by James Ellroy
Hodaka fidgeted. He fretted his jail wristband. He’d chewed his cuticles raw.
Ashida smiled. “You’ll get Mr. Hodaka habeas.”
Parker said, “Not today. He’s more useful here.”
3:12 p.m.
More hissing. More spit globs. More synchronized this time.
Traitor, traitor, traitor.
They reversed their way back down the catwalk. Parker took the lead. He ignored the taunts and spittle. His feet still looked wrong on the floor.
They walked through the sally port and out to their cars. Parker peeled off first. He fishtailed and kicked up grit.
Two-car convoy.
Parker took the lead. Ashida trailed him. He had a choice rear-window view.
Parker sucked on his flask. Parker weeeeaved his black-and-white. Ashida bumper-lock tailed him. They kept their windows down. Parker played his civilian radio. It was soaring Bruckner, too loud.
Northbound. Pedro, Gardena, mainland L.A. Over to Broadway. Chinatown, straight ahead.
Parker U-turned and swerved up to Kwan’s. Ashida braked and got out of his way. Parker bumped the curb and stalled dead by the entrance. Ashida parked across the street.
The Pagoda was gussied up. The doorway dragons wore Christmas wreaths. A Santa sled was perched on the roof. A sled banner read REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR!
Parker stashed his flask and gargled up some mouthwash. He spit it out the window and spritzed a passing Ford. A passenger lady evil-eyed him. Parker flashed his middle finger and lurched from the car.
Ashida watched. Parker got a grip on the street and pushed off. He stumble-walked. He entered the Pagoda. Ashida ran up behind him.
The dining room was cryptsville. Busboys lounged near the kitchen. Uncle Ace sat at his favored table and read a comic book.
Parker used chair backs as handholds. He stitched a course and made it over. Ashida walked a step back.
Uncle Ace looked up. Parker slid into a chair. Ashida sat down beside him.
Uncle Ace said, “Yes?”
Parker said, “We have several questions.”
He slurred it. His breath reeked. Uncle Ace hitched his chair back.
“Yes? I hope I have the answers for you.”
Parker pulled out his cigarettes. Three match swipes got one lit.
“A man named James Namura. His moniker is ‘Jimmy the Jap.’ We need to know his whereabouts.”
Uncle Ace slid his ashtray over. “I do not know Mr. Namura, or know of him.”
“I think you do.”
“I assure you that I do not.”
“I think you do.”
“It insults me that you repeat yourself. Describe Mr. Namura, so that I may better understand why you so persist.”
Ashida watched. The busboys watched. They cleaned their fingernails with switchblades.
Parker said, “Here’s your description. He was seen a few days ago, and was noted as being ‘recently facially scarred.’ A plastic surgeon named Lin Chung is a ranking member of your tong, I know that you’re friends with a plastic surgeon named Terry Lux, and that you supply the opiates that Dr. Lux employs at his clinic in Malibu. Chief Horrall is indebted to you, but at this moment, I don’t care.”
Uncle Ace shook his head. “You are out of your depth, Whiskey Bill. I advise you to go home and sleep it off.”
Parker flushed. Uncle Ace pulled out a stiletto and scratched his neck with the blade. Parker pointed to Ashida.
“This man is Japanese.”
“Yes, and he is locally celebrated and honored for his forensic expertise.”
Ashida blushed and sat on his hands. It always quashed swoons.
Uncle Ace said:
Ashida quick-translated. “I am happy to meet you, Doctor. I understand your embarrassment in this moment.” It was perfect Japanese.
He stood and bowed. Uncle Ace stood and bowed. Parker went cardiac red.
He poked Ashida. It hurt. Ashida’s arm went numb.
“You hate the fucking Chinese. Don’t tell me you don’t. Run this interrogation and get the information we need.”
Ashida said: Ashida brain-translated back. “I bear Mr. Kwan only goodwill.”
Uncle Ace smiled.
Parker said, “You dirty yellow savages. How fucking dare you?”
Uncle Ace winked at Ashida. Uncle Ace resumed his knife manicure.
Parker said, “Hit him.”
Ashida said, “No.”
Uncle Ace smiled.
The busboys watched. Ashida watched them. They held their knives against their legs.
Parker said, “Hit him.”
Ashida said, “No.”
Uncle Ace smiled.
