Zoot-Suit Murders (4 page)

H
e waited at the bottom of the church’s cement steps. Everyone else had left and he knew she was still in there. What was left of the moon was a silver sliver, barely enough light slipping off it to see more than ten feet. Inside the church the lights had been off longer than a half-hour. He could see up to the top of the steps, over the closed door, where letters of an old sign long since torn down left their sun-faded outline, still spelling clearly
FIRST MEXICAN BAPTIST CHURCH
. She walked quickly down the steps, her arms full of little soft-covered blue books. She would not have noticed him standing in the shadows if he hadn’t suddenly lifted his hat.

“Mr. Younger?” The silver light cut across the blue of her
eyes, which seemed to glint like a startled animal’s. “Is that you?”

Younger almost choked on his gum. He swooped his hat all the way off in greeting, his words coming out hoarse and hesitant. “Yes, ma’am, I mean Miss La Rue. I thought it being so late and dark, you might allow me to accompany you home. The Barrio is not the sort of place a lady should be walking through alone at this time of night, especially since we are so close to the Zona Roja.”

“Mr. Younger.” Kathleen watched him screw the hat back on his head and tip the broad brim low over his eyes. “I have walked home every Saturday night for the past six months through this neighborhood without one incident. Surely you don’t believe all the slanderous stories printed in the
Examiner
about white women not being safe in the Barrio? I think I have much less to fear from Midwestern sailors than the good people around here.”

“Well, ma’am, there is a war going on and, ah, during wartime people do things they might not otherwise do, and, ah, what with the odd-night Civil Defense blackouts just going into effect again, I thought—”

Kathleen walked straight to Younger and looked up beneath the felt brim hiding his eyes. “Mr. Younger, are you trying to pick me up? Do you take me for some kind of Tallulah?”

“No, ma’am, I was just trying—”

“Because if that is your intention, forget it. I haven’t the energy or inclination for such frivolity. I am a dedicated lady, Mr. Younger, dedicated with soul and body to my vocation.”

“I’m dedicated too; that’s why I thought in the interest of—”

“Is this the reason you have been coming to these meetings, thinking you could pick me up? Sitting in the back pew all these weeks with never a word, never a question. You think I don’t notice you back there? You don’t look at anybody else, you don’t talk to anybody. You just buy the new weekly study books and go on your way.”

Close up, with her standing beneath him, staring directly into his eyes, Younger was surprised at how much taller she was than he always thought. The top of her head reached above the loose broad knot of his necktie.

“If you’ve been waiting around to pick me up because you think I’m a terribly lonely, silly, frustrated, and stupid female, Mr. Younger, then you’re dead wrong.”

“No, Miss La Rue.” Younger tapped his hat to leave. “I never once thought those terrible things. It was just extra dark and I thought—”

“You thought you could pick me up.” Kathleen turned her head so the silver light caught the animal glint in her eyes again. “After all, as you say, it’s wartime.”

Younger lowered his head, the brim of his hat covering his entire face, the shame in his voice cracking his words guiltily. “I honestly meant no offense, Miss La Rue.” He turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Younger felt her fingers lightly touch his sleeve in the darkness. It seemed the touch of a small child. He raised his head and her hand was gone, clutching the load of books to her breasts.

“You can escort me home.” In the silver light her red lips seemed purple. “After all.” She smiled. “It really
is
wartime.”

Younger fell into step with her as she started to the corner. “How did you know my name?”

“Last month. …” she spaced her words, her breathing becoming heavy as she walked, “don’t you remember in the legislative hearing room? We were both subpoenaed.”

“Oh, yes, that … I almost forgot.”

“And I suppose you also forgot we both sat through days of preliminary hearings for the Zoot-suit murderers’ case?” Kathleen looked at him suspiciously. “This way, Mr. Younger.” She turned sharply around the corner onto Flores Street.

Younger tried to think of a way to erase the sudden look of suspicion from Kathleen’s face. He stopped and blurted out, “Would you care for a stick of Juicy Fruit?”

Kathleen looked at him even more suspiciously, then laughed. “Of course.”

Younger peeled the foil off a wrapper, slipping the gum through his fingers up to the purple of her lips. Kathleen smiled, her soft lips parting, her tongue quickly taking the gum into her mouth.

