Perfidia

by James Ellroy

  “In return, I would like you to weigh the pros and cons of my patronage versus Bill Parker’s.”

  Ashida said, “Yes, I’ll keep an open mind.”

  Dudley half-bowed. “Grand. And, along those lines, I would like to show you something. It entails a trip to Malibu, tomorrow afternoon, and it pertains to a plan that Ace Kwan and I are working on. We are determined to assist members of the Japanese community in avoiding internment.”

  “Well-heeled members?”

  Dudley winked and about-faced. He grabbed the dining room phone and dialed a number. Ashida heard a pick-up sound.

  Dudley laughed. The phone line crackled. Dudley said, “Dr. Ashida” and “witness the procedure.” Dudley listened and smiled.

  Dudley said, “Our surgeon chum, Terry Lux.” Dudley listened and smiled. Dudley said, “He’s drying out Miss De Haven? Yes, I’ve heard of her.”

  “Comrade” Claire. Kay Lake. The party tonight. Some odd confluence.

  Ace Kwan brayed on the telephone. It was surely his bray. Dudley winked and turned away. Ashida ducked out the kitchen door.

  There—one last glance. A telling one—Dudley sniffs his shirt cuffs.

  9:24 a.m.

  He walked around the house. Neighbors evil-eyed him. Who’s that Jap? Oh, yeah—he’s with the cops.

  Ashida bagged his car. He felt light-headed. The car drove him. It bypassed the lab. It drove him to Virgil and Melrose.

  The booth was roped off. POLICE SEARCH AREA, NO TRESPASS, KEEP OUT. Black-and-whites, K-cars, meat wagons. Thad Brown, Nort Layman, Ray Pinker. Three morgue jockeys, poised with body sacks.

  Ashida parked across the street. He pushed his seat back and watched.

  Goro Shigeta had a face and no head. His rear skull was obliterated. His ears blew out with his brains. The killer stood close to him. The powder burns on his forehead indicated that. The shots shattered the rear phone-booth wall.

  Ray Pinker bagged shell casings. They were fat. They were probably .45 ACPs. The morgue men scooped up brains.

  Ashida watched. Simple details held him. The day slipped away.

  The morgue men hauled off Shigeta. Thad Brown directed a canvassing crew. Bluesuits swarmed Virgil down to the south horizon and worked their way back. They buttonholed Brown. They went Nix, nothing, nyet.

  Brown sent them home. The scene dispersed. A bluesuit lagged back and watchdogged the booth.

  Ashida took off. The car drove him. He thought of Dudley Smith. Some woman marked the Mad Creature. He knew her scent, secondhand.

  Ashida drove downtown. He double-parked outside the station and ran up to the lab. He was late for Claire De Haven’s party. He kept spare dress clothes in his locker.

  He beelined over. A note was taped to the door.

  Hideo,

  Per Watanabe/187 P.C.

  Nort’s got more on the bodies. (The thawing revealed an irregular threading on the wounds, & now Nort’s convinced the swords found at the scene couldn’t have made the incisions.) Also, he found minute traces of a rare Japanese narcotic poison in the victims’ livers.

  R.P.

  It came at him, jumbled. He sifted it forensically. He layered in case logic. He shook it all out.

  The killer brought the swords and smeared blood on them postmortem. He didn’t kill them with the swords. The swords made the hesitation punctures only. The punctures were inflicted postmortem and were solely obfuscation. The narcotic poison anesthetized the Watanabes. It left them compliant and immobilized at the moment of their deaths. The killer killed them with a prosaic foreign implement or THE KNIFE.

  Japanese narcotic poisons induce near-immediate retching. Predeath euphoria and narcoleptic states follow. The killer knew the Watanabes. The killer served them tea. They retched on their clothes. He made them change clothes in a euphoric state. Ryoshi wrote the suicide note then. The killer was Japanese or knew Japanese or decided to risk Ryoshi’s predeath warning to the police. Ryoshi might have considered it all a prank and might not have known they were doomed. The purple-sweater white man was middle-aged and heavyset. Jim Larkin knew Japanese. Jim Larkin was a gaunt sixty-seven. The purple-sweater white man pulled up in a car. Jim Larkin had no driver’s license and did not own an automobile. Jim Larkin was Fifth Column. The Watanabes were Fifth Column. Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor defined all five deaths.

