Zoot-Suit Murders (7 page)

M
orning light was beginning to streak the dirty streets of the Zona Roja with a tinge of steel gray. A single jeepload of helmeted Shore Patrolmen roamed up and down long empty blocks, on guard for the crumpled forms of any sailor they might have overlooked the night before, searching in side alleys cluttered with debris of empty beer bottles and the shifting flutter of loose papers scattering in a restless wind. There was not a taxicab in sight. Younger kept walking toward the blunt concrete finger of City Hall emerging in early dawn’s gray distance. On the roof of Jimmy Zapata’s bail-bond shop a black-and-white billboard stood out clearly in half-light:
DIALGOD
. A Shore Patrol jeep came around the corner before Younger, its engine echoing off empty storefronts like the metal purr of a speedboat across a
mountain lake. One of the Shore Patrolmen from the passing jeep tipped a club to his hard white helmet in a mock salute. “How you doing, Admiral?” The Shore Patrolman’s voice caught Younger by surprise. Younger saluted the man back and laughed. It never ceased to amaze him, whether the sailors had hard white helmets on or not, they were all so damn young, like his brother, Marvin, peachfuzz-faced kids. They’d better be good killers, because it made Younger uneasy to think they were the only ones out there keeping America safe. Up toward the concrete finger of City Hall the yellow shape of a cab floated through a deserted intersection, not stopping for the flashing red light. Younger called out. It was no use. He knew the cabbie couldn’t hear him. The Shore Patrol jeep passed out of sight behind him; the streetlights flickered. He walked faster, reading the posters in store windows as he began to trot:

Every window had a large poster of a sailor drowning in a fiery sea before a sinking ship, pointing an accusatory finger above the words,
SOMEONE TALKED
!

Competing with the posters was a four-word slogan slashed in red paint on the sides and fronts of all buildings:

The yellow shape of a cab appeared again in the distant intersection. Younger ran faster, shouting for the cab to stop. It kept going. He turned down an alley, hoping to catch the cab on the next street. At the end of the alley he was nearly breathless; breaking out on the street, he saw the cab rounding the
corner and shouted. The cabbie saw him, clicking off the
UNOCCUPIED
light on the taxi roof and roaring down the middle of the street. Younger couldn’t understand why the cabbie was suddenly in such a hurry. Then he saw them, directly across the black pavement, the purple-green-and-yellow flash of their baggy suits bright as neon lights, brims of their wide hats like beaks of large angry birds as they kicked and screamed at a form in white cowering on the sidewalk before them. Younger ran across the street, the cab skidding to a stop behind him. One of the Zoots jerked around to the intrusive sound of the cab; he saw Younger running toward him and reached beneath his floppy coat. The click of a stiletto in the Zoot’s hand released a sudden silver flash of an eight-inch knife blade.

“¡
Ese
! Back off, dude! Back off! It ain’t your fight!” The Zoot waved the blade before his face, swaggering like a bullfighter straight toward Younger. “Back off or I’ll dag you!”

Younger heard the cab door swing open behind him, the cabbie shouting at the top of his lungs, “Get in, buddy! Get in!”

“C’mon home to mama!” The Zoot jabbed the knife at Younger, making a loud sucking sound with his lips as his hand slashed the blade before him, trying to distract Younger’s attention from the sailor in white on the ground. Younger saw blood running between the fingers of the sailor’s hands, protectively clutched over his face to avoid kicks coming at him from all sides.

“Get in the cab, buddy!” The cabbie honked his horn at Younger.

The Zoot with the knife snapped his head around and looked up the street. The squeal of a Shore Patrol jeep’s tires racing around the corner pierced through the roar of its engine.

“Get in, buddy,
now
!”

Younger turned, looking at the open door of the cab, then back to the Zoot. Younger screamed, not at the Zoot with the knife but at one of the two other Zoots kicking the dazed sailor. “Cruz!” He jumped in the cab and slammed the door. The cabbie
punched the accelerator, swerving the cab up on the sidewalk to miss the nearly out-of-control jeep skidding to a stop in the middle of the street.

Younger realized what he had just done, his chest still heaving as he tried to fill his lungs with air. “What are we running away for? We have to go back!”

