Zoot-Suit Murders (13 page)

Younger couldn’t get near the trailer. People were running from every direction to pack around it. The door opened. Younger barely discerned the figure of the Voice in the doorway, talking. A hush came over the crowd. Then the door closed and the chant went up again with a roar, people smashing their fists against the trailer like it was a great tin drum. The door opened again. Younger strained to make out the figure in the doorway; it wasn’t the Voice. A murmur went through the crowd and there
was total stillness. Younger heard the sound of words from the figure in the doorway, but he could not understand the meaning. A fear went through him, sweat breaking out beneath his suit. The thin, distant figure in the doorway with the faint red glow around her head was Kathleen. There was no way to reach her. Younger was terrified the crowd would tear her to pieces to get to the Voice. It was impossible to save her.

The sound of Kathleen’s words ended. People did not move. The door closed. She was gone. People turned away from the trailer, pushing Younger aside as they walked off in silence. He couldn’t help grinning, smiling uncontrollably as he looked back to the shining trailer. Kathleen had turned the crowd. He didn’t know what she told them, but it was powerful.

T
he Beavers were eating the Stars alive. Sweat was dripping like rain down the sides of Angel’s face. He swung his arm wildly around, kicked his knee up before his face, and fired the ball at the Beaver third baseman with a bat cocked over his shoulder at home plate. The crowd was on its feet, screaming and booing long after the crack of the bat sent the ball straight up and over the AMERICANS SMOKE LUCKY STRIKE GREENS sign painted on the centerfield fence.

“They’re going to yank Angel now, Younger. Here comes the manager to the mound.”

“I don’t understand why the FBI just doesn’t smash him.”

“Angel doesn’t want to leave. Portland’s gotten four hits off
him from the bottom of their lineup, and still he doesn’t want to leave.”

“There’s no need for me doing this tango any longer, Senator. It’s pointless to play footsies in such a dangerous situation. This man is a threat to the nation.”

“No, they’re not taking Angel out. The manager is giving him one more shot.”

“This man is clearly seditious.”

“Have some popcorn, Younger.” Senator Kinney held the stuffed bag in front of Younger’s face. Behind the Senator’s dark glasses his eyes focused on Angel rearing up again like a terrifying marionette, his fastball slicing through the strike zone easy as an ax through butter.

Younger pushed the bag away from his face. “I didn’t come out here to eat popcorn. I came out here to pass information. To warn you of a seditious character.”

“
Take
the popcorn, Younger.”

Younger grabbed the bag angrily. “Senator, I—” The bag in his hand was heavy; a thick metal lump bulged in its lower half. Younger thought he knew the feel of the metal shape. “What’s this for?”

“We know your man is dangerous. We know you’re getting close to him. Close and warm.”

Younger wedged the bag carefully between his legs on the wooden seat, the cold metal of the gun pressing against his thighs. “Why doesn’t the FBI just bring him in?”

“Younger.” The Senator shook his head wearily. “How long have you been working for us on the home front?”

“A year, a year and a half, and I say bring the weirdo in.”

Kinney settled back in his seat as Angel struck out another Beaver and retired the side. “A year and a half maybe? Then by now you should know what your job is.”

“I know that, I just think—”

“I don’t care what you
think
, Younger. I care what you
report.
”

“So I’ve reported there is no question in my mind Mankind
Incorporated is an un-American activity. I have reported the Voice is a subversive force on the home front.”

Kinney turned the hard glare of his sunglasses on Younger. “Now listen to me. What I’m going to say makes a good deal of horse sense. If a man one day jumped up before President Roosevelt when he was throwing out the first ball at a World Series and shot him dead, do you think the FBI would kill that man on the spot?”

“Yes.”

