Widespread Panic
Page 15
Fuck you, pops—I got your beetle brows swinging!!!
“Joan Horvath, sir. She was Hubbard when you knew her.”
“Yes, and I had an affair with that very lively and brilliant young woman, and I think you’re bright enough to have deduced that I’m in no condition to drive to Hollywood, break into a house, and commit murder.”
Esta la verdad, Daddy-O—I sound you loud and clear.
“What did you think of Joan?”
“I thought she was the single most self-absorbed human being I’ve ever met, and that she was a hot piece of skirt. I also thought that she was no sort of Communist, back when the rest of us were convinced that the Party was the light of the world.”
I snorted. “That’s it for Joan, huh?”
Sambo sucked air. “Yes, it is. Ask me about nuclear physics. I can talk physics all day long, but it might prove to be over your head.”
I snorted snide. “Okay. Why’d you get dumped off the Manhattan Project? That must have been an ace gig for a guy in your trade.”
Sambo sucked air. He rattled and racked. His lifespan loomed as next week.
“I’d made friends in the film colony, here in L.A. Young people—one in particular. I was antibomb then, even though I helped build the bombs the fascist U.S. dropped on Japan. It’s believed that I was fired for scientific ineptitude. That’s hardly the case. I was a political casualty, pure and simple. I may be a physicist, but I’m an idealist and a patron of the arts, most of all.”
Sambo, the idealist. Sambo, the ardent artist. I ran with that ball.
“I know you swung with all those swinging artists in Russia. Eisenstein, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold—those were some hotshot cats.”
Sambo laffed and coughed viscous vapors. Pops, you contaminate me.
“I knew them, yes. Their visions formed me in ways that you will never know.”
Sambo sickened me. The interview inflamed me. I bounced a new ball. Let’s get this over with.
“There’s a dangerous woman, circling your cell. I know she’s aware of your ‘den mother,’ who I assume to be Constance Woodard. Her name is Claire Klein, and she’s not to be trifled with.”
Ooohhh—did Sambo just glitch, twitch, shudder, cower, and cringe?
“No. The name Claire Klein means nothing to me.”
That’s okay, Sambo—I’ve registered your response.
“Constance Woodard. Your ‘den mother.’ Why would she fabricate cell minutes, after all the members of the cell had renounced the Party?”
Sambo sighed. “Because she was the only one of us who truly believed, and her belief transcended quite an onslaught of reality. And she was the loneliest woman I’ve ever known, and her fabrications must have convinced her that she still had comrades and friends.”
* * *
—
The Club Zombie. A double dose of darktown. A danger dive. Discordant bebop and the Baron Samedi Cocktail—“One Sip Leaves You Zombified.”
I knew the Zombie. I busted beboppers, mud sharks, and junkies here back in the ’40s. The big buck bartender made me. Fractious Freddy’s back. He still be baaaaaaaaaad muthafuckin’ juju. I’ll make him a Baron Samedi Cocktail. He gots to be Zombified.
He cooked up the cocktail. It glowed radioactive. I slipped him a Bondage Bob C-note. He went You the man. I guzzled the cocktail. It bebopified the dexies dosing my bloodstream. I went ZOMBIFIED.
Robert Jones Crawshaw walked in. He’s aka Comrade Bob and KKKomrade X. He bypassed the bandstand and bopped to a booth by the bar. I made him off old mug shots. He looked bad to the bone. I dug his purple porkpie hat.
I joined him. He snapped his fingers. Two Baron Samedi Cocktails appeared. He bolted his. I sipped mine.
He belched, he burped, he bypassed all amenities. He gave me the Big This Is It.
“The Party is a crock of motherfucking shit. Ask Richard Wright or Zora Neale Hurston. Money and fame is the name of the game. I’m raking it in off Black Bossman, Black Dictator, and Black Führer. Billy told me you’re investigating the murder of Comrade Joanie, and let me state at the outset that I liked her okay, but I never poured her the pork—not no way. Ralphie and me were tight—and I know you killed him, and it was a humbug deal, and now you got the guilts. I didn’t kill Joanie, because the fuzz know it was a white man, because Joanie scratched his face good. I also know you know that Ralphie bailed me out on a 459 charge, back in ’48. Are we all caught up, now? You think Bob Harrison would shoot me a gig, writing for Confidential? I’m hot shit in intellectual circles. Black Führer just went into its twelfth printing. Alfred Kazin and all them motherfucking intellectuals go for my shit.”