“Go back! Are you crazy, buddy?” The cabbie fixed Younger’s panting image in the rearview mirror. “Go back and you get involved. Go back and you end up having to give testimony. You want to give testimony? I’ll stop the cab and you get out. Me, I got a job to do every night. I intend to spend my days sleeping, not giving testimony in some court. You want to get out?”

Younger looked through the back window; the sky was almost clear with the light of morning. “No, I can’t, I have to be somewhere.”

“Where to, bud?”

“San Pedro, pier 128.”

“Okie-dokie, San Pete it is.”

The city rolled out flat, away from the sun threatening to break over jagged purple peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains, into mile after mile of dry weed fields dominated by black-silhouetted factories, bare interlocking steel fingers of high cyclone fences surrounding each one. Short hills started up in the distance, pocked with forests of oil rigs pumping on the horizon. A few lights still blinked in the town of San Pedro, sprawled disorderedly along low hills against the perfect blue of the Pacific Ocean. Small one-story houses began to row out along the deserted highway. Some houses had patches of green Victory gardens stamped like miniature oases in front yards; others had royal-blue flags proudly hung in windows, each gold star on the flag indicating a son, brother, or father in uniform overseas. Behind the houses giant crisscrossed steel skeletons of the shipbuilding yards rose abruptly, forging a commanding attraction across an endless bleak landscape.

“Yah, I was in Number
One.
”

Younger became aware of the cabbie’s voice. It had been droning on like the slap of rubber tires against pavement beneath the taxi ever since they left Los Angeles.

“Leatherneck I was, fought the Heinies. But I’ll tell you, buddy, if I wasn’t over the hill as a good dogface, what I would give to get a crack at these greasy little slanteyed Jap bastards.” He angled the rearview mirror to get a closer look at Younger. “Hey, how come you ain’t in the service?”

“4F.”

“4F, what a waste. Must be tough to sit the big one out, huh? I bet you wish you were over there right now sticking those Nips, huh?” The cabbie winked in the mirror.

“No. My younger brother’s sticking it to them for me.”

“Navy or Marines?”

“Navy.”

“Buddy, you wouldn’t catch me on no washtub out there in the drink in times like these, takes real guts. Those swab jockeys got to be made of steel to fight them Jap subs and Zeros. Problem is, most times you can’t never see the yellow Jap bastards till they hit you. You tell your brother I think he’s doing a fine job. Maybe he’d like to meet my daughter when he comes back. Want to see a picture of my daughter?” Before Younger could answer the cabbie had his wallet flipped open and dangling over the seat in Younger’s face. “Ain’t she a movie star, though?”

“A regular June Allyson.” Younger tried to smile appreciatively at the picture of a woman in her early thirties, her hair pulled up in two knots above her ears, fizzed like an out-of-control spray of fireworks.

“Real attractive, ain’t she?” The cabbie slapped his wallet shut with a grin. “I keep her out of trouble over at the USO rec hall in Azusa. She meets a lot of nice servicemen there, and I don’t have to worry about some civvie getting her PWOP and jilting her. A serviceman’s got his regular wages from Uncle Sam, and if he don’t come back from overseas old Uncle is real generous with his war widow’s insurance. You know what that means, PWOP?”

“No.” Younger shook his head. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

“P-W-O-P! Pregnant without permission, buddy! That’s what them Wackies and Wavies call it. I thought you said your brother was in the Navy. He should tell you about things like that.”

“He is in the Navy, but they just yanked him out of boot camp and stuck him right on a carrier. I haven’t seen him once since. Where he is now he couldn’t get a fish pregnant if he wanted to.”

“Don’t you worry, day comes when they tie up the boat in downtown Tokyo he’ll get all the Jap nookie he can eat. That’s the way it ended when I was in Number One. That’s the way it’s going to end in Number Two.”

“Tell me.” Younger leaned forward against the back of the cabbie’s seat. “Do you see much of the kind of stuff we saw this morning in the Barrio?”

“I seen stuff that would make you puke. A lot of gals marry servicemen; soon’s the guys ship out of town, the gals go down to the Zona Roja and turn a few tricks. I ain’t just talking about Mexican gals neither. I see all colors doing it. Some kind of disease or something, makes you want to puke.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean what
we
saw.”

“Since I become a cabbie I seen everything there is for a man to possibly see, and since this war begun I seen all the
rest.
”

“Have you seen Zoots beating up sailors?”