  The Watanabes were dead. The killer lingered in the house. He washed their soiled clothes and hung them up to dry. Why wash clothes on the day that you intend to die? This hypothesis answered that question.

  The killer served them tea in the kitchen. They retched onto slick linoleum. The killer wiped their vomit up. Feudal warlords dipped their knives in slow-acting poison. This killer did not. Japanese narcotic poison absorbed rapidly. It evaporated more rapidly in spilled blood. The poison should not have been identified. The killer did not bank on Nort Layman’s near-insane persistence.

  Ashida thought it all through.

  Ashida thought, THE KNIFE.

  8:09 p.m.

  Comrade Hideo was late. The swell party went on without him.

  I came in red. I’d dipped by Bullock’s Wilshire and purchased a twin to Bill Parker’s black cashmere dress. My dress matched the living room curtains. I wore it so that I could stand beside them and pose.

  Claire’s slaves were in attendance. Dalton Trumbo, Abner Biberman and John Howard Lawson represented the more feted Hollywood Left. I met them, traded war chat with them and moved on. An imperiously tall neighbor appeared and walked straight to the piano. It was Sergei Rachmaninoff—who appeared to be drunk. He attracted a range of comments on the Russian-front war; he said, “Fuck the men of the brave Red Army,” and banged out loopy Scriabin.

  Claire came as herself. Her red dress complimented mine; her Joan of Arc hair had grown out into a charming bob. She was gaunt. Claire, the martyred crusader. Claire, the dry-out-farm habitué. Claire, with the carriage to make dissolution stylish. Claire—who swirled around me and met my eyes like we were the only two in the room.

  Claire, who was saving me. We’ll talk later, dear. I represented opportunity. Her every look told me that.

  Hideo was late. It discomfited me. He was the crux of my entrapment-seduction of Comrade Claire De Haven. I stood by the red drapes in my red dress and sipped a red-tinged Manhattan. It was my second party in as many nights.

  I heard Jimmie Lunceford blasting from the Trocadero last evening and walked down to catch the occasion. Five scoots to the doorman got me in. Ben Siegel had been released from jail and had invited numerous cops, Marines and film colony folk to mark the moment. I played wallflower and observed. I thought I saw Scotty Bennett duck out a side door, but couldn’t be sure. The astonishing thing I saw was Dudley Smith trading looks with Bette Davis.

  It was unmistakable and altogether romantic. Their glances were very much synchronized. Miss Davis danced with a series of Marines and played eye music with the Dudster. They are most certainly lovers.

  I left then. There was no way to top that party favor. Early-wartime intermezzo—my dear God.

  My current party favors were less glamorous. Andrea Lesnick stood across the room; she was a young and female version of her father, with identical nicotine-stained fingers. I recalled Bill Parker’s brief. The Feds sprung Miss Lesnick from Tehachapi and used that wedge to turn Dr. Saul as a snitch. The doctor walked in the door a few minutes ago. He went directly to the bar, spritzed a highball and talked to a Chinese man dressed in a physician’s white coat. I could tell that it was shoptalk. Reynolds Loftis mistook the Chinese man for a waiter and hit him up for a cocktail. The Chinese man gave him what for.

  I was antsy. I had a small camera and miniature wire recorder in my purse and intended to put them to use. They were the filched property of Officer Lee Blanchard; Lee had used them during a loan-out assignment to Central Vice. I wanted Hideo Ashida to be here, and wanted Comrade Claire to see us together. I was quite anxious to make things occur and even more anxi
ous to cause trouble.

  Rachmaninoff segued to a dank piece by Karol Szymanowski. It eloquently rebutted the chirpy talk all around us. The late Mrs. Hamano got significant play. Likewise, the Japanese man shot in the phone booth. It was all over the radio. Chaz Minear pegged it as “escalating racial juju, jingo-imperialist style.”

  I was antsy. I felt ignored. I walked to the bar and mixed myself another Manhattan. Saul Lesnick and the Chinese man were still at it. The Chinese man’s coat was embroidered with Asian symbols and “Lin Chung, M.D.” The two men discussed eugenics. Lesnick called it “quite the compelling and inaccurate science, and surely the justification for ghastly racial misdeeds.”

  Lin Chung vehemently disagreed. He said, “Science very precise! Science very precise!”

  Lesnick looked away from him. I followed his eyes to the patio. His daughter was summoning him.

