The Big Nowhere

Layman sighed. “Da

Da

“The slash wounds on the victim’s back interested me, and I remembered Gordon Kjenzle’s wound book. Do you know it?”

“No.”

“Well, Kienzle is a pathologist who started out as an emergency room MD. He was fascinated with nonfatal assaults, and he put together a book of photos and specifications on man-inflicted woundings. I consulted it, and the cuts on Martin Mitchell Goines’ back are identical to the sample wounds listed under ‘Zoot Stick,’ a two-by-four with a razor blade or blades attached at the end. Now, the zoot stick dates back to ‘42 and ‘43. It was popular with anti-Mexican gangs and Riot Squad cops, who used it to slash the zoot suits certain Latin elements were sporting.”

Check the City/County Homicide files for zoot stick killings. Da

“Don’t thank me yet. I checked the files before I decided to call you. There are no zoot stick homicides on record. A friend of mine on the LAPD Riot Squad said 99 percent of your white-on-Mexican assaults weren’t reported and the Mexicans never took the damn sticks to each other, it was considered dirty pool or whatever. But it is a lead.”

Robe wad suffocating, hands or sash strangling, teeth biting, and now a zoot stick cutting. Why the different forms of brutality? Da

Da

Chapter Eleven

The cigars were Havanas, and their aroma made Mal wish he hadn’t quit smoking; Herman Gerstein’s pep talk and Dudley Smith’s accompaniment—smiles, nods, little chuckles—made him wish that he was back at the LAPD Academy interviewing recruits for the role of idealistic young leftist. His one day of it had yielded no one near appropriate, and starting their interrogations without a decoy at the ready felt like a mistake. But Ellis Loew and Dudley, fired up by Lesnick’s psychiatric dirt, were trigger-happy—and here they were getting ready to brace Mondo Lopez, Sammy Benavides and Juan Duarte, UAESers playing Indians on the set of Tomahawk Massacre. And now Gerstein’s schtick was making him itchy, too.

The Variety International boss was pacing behind his desk, waving his Havana; Mal kept thinking of Buzz Meeks sliming back into his life at the worst possible moment.

“…and I can tell you this, gentlemen: through passive resistance and other Commie shit the UAES is go

Dudley Smith laughed uproariously. “And a grand quiff diver she is. Dark meat, too, I’ve heard. And we all know about the late Franklin’s bent for little black terriers. Mr. Gerstein, Lieutenant Considine and I would like to thank you for your contributions to our endeavor and your hospitality this morning.”

Mal took the cue and stood up; Herman Gerstein reached into a humidor and grabbed a handful of cigars. Dudley got to his feet; Gerstein came at them like a fullback, pumping hands, stuffing Havanas in all their available pockets, showing them the door with hard back slaps. When it closed behind him, Dudley said, “No flair for language. You can take the Jew out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of the Jew. Are you ready to interrogate, Captain?”

Mal looked down at the UAES picket line, caught a back view of a woman in slacks and wondered if she was Claire De Haven. “Okay, Lieutenant.”

“Ah, Malcolm, what a grand wit you have!”

They took Herman Gerstein’s private elevator down to ground level and two rows of sound stages separated by a center walkway. The buildings were tan stucco, silo tall and humpbacked at the top, with sandwich boards propped up by the front doors—the name, director and shooting schedule of the movie crayoned on white plastic. Actors riding bicycles—cowboys, Indians, baseball players, Revolutionary War soldiers—whizzed by; motorized carts hauled camera equipment; technicians hobnobbed by a snack cart where a Roman centurion dished out doughnuts and coffee. The enclosed sets extended for nearly a quarter mile, black numbers above the doors marking them. Mal walked ahead of Dudley Smith, ru

Dudley caught up outside Set 23. Mal rang the buzzer; a woman in a saloon girl outfit opened the door and popped her gum at them. Mal displayed his badge and identification. “We’re with the District Attorney’s Office, and we want to speak to Mondo Lopez, Juan Duarte and Sammy Benavides.”

The saloon girl gave her gum a last pop and spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. “They’re on a take. They’re the hotheaded young Indians who want to attack the fort, but the wise old chief don’t want them to. They’ll be finished in a few minutes, and you can—”

Dudley cut in. “We don’t require a plot synopsis. If you’ll tell them it’s the police, they’ll adjust their busy schedule to accommodate us. And please do it now.”

The girl swallowed her gum and walked in front of them. Dudley smiled; Mal thought: he’s a spellbinder—don’t let him run the show.

The sound stage was cavernous: wire-strewn walls, lights and cameras on dollies, anemic-looking horses tethered to equipment poles and people standing around doing nothing. Right in the middle was an olive drab teepee, obviously fashioned from army surplus material, Indian symbols painted on the sides—candy apple red lacquer—like it was some brave’s customized hot rod. Cameras and tripod lights were fixed on the teepee and the four actors squatting in front of it—an old pseudo-Indian white man and three pseudo-Indian Mexicans in their late twenties.

The saloon girl stopped them a few feet behind the cameras, whispering. “There. The Latin lover types.” The old chief intoned words of peace; the three young braves delivered lines about the white eyes speaking with forked tongue, their voices pure Mex. Someone yelled, “Cut!” and the scene became a blur of moving bodies.

Mal elbowed into it, catching the three pulling cigarettes and lighters out of their buckskins. He made them make him as a cop; Dudley Smith walked over; the braves gave each other spooked looks.

Dudley flashed his shield. “Police. Am I talking to Mondo Lopez, Juan Duarte and Samuel Benavides?”

The tallest brave slipped a rubber band off his pony tail and shaped his hair into a pachuco do-duck’s ass back, pompadour front. He said, “I’m Lopez.”

Mal opened up his end strong. “Care to introduce your friends, Mr. Lopez? We don’t have all day.”

The other two squared their shoulders and stepped forward, the move half bravado, half kowtow to authority. Mal tagged the short, muscular one as Duarte, former Sinarquista squad leader, zoot suits and swastika armbands until the CP brought him around; his lanky pal as Benavides—Mr. Tight Lips to Doc Lesnick, his file a complete bore except for one session devoted to an account of how twelve-year-old Sammy molested his nine-year-old sister, a razor blade to her throat. Both men did a sullen foot dance; Muscles said, “I’m Benavides.”