“No. No because then they would never know why the man shot the President of the United States. The FBI would want this man alive, because any man who shoots a king or a queen, a sheik or a shah, a prime minister or a president, is politically motivated. Kill the assassin and you kill the possibility of discovering his motivation. Of course the Voice is a crazy weirdo, but he is not silly, he is not stupid, he is not a lunatic. He is a danger to our country, an immediate threat to our way of life. The Voice has been investigated in the past, but only now has he focused what before
seemed
harmless hogwash. Only now has the Voice shown himself to be clearly un-American.”

“So you want me to keep investigating?”

“That’s why the FBI hasn’t brought him in. The Voice is fronting for someone, and we’re all trying to find out who.” The Senator reached between Younger’s legs and grabbed a small handful of popcorn, flicking the puffed kernels into his mouth. “You know, Younger.” Kinney licked his salty lips. “We are just as anxious to smash the Voice as you are, smash right through his front and find out just what the hell is behind it all. There’s big money behind it, we know that. They don’t peddle enough of those little blue Mankind Incorporated bibles of theirs to pay rent on the places they preach out of in just this state alone. Now tell me, what about the progress of your relationship with the girl?”

Younger watched Angel sucker a Beaver for an outside pitch and hit a soft line drive right into the mitt of the second baseman. “Good. She doesn’t suspect anything.”

“Do you see her regularly?”

“Almost every day. The only day last week I didn’t talk to her was Sunday, the day the Voice was at the Shrine. She promised to meet me after his talk to introduce me to him. But there were a couple of thousand people trying to get to the Voice. Things got real crazy. It was impossible.”

“What about her own meetings? Do more people come?”

“All the time. Especially since the Voice was at the Shrine. She promises the Voice will make an appearance in the Barrio soon. I think she’s gaining real converts. I didn’t think so before, but now I do. There are lots of poor people willing to listen to anyone who preaches that their sons and husbands are just so much cannon fodder shot from the guns of big bankers. People will believe anything in wartime. They get confused, issues get confused.”

Kinney scooped some more popcorn from between Younger’s legs. “You’re not getting attached to her, are you, Younger? La Rue is pretty in her own odd sort of way.”

The muscles in Younger’s thighs squeezed involuntarily, pressing against the thick gun. “I do my job.”

“Good.” Kinney smacked his salty lips loudly. “That’s all that counts. Everybody pulls his fair share of freight and this war will be over before you know it. You can’t beat a united home front.”

“Only one thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how long I can keep my front up.”

“With the girl?”

“With everyone.”

Kinney stood to the music of the seventh-inning stretch and patted Younger on the shoulder. “It won’t be long now. We’ve got the Japs and the Jerries on the run. Oh, I almost forgot.” He slipped a hand inside his coat pocket and brought out a heavily taped envelope. “These are the photographs you wanted. One of these five guys is Chiquito Banana. Study them carefully. If you’re on to the top banana with this Cruz kid you’ve set up,
you’re going to have to know your apples from oranges. This Chiquito Banana is no street-fighting Pachuco punk like you’ve been used to dealing with. You’re going to need all the protection you can get.”

“What about the Admiral? Anything further turn up on him? He’s chin deep in this somehow.”

“Don’t worry, FBI guys got such a tight tail on him they can tell you how many times a day he goes to the bathroom.”

Younger slipped the thick envelope carefully into his coat pocket as Kinney started to walk away.

“Oh, yah.” Kinney came back, looking around at the fans in the bleachers above him suspiciously, then leaned over to whisper through his cupped hand into Younger’s ear. “Enjoy your popcorn.”

H
undreds of midget Santa Clauses hung between palms swayed in the dry wind. Outside Younger’s dusty window the lights down on the street were just beginning to come on, illuminating dark faces of boys playing stickball on the buckled pavement. The real contest for the excited boys was dodging cars that interrupted their stickball game, treating every new vehicle that threatened to run them over with contempt and shouts in loud Spanish, flashing their brown eyes triumphantly as the drivers honked and cursed them. The boys played each car like it was a dangerous bull that had to be contended with every evening if the larger games of life were to continue the next day. Watching the boys took Younger’s mind far away from worrying about his
brother—whether Marvin had drowned in a sea of fire or died peacefully in his sleep, unaware Jap torpedoes were ripping through the giant steel hull of the aircraft carrier. Younger was worried. He hadn’t heard from Marvin in three weeks. But sometimes the Navy censor held up all letters, especially if there was a battle going on, or one about to begin. Everything in the war seemed an afterlife to those fed only news from newspapers or letters, which always gave the facts after the fact. The ringing phone jarred Younger off his chair. He ripped the receiver off the hook and pressed it to his ear. “Yes?”

