the Declaration of Interdependence. You’re wearing this look I’ve seen before, pendejo. You just figured out that what’s what ain’t what, and I’m not just some dumb pachuco.”
Bill said, “Do minutes for the conference exist?”
Díaz laughed. “They’re a myth. They’re like Das Kapital and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. They’re some jive that the great unwashed thinks is real.”
“The gold, Mondo? What about that? Is that just a pipe dream, too?”
“It’s all a pipe dream. It’s a nightmare, and nobody knows where the goddamn gold is. Ask Salvy and that cracker pal of his. For all I know, they cashed it in for S & H Green Stamps.”
Big Bob said, “Miss Lake’s right. You don’t get a show like this every day.”
125
(San Francisco, 10:00 A.M., 4/9/42)
Blanchard crowed and groused. The Fed-probe acquittals. His domestic woes. He blew steam from Manzanar to Golden Gate Park.
“Whiskey Bill and Elmer J. That’s the word. They pulled some mischief in the Fed vault. Nobody doubts that Bill Parker’s smart. But he’s out in the open with Kay now, and that ticks me off.”
Ashida ignored him. They sat outside Kezar Stadium. Leander Frechette picked the spot. Leander will walk up. He’ll ask how things stand. They’ll trek memory lane.
The Alameda County Jail. Remember, Leander? You, Fritz Eckelkamp, and Wayne Frank Jackson. Your screwball alliance. You conceived a daring gold heist.
Blanchard arranged the meet. He called Frechette last night. Leander was affable. Blanchard assured him — this ain’t a roust.
It’s a waltz. He’ll know that. His criminal actions preceded all legal cutoff dates. How’s this shit stand now? That’s easy. Chaos has intervened.
Blanchard said, “Parker’s a pervdog. I respect him, but I don’t like him. He’s out to set the white man’s world record for entrapping college girls. First Kay, then Big Joan. The war put a bug up his ass. His libido’s overheated. He’s been running roughshod since Pearl.”
Ashida ignored him. Chaos has intervened. He sent the forged minutes out. Constanza Lazaro-Schmidt will receive them. Dudley Smith will read them. Dudley might note a grievous narrative lapse.
Elmer called him this morning. Elmer sobbed and begged forgiveness. He’d just heard a radio broadcast.
Eight dead in Kern County. Three sabotage attacks. Farmworker saboteurs. Mondo Díaz, in custody. Díaz, the ringleader. Wetbacks for the drudge work.
The report stunned Ashida. He’d interviewed Díaz at Hollenbeck Station. Elmer sobbed. He said he’d withheld crucial drift. The East L.A. sweep. Elmer and Buzz Meeks squeeze Frankie Carbajal. Frankie reveals the sabotage plan. He reveals the plan under duress.
Escaped wetbacks. All torch men. Salvador A. was behind it. Dud S. didn’t know shit. Elmer and Buzz withheld the lead. They’d gone rogue. The lead was their hole card. It’s their redneck mea culpa now. Eight people got blown up.
Elmer sobbed and hung up the phone. Kay called a few minutes later. She’d been up to Kern. Bill Parker braced Mondo Díaz. Mondo riffed dialectic and finked the deal out.
The Kameraden pulled the sabotage. Salvador A. ordered it. He’s Comrade Number One. That puto Irishman didn’t know shit.
Chaos intervenes. It’s hubris ascendant. Comrade Ashida perpetrates it. He plays a hunch based on a specious assumption. Salvador is not El Grande Jefe. Meyer Gelb is. The faux minutes proceed off that hunch. Comrade Ashida writes as Herr Apparatchik.