12:04 a.m.

Dudley stood at the window. Ashida saw it. He made a green light and cut east. Dudley disappeared.

The rain subsided. He checked his rearview mirror every few seconds. His face still looked the same.

He toured Mexico with the Dudster. He thought he’d look different.

Kay Lake shivved a woman and looked different now. He thought he’d go the same route.

It was Christmas weekend. It was raining. There was no traffic. Dudley said, “Omit my name. Do whatever you deem prudent.”

He knew most of it. He understood the Fifth Column text. Saul Lesnick had tiny feet. It was not binding proof. He could not name the white man in the purple sweater. Jack Webb described the man. He was “heavyset” and “middle-aged.” Saul Lesnick was old and thin.

The USC Library was open-all-night. Law students were night owls. He was a night owl. He cooked up a scheme on the ride back.

He left 282 Ord at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday. Lin Chung and Saul Lesnick paced and argued on. He played a hunch and drove to the Hall of Records. The hunch played off Pierce Patchett’s calls to Lin Chung.

Said calls—12/19, 12/20, 12/21. Patchett’s only calls to Chung. Patchett calls Terry Lux sixteen times those three days.

The Hall was paperwork-swamped. He quick-skimmed a recent transaction list. Lin Chung owned twelve houses in the San Gabriel Valley. He had second-mortgaged all of them. The transactions all occurred on Monday, 12/22/41.

Patchett, Lux, Chung. Telephone lists. Hurried money scrounging. His theory was this:

Lux and Chung wanted in on the prison-camp deal. Patchett exhorted them to raise scratch. Convergent schemes were brewing. Come on—outbid Dudley and Ace Kwan.

He drove by all twelve houses then. He looked in the windows. He saw movie cameras on tripods and bedrooms that resembled smut-film sets. He saw rooms with mattress-covered floors.

Let’s house Japs in plain sight. Great minds think alike. Dudley and Ace concocted the scheme. Let’s usurp the scheme now.

Now he knew this:

The houses were smut-film sets. Only that explanation sufficed. The houses would also hide Japanese saboteurs.

Madness. Racial insanity.

Lin Chung was Chinese and anti-Japanese. He was a fascist-eugenicist and friend of left-wing Saul Lesnick. War profiteering superseded racial-political ties. Let’s make money off innocent Japanese and assist the Jap enemy.

The rain let up. Ashida hit USC and parked outside the library. He ran inside. He knew the place now. He knew specific law books.

“Whatever you deem prudent.”

Let’s prevent more sabotage. Let’s blitz the slave-camp deal. Exley, Patchett, Lux and Chung might desist. They could be legally dissuaded. They were not killers of the Smith-Kwan ilk.

Ashida read textbooks and jotted notes. They comprised a legal brief.

Memo to William H. Parker. Here’s twelve questions for Terence Lux, M.D.

They all require “yes” or “no” answers. None of them touch Dudley. They circumscribe the Bedford Drive and Mexican revelations. They would reveal wisps to Parker. They would tell Lux this:

I know all about it. You and the others DESIST.

Ashida wrote it all out. Ashida folded his notes into a Christmas card and dropped them in an envelope.

He felt weightless. He smelled Dudley’s wet tweeds on his skin.

The library was stuffy. Ashida walked outside and gulped cold air. He got his car and drove to Silver Lake. He parked outside Parker’s house.

The living room light was on. He walked up and dropped the card in the mail slot. He checked the window.

Parker sat in an easy chair. He stared at a photograph. It was probably the big redhead.