“What am I thinking of?” Younger took the load of books from her, freeing her arms. “What kind of a stiff am I for not offering to carry your books?” He balanced the books against his chest and popped his gum loudly as they walked alone down the dark sidewalk, toward the crowded figures in the shadows of the distant corner. From the outline of shadows, oversized slouched hats, broad-shouldered sport coats, high-waisted baggy pants radically tapering in tight around the ankles, the occasional glint of looped chains dangling from hips, almost scraping the sidewalk as they swung back and forth, Younger knew what was ahead: a gang of Zoot-suiters.

The high wail of an air-raid siren screamed from the distant direction of the blunt, cement needletop of the City Hall downtown. The Zoots were like a startled, roaming band of zebras hearing a lion’s bloodcurdling roar. They broke and ran, their oversized shoes slapping like hard hooves on the sidewalk as they disappeared into darkness.

“How much farther do we have to go?” Younger’s arms ached from the books weighting his arms.

“You’re not worried about the air-raid siren, are you?”

“No, it’s just another Civil Defense drill.” Younger shifted the load of books, trying to keep his awkward grip on them.

“Then slow down. I can’t keep up with you.”

Younger waited for Kathleen to catch up. He had lost sight of her. The silver slice of moon had drifted behind the full height of a downtown skyscraper, casting the empty streets into absolute blackness. Kathleen’s breath came to him in the darkness, a slight whistling wheeze, almost the exact insistent pitch of a steaming tea kettle.

“Ah, there you are.” Kathleen’s words broke the wheezing
of her breath. The light touch of her hand traced the outline of Younger’s arm like he was a statue. She moved away. He heard the sound of keys jangling and the metal of a key scraping into a lock, then a doorknob twisting. Her hand came back to him and she pulled him through the open door, locking it behind them. She reached above her head, groping through the air until she found the pull chain for the light switch and tugged it, illuminating a long curved flight of stairs, ascending steeply into further darkness. “You’ll have to let me hold on to you.” She slipped her hand underneath Younger’s arm. “It’s a long way to the top; it always exhausts me.”

Younger took the steps slowly, pausing at the top of each landing as Kathleen leaned against him, her body feeling like it was going to slip away as she gasped for breath.

At the top of the third landing, Kathleen unlocked the door to her apartment. “You wait here.” She turned to Younger, then disappeared inside.

He heard the striking of a match. Light flickered along the narrow hallway of a large apartment, then brightened. He saw her coming, holding a candle before her, its dancing red flame the same color as her lips and hair. He followed her down the hallway into a warm living room. She lit more candles, until the shapes of two overstuffed yellow chairs with intricate lace doilies dripping over their arms and backs became distinct. He sat down.

“Here, let me take those books.” Kathleen smiled apologetically at Younger. “I’m so sorry you had to carry them all that way.” She took the books from his arms. They were tied in bundles of ten, each one identical, with bright blue bindings. Embossed in gold on the covers was the globe of the earth supported by two clasped hands. Circled around the globe was the vivid legend
MANKIND INCORPORATED
. She set the books neatly along the wall, piled ceiling high with stacks of the same bright blue books.

“How many of those are in print?”

Kathleen knelt on one knee before the books, looking proudly
along the length of wall almost hidden by solid blue bindings. “The International Registration Bureau claims there are over two million. Someday it will replace the Bible. The Latin Service Bureau has sold a thousand in six months, but we are still far from the ultimate goal of universal salvation.”

Younger watched Kathleen carefully as she stood up, giving a little gasp as she took in more air, her hands nervously straightening the cotton dress. She was so thin the hipbones below her narrow waist stood out sharply against the loose material of the dress. “Why don’t you turn on the lights, Miss La Rue?”

“Because I read in Walter Winchell that when the blackout drill is on it’s better to use only candlelight. It’s softer than electric bulbs and harder for enemy bomber pilots to see from a distance.”

Younger shifted uneasily in his chair, trying to think of something more to say before she asked him to leave. “I’ll have to try that with the candles, a neat trick, anything to support the war effort.” He fumbled in his coat pocket. “Care for another Juicy Fruit?”

“No, thank you, Nathan.” She spoke his name intimately, as if she had known him for a very long time. “But I would like it if you would—”

“That’s okay, I’ve stayed too long already.” He jumped up from the chair and tipped his hat. “I’ll leave now.”

“No.” She laughed. “Sit down. You were so kind tonight and I was so suspicious, uncharitable really. What I was going to say was I would like to invite you to stay for a nice cold bottle of Coke.”