  Lesnick walked over. I trailed him and loitered near the door. Father and daughter lit cigarettes together and coughed in unison. Andrea said, “Bad this time, Daddy.”

  Lesnick said, “I’ll run you out to Malibu, after the party. Dr. Terry will wean you. He’s been doing day retreats with Claire. See how much better she looks?”

  They looked for Claire and saw me. I turned and walked back into the living room. Claire crossed my line of sight. Day retreats? She was floatier than I had ever seen her.

  It made me that much more antsy. I cut through conversational cliques and entered the downstairs bathroom. Parker wants evidence of Dope Fiend Claire? Let’s toss the medicine chest.

  I opened the chest and got out my camera. Parker wants it, Parker gets it. A row of pill vials. Morphine, phenobarbital and Dilaudid. All prescribed by Saul Lesnick, M.D.

  I snapped three close-ups and noticed a small bottle on the shelf. The label bore Japanese characters. I unscrewed the top and looked in.

  The bottle contained black hair dye. I photographed it, stashed the camera in my purse and went back to the party. Rachmaninoff had passed out on the piano keys. The front door opened; Hideo Ashida walked in.

  He closed the door and stood poised. Lovely Hideo, in a navy hopsack blazer and gray slacks.

  Stand there, darling. Be tentative. Your people are raping the civilized world. Jingo-imperialist L.A. is unjustly retaliating. Stand there and look handsome. Let the party swells take note. This audience was made for you.

  Hideo stood by the door. Yes—be forlorn and apprehensive. Be controversial, be oppressed.

  The jabber commenced. People looked over. Who’s He? What’s He doing here? He’s not Chinese, like that doctor. That’s right—he’s Japanese, he’s a JAP.

  People touched one another. People gestured and looked at the door. I watched eyes travel. Claire, darling—please look.

  She was talking to Reynolds Loftis. He watched eyes travel. His eyes went to the door. Claire followed his eyes. Yes, love—please look.

  She did. I watched her dip and swoon—just a little. She set the stage for me.

  I dropped my purse and ran to Hideo. I shouldered partygoers out of the way and knocked over drinks. I claimed the room and owned the room. Hideo saw me. He held out his arms. He wanted to hold me off—I knew it. I couldn’t have that. I flew into him and kissed him before he could move.

  He put his arms around me. It wasn’t passion—he did it to hold himself up. I held his head and put my tongue in his mouth; he moved his tongue because he’d heard that men and women did that. It looked like a lovers’ kiss. I put everything I had into it. Hideo went numb. The kiss tasted like mint mouthwash.

  His arms went slack and dropped to his sides. I broke the embrace, to make it look synchronized. I slid an arm around his waist and swiveled us to face the party head-on. Hideo followed my lead perfectly.

  We claimed the room. That brash girl and her shy lover. Aren’t they sweet together? And so brave—with the war eight days old!

  Everyone looked at us. Everyone clapped. Claire yelled, “Bravo!” Reynolds Loftis and Chaz Minear went Woo-woo-woo!

  Hideo smiled. He was knock-kneed and seemed to be both keyed up and exhausted. We walked into the crowd. Handshakes, back claps and embraces engulfed us. People stated their names. The overlay went to cacophony. Hideo stated his name and let strangers touch him. I stepped back to let it all happen. Claire stepped into the fawners’ circle and winked at me. I winked back; Claire slid an arm around Hideo’s waist and led him out of the crowd. She hijacked my man with aplomb. I watched as she steered him to a divan.

  The crowd watched. I ducked past the piano and the snoozing Rachmaninoff and retrieved my purse. I went up the staircase to the second floor as Comrades Hideo and Claire held center stage.

  That hallway again. Those closed bedroom doors.

  I went down the hall and jiggled knobs. Claire’s bedroom and the bedroom beside it were unlocked; I entered the latter one first.

  It was strewn with male clothes and toiletries. Shirt monograms gave it away. Reynolds Loftis and Chaz Minear shacked up here.

  An armoire flanked the door. The first drawer was stuffed with male underwear; the second drawer held homosexual paraphernalia. There were spiked collars and a program for a transvestites’ ball at Leo’s Love Nest. There were photographs of W. H. Auden, naked on a beach with Reynolds and Chaz. There were matchbooks for the Tradesman and Knight in Armor bars, with men’s first names and phone numbers jotted on the inside covers.

  I photographed all of it. I went through the bottom drawer and found a single tract, stuffed under a sock pile.

