Perfidia

by James Ellroy

  Parker held his breath. His chewing gum went dry. Ashida tapped the file card.

  “It’s a match. I lifted an unknown print at the house last Sunday. There’s no way to know if it’s Larkin himself, because we’ve got no sample on him. This new print is a perfect fit. A man touched one of Larkin’s guns, and we’ve placed him in the house now. We’re closing it all in.”

  8:08 p.m.

  It was elegant. It was egalitarian. It was a most star-studded bash. Ben Siegel beats the rap. The Trocadero swings tonight!

  Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra. Tantrum-tossing Harry Cohn. “Jittery Joe” Kennedy. Joan Crawford, ogling Scotty Bennett. Sheriff Gene Biscailuz, news nabob Sid Hudgens, three dozen jarheads.

  Benny invited the lads. He oozed patriotic largesse. He waltzed on the “Big Greenie” Greenberg snuff. Benny showed off shakedown snapshots. Bill McPherson hosed a darky girl in boots.

  Dudley circulated. Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle jawed with Dot Rothstein. Jack Webb dogged Sheriff Gene and plagued him with kid bullshit. Ellen Drew and Elmer Jackson bobbed for apples in rum punch.

  Jack Kennedy fucked Ellen yesterday. Ellen whored for Brenda Allen between ingénue stints. Benny lined up Brenda girls for the jarheads. Herr Siegel, the Jew Santa Claus.

  Dudley circulated. Jimmie and his boys launched a raucous “Lunceford Special.” Clarinets swayed. Trombone slides waggled. The Troc was all bonhomie.

  Packed dance floor, swamped tables, standing-room-only bar.

  Time tipped. New Year’s, ’38. He saw Bette here that first time. She was perched in a booth now. They’d shared lovers’ looks. It was we’ll-meet-later semaphore.

  Bette sat with her froufrou hubby. He eager-eyed a waiter. Will homo hijinx ensue?

  Dudley orbited. Benzedrine and Macallan ’24. He chatted up Jewboy Harry. My smut-film plan—say ye yea or nay? Harry said he leaned toward yea—don’t crowd me, you mick fuck.

  Dudley circulated. Jittery Joe waved him over. Dudley hovered by his booth. They gabbed old times in Dublin and Boston. Yak, yak. Dudley’s Army commission. Jack’s L.A. gash run.

  Joe brought up their smut jaunts to T.J. The Dotstress and Ruth Mildred were grand company. Dudley outlined his smut scheme. Joe pledged twenty-five grand.

  Joan Crawford and Scotty Bennett necked. Elmer Jackson and Ellen Drew jitterbugged. Brenda Allen swooped by and pulled Joe up to fox-trot.

  A Benny goon sidled close. He handed Dudley an envelope. Dudley slit it and read the note inside.

  That party list. Benny delivered the dish. Claire De Haven’s do Monday night. Notable Reds had RSVP’d. It was a Commie conga line.

  Miss Katherine Lake would be there. Miss Lake was spotted at Red Claire’s last bash. Whiskey Bill’s “outside deal.” The Parker-Smith stalemate. All allegiances must be scrutinized.

  Bette hit the dance floor. Dudley caught a flash of her green dress, aswirl. It was kelly green. She wore it for him.

  She danced with a tall Marine. A short Marine cut in. She danced with him. A stout Marine cut in. She danced with him and waved to Dudley.

  The room weaved. It reprised the ’33 earthquake. Bette placed his world on springs.

  The short Marine walked up. Dudley saluted him. The short Marine delivered a note. Dudley unfolded it.

  “D.S. I keep a suite upstairs. Join me after the festivities, please. Ever yours, B.D.”

  The short Marine vanished. Dudley kissed the note and caught patchouli. He orbited—Benzedrine and Macallan ’24.

  Scotty Bennett necked with Joan Crawford. Brenda Allen necked with the short Marine. The Dotstress and Ruth Mildred saw it and went Uggggh.

  The wingding wound down. Jimmie Lunceford blared the national anthem and shooed folks to the doors. Bette headed for a staircase. Dudley watched her dress trail up the steps. Hubby and a swish waiter swapped anxious looks. They walked toward a cloakroom, seconds apart.

  Hubby opened the door and ducked in. The waiter ducked in moments later. Dudley strolled over and peeped the keyhole. Hubby had the waiter’s prick in his mouth.

