Perfidia

by James Ellroy

  I steadied the spools and leaned into the speaker. An overture covered the titles. The fascist dissonance was stolen from Prokofiev; the heroic harmonies were stolen from Brahms. A polemical folly unfolded; the real Russians and Germans were staining the steppes workers’ red as I watched.

  I was too tired to laugh. My clothes were filthy. My muscles ached from hours of grubby work in police squadrooms. My heart just plain dropped.

  Claire De Haven and company cared for the plight of the world. Claire De Haven and company extolled tyrants and lived for adversarial cliché.

  I recognized the Russian-front exteriors. They were the grounds of Terry Lux’s sanitarium. The PD had their summer picnics there. I’d read Captain Parker’s files. The Red Queen was the uncredited writer and director. The movie was shoddily improvised. The actors tripped over one another. The battling soldiers shot BB guns. The windbag oratory was flabbergasting. Most of the Nazis appeared to be Mexican, Jewish or Greek.

  I felt sick. Captain William H. Parker sent me this. He viewed my performance at the Robeson recital and assumed my derisive laughter here. He did not stop to think that I might feel kinship with a woman this touched by the world’s horror.

  Enough.

  I turned off the projector and turned on the lights. Storm Over Leningrad swooped and died. I stood in front of a wall mirror and performed.

  The mirror was Claire De Haven. I was myself speaking to her and myself as her in reply. I ridiculed her movie for its artlessness and praised her courage in wearing her staunch heart on her sleeve. She voiced skepticism. My prairie-girl/police-consort persona was unconvincing. I was too young and feckless to have shed blood for the Red Cause. She called me a child sophisticate and critiqued my performance at the recital as artfully realized sophistry. “Are you a police informant, Katherine? You whored for a pimp and excoriated him at trial. You live with cops and off of cops and come to me with your revulsion for them as the stated basis of your credibility. Where have you been before that? I have stood before official committees and have been pilloried for my beliefs. I do not see one iota of self-sacrifice in you.”

  It was my best self-indictment as her best moment. I would meet her tomorrow, at Dr. Lesnick’s office. Her slaves would tell her that they saw me at the Anti-Axis Committee. She would be impressed that I recalled lines from Storm Over Leningrad and would not know that I had watched it the previous night. I looked in the mirror and saw myself as her. I aged ten years and became slightly dissolute and much more patrician. I lacerated myself. I outcritiqued Claire De Haven’s critique.

  It was enough to take with me. I couldn’t hold my mirror pose a moment longer. I had his mother’s number memorized and wanted to talk to him. I dialed the number and barely heard it ring.

  Hideo Ashida said, “Yes?”

  I said, “It’s Kay Lake.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Tell me what you mean.”

  “I’m saying that when the phone rang this late, I knew it was you.”

  “Were you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep.”

  He said, “It’s the war. Everyone is like that.”

  I said, “I saw Captain Parker yesterday afternoon. He was exhausted.”

  “I saw him several hours ago. He fell asleep in a briefing.”

  “I think—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Captain Parker. It seems inappropriate.”

  I said, “Tell me something. Give me an insight or provoke me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He said, “I’ve been assigned two bodyguards. I think you’re acquainted with them.”

  “Tell me who.”

  He said, “Sergeant Elmer Jackson and Officer Lee Blanchard.”

  I said, “Meet me tomorrow night. Give them the slip. We’ll have a drink somewhere.”

  He said, “Yes, as you wish.” The phone went dead then.

  The receiver slipped out of my hand. Nobody could sleep. Some of us could think as our eyes blurred.

  Captain Parker knew the movie would instill empathy. He was creating confusion and a fanatic’s fury within me. He knew I’d never back down. I was his sister in fury.

  12:37 a.m.

  Traffic death. Shoreline job. Windward and Main.

  Parker stood in the intersection. A lab man chalked the body and measured skid marks. The driver never saw the old lady. He was driving per blackout regs. The old lady stepped out of nowhere.

  The driver was all boo-hoo. He said he was fucking exhausted. The fucking Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. He hadn’t slept since Sunday morning.

  Parker sent him home. Sleep, brother. We’ll call you for the coroner’s inquest.

  A morgue van hauled off the body. The bluesuits resumed patrol. Parker wrote the report in his car. His clipboard blurred.

