The Big Nowhere

“Yes. And?”

“And they were the ones who most loudly contended that the poor persecuted Mex boys got the railroad, were they not?”

“Yes. Sleepy Lagoon sparked the zoot suit riots, your police department ru

Mal swiveled his chair around and watched. Dudley was on a big fishing expedition, soaking up a big dose of rhetoric in the process—not the man’s style. Rolff said, “If that sounds doctrinaire to you, I’m sorry. It’s simply the truth.”

Dudley made a little pooh-pooh noise. “It always surprised me that the Commies and your so-called concerned citizens never proferred a suitable killer or killers of their own to take the fall on José Diaz. You people are masters of the scapegoat. Lopez, Duarte and Benavides were gang members who probably knew plenty of white punks to put the onus on. Was that ever discussed?”

“No. What you say is incomprehensible.”

Dudley shot Mal a little wink. “My colleague and I know otherwise. Let’s try this. Did the three Mexes or any other SLDC members proffer sincerely believed theories as to who killed José Diaz?”

Gritting his teeth, Rolff said, “No.”

“What about the CP itself? Did it advance any potential scapegoats?”

“I told you no, I told you I was in New York for the bulk of the SLDC time.”

Dudley, straightening his necktie knot with one finger pointed to the street: “Malcolm, any last questions for Mr. Rolff?”

Mal said, “No.”

“Oh? Nothing on our fair Claire?”

Rolff stood up and was ru

Dudley stayed seated, smiling. “Mr. Rolff, I need the names of five fellow travelers, people who are well acquainted with the UAES brain trust.”

Rolff said, “No. Unequivocally no.”

Dudley said, “I’ll settle for the names now, whatever intimate personal recollections you can supply us with in a few days, after a colleague of ours conducts background checks. The names, please.”

Rolff dug his feet in the grass, balled fists at his sides. “Tell Judith about Sarah and me. She won’t believe you.”

Dudley took a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “May 11, 1948. ‘My Dearest Le

Le

Dudley drove Mal back to his motel, no talk the whole time, Mal keeping the radio glued to a classical station: bombastic stuff played loud. Dudley’s goodbye was, “You’ve more stomach for this work than I expected”; Mal went inside and spent an hour in the shower, until the hot water for the entire dump was used up and the manager came knocking on the door to complain. Mal calmed him down with his badge and a ten-spot, put on his last clean suit and drove downtown to see his lawyer.

Jake Kellerman’s office was in the Oviatt Tower at Sixth and Olive. Mal arrived five minutes early, sca

Kellerman opened his i

Mal shrugged, thinking of Eisler and Rolff; Kellerman smiled. “Care to enlighten me on a rumor?”

“Sure.”

“I heard you coldcocked some Nazi bastard in Poland.”

“That’s true.”

“You killed him?”

The bare little office was getting stuffy. “Yes.”

Kellerman said, “Mazel tov,” checked his court calendar and some papers on the desk. “At preliminary I’ll start stalling for continuances and try to work out an angle to get you switched to Greenberg’s docket. He’ll fucking love you. How’s the grand jury gig going?”

“It’s going well.”

“Then why are you looking so glum? Look, is there any chance you’ll get your promotion before the grand jury convenes?”

Mal said, “No. Jake, what’s your strategy past the continuances?

Kellerman hooked two thumbs in his vest pockets. “Mal, it’s a hatchet job on Celeste. She deserted the boy—”

“She didn’t desert him, the fucking Nazis picked up her and her husband and threw them in fucking Buchenwald.”

“Sssh. Easy, pal. You told me the boy was molested as a direct result of being deserted by his mother. She peddled it inside to stay alive. Your MP battalion has got her liberation interview pictures—she looks like Betty Grable compared to the other women who came out alive. I’ll kill her in court with that—Greenberg or no Greenberg.”

Mal took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “Jake, I don’t want Stefan to hear that stuff. I want you to get a writ barring him from hearing testimony. An exclusion order. You can do it.”

Kellerman laughed. “No wonder you dropped out of law school. Writs excluding minor children from overhearing testimony in custody cases ca

Mal saw Stefan Heisteke, Prague ‘45, coming off a three-year jag of ca

“Like her dutifully schooling Stefan in Czech? Mal, she doesn’t drink or sleep around or hit the boy. You don’t wrest custody from the natural mother because the woman lives in the past.”

Mal got up, his head throbbing. “Then you make me the biggest fucking hero since Lucky Lindy. You make me look so fucking good I make motherhood look like shit.”

Jake Kellerman pointed to the door. “Go get me a big load of Commies and I’ll do my best.”

Mal rolled to the Pacific Dining Car. The general idea was a feast to pamper himself away from Eisler, Rolff and Dudley Smith—the purging that an hour of scalding hot water didn’t accomplish. But as soon as his food arrived he lost interest, grabbed Eisler’s diary and flipped to 1938—1939, the writer’s time with Claire De Haven.

No explicitness, just analysis.

The woman hated her father, screwed Mexicans to earn his wrath, had a crush on her father and got her white lefty consorts to dress stuffed-shirt traditional like him—so she could tear off their clothes and make a game out of humiliating paternal surrogates. She hated her father’s money and political co