“That’s just why you should go, to prove to yourself the nightmare is over. Everything is normal now.” Younger couldn’t control the tone of his voice. His words came back to him in the room with too much urgency, too much insistence. He tried to soften their effect, but what he said still sounded like a challenge. “We must go. It’s Barbara Carr’s first picture since she was involved in the Zoot-suit murders; she’s spent eight months making it. She’s such a good actress. We can’t blame Barbara Carr for what happened.”
Kathleen said nothing. A strange light in her eyes made her seem distant even though she was close to him, so close Younger felt the heat from her frail body. There was some other part of her far away, and from that place, slowly, her words finally came. “If you say we should, Nathan, I’ll go. I’ll go anywhere you say.”
“How come there are so many sailors out tonight?” Kathleen watched the busy sidewalk outside the window of the packed streetcar. Everywhere in the bright lights of the busy department stores there were sailors. Sailors by twos and threes, fives and eights, hundreds of sailors walking quickly in their dark blue uniforms, white caps cocked back on their shaved heads as they roved nervously in packs, alert, as if searching for some mysterious and elusive game, expecting some ultimate danger. Elbowing their way through the sailors, clubs swinging at the sides of their white pants legs, squads of Shore Patrolmen roamed easily, aloof but alert, sensing potential violence, riding herd on the thickening packs of sailors growing more numerous as the streetcar rolled along the widening streets, block by long block, farther into the deepening canyon of towering downtown buildings.
“It’s Friday night, Kathleen, no more sailors than usual. They’re all out hunting for girls. It’s like this every weekend. You don’t get out of the Barrio enough. Usually you’re spending all your off moments going from door to door preaching.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Kathleen turned quickly from her reflection in the window, her body stiffening next to him.
“Nothing.” Younger laughed, tightening his arm around her shoulders. “Nothing in the world wrong with it. But you must have some fun, relax. We can’t be so serious all the time.”
Kathleen turned and looked back out the broad window. “Just so many sailors. It doesn’t seem right, so many like this.”
“Maybe the fleet’s in.” Younger leaned across her to get a better view of the crowding sailors clogging sidewalks. “Maybe they’re all looking for a girl pretty as you.” He kissed Kathleen unexpectedly on the cheek and laughed. “A pretty redhead with lots of curls and great legs.”
“Nathan!” Kathleen jabbed him in the ribs with her long fingernails. “Be quiet.” She looked around the streetcar self-consciously. “People may be listening. That’s not the kind of thing to joke about in public.”
“Here we are.” Younger yanked the buzzer cord to stop the streetcar. “The Orpheum Theater, where we get off.”
The gold-red-and-blue neon of the theater sign fell from three stories high in a sparkling waterfall over heads of people lined at the ticket booth. The giant painted face of Barbara Carr loomed behind sheets of glass over display windows. She swooned in the arms of a dark romantic man with his shirt torn open, her glazed-over eyes fixed in a stupor on the man’s bare chest, the wild blond cascade of her hair flung in a careless tangle of knots behind her.
“Hey, this really looks swell! These are the kinds of pictures Barbara Carr is best in, jungle pictures.” Younger studied the slack expression on Carr’s face behind the smudged glass. “Aren’t you glad we came, Kathleen?”
“I’m glad.” She took Younger’s arm as the line moved slowly toward the ticket booth and into the gold-pillared lobby. The slightly mildewed and smoky odor of hot popcorn wafted to far recesses of the balcony’s ceiling, its false baroque angels flittering about in brash coats of bronze paint.
Younger fumbled along the dark aisles inside the crowded theater, finally finding two vacant seats. Before him the United States Army was marching triumphantly across the movie screen through the bombed and shattered city of Naples, the announcer of the newsreel shouting excitedly:
The men of General Mark Clark’s Fifth Army have scored their greatest victory of the twenty-two-day Italian campaign! Tough American troops and hard-fighting British Tommies who just five days ago fought and won the ferocious battle of Salerno have quickly smashed through to capture Naples! These men have defeated the best the German war machine can offer! Today a jubilant communiqué from General Eisenhower’s headquarters in England announced…
“Down in front!”