  He got the call outside the Deutsches Haus and drove here. He played the radio on the ride over. A newscast gave him the blues.

  That man James Larkin died at Queen of Angels. He got sideswiped on his bike Sunday morning. He was leading the Santa Monica Cycleers. The kids survived, he didn’t.

  Parker prayed the Rosary. His voice cracked. He vowed to pray for Larkin’s recovery and forgot to enact the vow. The Japs bombed Hawaii. It induced mass amnesia.

  Parker recalled an odd detail. Larkin’s going in the ambulance. A Luger grip falls from his lap.

  It was dark and cold. Hide-and-drink conditions excelled. Dudley’s boys were booking the Krauts at the Hall of Justice jail. He should be there.

  Parker drove downtown. He left the blackout zone and hit lit-up L.A. A woman jaywalked at Temple and Hill. She wore a Kay Lake–style red dress.

  Parker double-parked outside the Hall and took the cop lift up. The thirteenth floor was Axis-packed. The holding tank was all Jap.

  The booking desk featured Dudley’s boys and the five Kraut fucks. They were shackled to a come-along chain.

  Breuning said, “The skipper’s back.”

  Carlisle said, “I’m hungry. Let’s head over to Kwan’s.”

  Meeks said, “It’s Shotgun Bill.”

  Parker checked the arrest log. The Schweinehunde were penciled in. Max Affman, Robert Noble, Max Herman Schwinn. Ellis Jones and a dentist named Dr. Fred Hiltz.

  They were bruised up from the raid. Their snazzy armbands drooped.

  A jail deputy hovered. Parker said, “Book them for sedition and hold them for the Federal grand jury. No habeas, no bail. Place them on the colored tier. They might learn a few things.”

  A tall Schweinehund grumbled. Breuning backhanded him. The desk phone rang. The jail deputy got it.

  A fat Schweinehund said, “I don’t bunk with no coons.” Breuning backhanded him. The jail deputy passed Parker the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Nort Layman, Bill. You should meet me at Homicide. I’ve turned up something on Nancy Watanabe.”

  1:52 a.m.

  His favorite nightcap—coffee and Benzedrine.

  Dudley cigarette-chased them. The squadroom was empty. Dr. Ashida and Miss Lake left the place disarrayed. It kept the nightwatch lads out.

  His cubicle was spotless. He remained untapped. He made his dicey calls from pay phones. A Jew locksmith sold him slugs.

  His desk phone blinked. Aaaaaah—the photo lab.

  The night-shift man pledged a rush job on his snapshots. The man was a pervert parolee. He would not reveal the dead Jap in the pix.

  Dudley twirled thoughts. One thought persistently twirled. He missed something at the house. It was something very simple. The killer might have missed it himself.

  He twirled thoughts. One thought niggled. Call-Me-Jack burdened him with a stray job.

  The draft would deplete the Department. Cops would be conscripted willy-nilly. It would mandate emergency hires. He had to scan recent reject files for men fit to serve.

  It was niggling work. It cramped his brain waves. The Watanabe case ran fu
ll-time. It was his brain-broiler.

  He missed something at the house. He should consult bright Dr. Ashida.

  Dudley restudied the book. It was Ray Pinker’s knife-wound text. It included photographs.

  Yes—multiple blade marks. Yes—the central puncture and starburst effect. Yes—the same incision perspective.

  The photos matched the stab points on Hikaru Tachibana. He was almost certain. The lab pix would cinch it.

  Two phone lights blinked. Dudley strolled to the doorway tube chute and stuck his hand out. That whoosh whooshed. He grabbed the canister and strolled back to his desk.

  Next—the comparison test.

  Ray Pinker’s knife photos. His own knife-wound photos. Twelve text photos and seven flashbulb shots.

  He studied both sets. He went back and forth. Identical? Yes.

  Pix confirmed. Go to Pinker’s historical text.

  A Jap war knife caused the wounds. The knife derived from eighteenth-century Japan. Feudal warlords dipped the blades in slow-acting poison. Superficial wounds rarely proved lethal. Warlords superficially wounded their men to test their courage under duress.