  This grand war. The world on springs. D.S. + B.D.—the heart and arrow.

  The room evaporated. Couples swerved outside, entwined. Joan C. had Scotty B. fuckstruck.

  Dudley walked up the staircase. Her door featured a cupid’s-quiver knocker. He banged it. She opened up, sans pause.

  They kissed in the doorway. Dudley unhooked the green dress. The straps caught on Bette’s shoulders. He slid them off and pulled the green to her breasts. She wriggled the door shut. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Champagne and tobacco—he knew her breath now.

  Her mouth on him. His mouth in her—he wanted that. He picked her up and carried her. He looked for a kneeling spot.

  A velvet-tufted sofa. Yes—that’s your spot.

  He put Bette down. He pushed up her dress. Her stockings were hooked to a garter belt. She said, “Dudley Liam Smith.” He bit at her stocking snaps.

  He bit them off. He ripped her stockings and dainties down to her feet. Bette said, “Dudley Liam Smith.” She pulled at his hair and brought her hips up.

  He found that her he wanted. She said his name. He learned that taste. She held his head down and pushed her hips up. He pulled at her breasts. She pulled his hair.

  She pushed her hips and said his name. She thrashed and lost his name and went to gasps. She arched and pushed the sofa up against a wall. Her last thrash knocked over a lamp.

  11:23 p.m.

  “Dudley Liam Smith. Are you tired of hearing it?”

  “No, darling. I am not.”

  “You can’t be comfortable where you are.”

  “I’m a Church-bred lad. You can’t imagine how familiar this is.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to regard me as familiar.”

  “Consoling, then. Familiar only in the sense that I’ve imagined this moment a great many times.”

  “Dear, dear you. The big Irish cop with four daughters, while I’d give anything for just one.”

  “I have a fifth daughter, of illicit birth. She’s living in Boston now. She’s my favorite daughter, but I would lovingly bequeath her to you.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Her name is Elizabeth. She’s seventeen, and quite gifted and lovely. She has evolved a peculiar narrative form with a blind friend of hers. She describes the action in motion pictures to him, as he concurrently hears the dialogue. It’s quite a grand collaboration. She never falls behind in her description, and thus a young blind man is given God’s gift of sight.”

  “I would like to meet that girl and witness that gift of hers.”

  “She’ll be in Los Angeles, with her friend, for Christmas. I’ll arrange an outing.”

  “Is she a sympathetic lapse between your bouts of brutality, Dudley? I say this because it reminds me of myself.”

  “Your perceptions honor me, darling. I imagined you as vividly lucid, but you are lucid in excess of your most potently imagined self.”

  “Such recognition you grant me. I’m jaded, you know. I outgrew fatuous acclaim some time ago. ‘It takes one to know one.’ I see that adage at work here.”

  “I won’t belabor the point. I wouldn’t want you to consider me familiar.”

  “You’re redefining ‘familiar’ for me. This unseemly posture of ours has me questioning concepts and acts.”

  “Dear, dear girl. You’re getting sleepy, I can tell.”

  “I am sleepy. And I’m a selfish woman who has every intention of falling asleep right here.”

  “I would not want to keep you from that.”

  “My God, those young Marines. I do not want one single one of them to die. I don’t want it, and I will not permit it. Shit, those fucking Japs.”

  “You’re yawning, lass. Say something grand before you fall off.”

  “Dudley Liam Smith, please kill a Jap for me.”

  11:54 p.m.

  Bette slept. He didn’t. He was Church-bred. He shifted his kn
ees and refined the posture. He reached that toppled lamp and killed the room light.

  The Macallan ’24 wore off. The Benzedrine stayed. Bette slept, he didn’t. Cars backfired out on the Strip. Doors slammed down in the Troc. Pictures flashed off their echoes.

  His mother hit him. His mother snapped a razor strap. He held his gun and kept his head on Bette’s breasts.

  The sounds dwindled. The sky went second-by-second bright. He stood up and rubbed his knees alive. He arranged Bette head-to-toe on the sofa. He placed his suit coat over her and walked to his car in shirtsleeves.

  The world rolled on springs. He smelled Bette all over him. He took Sunset east and cut south on Virgil.

  The Melrose stoplight stalled him. He looked around and saw a lanky Jap in a phone booth. He was making Jap-like gestures on a call.