The busboys stepped forward.
Parker said, “Hit him. You’re a fucking Jap coward if you don’t.”
Ashida said, “No.”
Uncle Ace laughed and winked. Parker stood up.
His knees bumped the table. The ashtray jumped. Cigarette butts flew. Parker jumped and went for Uncle Ace. Parker fell on the table, face-first.
Uncle Ace slid his chair back. Parker’s weight dumped the table. The legs snapped. The table hit the floor. Parker rode it down, face-first.
Uncle Ace smiled at Ashida and walked to the kitchen. The busboys followed him in.
Parker flailed and tried to stand up. His glasses had shattered. Ashida knelt and held him down. The table creaked under their weight.
He’s disordered and ruled by puerile emotion. He’s not Dudley Smith.
3:39 p.m.
I drew Scotty as he slept. I kept the bedroom dark and used the nightstand lamp as a framing device. It’s midafternoon now; Scotty arrived in a state of up-all-night exhaustion. We live in an around-the-clock city. The sleeping Officer Robert S. Bennett exemplifies it.
Scotty’s muscles are bunched and plainly reveal his recent exertions. He worked a Chinatown rope line last night, got fitful sleep in the Bureau cot room and went back to duty with his fellow Dudster goons Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle. It was hours of file work on the “chump change” Watanabe murder case, which has planted a “wild hair up the ass” of Chief Jack Horrall. A trip to the Fort MacArthur stockade followed. It all inexplicably pertained to shrimp oil, fish oil, glass shards and the Watanabe house. Goons Breuning and Carlisle checked an arrestees’ log, secured the address of a fish-canning setup operating out of a Japanese truck farm, and hustled Goon Scotty out to the far-east end of the San Fernando Valley. Goon Scotty found the journey south and precipitously north perplexing; it all pertained to “these white guys” trying to buy “Jap” property—sheer gobbledygook to him. Goon Breuning and Goon Scotty strongarmed the Japs as Goon Carlisle cleared out canning equipment to avoid a “public safety hazard.” Goon Breuning spoke pidgin English to the Japs, who revealed “goose egg.” Goon Scotty was ordered to slap the Japs around, while Goon Carlisle exhorted them to silence. Goon Scotty still didn’t know what the Dudster and his lads were after. My sweet boy didn’t like slapping around passive Japs, although he’d killed a “Chinaman” Thursday night.
Early-wartime Los Angeles and around-the-clock adventures. My rough boy, clenched in his sleep.
I shifted the lamp and threw light on the bed space beside Scotty. I drew Claire De Haven as herself and Claire as Joan of Arc. I placed the two hers beside my naked lover. I studied the drawings and saw how Claire achieved such seamless transformation.
It was all belief. She did not exist beyond her imagination. Thinking things so made them so. She feigned irony and possessed only zealotry. She seized on William H. Parker and me because we were both of her ilk. We were both her enemies and her only blood kin.
It was dusk now. I turned off the lamp and got back into bed beside Scotty. My rough boy was deeply asleep. I put my head to his chest and felt the cadence of his heartbeat.
Lee came home. I heard him enter his separate bedroom and shut the door behind him. Dance music drifted from clubs down on the Strip; a bright moon skittered throug
h storm clouds and lit Scotty up at odd moments. I thought of Claire’s party coming up next Monday night and wondered why Dr. Lesnick’s office hadn’t returned my call requesting a second appointment. The probable answer? Claire had spoken to the traitorous doctor. She said, “Let it go, Saul. She’s mine.”
Such sleep. Robert Sinclair Bennett, such a spell you’re in. You’re off in the shadow play of Dudley Smith. You’re in as deep as I am with William H. Parker.
I lay there for hours. The music began to soften as 2:00 a.m. neared. “Moonlight Serenade” always announced last call at Dave’s Blue Room. How many times had I dreamt that Bucky and I would dance to that tune? Where did Hideo Ashida’s dreams of Bucky take him?
“Moonlight Serenade” ebbed away from me. I opened my eyes in a daylight-bright bedroom. Scotty was gone.
The door was half-open. Scotty was out in the hall. He was dressed in yesterday’s clothes. He was talking with Lee.
Scotty, in his shoulder holster and tartan bow tie. Lee, in his uniform.