“I’d love one.” Younger fell back into the deep chair and slipped another stick of Juicy Fruit into his mouth, delighted with his good fortune. He listened contentedly to Kathleen humming in the kitchen, hearing her lift the top of the icebox open, the short hiss of carbonation escaping from the tops of two Coke bottles. He twisted his head around, trying to read as quickly as possible in the flickering candlelight titles of books behind the glassed-in doors of the library shelves:

INTERNATIONAL BANKERS CONSPIRACY,
REMARKS BY DEPT. A
NU’ERA TOOLS: LETTERS FROM
A WORLD SAVER TO HIS SON
I, UPTON SINCLAIR, GOVERNOR OF
CALIFORNIA,
AND HOW I ENDED POVERTY
THE HIDDEN RULERS:
DEALERS IN DEATH
WE ARE NOT CATTLE: REPORT TO
INTERNATIONAL VIGILANTES BY
DEPT. A
THE TRUTH ABOUT ENGLAND
MAN THE UNKNOWN

Younger hadn’t heard of most of the titles, let alone read the books. But he had read in the newspapers about Dr. Alexis Carrel, the man who wrote
Man the Unknown
. Carrel won the Nobel Prize for devising a technique of suturing blood vessels during surgery. He achieved greater fame with his crusade to have all those guilty of insane or criminal acts, or born with serious mental or physical handicaps, disposed of in inexpensive euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gases. It was odd, Younger thought, watching Kathleen return smiling from the kitchen, she was just the kind of physically unfit and defective person Carrel would like to see winnowed out of the human race.

“Here you are, Nathan.” Bubbles of dark carbonation fizzed over the top of the glass of Coke Kathleen held before him.

Younger sipped the cold drink, watching Kathleen over the rim of the glass as she sat in the fat chair across from him, crossing her thin legs beneath the cotton dress. He noticed how delicate the bones of her hands were, standing out against the flesh of her fingers as she held the moist glass to her lips.

“You do much reading, Miss La Rue?”

“Yes, every spare moment I can get is devoted to my education.”

“Have you read this extraordinary book by Dr. Carrel?”

“Of course. I’ve read everything on these shelves. Wisdom is armament.” She pursed her red lips so they barely touched the cool rim of the glass.

“Have you …” Younger’s eyes scanned the wall of blue books behind her. “Have you been a member of Mankind Incorporated for many years?”

“No, not really, although it seems like a lifetime. I don’t consider myself even being alive until I joined the ceaseless quest for universal peace. I’ve given up everything for it, and it has given me so much in return. We have a plan by which student ministers can willingly donate fifty percent of their income to the pursuit of perfect understanding by supporting the experiments the Sponsors instituted. But I gave everything I had. I don’t want to be part of the dog-eat-dog profit system. My humble actions and small efforts will bring the day closer when there is a guaranteed samesize paycheck for everyone, from the President to a ditchdigger, all equal.”

Kathleen’s voice was so soft with strong confidence that Younger found himself falling toward her in his mind. He watched her lips move, trying to remember when he had felt in such a strange way before; it was all so secure, familiar. As she craned her neck forward to take another sip of Coke, he remembered. It was the same far-off sweet brush of air he had felt when his mother bent over him in bed as a child, her close tender words sending him securely into the dark unpredictable voyage of another night.

“Do you mind me asking all these questions, Miss La Rue?”

Kathleen ran her thin fingers along the sheer white of her temple, the tapered fingertips darting out of sight beneath a fall of red curls. “I never tire of speaking my beliefs. It is a sin not to.”

“Are you from Los Angeles?”

“Oh, no, I’ve only been here six months. I’m from up north. I lived in San Francisco all my life until I went to college in Berkeley. San Francisco still exerts a great, almost desperate pull on my life. It was there, after the 1906 earthquake, the Sponsors decided they must act before the Hidden Rulers split the earth asunder. Once the inevitable extermination of the Hidden Rulers occurs, San Francisco will become the center of the universe’s stabilizing vibrations. The Sponsors brought the One True Voice to San Francisco while he was still a boy for thirty years of instruction in the select International Legion of Vigilantes. The Sponsors entrusted him to become Department A, delivering their Word across America. When I met him on the campus at Berkeley, he stunned my life. It was as if he unlocked the door to my heart, walked up the steps of my being, and kissed my very soul. I was fortunate, I was saved. But so many have not heard the Word, so many who don’t know the end is near.”