“Get down! Down in front!”
“I can’t see what’s going on. Who’s doing the shouting?” Kathleen rose in her seat, trying to see over the sea of heads before her stretching to the foot of the movie screen. “Can you see what is going on up there, Nathan?”
“No, I can’t see either.”
“Get down! Hey, what’s going on?”
“Somebody call the police!”
Kathleen grabbed Younger’s arm. “Let’s go. Something terrible is happening up there.”
From the back of the theater the swinging doors on all six aisles banged open, men running down the aisles with flashlights, stabbing bright beams out into the audience. Beams of blinding light shot into Younger’s face. He jumped up with his arm around Kathleen. People were pushing and shoving, screaming to get out, trapping themselves in their own panic.
“Oh, my God!”
“Stop them! Stop them!”
The newsreel died on the screen, pitching the entire theater into darkness. The shadows of the men with the flashlights leaped into the audience.
“My God! They’re killing people! They’re killing people!”
The men with the flashlights waded into the screaming audience, knocking people down, grabbing others.
Younger pushed Kathleen into her seat as he tried to shove back the hysterical people stampeding in all directions around him.
“They’re going to kill us all! We’re all going to die!”
Brilliant showers of light shattered the vast darkness from tiered chandeliers that dangled from the high ceiling of the theater, exposing the panicked crowd, exposing the men with flashlights. Younger was shocked. The men with flashlights were sailors. More sailors kept pouring through the swinging doors, searching out anyone dressed in a Zoot suit. Three aisles before Younger two teenage Zoot-suiters crouched down, trying to hide from six sailors pushing their way to them through the terrified crowd.
“¡Que nos matan! ¡Que nos abusan! Don’t let them get us! Don’t let them kill us!” The two Zoots screamed, caught in the trap of the crushing crowd. The sailors surrounded the Zoots, knocking their slouched hats off, grabbing them by their long black hair, dragging them kicking and shouting up to the stage in front of the blank movie screen, where more sailors stood with their young captives, tearing off their Zoot suits, ripping off their underclothes. Sharp metal of scissors flashed in the sailors’ hands as they cut the hair from struggling Zoot boys crying out in Spanish for mercy, pleading not to be murdered. Everywhere in the audience sailors found more Zoot-suiters, beating them to the ground, quickly stripping them naked and shearing their hair off, shaming them before the eyes of the horrified crowd.
Younger pushed and knocked his way from the theater, pulling Kathleen along with him, people smashing against her frail body from all sides in their panic to escape. The streets were filled with screams of running people and the wail of police sirens. Sailors chased Zoots into stores. Two streetcars were barricaded in the center of the street, sailors shouting and pulling people from them, trying to get to Zoots cowering under the backseats. With a terrifying scream and crash of glass, a Zoot jumped from the display window of a drugstore on the corner, three sailors jumping through right behind him. The Zoot saw two Shore Patrolmen watching from the opposite side of the street. He ran to them, shouting for protection. When he got to them the clubs at their sides came up quickly, c
racking into his head. He fell stunned and bloody to the ground as the three sailors came up behind him kicking. Kathleen fell to her knees on the sidewalk, a stream of vomit pouring from her mouth. Younger put his arm around her for support, half pulling, half dragging her gasping body through the terror of the street, around the corner onto the next block. He pushed Kathleen against a storefront and stood before her, trying to hide her. He wished he had stayed on the other street. In the chaos of the screaming crowd before them, sailors were hurting and clubbing not only Zoots but anyone who looked Mexican. A struggling pregnant woman slipped from the grasp of a sailor, darting through the crowd as he lunged at her flying coat. She shouted at Younger, her terrified eyes screaming for mercy. She reached toward him just as the sailor caught hold of her coat, whipping her around and knocking her across the face before his knee knifed into her stomach. The woman fell with a gasp, her dead weight crumpling on the hard pavement. Kathleen pulled at Younger’s coat, trying to hold him back, screaming at him it was too dangerous to get involved. Younger shook Kathleen loose, lunging at the young sailor, grabbing him around the neck and choking him. The sailor’s hollow breath came out of his mouth in a hoarse whistle as he turned his darkening face toward Younger. Younger’s hands went limp, losing all their strength, releasing the fury of his grasp. The young sailor looked just like his brother.