I was zombified. I was beatified and transmogrified. The booze. The bebop. The dope. Comrade Sammy’s sad take on my Connie. The mad musings of KKKomrade X.
“Known associates. Joan, Ralphie, or both of them. Can you come up with some names?”
KKKomrade X went haw-haw. “Some Fed mofo named ‘Charlie.’ He shot Ralphie the word on burglary scores. He knew Joanie, too, and he might have been her handler when she got hip and turned rat. Plus, I think Charlie might have introduced Joanie to Ralphie. That’s the only name that I can think of, off the top of my head.”
Charlie. Agent Charles Fullerton. It had to be.
“There’s a woman named Claire Klein. She’s got a very bad beef against a man in your cell, or in your general circle of the Party. Does her name ring any bells?”
KKKomrade X said, “Nein, Daddy. But there was only two men in the cell—me and old Sammy Ahlendorf. That said, there was this cast of thousands that the den mother knew, because she was always taking in strays. That also said, there was no man who jumped out of the crowd and said, ‘Hey, remember me?’ ”
I stood up. I was Zombified, Commified, RATified.
“Go home and sleep it off, baby. And remember to chat me up to Bob H.”
* * *
—
KKKomrade X called it. I took his advice and car-napped in my Packard pimpmobile. I woke up, unzombified. I remained Commified and RATified. My first thought was:
Lonesome Connie.
I pulled those taps and bugs at her pad. The McCarthy/rogue-Fed listening post was northeast in Silver Lake. Connie’s place stood within long-range broadcast beams. Comrade Sam lived in Van Nuys. His place was out of range. KKKomrade X lived in Watts. His place was out of range. Comrade Ellie lived in Westwood. Party Girl’s pad was out of range.
And:
Die Kameraden had ditched the Party and renounced Communism. Only my Connie carried the torch.
Ergo:
The Feds had targeted my Connie, solamente. Plus other Commos in cells unknown.
I whipped west to the Wilshire corridor. Party Girl had demon digs in a high-ticket high-rise. A valet parked my pimpmobile. I big-tipped him. He said Miss Donnell was in and walked me to the penthouse lift.
A glass rocket rocked me up twenty-four stories. It vibrated me, vertiginous. The door opened into Party Girl’s parlor. Party Girl welcomed me.
She was tall. She was blond and waif willowy. She looked like Lizabeth Scott in Pitfall. Dick Powell leaves his wife for her. Now I know why.
I flashed my Statie badge. Party Girl said, “I already testified, and I thought I blew all the State HUAC guys, back when I was in the game.”
She gored my gonads. She had Liz Scott’s lisp and low purr down pat. She wore tennis whites to stay home and talk blow jobs to strange men. She defined noblesse oblige.
“Ten minutes, Miss Donnell. That’s all I need.”
“Who do you want me to fink on? I thought I was done there.”
“I’m investigating Joan Horvath’s murder. We’re looking at the CP cell she was in. I’ve talked to Samuel Ahlendorf and Bob Crawshaw already. Quite obviously, you were on my list.”
She walked me to a wet bar. She poured two Tom Collins, light on the lime. We sat on black leather stools and nudged knees.
“I didn’t know Joanie that well. I wouldn’t sleep with her, and I outgrew the Party before she did. I tried to recruit her for my stable, but she wouldn’t hear of it. We ratted each other out to you State HUAC guys, but I forget who finked first. The den mother knew her better than any of us, that’s for sure.”
The Liz Scott lisp and low growl. The lioness-level gaze. She’s leading you. KKKomrade X called and warned her. Freddy O.’s en route. He ain’t no HUAC cop. Milk him, baby. He’s money, once removed. He’s susceptible. Spin him into your spell.