“I seen Zoots beating up sailors and sailors beating up Zoots, so what’s new? And why not? If you was a sailor, say your brother as an instance, and come home to find a bunch of greasers that didn’t want to work hanging around in gangs on the street corners of your town dressed in those jungle bunny suits they wear, what would you do if you was a white man? I heard on Walter Winchell just the other day, Uncle Sam’s gonna outlaw them Zoot suits those spies and niggers wear anyways; they use up material that could go into making more uniforms for our boys overseas.”

“You really heard that?”

“Hey, buddy, don’t you know?” The cabbie screeched to a stop before the high wire mesh of pier 128 and turned around with a dead-serious expression on his face. “Walter Winchell never lies. Winchell gets all his inside stuff from President Roosevelt himself. It’s the straight poop.”

T
he wire-mesh gate of pier 128 was open; Younger went through. Down the long distance of the broad pier blank salt-streaked walls of packing sheds blocked access to the sea. Stacked on pallets high as three men were large wooden crates, each stamped
HANDLE WITH CARE—AMERICAL TUNA, SAN PEDRO, CAL
.

“You can’t go any farther, fella.”

Younger looked over to the man in a green guard’s uniform staring out at him through an open window of a small guardhouse inside the wire-mesh gate. “Just looking, no harm.”

The guard sipped from his thermos of coffee, wispy tufts of steam inching up his nose. “Restricted property, ’less you got an appointment.”

“Sure, I have an appointment.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” The guard unhooked a clipboard hanging from a nail above his head and flipped through the pages of names. “Who with?”

“Who with, what?”

“Who do you have the appointment with?”

A lift truck roared from the other end of the pier, its steel-forked fingers weighted with a pallet of loaded crates, the heavy timbers beneath the truck’s wheels thundering like the thick skin of a giant drum.

“What was that you said?” The guard shouted into the roar of the lift truck.

Younger waited until the lift truck stacked its load and backed off, roaring out of sight into the packinghouse. “I said I have an appointment with the owner.”

The guard racked his clipboard back on the nail. “Then you’ve got a long wait. He’s out of town on business, won’t be back till tomorrow.”

Younger backed out the gate. “Guess I got the date confused. Tell him I came by, will you?”

“Sure thing. What was the name?”

“Archibald.” Younger tipped his hat and smiled. “Archibald Fitzgerald, State Fish and Game Department.”

“All right, Mr. Fitzgerald.” The guard saluted Younger with a patronizing wink. “Will do.”

The sun was bright. Whatever it was Younger was to witness at dawn he had missed; it was already midmorning. He noticed the tower of a grain silo sticking above the warehouse roofs at the end of the pier next to the Americal packing plant. He heard steam blasts of big cargo ships and honking and braying of tugs working the crowded harbor. Above all was the clamor of warship yards, the steel din filling the narrow streets Younger walked through into the center of San Pedro. He checked into the Tide’s Inn Motel, down the street from the bus terminal. He had the desk clerk call
DIALGOD
. The line was busy. He thought of his brother, Marvin, lost somewhere out in the Pacific, the last one
in the family he still had communication with. He pulled the shade over the window of his motel room and fell wearily across the bed without taking his clothes off. The vision of Cruz’s chest crisscrossed with razor cuts refused to leave his mind. But Cruz’s face wasn’t his own; it was the grinning face of Marvin. Younger wondered if the Shitter had gotten to Marvin yet. He thought of the Shitter, another one alone out there in the wide blue Pacific, some scared kid maybe, or even an officer, letting everyone know just what he thought of the Navy, of the Japs, of the war.

A knock came lightly, like the tentative peck from a small bird on a windowpane, but it was enough to jar Younger awake. He jumped up from bed, grabbing the doorknob and pressing his back up against the door. The knock came again, right on the other side of his ear, a little tapping like a bird far away in a forest.

“Who is it?”

“Can I come in?”

Younger didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Are you the maid?”

“No, brother. I’m Tokyo Rose. I thought you’d like some home-front morale boosting.”

Younger thought he heard laughter. He cracked the door open and peeked out. A woman in blue coveralls with a red-and-white bandana knotted around her dark braided hair smiled straight into his eyes. He opened the door a crack more to see if anyone else was standing in the hall. The woman slipped right in. He closed the door quickly behind her.