32
“Please stay with me tonight.” Kathleen stood in the open doorway of her apartment, her whole body shaking and shivering. She took Younger’s hand and pulled him into the dark hallway. “I’m afraid, Nathan. Please stay with me tonight. I’m so frightened some of those sailors might break into my apartment in the middle of the night.”
Younger flicked on the light switch and pressed Kathleen’s quivering hand firmly between his own. “They won’t come here. They’re all downtown. All that is far away.”
She cocked an ear to the wail of sirens in the distance, her eyes wide with fear. “You must stay.” She led him down the hall. “Promise to stay with me all night or I’ll have nightmares. I’ll never be able to sleep.”
Younger wearily eyed the fat chair in the living room. “All right.” He slumped heavily into the chair. “I’ll spend the night; this is as good a place as any.”
“No.” Kathleen reached her shaking hands down and pulled him back up. “I’m so terrified, I want you to sleep with me.”
“With you?” Younger couldn’t keep the smile of surprise from his face. “Kathleen, are you certain that’s what you want? I mean, I can stay out here. Anyone breaking into the house has to pass right by me to get to you.”
“I know what I want, Nathan.” She dropped his hand. There was a solid tone in her voice he did not question. “Now you don’t stay out here too long because I want you with me.” She turned and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving him standing alone.
Younger went into the kitchen and flipped the light on. He sat at the table, rubbing his eyes, trying to erase the screams of the night from his mind, thinking if maybe what he had seen downtown was a dream, a crazy, bizarre dream. He just couldn’t believe it happened. He still felt the sickness in his stomach, as if he was the one who had been kicked and beaten. He just couldn’t believe he would ever witness such a thing in America. It disgusted him. But he knew the reason for it, he understood fully, and he knew it would get worse.
A sharp rapping wove its way through Younger’s thoughts, like an ice pick scraping on an ice block. The strange sound brought him back to where he was, reminded him of how late it was. He looked up from the table, his gaze going around the kitchen, trying to locate the sound. Then he saw it. Outside the window on the fire escape the cat was framed against the distant glare of a street lamp. Reared up on its hind legs, its front paws clawing at the clear glass pane, the animal’s wide liquid eyes peered straight at Younger. He knew what he had to do. There was no way he could put it off any longer. The time had come, and the sickness deep in the pit of his stomach spread quickly through his body as he rose from the table.
* * *
“Nathan?” Kathleen called his name, watching the dark shadow of reflection in the high mirror of the bedroom dresser. Her shaking hand clutching a hairbrush swept swiftly through her hair, spreading red curls over sleek satin shoulders of her white robe. “Nathan, is that you?” She peered closely at the reflection moving in the mirror. “You’re so quiet.” She set the brush on the dresser and turned slowly around. “Nathan, I’m so glad you decided to—” The words went numb on her bright red lips. She quickly put out her hand on the dresser to stop herself from collapsing. “Sweet Lord, Nathan, what on earth are you do—”
Younger watched her from the doorway, the purring cat securely tucked under one arm, the needled syringe of adrenalin held firmly between his fingers. “Don’t move.” He pointed the needle at Kathleen. “Sit down in that chair, next to the dresser.” He walked toward her, dropping the cat on the bed’s soft quilt cover. The cat watched him as he placed the needle carefully on the dresser, looking down at Kathleen. “Move and I’ll kill you.” The muscles of her throat constricted with fear, hardening into protruding lines along her slender neck as she turned away from the cat. He stood before her and slipped off his belt. He knelt down, tying her hands quickly to the back of the chair. She didn’t move, her heavy breathing close to his ear. He placed his hands on the sleek shoulders of her satin robe, then shoved the robe back over her thin shoulders, pinning her arms close to her body so she couldn’t suddenly free herself. He picked up the syringe and stepped back from her, sitting down on the bed next to the cat, his hand going over the animal’s arched back in quick familiar strokes.
“Talk.”
“Talk?” Kathleen swallowed hard. “Talk about what?” She looked at the purring cat. “Have you lost your senses?”