  Deep stab wounds always proved fatal. Deep stab wounds and the poison caused slow and tortuous death. Warlords often stabbed the arms of their victims. This ensured that no pierced organs would cause instant death. Warlords often pierced their victims’ abdomens. This transmitted poison to the lower intestines. This brought about slow and horrid death.

  Dudley closed the book and stashed the photos. His brain twirled. He should study the Deutsches Haus ledger. His brain retwirled. Buzz Meeks caught the Whalen’s job. That case aspect perplexed him. Meeks might have items desk-stashed.

  It was 2:12 a.m. Robbery would be dead. Dr. Ashida’s photo gizmo snapped evidence pix. Meeks might have duplicates.

  Dudley walked over to Robbery. The squadroom was tombsville. Meeks had a horseshoe paperweight on his desk.

  The top drawer was open. Pencils, paper clips, erasers. One roll of evidence film, with a note attached.

  “T.M.: Sorry, but it wouldn’t develop.”

  Dudley crossed out the note. Dudley wrote below it, “Try again. Return the photos to me. Try harder. You’re a lazy fiend son of a bitch.”

  He walked to the tube chute and stuffed the film and note in. He hit the photo-lab switch and heard the whoosh. He walked back to his desk and studied the ledger.

  The Deutsches Haus. Sedition as pratfall. Illegal weaponry sales. Buyers would use pseudonyms. It was a long shot.

  Yes—block-printed columns. Dates and ordnance lists. Pseudonyms, as predicted.

  H. Himmler, J. Goebbels, H. Göring. “A. Hitler”—that’s rich.

  Dudley scanned pages. There’s Hirohito, Tojo, Mussolini. There’s more puerile humor, up to—

  A real name.

  Huey Cressmeyer.

  Ruth Mildred’s perv son. Ruth Mildred, Dot Rothstein’s lez frau. Ruth Mildred fucked a man to have a child that she and Dot could pervert.

  Dudley skimmed the rest of the ledger. It starred Field Marshal Rommel and A. Hitler’s squeeze, Eva Braun. He locked up the ledger. His brain Geiger-counter clicked. Two desk-phone lights blinked.

  He walked to the tube and snatched up the goodies. He walked back to his desk and unloaded them.

  The lazy fiend delivers. It’s prompt. It’s wildly serendipitous.

  Dudley examined the photos. He hypothesized the fuckups that gave him these shots.

  Dr. Ashida’s wizardly gizmo. It’s applied to the task of photographing license plates. A malfunction occurs. Car wheels hit the wire and make the shutter trip. Something jams the lens upward. Four blurred images of Huey C. result.

  It’s Huey. He’s about to heist Whalen’s Drugstore. They’re blurred images. They’re courtroom invalid. It’s Huey—but only if you know him.

  He heard foot scuffs. Bill Parker and Nort Layman walked up.

  Layman said, “Nancy Watanabe was recently pregnant. She’d had an abortion. I did advanced blood work and found stray tissue cells. The father had AB-negative blood.”

  Dudley said, “A delightful surprise.”

  Parker said, “It explains the morphine paregoric at the house. It’s prescribed for cramps in early pregnancies.”

  Layman said, “The Whalen’s guy pawed around in the paregoric. It’s in Buzz Meeks’ report.”

  2:34 a.m.

  Ashida wrote in kanji.

  He summarized his private findings. He sprayed his paper with a preflammable mist. Direct heat would burn it.

  He was relearning his mother tongue. Translation came slowly. Words came in fragments.

  He worked at the kitchen table. Mariko and Ward Littell gabbed in the living room. Bookies’ “flash paper.” It spawned his idea.

  He botched dual-language clauses. His pen skipped.

  English to Japanese and back again. Kanji to Arabic script.

  “Shortwave radio at house. Steal radio. Play new broadcasts.”

  His mind misfired. He omitted parts of speech.

  “Broken glass with fish smell at house. Shrimp residue on victims’ feet. Fish smell on man at farm property.”

  He translated and retranslated. It assured accuracy. He blew on the pages and dried the ink. He trembled. He had to sleep. He knew he’d never sleep. Kay Lake’s phone call got to him.

  It unnerved him. It made him think fantastically. Kay Lake had interdicted his brain waves. She seemed to be clairvoyant. She was immersed in Bucky Bleichert. Her erotic view of Bucky disturbed him. It granted her insight and deductive force. He was afraid that she could read his mind and decode his shameful thoughts.