  The title was J’accuse: The Los Angeles Police Reich, Volume III. It ran twelve pages; I knew immediately that the lucid Claire was not the author. This tract defamed a Red Squad lieutenant named Carl Hull.

  I skimmed the text and shot close-ups of the pages. Lieutenant Hull was a close friend and ideological consort of the then Lieutenant W. H. Parker. I added alleged to the indictment. Parker was surely prejudiced, but did not actively purvey racial hate. Lieutenant Hull was possessed of a scholarly mien during his on-duty hours. Come dusk, he became a “Night-Riding Nativist Nabob” and dragged Mexicans back over the border from the hindquarters of his white stallion. Lieutenant Hull asserted that Mein Kampf was the lost book of the Bible and that Jesus Christ was an Aryan and not a Jew. Lieutenant Hull was also a speechwriter for the Christian Nationalist Legion and the most infamous offshoots of the America First Committee.

  I replaced the tract, dropped the camera into my purse and stepped back into the hall. No one saw me; all the revelry remained downstairs. I moved into Claire’s bedroom and closed the door. I saw it, first thing—a new martyr had joined Joan of Arc.

  Claire had pinned newspaper photos to the wall beside Joan. They depicted Nao Hamano, alive and smiling—and dead in the jail cell where she killed herself. I reached for my camera, then dropped it back in my purse.

  No. Claire did not indict Bill Parker at his most self-damning. I had to extend the same reprieve.

  I studied the pictures. Claire had pencil-stroked Nao Hamano’s hairline. Little arrows revealed her intent. The black dye made sense now. Claire as Joan, Claire as Nao Hamano. A new transformation—immediate and of this war.

  I walked back to the party. Admirers thronged Hideo; they ran monologues as he listened and played ethnic novelty act. Claire was sitting alone. She was holding a drink and a cigarette. I walked over and took them from her; our hands trembled as they brushed.

  She said, “You create memorable moments, disappear and reappear. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m commenting on your deliberate nature.”

  I finished off Claire’s cigarette and scotch with bitters. I said, “I’m out of my depth with this crowd of yours. I’ve found my early-wartime boon companions, but two parties in one week is taxing. Your people are fascinating, but I have a limited capacity to observe and do nothing.”

  Claire pointed to Hideo. “Is he red-blooded? I see you as a woman of appetite, and I’m wondering if Dr. Ashida is up to your needs.”


  I laughed and doused the cigarette in her glass. It bought me a heartbeat. Claire found the entrance scene contrived—I knew it.

  I said, “He isn’t my only lover. I have a weakness for rowdier men, and Hideo fulfills me in ways that they can’t.”

  “You’re saying that he’s socially relevant. You’re saying he’s a diffident lover, and a grand foil in your ongoing stage show.”

  She nailed you. Concede it. Allow her that triumph. Express chagrin.

  “Yes. That’s pretty much it.”

  I went to crestfallen. My shoulders sagged. I leaned back on the couch and fell into Claire’s shadow.

  She said, “Reynolds has an eye on him. I think he senses susceptibility and/​or inclination.”

  Be blasé. Express mild titillation. You appreciate risqué address.

  “I think not. Tell Reynolds I’ll keep an eye on him, though. If Hideo loses interest in me, I’ll attribute it to that and play Cupid for him.”

  Claire said, “Deft girl. So quick with the answers. I’ve known you less than a week, but you’ve quite captured me.”

  I said, “It’s the war. Everything feels immediate. Relationships reveal their purpose over time, but the war won’t allow for that. I’m going mad with a sense of purpose unfulfilled. I would assume that you are, too.”

  Claire touched my knee. “Bright girl. So alert to my moods. I’m enjoying day retreats at Terry Lux’s clinic. Come out tomorrow. We’ll take a mud bath and discuss purposeful things.”

  “That would be lovely.”

  “Andrea Lesnick will be there. We’ll be representing the Wartime Female Disenfranchised.”

  “Will you come as Joan of Arc, then? I would hate to see you crop your hair again, but I’d be intrigued to watch you extend the performance.”

  Claire lit a cigarette. She snatched up a heavy lighter and replaced it with a too-brusque thud. Dope. I could tell that she needed it; I saw her drift off with the urge.

  I said, “Our film idea is the closest thing I have to a purpose. I think we should film the roundups covertly, and refrain from editorializing. Our polemical strength rests in the imagery itself.”