  The light went green. Dudley pulled to the curb and got out. The Jap blathered on. Dudley walked to the booth. The Jap noticed him.

  What’s this? Where’s your coat? What’s with that gun?

  Dudley pulled that gun and shot the Jap four times in the face. It blew out the back of his head and the back of the booth.

  Dudley said, “For Bette Davis.”

  6:17 a.m.

  Football practice. Early-morning scrimmage. His standard window view.

  His apartment provided the view. He rented it for the view. All roads led back to Belmont. Green-and-black 4-ever.

  Ashida watched a block-and-pass drill. He made the two receivers Bucky. Both boys fumbled. He shut his eyes and made them more Bucky. His Bucky snagged the ball and ran through the goalposts.

  He walked to the living room closet. His early trip-wire gizmo was stashed on a shelf. He kept his photo box beside it.

  The pictures were paper-sheathed and sequestered from sunlight. He’d hidden the camera behind a ledge, facing the showers. A tight-sprung wristwatch tripped the shutter.

  Basketball practice ended at 4:00. The camera clicked at two-minute intervals. Lucky clicks caught Bucky, stripped.

  Ashida studied the photos. He held them by the edges and left no fingerprints. He recalled his lab work with Bill Parker. They turned up that one print. He dusted the other Lugers, with nil results. Parker nailed him for the Deutsches Haus 459. They eschewed an explicit exchange.

  The photos were perfect. Bucky was perfect. The black-and-white was perfectly etched. Kay Lake tugged at him. He assumed her perspective. The silly huntress mooned for Bucky Bleichert. What would she think of his Bucky, nude?

  She called him last night. It was all about that crazy film. A muckraking exposé. Roundups as pogrom. It derived from her maneuverings with Bill Parker.

  She invited him to a party tonight. “Comrade” Claire was tossing a do. He agreed to go.

  Ashida replaced the photos and studied the gizmo. The lens mount was firm. The shutter wire was taut. The switch mechanism had chipped over time. It rendered the gizmo unperfect.

  The new gizmo was still stashed outside Whalen’s Drugstore. Secondary switch gears were tucked in. It was early. He could remove the backup gears and refit the old gizmo.

  He walked downstairs. He got his car and drove downtown. Traffic was light. It supplied a cognitive window. He brain-walked through the house.

  Watanabe/187 P.C. Room by room, quadrant by quadrant. Nine days since the murders. His ten thousandth walk-through.

  6th and Spring was morning quiet. He parked outside Whalen’s and studied his gizmo. The casing held firm. The gizmo remained protected. He pulled the secondary switch gears and drove off.

  He turned on the radio. The police band kicked in. Code 3—homicide at Melrose and Virgil.

  Dead man in a phone booth. Gunshot wounds, close range. Lab men and morgue men requested. Ray Pinker and Thad Brown there now.

  Ashida drove home. He walked upstairs and grabbed the a.m. Herald. He saw a news pic below the fold.

  A Fed roust. A curio shop—1st and Alameda. Dick Hood, Ed Satterlee, two unknown Feds. One frightened Japanese man.

  Two Feds held large swords. Two Feds held matching SCABBARDS. There it was. Hot off a fluke. Right at mental walk-through ten thousand.

  Here’s what he missed. Here’s what Dudley missed.

  There were no SCABBARDS. There were no HOOKS or WALL PEGS to hang the swords on. They were display items. They were always left out to see.

  Ashida vibrated. Camera shutters clicked.

  No scabbards.

  No hooks or wall pegs.

  No spackling or wall indentations. No wallpaper inconsistencies.

  CLICK—ten thousand times. CLICK—ten thousand and one.

  CLICK—the world’s revving up now. CLICK—it’s at silent-movie speed.

  Ashida walked back downstairs. He got his car. The car drove him. He made Avenue 45 in one second. The house glowed ten thousand times too bright.

  He let himself in. He stood still and reduced all that speed.

  He walked through the living room. He scrutinized and confirmed. He walked through the dining room. He scrutinized and confirmed. He walked through the kitchen. Yes, scrutinized and—

  “Hello, lad.”

  Ashida turned around. Dudley wore plaid suit pants and no coat.

  “You embody revelation, lad. You have quite the large eyes at this moment.”

  “I know what we missed. That ‘very obvious thing.’ I came here to confirm it.”

  Dudley smiled. His neck was lipstick-smeared.