“
Orale
, hello, Younger mon?”

“Yes, this is Younger.”

“Cruz, mon, Cruz.” The voice was excited, loud, like it was shouting through the apartment door.

“Yes, Cruz. Where are you?”

“Doesn’t matter, mon. Where am I going to
be
?”

“Where?”

“Listen carefully.”

“I’m listening with both ears.”

“Hollywoodland.”

“Hollywoodland?”

“Seven o’clock. Tonight.”

“Where the hell is Hollywoodland?”

“Be there.”

“Cruz? Don’t hang up! Where is—” The phone went dead. Younger jumped up. He glanced at the clock above his hotplate on the sink counter: 6:01. Fifty-nine minutes to go clear across town to Hollywood, and he didn’t even know where it was in Hollywood he was going. He slammed the window shut, as if it somehow was saving time. In his excitement he couldn’t remember where he had hidden the gun Kinney slipped to him in the popcorn bag. Each day he moved the gun to a different location in the room, sometimes hiding it from himself. He looked under the mattress, behind milk bottles in the icebox, in his old spiked baseball shoes in the closet. He looked in the medicine chest, then dumped out the garbage bag beneath the
sink. The gun clanked out on the rug with empty cans of tuna and Campbell’s tomato soup. He tucked the gun beneath the pants belt under his coat. He felt like an idiot. He didn’t even have a holster for the damn thing. He ran stiffly downstairs into the middle of the street, the boys shouting at him for breaking up the eighth inning of their game. The driver of a cab, passing through the intersection at the end of the street in front of the red-and-white swirl of an electric barbershop pole, slammed on his brakes. Younger ran to the cab and jumped in.

“Where to, champ?”

“Hollywoodland.”

“Hollywoodland?” The driver flicked down the lever on the meter box, the numbers loudly ticking off as he started into the traffic. “Beats me where that is, champ.”

“I thought you guys were supposed to know everything.”

“Only my wife knows everything, champ, and she only tells me the half of it.” The driver ran his hand fondly over the short bristles of his graying hair like he was petting a toothbrush.

Younger was sick and tired of cab drivers. He wanted to buy a car. But what good was a car when you couldn’t get enough gas to use it? “Look, friend.” Younger handed a ten-dollar bill across to the driver. “I’m in a hurry. Couldn’t you just call in and ask if they know where Hollywoodland is?”

“Sure thing.” The driver snatched the bill and clicked the meter off, honking his horn as he tore around three automobiles in front of him, racing through the yellow light of another intersection. “This is 968, over! 968!” he barked into the mouthpiece of his two-way radio, flipping the callback switch.

“Yes, 968!” The callback voice answered immediately through loud static from the radio.

“I’m on New High Street heading west! I have a pickup to Hollywoodland. Can you direct?” The driver flipped down the switch and filled the cab with humming signals of dead airwaves.…

“Ah, Hollywoodland? Doesn’t show on our map! You sure it’s not Hollywood Hills?”

The driver looked back over the seat at Younger. “You sure, champ?”

Younger nodded his head. “Certain.”

“That is correct info!” The driver barked delightedly into the mouthpiece.

“Then drive around until you find it!” The static voice shouted back.

The driver slowed the cab and swerved sharply around a corner. “Let’s go up Sunset Boulevard to Hollywood, fastest way.”

“Fast is not fast enough.”

The driver jammed the accelerator to the floor. “Hey, you see that old church?” He jerked a thumb out the window at the high brown adobe walls of a church, its slanting red-tiled roof reflecting the sunset.

