Sid said, “Nix. I heard that Leng and Matsura were tight, and that Matsura manufactured terp, and Leng and Four Families peddled it to the Chinks, along with drugstore hop.”
“A doctor named Lin Chung. Ring any bells?”
Sid yocked. “Yeah. He’s a plastic surgeon, and he peddles nose jobs to all the Jew girls trying to pass for goyishe. Lin, the snout doctor. Strictly cut-rate.”
Elmer switched gears. “Leng had a tattoo on his right hand. A little ‘SQ’ with snakes curled around it. Tommy G. had stencils for that selfsame tattoo in his hotel room.”
Sid fingered his Jew star. “The ‘SQ’ means Sinarquista. It’s some kind of batshit Catholic, pro-Nazi movement in Mexico. Like Father Coughlin, only worse. I’m a hebe, so I don’t feature that shit.”
“I saw you wave to Ed Satterlee. What’s with that?”
“Open secret, bubi. Fey Edgar Hoover concocted this phone-tap schmear before the Japs tapped Pearl and put our great country in a tizzy, so now he’s obliged to see it through, but he don’t wet his pink lace undies for it. Some good-sized fish will get indicted, but only a few minnows will burn. This Wallace Jamie kid’s tight with some hotshot Republicans who want to run him for office, and his dad’s close pals with Fletch Bowron. The inside pitch is that Fletch, Jack Horrall, the Jamie putz, Ray Pinker, and a few DAs will get indicted and acquitted. Jamie will be revealed to be a secret Fed informer. He’ll turn State’s on some Hollywood Reds that Fey Edgar wants to fuck with, and goose his own career.”
Elmer went Oh, my cabeza. Sid yock-yocked.
“Why would Tommy Glennon have this hot-box number?”
“Why wouldn’t he? Everybody’s got this number. It’s a former bookie-drop call-in phone that used to take slugs, and for all I know, it still does.”
Elmer cogitated. “Why would Tommy G. have the numbers of fourteen Baja pay phones in his address book?”
Sid shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he? He’s a perv. Baja’s the Perv Capital of North America. Tommy’s pals with the Dudster’s snitch, Huey Cressmeyer, who ranks with Leopold and Loeb in the Perv Hall of Fame. Don’t be naïve, bubelah. Tommy pokes boys in the keester and rapes women. That spells P, E, R, V in my book.”
Elmer recogitated. “Can pay phones be tapped?”
“Supposedly, yes — at least the incoming calls. Some Mexican cop supposedly devised a plan.”
The closet shot heat waves. Warm, hot, too hot. Elmer wiped his forehead.
“There’s Fed routing stamps on Lin Chung’s DB file. Recent, with your boy Satterlee as the agent requesting.”
“Well, it don’t sound phone probe, so maybe the snout doctor runs Fifth Column.”
Elmer cracked the door wide. Cool air vitalized him. Lobby noise whooshed in.
“I don’t get where all this is going.”
“What’s not to get? God’s telling you not to fuck with Dudley Smith.”
22
(Baja, 4:15 P.M., 1/5/42)
Chez Hanamaka. It’s a magnetizing force. It mandates a second visit.
Drudge work ate up yesterday. Paper piles and phone calls deluged him. The bloodstained wall summoned him today.
Dudley studied the wall. He quadrant-scanned it. He made two eyeball circuits. Something felt wrong.
He saw three bullet holes. He pegged the tight spread and upper-right-side wall placement. He pulled his pocketknife and dug out the spents.
He studied them. He saw dried blood and dark-hair fragments on all three. The bullets were embedded per a left-to-right trajectory.
But:
The full wall was bloodstained. That was wrong. Only the upper-right quadrant should be spattered.
Late sun hit the living room. Picture windows threw glare. It enhanced magnification. That wall gleamed — bright, bright, bright.
Dudley brainstormed. Dudley got it. It had to be this:
There’s Mr. X. It’s probably Kyoho Hanamaka. He needs to paint a picture. It’s an urgent need. This wall provides a canvas and picture frame.
Mr. X gulps. The job entails self-mutilation. It puts him in a squeamish state. He must create a slaughter scene.
Mr. X holds his left arm up and out. He’s angled toward the right side of the wall. He holds the gun in his right hand. He employs an upward-right trajectory. He aims very closely and fires three flesh-grazing shots.
Thus:
The dark hair on the spents.
Thus:
The upper-right-wall slug placement.
But:
The entire wall was bloodstained. That surely resulted from this:
Mr. X squeezed blood from his superficial flesh wounds and flung it randomly. Thus, the wide spatters. Why did he do this? Here’s a theory:
Mr. X fakes his own death. He’s a Jap Navy man prone to Fifth Column mischief. He wants to vanish. His blood type is police-filed. He knows the estúpido Staties will peruse this wall and scrape samples. They will compare them to their file. They will thus conclude:
Hanamaka was killed here. His body was removed and most likely dumped in the sea.
No suspects present themselves. Case closed, finito.
Where’s Kyoho Hanamaka? Hector Obregon-Hodaka saw him here. That was December 18. It’s now January 5. The Staties have not been here. There’s no evidence tags or signs of a toss.
Think. Expand your theory. Layer in Hepcat Hector. He plays in here.
This hilltop home connotes hideaway. Hanamaka probably lives in Ensenada. His resident-alien file might list the address. The Staties would look for Hanamaka there first.
He’s scared. He’s afraid he’ll be interned soon. His friendship with Governor Lazaro-Schmidt will be rudely breached. He needs to vanish. He has Fifth Column duties. He needs this hideaway to be discovered inadvertently.
Enter Hector Obregon-Hodaka.
He’s a cat’s paw. Hanamaka brought him up here. He knew that Hector would be interned. Hector would suck up to his Statie captors and reveal that this place exists.
Hector was a patsy. Hanamaka rigged the faked-death scene all by himself. Hector got lucky. Captain D. L. Smith set him free.
It’s virgin turf. No tags, no tape seals. It’s a fresh toss.
Dudley checked the kitchen. He found a toilet plunger and plunged the two commodes. He brought up gauze strips and adhesive-bandage snips. The gauze showed water-bleached bloodstains. It confirmed his wall-tableau theory.
He emptied cupboards. He opened canned foodstuffs and dumped the contents. He dumped drawers and examined innocuous glut. He unscrewed sink drains and plunged standing water. He ripped apart stuffed furniture. He unscrewed light fixtures. The net yield was zilch.
The walls now.
He brought a stethoscope. He attached the earpieces and began downstairs. He walked room-to-room. He tapped the walls and listened. He got all solid thunks. He worked downstairs to upstairs and wall-tapped. He got all solid thunks.
He walked back downstairs. He retapped the walls, higher up. He turned down a side hallway and tapped the right-side wall. He got solid, solid, solid, solid, and—
Hollow thunks. Pitch-perfect — tap, tap.
He brought a pry bar. He ran to the living room and grabbed it. He ran back to the hallway and swung.
The wall was wood-reinforced plaster. Two hits crumbled it. The boards snapped. Plaster grit swirled. Twelve hits ripped a floor-to-ceiling hole.
A hidey-hole. Rendered inaccessible. There was no latch entry, no wall-panel hinges and slides.
The hole ran twelve by twelve. It was carpeted. There were light fixtures, clothes racks, and shelves.