Zoot-Suit Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

fluorescent lights spotted with fly specks. The cool flickering light played through the woman’s shining red hair; fire-engine red lipstick gave the provocative pout of her mouth an unearthly appearance against the ghost white face. Her mouth seemed to have a life of its own. The woman’s tortured breath snaked like smoke from a cave, her hesitating tongue glistened brightly while she struggled to bring her story clearly into the room, so even those in the distant rear could hear her wonders.
    From his seat in the back pew of the room, Younger cocked an ear to Kathleen La Rue’s ethereal words, straining his right shoulder forward like a catcher waiting to take a tricky pitch.He had heard her speak before, during the five-day preliminary hearing of the Zoot-suiters, but he had never really
listened
to her until this moment, never noticed the absolute blue of her eyes, like the dazzling crust of an ice pond reflecting its sheer blue vision of a winter sky. The fifty people crowded into the room seemed suspended on the slippery surface of La Rue’s blue gaze, out on the dangerous middle of the ice pond, waiting for the net of her words to save them.
    “Swiftly, and without effort, the two men climbed to the top of a mountain towering above the clouds.” La Rue’s words stopped, her thin chest heaving, as if she herself had just scaled the great heights of the pinnacle. Then her eyes widened in absolute wonder. “There, upon a vast plain far below the men, appeared an awesome sight. Behind a great impregnable wall lay a beautiful city of gracious homes, spacious gardens, schools, churches, shops, factories, stores, everything for happy and contented living. A large luminous sign floated celestially above this marvelous apparition: THE CITY OF ETERNAL BROTHERHOOD . Before the wall was a group of International Vigilantes making ready to swing back the great gates of the fabulous city to all humanity’s bewildered and suffering masses.” La Rue hesitated until the broken breath of her words could catch up with her wondrous vision. Suddenly, without warning, the brightness in her eyes faded, her gaze going to the back of the room, falling upon Younger, filling with terror as she continued. “Advancing at fearful speed upon the city appeared an awful figure, an awesome Green Monster with blood-drenched hands, large glittering teeth, and terrible eyes breathing withering death and destruction, War. The Monster of War, accompanied by his followers Greed, Fear, Lust, Love of Money, Famine, Pestilence, was driving relentlessly on to keep the people from entering the City of Brotherhood.”
    Kathleen shifted her gaze from Younger and looked directly at the old Mexican woman sitting alone in the front pew, her thin voice asking the old woman in horror, “Do you think those people can get the great gates of the city open?”
    The old woman shook her head in a hard
no
.
    “Who are those people at the great gates, banging desperately on the impregnable wall?” Kathleen’s question went to every person in the room. She answered the blank looks. “They are Mr. and Mrs. Average Citizen. They are Mr. and Mrs. General Public, and they cannot open the gates to the City of Brotherhood. But”… she allowed the bright red of her lips to smile in recognition, “the people inside the city recognized those at the great gates as something beyond just being Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Q. Public, for all those at the great gates were International Vigilantes, who wore proudly a badge upon their breast, a beautiful shining emblem that shielded them. It was deep blue with the globe of the world etched in gold; the earthly sphere was upheld by clasped hands of Brotherhood and Sisterhood. In dazzling letters around the gold globe were the words MANKIND INCORPORATED . The great gates to the City of Eternal Brotherhood swung open!”
    Kathleen’s shoulders slumped, the breath from her lungs spent from the intricate weaving of her tale. Exposed