Younger barely glanced out the window at old Mexican women with black lace mantillas covering their heads walking up the steps, through arched doorways into the church. It was the same church where Younger met Kinney every other week in the confessional at three o’clock. “Sure, I know the church. Just step on it, would you? I’m not a tourist from Buffalo on a sightseeing trip.”

“My wife says it’s the oldest church in Los Angeles, built by them Spanish conquestors even.” The driver honked his horn and swerved out to pass a milk truck in front of him.

Younger thought the faster he talked to the cab driver, the faster the cab seemed to go. “Old? Boy you better believe that church is old. Oldest place in the city. It’s called Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles. Watch out for that old Chinese lady over there coming out of the market!”

“You speak Spanish, huh? What does that mean, Noostra Rayna whatever?” The driver sped through a red light just as the Chinese lady stepped down from the curb to cross in front of him.

“Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.”

“No shit?” The driver looked at Younger in the rearview
mirror. “That’s pretty, Queen of Angels. Ain’t no angels left around here.” He clucked his tongue and looked out the side window. All around the cab Chinese people hurried home from work before stores with bright lettered signs:

“No angels left here, chief, only Chinks.”

Younger twisted uneasily in his seat. “Just keep your eyes on the road, would you?”

“This whole Chinatown area nearly burned down five years ago, in thirty-eight. Too bad it didn’t all go. I’m not partial to Asiatics. My wife is right. Japs, Chinks, all those yellows are in this war together. It may not look it right now, but you’ll notice your colored peoples will always stick together against whites in the end. You ever notice that?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that about Hitler.”

“What do you mean?” The driver looked into the rearview mirror.

“Forget it. Can’t you make this old tub go any faster?”

“I’m doing forty now in downtown traffic! This isn’t exactly a new Packard I’m driving!”

In the distance Younger noticed broad skirts of palm trees silhouetted in the haze of sunset behind low buildings along the broad boulevard. Above the tall palms sparkling white bungalows with red-tiled roofs climbed jaggedly up hillsides like a primitive Mexican village hurriedly sketched against the backdrop of a cosmopolitan city. The full height of the palms came into view as the cab sped by Echo Park. Behind a small white boathouse the smooth expanse of lake was ringed by more palms. Flocks of pigeons, the underwhite of their wings flashing in last light, circled calm water toward the far shore where Younger once rowed Kathleen. He thought of Kathleen’s face, obscured beneath the broad brim of the straw hat, sunlight etching her body outlined sharply against the long thin dress, the brilliance
of her red lips, and the breathlessness of her breathing. The thought of Kathleen’s bright lips was dazzled from Younger’s mind by the abrupt reality of a golden dome, rising atop an enormous oblong building that unfolded against the sky like a concrete tulip. The gold of the dome flared blood red in the sunset.

“My wife says that temple was built in 1922 by Aimee Semple McPherson, the preacher woman. My wife says Aimee built it as a monument to herself so she would never be forgotten in this town, even after she walked into the tide and drowned herself out in Santa Monica.”

The cab driver’s sudden pronouncement jerked Younger to attention, but not to admire the incongruity of the temple they passed by. He was struck by the stark immediacy of a forty-foot-high black-and-white billboard perched opposite the temple on the roof of a mattress factory: DIALGOD. The billboard faced off against the gold dome of Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple in what appeared to be a holy duel of monolithic design against monolithic statement. Younger settled back into his seat nervously, the gun rubbing irritatingly against the skin of his stomach; the cab driver kept a suspicious gaze on him through the mirror.

“Watch out for that truck!”

The cab driver wheeled sharply back into his own lane just as Younger screamed at him, then gunned the engine and shot down the narrowing boulevard, walled in on both sides by one squared-off block of apartment buildings after another, marching endlessly, their five-story height only occasionally broken by a single-story grocery store offering a sudden relief of darkening sky behind it, like a perfect row of teeth with one tooth knocked cleanly out.