  Mariko walked in. She was stinko. Ashida covered his notepad.

  “Mother, did Captain Madrano or any of the other Mexican policemen inquire about our farm labor? About replacing them or buying our farm?”

  Mariko shook her head and snatched an ice tray. Ashida heard noise outside. He tilted his chair up to the window.

  The Sumitomo Bank was open. Deputies loaded cash bags into a van. Thad Brown held a tommy gun and watchdogged the transfer.

  The van pulled out. Brown nailed a seizure bill to the door.

  Ashida went back to work.

  Kanji, Arabic, kanji. “What did I miss at the house?”

  He yawned. It hurt. He stood up and saw spots. He had to stop. He couldn’t drive home. He had to fall down somewhere close.

  His bedroom was Ward’s bedroom now. His chemistry gear was packed in the closet. He could brew sleep.

  He weaved down the hall. The door was open. He grabbed vials of fo-ti and liquid valerian. He took them to the bathroom and ran sink water into a cup. It tasted like astringent mud. He got it down in one gulp.

  The spots returned. He braced himself on the walls and made it back to the kitchen. Mariko’s rocking chair glowed some strange color.

  He fell down in it. He rocked himself to some strange place. It looked like a bank vault. The money was purple, not green. The Lake girl and the Bennett boy committed seppuku. Their blood was the color the money should be. The Bennett boy stood under a shower. Water splashed on a secret camera. He tried to form a stop sign in kanji. Kay Lake blew smoke in his face.

  He heard gunshots. His eyes burned. He opened them and saw daylight out the window. The last gunshot was the bank bell clanging. He squinted and saw the bank clock. The big hand and little hand said 1:30.

  The gunshots were the doorbell. The water was his own sweat and urine. The world was the rocking chair on the floor.

  He stumbled to the door. He opened it. Bucky Bleichert stood there.

  “Hideo, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t—”

  He hit him and hit him and hit him. Belmont ’35, green-and-black forever. Bucky stood there and took it.

  He hit him. Bucky’s blood was some strange new color. He hit him until he couldn’t hold his hands up.

  1:38 p.m

  The oppressed-workers prints were predictable. The comely receptionist af
firmed that Dr. Lesnick enjoyed young women. I was the only analysand in the waiting room; I wore a college-coed ensemble designed to tweak the doctor’s susceptibility and introduce myself as a swoony huntress of the Left. Wool skirt, white blouse, fitted navy blazer. Scuffed saddle shoes for collegiate bonhomie, and bright red knee sox. A black beret pinned with a FREE THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS button. Most of the boys had been freed, and several of the boys were by all accounts guilty. It didn’t matter. I was impervious to political reason and giddy with my own neuroses.

  I was early for my appointment. I came early to acclimate to my huntress’ habitat. I had created a narrative for my first session, based on Jung-like archetypes. I would thus designate the men in my life and both enchant and enrage Dr. Lesnick. He would be impressed that I possessed some knowledge of Jung and appalled that I had co-opted his theories so self-servingly. The sexual subtext would drive him mad and get me in like Flynn.

  A radio broadcast served up distraction. U.S. flyboys sank two Japanese destroyers. President Roosevelt would soon initiate the wartime draft. Japanese submarines were now prowling our shoreline waters. Fletch Bowron weighed in on tonight’s all-city blackout. Captain William H. Parker will meet with civil defense authorities later today. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt will attend the wingding at the Hollywood Plaza Hotel.

  The inner-office door opened. Dr. Lesnick entered the waiting room and looked at me.

  He was sixty-five years old, frail and thin. He wore a Freud beard. His fingers were nicotine-stained. He had that haunted-Jewish-refugee look. He said, “Miss Lake?” and ushered me into his office.

  The analyst’s chair, the analysand’s couch, the WPA murals. Beverly Hills meets the Dust Bowl. Lesnick closed the door behind us.

  I took the couch; Lesnick took the chair. We lit cigarettes and pulled ashtrays close. Lesnick said, “May I ask who recommended me?”

  “I went to some Young Socialist Alliance meetings a few years ago. There was a consensus that you were very good at interpreting dreams.”

  “Would you say that your dreams possess consistent themes?”