They stood too close to each other. Lee said, “I could take you.” Scotty hooked a thumb back to me. He said, “You know where I’ll be if you’d like to try.”
Rough boys—neither one blinked.
7:27 a.m.
Helen went to Mass. He should have gone. Dudley Smith scared him away.
Parker stood in his den. He sipped an eye-opener and stared at his graphs. Watanabe Case/Details-Chronology hexed him.
Dudley shot him a second summary. It hit his tray before that outburst at Kwan’s. It was verifiably accurate. It might be fraudulent.
He should have gone to Mass. He could have asked Dudley. Ace Kwan would have briefed him per the scene.
Parker sipped vodka with lemon juice and cayenne. Jesuit priests developed the formula. It was a prepledge purgative. It followed quixotic missions and mortifying acts.
He’d stumbled out of Kwan’s. He got to his car and radio’d the Fort MacArthur stockade. He got an address for the Hodaka cannery and drove out there.
He found the workers cowed. They refused to talk. His guess? Dudley’s boys preceded him. They extracted information and blocked future access.
The priests’ brew burned his guts. It alleviated withdrawal pain. It postponed The Pledge.
Parker jotted up his graph. He thought of Uncle Ace. The fuck blinked just once.
He tossed out a parlay. Jimmy Namura/facial scars/Lin Chung and Terry Lux. The toss-out made Ace blink. Parker annotated the moment and added question marks.
The priests’ brew slaked his craving. It got dangerous here. He had to prevent The Warm Glide.
Parker drew swastikas and Lugers. Parker drew swastikas embossed on Luger grips. The grip falls from Jim Larkin’s hand. The Lugers in Larkin’s bungalow. Alleged Lugers at the Deutsches Haus. The Lugers fired at the pharmacy and Watanabe house.
The graph hexed him. Ditto the priests’ brew.
Parker killed the brew and grabbed his briefcase. The pepper burn doubled him over. He walked out to his car and sat through a jolt of cramps.
He found a radio prayer show. A priest extolled self-restraint as a duty. He drove west and lost track of the time.
The beach. Army trucks and new seaside bunkers. Santa Monica Canyon. Larkin’s bungalow.
Quixotic mission. Do it anyway. That trick you learned way back. Twist the knob and hit the jamb, just so.
He walked to the door.
He did it.
The bends returned. The Thirst returned. The door popped—just so.
He stepped inside and shut it. The living room koi stream charmed him. He walked to the kitchen and found some algae flakes. He walked back and fed the koi.
They darted and gorged. Parker fought off cramps and walked to the bedroom. He fed the terrace koi. He opened the closet. Seventeen Nazi Lugers—right there on pegs.
He pulled them off and stuffed them in his briefcase. He broke a sweat. It smelled like grain booze and lemon juice. He walked outside and closed the door. Hideo Ashida stood by his car.
The bends. Seventeen guns in his briefcase. They banged and scraped. They weighed fifty-odd pounds.
Parker lugged the guns over. They banged and scraped. Ashida stood prim.
“I took Larkin’s Lugers. We can test-fire them at the lab and compare the rounds to the spent round at the house.”
Ashida said, “The spents at the house and pharmacy were too degraded to serve as specific exemplars. If we test-fire these guns, we’ll get similar erosion, and any results we obtain will be unverifiable. I’m reasonably sure that all the guns in this welter of cases came from the Deutsches Haus. We’ll have to settle for that assumption.”
Parker said, “You can print-dust the guns. We don’t have a print card on Larkin, but we could place him, or someone, inside the house. The evidence would serve to corroborate the car in the driveway and the hit-and-run.”
Ashida said, “Yes. I came back to steal the guns for that purpose.” Parker lowered the briefcase. Ashida reached in his pocket and pulled out a lozenge. Sir, your breath stinks.
He forked it over. Parker unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth. Clove and licorice. A kid’s palliative. Deadwood, 1910.
Ashida said, “The Sheriff’s hardly worked the job, so I canvassed the block here myself. I learned that Mr. Larkin was friendly, garrulous, enjoyed the company of younger people, and loved to bicycle. He did not entertain at his home. His neighbors did not know that he was fixated on Japanese culture, or that he harbored Axis moneys and German firearms. The radio reported him to have been a British Intelligence agent in the first war, which I find credible. None of his neighbors knew it, which I find revealing.”