“I’m Rosie the Riveter.” The woman pressed close to Younger. She turned her lips up to him and winked. “Don’t you know who Rosie the Riveter is?” She slipped her arms around Younger’s neck. “Why don’t you lie back on the bed like a big ol’ Victory ship, then I’ll do a job on you for the good of ol’ Uncle Sammy.”

Younger pried the grip of the woman’s fingers from behind his neck. “Lady, I think you have the wrong room!”

“Every room is the right room.”

Younger grabbed the woman around the waist; she didn’t have anything on under the coveralls. He lifted her up and set her down at arm’s length from him. The top of the coveralls were unzipped from her neck, down to the deep V of her very large breasts. “I know you got the wrong room, lady.”

“Come on, Mac.” Her fingers fiddled with the zipper between her breasts. “Don’t be a palooka; give a working gal a break.”

The sudden rasp of the zipper was loud in Younger’s ears as it traveled down to the woman’s waist, exposing her bare stomach, one finger lodging lightly in her belly button.

“How about it, Mac?”

“How much?”

“Ten.”

“Five.”

“Oh, brother!” The woman started to pull the zipper back up. “Who do you think you are, Andy Hardy?”

“Okay.” Younger held his hand up in surrender. “It’s a—”

Before Younger could get the last word out the woman was on him, her mouth coming straight over his lips, sucking the air from him. He tried to feel her loose breasts but she belligerently pushed his hand away, pressing her body against him, her own hand going beneath the coveralls. He felt an urgent movement on his chest as her fingers stroked freely over her breasts, pinching the thick nipples. His own breath came wildly back from her mouth. She panted loudly, her free hand going between his legs, clinging desperately like a starfish to a smooth rock. She slipped the hand fondling her breasts deep inside her coveralls. She gasped, moving her fingers between her legs, raising up on the quick rubbing of her hand as she squirmed against Younger. He locked his arms around her arched back, bucking against her as she moaned in rhythm to the frantic stroking of her hands probing between both their legs. Her lips sucked off of him, slipping free from the bite of his teeth, her eyes wide open and on him as she brought her hand back up from between her legs, over the hard thrust of her breasts, and covered his mouth. The damp smoky scent of her slippery fingers
quickly filled his nostrils. She rubbed the taste of her slickness roughly over his lips. The starfish suction of her hand between his legs spread across his belly, far into his groin like a hot wave. She forced open his lips, driving her tongue through damp fingers deep into his mouth. All across his belly the hot wave was very wet, very urgent. She pulled back from him, cocking her head to one side like she was about to scold a very bad child.

“Oh, shoot, you got your pistol off already!”

Younger stood alone in the middle of the room, shaking, barely aware of the sweat coming down along his cheeks. In the spotlight of small scattered bits of sunshine knifing into the room from behind the window shade the heaving of the woman’s large breasts seemed very far from him, as if she was an untouchable passionate actress on a distant stage. He couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. He wanted to step into the spotlight and cover her breasts with his hands, make her tremble beneath him, break the power she held over him. She had manipulated him like a puppet, jerked the right strings to vent his lust. She had sold him the sizzle without the steak, made a joke of his vulnerable manhood. He wanted to penetrate her flesh until she cried his name. But she didn’t know his name, and like all the others he had taken quickly in a great fumbling of false emotions, she didn’t want to know it.

“Well, I guess that’s it.” She zipped her coveralls carefully over the full swell of her breasts. “Andy Hardy meets Rosie the Riveter.”

“I don’t know what came over me.” Younger heard his voice come out awkwardly into the stillness of the room. “I usually don’t—”

“Forget it, Andy. We all have our odd days.”

“But I’ve never—”

She put a finger to her lips and blew out a big “Shush! No harm done, the country will survive. You’ve been a good scout. Now, if you’ll pay up, little Rosie will be on her merry way.”

Younger reached into his pocket. “How about five bucks? We only did it halfway.”

“Now don’t be a naughty boy, Andy.” The woman placed her hands on her hips, tapping her foot in rapid bursts of irritation. “Be a good sport. You know what the generals say. Napoleon never got all the way to Moscow, but he was man enough not to ask for half his army back.”