“I want to know the real name of the Voice. I want to know where he is. You are going to tell me.”
“I don’t know his real name, I swear to you, Nathan. Darling, I swear to you I don’t know where he is.”
Younger ran his fingers through the thick orange fur of the cat. “It’s over, the whole stinking charade is over. You’re a Communist. I know it, the FBI knows it. Now where is he? Where is the leader of your cell?”
Kathleen’s eyes widened in fright as she watched the cat. She tried to push herself farther away from the animal’s strong scent, but the chair was already backed against the wall. Tears came up in her eyes, rolling down her face, splashing on her bare breasts. “Oh, my dear God, Nathan, you are making a terrible mistake.”
“How long is it, before this cat is going to give you an attack? Two minutes? Three? Half a minute?”
“I beg of you.” Kathleen’s slender fingers stretched and scraped frantically at the belt binding her to the chair. “Let me free before it’s too late. I know absolutely nothing.”
“Are you a Communist?”
“No!”
“I know the truth. The FBI knows your whole phony setup from top to bottom.”
“I swear to you! This is absurd!” Kathleen’s nostrils flared, her eyes bulging at the cat, her breasts heaving as her stomach pressed violently in and out as she gasped for breath. “I’m innocent! Oh, Lord, don’t do this to me!”
Younger’s hand fastened on the back of the purring cat’s neck. He wanted to squeeze it, kill it. “Tell me where the Voice is!”
Kathleen’s lips pulled away from her gums as she threw her head back, gulping for air like a drowning person. She suddenly doubled forward, trying to break the hold the belt had on her, her small breasts swinging free of the robe, the nipples hard as brown stones. She flung her head back up, eyes terrified, trying to speak, the air barking from her lungs, the high pitch of her wheezing stabbing into Younger’s ears like the ice pick of the cat scratching on glass. “Nath—I can—n’t! I’m—not!”
Younger jerked the cat up by its neck, squeezing it with all his strength, hating it, hating himself as the cat clawed at his arms. He held the crea
ture menacingly before Kathleen, rubbing its struggling body slowly across her breasts up to her chin, pressing the hairy belly to her nose and mouth as she tried desperately to avoid the smothering fur, shaking her head frantically back and forth, the painful wheezing bellowing from her lungs. She looked at Younger, pleading, the whites of her eyes suddenly turning up into her head as she slumped forward, toppling the chair over. She lay on the floor perfectly still.
Younger hurled the cat disgustedly against the wall. “Tell me! Tell me and I’ll give you the shot!”
Her eyes were closed. She did not move. Her mouth was open but there was no breathing. Younger knelt next to her and pushed back the skin covering her eyes. All he could see was white. “Kathleen!” He slapped her face, his hand striking hard again and again beneath the hollow bones of her cheeks. “Speak to me!” She did not move. He grabbed the syringe and plunged the needle into her arm. “For Christ’s sake, say something!” He pulled the needle from her arm. The quick sight of blood bubbling up from the puncture in her pale skin brought a rush of blurring tears to his eyes. “You must forgive me! I know the truth. You’re not a Communist! You’ve been duped. Forgive me, oh, God, forgive me! I had to do it!” He cradled her in his arms, the tears blinding his eyes. He couldn’t see anymore. “I had to do it! I’m an undercover agent! I work for the government. It’s all been a lie! I’m not even a Catholic! Oh, please talk to me!” He pressed her entire body hard against his own, his loud sobbing filling the room as he rocked her back and forth, screaming, “I’m not even a goddamn Catholic!”
33
The Santa Ana came in unseasonably from the desert, its hot dry wind blowing through the empty streets of the Barrio. Younger quickly walked down the deserted sidewalks, the brim of his hat tipped forward to hide his face. Saturday morning was strangely quiet. No one was out. The wind rushed along the sidewalk before Younger as he hurried toward the church, clattering the short skirts of palm fronds above his head. Younger didn’t glance at the hills of early morning newspapers stacked on the corners. He had already memorized the bold headlines jumping in black ink from the front pages:
Zoot-Suit Murders Page 19