She wants to slander-slam den mother Connie. That’s her intention. Field this changeup, bitch:
“Let me issue a warning about a woman that I consider to be quite dangerous—one that I’ve passed on to Mr. Ahlendorf and Mr. Crawshaw already. She has plainly stated that she intends to kill a man in your cell, or the general orbit of Party members you might have knowledge of. Her name is Claire Klein. She’s quite persistent, and she has a way of getting up in your face that I would describe as unforgettable.”
Party Girl lit a cigarette. “Well, there’s one woman and one instance that I can think of, but the name Claire Klein sounds no gongs for me. It was back during the war. ’43, I think.”
I said, “Please continue.”
“Well, it was some sort of Scottsboro Boys revival, and it was supposed to be all-Party—I thought one hundred percent. Then in walks a Wave officer, in her full-dress blues. She sizes me up as a girl who likes to gab, and then she applies the full press.”
The war/the Waves/Lieutenant j.g. Claire Klein. Perdition, catch my soul—
“The funny thing was, it all pertained to Commie arcana in Russia, during the show-trial era. She was hipped on Vsevolod Meyerhold, his importance in radical-theater circles, and how Stalin liquidated his theater, made him attend a self-criticism session, denounced him for abandoning socialist realism, and had him tortured and killed. This is in ’39 and ’40, I think. Here’s the worst part. The NKVD stabbed his wife’s eyes out and stabbed her to death a few months earlier.”
Meyerhold. Sambo Ahlendorf knew that cat.
“That’s the extent of it? This Wave woman pressed you and moved on?”
“Right with Eversharp.”
“Samuel Ahlendorf mentioned Meyerhold to me, earlier today.”
“Sammy’s old, and he’s Russian. He’s dined out on radical-socialist theater, all the time I’ve known him. I dare you to sit through one of Meyerhold’s plays. Crassly put, they ain’t Guys and Dolls.”
I gulped. “Let’s discuss the den mother. I assume you’re referring to Constance Woodard?”
Party Girl crushed her cigarette. “That’s right. Connie was our resident drag and expert on Joanie Hubbard. She was also Joanie’s lover for an indeterminate period of time, during the war and after it, which means that she was awarded the Jealous Lover of All-Time Award for who knows how many years running, because you have never seen jealousy like that, and you have never seen anyone chafe under the yoke of it like Joanie did.”
I said, “Keep going. There’s something you’ve been dying to tell me.”
Party Girl laffed. “I never liked Connie, but I grokked her existential anguish. Because Joanie was a Venus fly trap, and she had men, women, and who knows what else standing in line to get in her bed. Connie pulled a gun on two of Joanie’s would-be suitors, and one man—a lefty lawyer in Marin County—vanished from sight altogether.”
Now, I’m Commified, reconstructivized, social-dialecticized—
“Get it—Mr. State Cop who’s not a state cop? The den mother killed that man, and that’s what tore our dumb Communist cell asunder.”
* * *
—
That man.” Claire’s Meyerhold fix. Dead men and dead Joanie. I was dungeon-deep with dead men and castrated by Communist women. Here I am in the den mother’s bedroom. I’m crapped out on the bed. The red walls clooooose in on me.
I thumbed a library book. I’d bipped by the West L.A. Library, post–Party Girl. I did microfilm research. The San Francisco Chronicle, ’48–’49. An emphasis on local murders.
The book. It’s a big and boring Baedeker on Russian radical theater. There’s big ink on Vsevolod Meyerhold and his actress wife, Zinaida Raikh. Party Girl told it true. Stalin’s goons tortured and shot Meyerhold dead. They stabbed Zinaida’s eyes out and stabbed her dead. They were one comely couple. The pix told it true. He’s hero handsome as he waves a Red flag. She’s beautiful in her babushka. The Red Wheel crushes them flat.
Meyerhold was a Stalin-era stud and swinging swordsman. He brought the brisket to women in Russia and abroad and left bawling babies behind. Those facts fanned me. Ditto this fact. Somebody ratted Meyerhold to the NKVD.
Murder in Moscow. Murder in Marin County. It’s September ’49. “Lefty lawyer” Will Hartshorn vanishes. Will’s a wicked womanizer. Scads of scurrilous Commo women are questioned, to no avail. Wicked Will dips off and disappears. There’s no corpus delecti—case closed.
The den mother’s downstairs. She’s cooking our dinner. She’ll call up to me.
