Dead end.
He reprowled Lock-Ur-Self and brought his evidence kit. He print-dusted 648 and got smudges and rubber-glove prints.
Dead end.
He wants the gold. Joan Conville wants the gold. He saw Joan at the library. She was reading old newspapers and jotting notes. He cruised the reference desk and scanned Joan’s request slip. The words fire and gold jumped out.
Joan knows most of what he knows. He’s certain of that. She knows nothing of Lock-Ur-Self. She has not seen the gold. He’s far ahead of her there.
The gold.
It’s Joan’s idée fixe. She wears gold cuff links. She works in the lab and fondles them constantly. She’s clocked him clocking her. Their omissions and suspicions reverberate both ways. She’s seen all the reports and news clips that he’s seen. She queried him per his ballistics tests. He laid out the liquor-store spree. Joan extrapolated. She said, “Fritz Eckelkamp. Liquor stores were his métier.”
She’s a natural detective. She knows how to cull facts and think. They have not discussed fire or gold since.
He subtly pumped Elmer Jackson. He quizzed him per Wayne Frank’s death and gold idée fixe. He curveballed “Karl Frederick Tullock.” Elmer deadpanned the name.
Wayne Frank and Karl Tullock. This simple conclusion. They converged in Griffith Park that day. This less simple question perplexed him. The gold nugget in Tullock’s trouser cuff. How did it get there?
He sought to buttress his fire-case logic. He set out to establish a certain Box Man ID. He recalled gossip. The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Bertillon-charted their deputies.
The men were comprehensively measured. Hand spans/arm and leg lengths/twelve phrenological marks. He could measure Box Man. He would measure up or he would not.
He called the SB Personnel Office and stiffed the request. He said it pertained to a missing-persons job. The photostat arrived the next day.
He went by the morgue. Nort Layman was out. He consulted the Bertillon chart and duplicated the measurement regime.
He measured hand spans/arm lengths/distances between toes. He tape-wrapped the skull and plumbed the occipital sockets. Box Man and Chart Man measured up exactly.
October 3, ’33. The two gold seekers converge in Griffith Park and die there that day. Those are facts. The rest is conjecture.
He tracked conjectural logic. It led him back to the ballistics bulletins. He’d studied the spent lodged in Karl Tullock’s skull. He got that partial lands-and-grooves read. It partially matched the liquor-store spents.
He walked over to the DB and pored through Robbery files. He snagged a file for the ’33 liquor-store spree. He saw an eyeball-witness sketch. It vaguely resembled Elmer’s Wayne Frank wallet pic.
He walked back to Central Station. A basement storeroom housed misdemeanor files. He breathed dust and mold and tore his hands bloody. He wagered on this:
Alky Wayne Frank. At loose in L.A., summer ’33. It’s logical. He would have been popped for plain drunk or vagrancy.
He dumped file boxes and went through them. It was pure shitwork. He hit a July ’33 box. He caught a “Jackson, Wayne Frank” file tab.
Wayne Frank sustained a vag roust. Note the attached mug shot. It’s a more than vague/half-ass-good match. It veers toward the liquor-store sketch.
Tell Joan Conville none of this. She wants the gold, to your exclusion. Your probity exceeds hers. The gold will buy her a man-trap wardrobe and front-row nightclub seats. The gold is your racial bargaining chip.
You diverge in moral intent. She’s a round-heeled girl out for kicks. You’re out to ensure your family’s freedom. You converge as scientists. You both love gold as an entity.
He went to a jeweler’s. He bought two solid-gold second lieutenant’s bars. They brought Dudley Smith to mind. They warned him of Joan Conville. They told him not to underestimate her.
She’s gifted but erratic. She’s conjoined with the gifted but erratic Bill Parker. Their union comes off deluded. It may play out effective. It mirrors his own union with Dudley Smith.
Ever-gracious Dudley. His proffered Army commission. It carries a price. He’ll abet evil designs. He’ll enter the man trap that is Dudley Smith.
Dudley has usurped Bucky Bleichert. Dudley is now the naked man in his dreams. Dudley calls him twice a week. He always issues directives.
Brace Elmer J. Find out what he’s doing. Bring up Tommy Glennon. Mention Eddie Leng and Donald Matsura. Don’t forget the sketchy Lin Chung.
He quizzed Elmer. He was subtle. Elmer sloughed him off. He told Dudley that Elmer felt clean. He said the Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung alliance felt Fifth Column.
Dudley told him to scour J-town for Kyoho Hanamaka. He’s dubbed Hanamaka Baja’s spy king. Hanamaka runs Baja’s boss saboteur cell. Dudley wants to extort the cell and limit the extent of their damage.
Baja suits Dudley. He’s created a second family there. He’s got Claire and her street-urchin daughter. Dudley’s screen sleuth Charlie Chan. He’s Dudley’s #1 son.
He loves Dudley’s egalitarianism. He loves Dudley’s realpolitik. Dudley sees the internment as fear-spawned race hate. The Manzanar camp opens March 25. The Owens Valley broils in the summer and sustains winter’s deep freeze.
Dudley, the Irish arriviste. Dudley, ever strategic. Dudley, most chilling here:
“I’ve heard that Bill Parker and your colleague Joan Conville make quite the pair. I met lovely Joan at Lyman’s recently, and became somewhat entranced. Any friend of Bill Parker’s merits my attention. Please keep me apprised of Miss Conville’s activities.”
Dudley denotes equal measure. You love him and fear him proportionately. You submit to him because it delights him and proves your utility.
Lieutenant Hideo Ashida, Army SIS.
You will survive and exploit this war by Dudley Smith’s sole decree.
29
(Los Angeles, 1/9–1/23/42)
He’s scared. It crept up, belated. Oooga-booga. Dem demons done launched demselves his way.
He’s scared of the war. He’s scared of the draft. He’s scared of Jap infantry. He’s ex — Marine Corps. They’ll resnag his cracker ass and get his cracker ass slayed quick.
That’s surefire terror. It’s regulation issue. It’s standard for this shitstorm time and place. It pales before his fear of Dudley Smith.
Oooga-booga. It’s like he back in de ole south. He done ex-caped Parchman. De hellhound’s on his trail.
Dud won’t kill him. He’s too tight with Brenda and Jack H. Dud’s too savvy for Murder One. He’ll just nullify his redneck ass in some cagey way.
The hellhound’s got him pinned. The beast’s baying baleful. Elmer, why’d you pull all this meddlesome shit?
Well, it’s my case, hound. It’s my very own big-deal investigation. That means Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung et al. I’ve got to wrap it up for some special woman — and Dud just got in the way.
Who’s the woman, shithead?
I don’t know — but L.A.’s full of candidates.
He’s scared. He’s restless. Diverse shit’s coming and going. The Box Man job went pffft. Dr. Nort, Big Joan, and Hideo did what they could. He retooled memory lane and jawed with Wayne Frank in his dreams. But Wayne Frank’s still dead and buried. Who’s the Box Man? Who gives a shimmering shit?
There’s still his case. It’s breaking wide. Where will it go?
He’s got address-book names. Tommy G.’s oddball KAs. We’ll start with Monsignor Joe Hayes. He’s a mick priest and Dudster KA. That tong rumor: “Tommy’s poking some priest.”