“Put it over here, driver!”

The driver pulled over in the middle of a block of stores, scraping along the high curb to a stop before a busy drugstore; above its swinging glass doors an elaborate neon scroll announced:
SCHWAB’S PHARMACY
.

“What do you want to stop here for? You got a headache or something? Need an aspirin?”

Younger swung open the door. “Everybody who comes to Hollywood to be discovered as a movie star always ends up at Schwab’s; they know everything about the town. Who better to ask?” Younger jumped out and pushed his way through the swinging doors into the crowded store. Cash registers clacked and rang like a bank of overworked typewriters. A long row of people had their backs to Younger, thumbing through racks of glossy magazines flashing the perfect faces of movie stars on their covers. A soda jerk raced up and down behind the counter, scooping ice cream and racking tin containers of milk shakes into buzzing mixers. Teenage girls in preposterously padded brassieres shouted orders at the soda jerk as they spun recklessly on high stools. Younger demanded the attention of the salesclerk at the first bank of cash registers. He pushed in front of a sailor with an armload of magazines. “Can you tell me where Holly-woodland is?” he shouted at the woman clerk in pink-and-white uniform dress.

The clerk’s hands stopped playing over the register keys, the glare of her eyes appraising Younger coldly like he was far less important than the scoops of ice cream the girls at the counter were gleefully digging spoons into. “You’ll have to wait your turn.”

“Look, lady.” Younger pressed closer to her. “I haven’t all day. I have a cab waiting outside!” He pointed urgently through the glass doors at the black-and-white checkered cab idling alongside the curb.

The clerk grabbed the magazines out of the sailor’s hands and slammed them on the counter before her, almost on top of Younger’s fingers. “I don’t care if Clark Gable is your cab driver.” She started punching the register keys. “You’ll just have to wait!” She winked at the pimply faced young sailor in recognition like he had just popped up newborn between her legs. ‘Wo one cuts in front of a United States serviceman.”

Younger looked up at the clock above the shelves of toothpaste.
It was ten minutes to seven. He turned and shouted straight into the backs of men before the magazine racks. “Does anyone know where Holly woodland is?” None of the men turned around, as if used to people coming in and rudely shouting while they singlemindedly thumbed through page after page of pulp, hoping to catch a glimpse of Betty Grable’s shapely legs swelling out of a wet bathing suit, or the broad blond smile of Lana Turner, her bigger-than-life breasts stretching beneath a sweater exactly like the giggling girls at the counter wore. “This is an emergency! Hollywoodland!”

“Hollywoodland? Brother, did you say Hollywoodland?” Down at the end of the magazine racks a man spoke without turning. From the back he appeared to be wearing a white linen suit. As he faced Younger he displayed in full the linen of his outfit, but it wasn’t a suit; it was a closely fitted white robe worn casually as a bird wears feathers. The flow of the man’s gray beard and long hair was tailored neatly around the glow of his healthy face, creased in an open smile wrinkled from decades of exposure to bright sunshine. “Hollywoodland. Yes, I know it exceedingly well, brother.”

Younger took the man by the arm, surprised to feel the muscles beneath the crisp linen still lean and taut in one so old. “Come outside and tell my driver how to get there.” Younger pulled him through the swinging doors. “He says he knows!”

“Indeed I know, all right.” The man raked slender fingers thoughtfully through his beard. “But it’s been eons since any inhabitants around here have spoken of it. I thought one and all had forgotten. But you can’t kill grand schemes and dreams. No, brother, you just can’t devalue them; they’ll always come back to haunt you like an albatross.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Younger pressed the man’s arm harder. “But we’re in somewhat of a hurry to get to this Hollywoodland. I’d like to sit around here for eons and listen to you reminisce about it, but just tell the driver where it is.”

“Brother, I don’t have to tell him, I can
show
you.” The man smiled. “You can see it right up there, from the corner.”

“Let’s go.” Younger grabbed the man’s arm again and pulled him along the crowded sidewalk.