I left the library and sidled up to Silver Lake. There’s the rogue-Fed listening post. It’s a shit shack on Ewing off of Duane Street. Harry told me they run three monitor shifts and lock up at midnite. I drove to Higgins’ Hardware and bought what I’d need. Charles Fullerton lived in the Miracle Mile. The mid-Wilshire fone book said so.
The den mother dipped upstairs. I heard her heels hit. She stood in the doorway. She smiled at me and read me. She went What’s wrong, love?
I said, “I talked to some people who knew you pretty well. You know who I mean, because you gave me their names.”
She said, “Yes?”
I said, “They hold you in the highest contempt, because you stayed the course after they walked, and that made you a dupe and marked you as naïve. You wrote hundreds of pages of cell minutes and spun fantasies. You loved them. They didn’t love you. You carried the torch. You created a pretend world in this very room. That fact alone has convinced me to protect you.”
Connie said, “I ‘stayed the course.’ It’s quite the male concept, but it’s not something I can accept in you, if it means that you consider me pathetic.”
I laffed. “How could I? You killed a man with no compunction, in the Freddy Otash mode. ‘Pathetic’ hardly describes it.”
“He brutalized Joan. He hit her and demeaned her, and I couldn’t stand it. I shot him and dumped his body in a lime pit in Point Reyes. The police questioned me once and believed my denials. They never troubled me again, and my ex-comrades never informed on me.”
“How did you feel, after you killed him?”
“I felt aghast and relieved.”
Perdition, catch my soul—for I do KNOW her.
* * *
—
Charlie Fullerton, FBI. Harry Fremont tagged him a booze-hound bachelor and a cloistered closet queen. He juiced at the Raincheck Room, Rick’s Riptide, and Roscoe’s Reef. He had an above-garage crib off 6th and Dunsmuir. Harry advised a midnite snatch-and-grab. Dump him in his doorway and go in strong.
Sound advice. The lock snapped easy. The crib was cloistered-closet claustrophobic. Small kitchen/small bathroom/small front room. Whew—it’s Suffocation City. It’s suffused with stale cigarette smoke and spilled booze.
I kept the lights off. I lurked and listened, doorway-close. 12:19 a.m. Fumbling footsteps. Charlie’s key in the lock.
The door opened. I sandbagged Charlie, coming in. I kicked his legs out from under him. He moaned and mewed.
I banged his head on the floor and hankie-gagged him. I dragged him into the kitchen and hit the lights. Heh, heh—there’s this hot plate.
I handcuffed Charlie. I plugged the plate in. The coils glowed hot, hot. I hauled Charlie to his feet and shoved him up to the counter. Charlie bug-eye beseeched me—don’t scorch me, boss.
I curled his right-hand fingers into the coils. I scorched and scalded him. My hankie-gag muffled his screams. I caught the french-fried fragrance of burned skin.
Charlie bawled and buckled and tore free of me. I kicked him in the balls and jackknifed him. A frigid Frigidaire was right there. I opened the door. I pulled Charlie upright and jammed his scorched hand in the freezer compartment. Yeah!!!—it’s a skin-fry frappé!!!
Charlie tried to scream. The gag mumble-muted him. The cold ice cauterized his scalded skin and made streams of steam rise. I pulled his hand free and shoved him into a chair. I stood over him and laid out my Bill of No Redress.
“Joan Hubbard and Ralphie Horvath. Connie Woodard and her CP cell. This latest jive crusade of Joe McCarthy’s, and how Connie fits in. Who you’ve got wired out of that long-range post in Silver Lake. Nod once if you want to live, and twice if you want to die.”
Charlie nodded once. I yanked his gag. His muffled scream screeched out, sissy soprano. I pulled my pocket flask and fed him bonded bourbon. He gargle-gurgled it down and glowed booze-hound red.
I waited. Charlie went Gimme. I ran a refill down his throat. I tapped my wristwatch. Charlie went More. I ran Refill #2 down his gullet. That got him. His booze glow glissandoed into plain old pink-red.
I said, “Give.”
Charlie coughed and cleared his throat. Phlegm flew into his hankie. He went from refusenik to running dog in one second flat.