Parker crunched the lozenge. Ashida passed him a stick of Beemans pepsin gum.
He unwrapped it. “The lone wolf with the secret life.”
“Yes. Who made calls from public booths and carried telephone slugs.”
Parker chewed the goddamn gum. “The Watanabes called booths in Santa Monica.”
“Yes, and I checked the specific locations. They were all on Lincoln Boulevard, no more than two miles from here.”
“It’s all Fifth Column. It reeks of it. The secretive old intelligence man, the secretive Japanese.”
Ashida said, “We don’t know who called those pay phones or who they talked to.”
Parker said, “I’m going to subpoena the phone records on those booths. Outgoing calls are recorded, and maybe we can get a take on the incoming ones.”
Ashida shook his head. “It’s a very long process you’re suggesting. PC Bell is buried in War Department work now. Any legal request will attenuate.”
Parker spit out his gum. “I fed the koi.”
Ashida passed him a fresh stick. “I was going to.”
Parker unwrapped it. “We’ll find them a good home when all this is over.”
“Yes. I was thinking that.”
Parker pointed to their cars. They eschewed more preamble. Ashida nodded yes.
They got in, they U-turned, they convoyed downtown. Ashida took the lead. Parker bumper-locked him. He chewed the fucking chewing gum dry.
They made Central Station and walked up to the lab. It was theirs, solo. Ashida locked them in.
Parker wedged a chair under the doorknob. Ashida cleared off an exam table. Parker laid the Lugers out.
Ashida laid out a pack of gum and a box of cough drops. Parker nodded—Yeah, okay.
Ashida tagged the Lugers—nos. 1 to 17. Parker chewed gum and watched him work.
The bends subsided. Latent booze evaporated. The cayenne burned his mouth. The shakes might or might not come today. The Thirst Denied would start tomorrow.
Ashida worked. Parker watched. He chewed gum and sucked cough drops. He drank left-behind coffee.
Ashida donned rubber gloves and earmuffs. He loaded all seventeen Lugers and toggled in test rounds. He held them lightly to avoid print smears.
He fired all seventeen Lugers. The ballis
tics tunnel vibrated. He retrieved the spent rounds. They were all cracked in half.
Parker watched. Ashida eyeball-checked the firing-pin marks. He lit up and bowed.
“I was right. These guns, the gun in the pharmacy heist and the gun fired at the Watanabe house all came from the same ordnance batch. We have the same firing-pin malfunctions on all three sets.”
Parker recalled something. “I was booking those humps from the Deutsches Haus raid. One of them said the place had been burglarized Monday night. He said silencers and Lugers were stolen. We didn’t find any during the raid, so that absolved them on illegal gunsale charges. I thought he was just covering up on that, so I let it go. Now, I’m thinking there really was a 459.”
Ashida gulped and flinched. Ashida looked away. Parker eagle-eyed him. See those neck veins pulse?
“All five of the men made bail. The Mirror ran a piece on it.”
Ashida kept his eyes down. Parker stepped up close to him. Ashida backed away.
He did it. He B & E’d the Deutsches Haus.
Parker backed away. Parker looked down. Parker looked up and smiled. Ashida looked up and saw him. Ashida smiled. They bowed in formal sync.
Parker turned away. The moment needed air.
He chewed gum. He sucked cough drops. He turned back around. Ashida was back in his prim skin. Parker watched him work.
His print gear stood ready. Powder/brush/ninhydrin/Scotch tape. He laid the Lugers out beside them. He tape-tagged them—1 to 17.
He held pencils down the barrels. He dusted and sprayed surfaces. Smudges and streaks appeared. Ashida eyeball-scanned the surfaces. Guns nos. 1 to 5: smudges, smears and streaks.
Ashida worked. Parker watched. Ashida dusted gun no. 6. More smears, more smudges. Spray now. Spray that smooth grip first.
He did it. Parker tracked his eyes and caught the BINGO. Pop!—there’s a right-index fingerprint.
Ashida rolled tape over the print and got a transparent lift. He stuck the tape to a print strip. He opened a drawer and pulled out a file exemplar. “Watanabe/12-7-41/unknown right-index print.”
Ashida studied the exemplar. Ashida rigged a microscope and examined the new lift. He went back and forth three times. He was stranglehold intent.