  “Were you going to tell me? Or were you going to share the insight with Bill Parker exclusively?”

  Ashida said, “I hadn’t decided yet.”

  Dudley laughed. “How much evidence have you withheld? I’m curious about that, and about the extent of your collusion with Bill Parker.”

  Ashida gripped the sink ledge. “I’m not telling you.”

  Dudley said, “Tell me what I missed, then. Dazzle me with your circumlocutions.”

  Ashida smiled. “There were no scabbards. There were no wall pegs or hooks. I don’t understand how we both overlooked it.”

  Dudley bowed. “Extrapolate, please.”

  Ashida said, “The killer brought the swords inside, in some form of conveyance, or had secreted them here on a prior visit. The act was premeditated, and conceived and embellished in a state of escalating psychosis. The family complied out of a racially and culturally regressed sense of shame, deriving from Nancy Watanabe’s sexual misconduct and recent abortion, and Johnny Watanabe’s incestuous voyeurism and probable molesting of Nancy. The motive for the killings is tripartite. The killer was driven by sexual animus, a sense of personal betrayal, and insane ideological conviction. The entire case rests on the distinction between the shade of mauve and various shades of purple. The mauve fibers on the victims’ posteriors conclusively indict the killer, regardless of what you and Chief Horrall want. It might be the heavyset white man, seen in a purple sweater. It might be a Japanese man, wearing a much lighter-shade garment. Ceremonial swords are quasi-illegal. The curio shops that sell them keep no records. White collectors purchase the swords, along with Japanese patriarchs eager to celebrate their feudal heritage. We remain at an evidential dead end. The overall motives are becoming clear to me.”

  Dudley sniffed his shirt cuffs. Ashida smelled an orchid-content perfume.

  “I will not require you to divulge what you’ve withheld from me. I will ask if you have suspects.”

  Ashida said, “I think I understand the crime, but I have no inkling as to who committed it. It feels very much like an open-file case to me.”

  “You said it yourself, Doctor. Chief Horrall and I would very much prefer a Japanese killer. I’m sure you’ve discussed our wishes with Captain Parker.”

  Ashida said, “Yes. We’ve discussed it.”

  “Have you discussed official versus unofficial justice? Has Whiskey Bill extolled the virtues of expedient justice to you?”

  Ashida stepped close. Dudley Smith reeked of a woman.

  “You explain it, S
ergeant. You tell me what it means.”

  Dudley stepped closer. Their hands almost touched.

  “A Japanese killer indicted by New Year’s. A man so vile that the injustice of his conviction is monumentally overshadowed by the sheer monstrousness of the acts he’s already committed, and fully justified by the interdiction of the future acts he will most assuredly commit. The real killer, perhaps uncovered at a later date, perhaps not. Anonymously extinguished, regardless of his race.”

  Ashida bowed. “That statement in no way offends me.”

  Dudley sniffed his shirt cuffs. The mad creature, moved by scent.

  “I commend you for your actions at Kwan’s Pagoda. Your composure in the face of Whiskey Bill’s boorishness did not go unnoticed by Jack Horrall.”

  Ashida said, “The Chief’s patronage is important to me.”

  Dudley said, “As it should be. The Chief will be meeting J. Edgar Hoover at Union Station this afternoon. Mr. Hoover is here to further implement his plans to abrogate the civil liberties of your people. Japanese radios and firearms will be confiscated. A good many more Japanese businesses will be forcibly closed. There will be a massive seizure of Japanese property and financial assets, and it is likely that your people will be made to wear demeaning armbands. I condemn these actions, even as I attempt to exploit them. I am grateful that my lawless streak allows me the latitude to maneuver, and to offer opportunities and protection to my colleagues and those who serve to further my designs. I feel that you have begun to emerge as a colleague.”

  Ashida went dry-mouthed. The kitchen went gas-stove hot.

  Dudley said, “A Japanese man was murdered early this morning. His name was Goro Shigeta, and he was shot in a phone booth south of Hollywood. He appears to have been heavily in debt to bookies in Little Tokyo, and Thad Brown thinks he was killed to settle a gambling debt. I would disagree with that hypothesis. I think a white man motivated by misguided patriotism and racial hatred killed Mr. Shigeta, and I think that a good deal more of such hatred will be inflicted upon your people. I would like to spare you and your family the horror of it.”

  Ashida white-knuckled the sink ledge. “And, in return?”