by James Ellroy
Parker stood up. His view recalibrated. He wobble-leaped and jumped on the boat. The sea cops drew down on the Japs. The Japs raised their hands up, up, up.
The boat rocked. A wave hit Parker. He went sea-blind and grabbed a mast rail. He thought he saw—
The Japs reach in their pockets.
The Japs raise their hands and open their mouths.
The Japs bite down and fall down.
The Japs convulse and puke foam and—
One Jap thrashed right by Parker. Puked foam hit Parker’s shoes. Parker made a crazy noise and jumped back.
He was still close. The Jap was too close. The Jap had smooth fingertips. The Jap had no fingerprints. Smooth tips meant carbolic-acid dips and—
A sea cop panicked. He arced his tommy gun down and let go.
Deck wood exploded. A Jap’s head exploded. All the sea cops arced down and let go.
The Japs blew up, the deck blew up, it all blew into wood scraps and smoke.
Parker ran.
He ran from the gore and the noise. He ran toward the rear of the boat. The boat lurched. Parker tumbled down a stairwell. He went upside down and rolled belowdecks.
He hit a small compartment. He saw a might-be Jap or might-be Chink torching currency and tracts. Parker was this close to him. The money and paper flared into black ash.
Parker was this close to him. The gelt was reichsmarks and yen. The tracts were in Jap script and English. They were just like all the tracts in this crazy mix of—
The fucker bit a pill and thrashed. Parker stepped on his hands and broke his fingers flat. The fingertips were smooth tissue. Parker saw it. He was this close.
2:07 p.m.
Kwan’s basement. It’s hotsy-totsy. It’s egalitarian.
Everybody rubbed shoulders. The tile game was unstoppable and eighteen hours in. The war justified the misconduct. Everybody knew it. This went unsaid:
Life’s short. Easy come, easy go. There’s Jap subs off the coast. Those swabbies at Pearl didn’t know what hit them. We could be next.
Benzedrine tea kept it going. Uncle Ace supplied a full bar and around-the-clock buffet. Hopheads packed the “O” den. Lin Chung morphine-soothed losing players. Brenda Allen peddled cooze at her new wartime rate. Salvador Dali’s pet leopard roamed. He mauled a busboy and snatched chow mein off Count Basie’s plate. Nobody gave a shit.
The minuscule meet the mighty. The elite meet the effete.
Clark Gable was there. He displayed a pic of Cary Grant with a dick in his mouth. There’s Call-Me-Jack Horrall. There’s Nort Layman and Ed Satterlee. There’s Stan Kenton. He’s with the “Misty” June Christy. She’s got eyes for Scotty Bennett—all bruised and contused. Tough luck, sister—that’s Joan Crawford draped all over him.
It was sardine-packed standing room only. The basement trapped smoke from ten thousand cigarettes. It was one big iron lung.
Dudley stood with Bette. They watched high steppers throw tiles. He’d been up since yesterday morning. Pervert patrol. They’d been rousting potential eyeball wits and death fiends.
Records checks. A new canvass. Where’s that Jap-needle-in-a-haystack? Where’s that perv-to-end-all-pervs?
He was near-shot exhausted. A sleepover date boded. Ace prepared them a room upstairs. Bette’s hubby was occupied. He was hosting a houseboy named Man-Oh-Man Manolo. Man-Oh-Man serviced film folk. His short arm was more like a foot.
Dudley watched the game. Ace dealt tiles. Elmer Jackson played watchdog. He held Jim Davis’ boss shotgun.
Jim and Whiskey Bill had indulged misconduct. They rock-salted two tong cliques. One lad developed septicemia. One lad lost three fingers. Uncle Ace was miffed.
The game was eons in. Players came and went. They succumbed to gambling fatigue and scorched pleura. Harry Cohn was sixteen hours in. He played bantamweight stiff Manny Gomez and three Chink dentists.
Harry was fifty-three grand down. He’d repaid his previous debt with van-heist money. Harry owed Ben S. forty-eight. Ben watched the game with Jew-payback eyes.
The game was incomprehensible. The players threw tile-tossing fits. Bette steady-eyed Miss Crawford. They loathed each other. Such bitch-goddess fury.
She pointed to the buffet. Clark Gable and the leopard noshed spareribs.
“Clark’s a silly boy. He collects women’s snatch hair. He’d fuck that beast if someone held its tail.”
Dudley roared. The basement was a tinderbox. A roving waitress passed him a mai tai.
Bette said, “I’m going to use the upstairs loo. The one here is occupied. Brenda is blowing Sheriff Biscailuz.”
Dudley kissed her neck. Bette ducked into the crowd. People faded out small in her swirl. Dudley lost her in a low smoke cloud. His fucking lungs burned.
The game continued. Manny Gomez cashed out. Jewboy Harry lost four straight bets and eight grand. Dudley winked at Ben Siegel. Jewboy Ben winked back.
Harry cashed out. Kibitzers booed the famous misanthrope. Harry grabbed his crotch and booed back.
Dudley steered him to Ace’s office. Harry was damp and florid. The office was blessedly smokeless. Harry crashed into a chair.
“I owe Ace sixty-one G’s. Why do I do this to myself? I’m a powerful man with a heart condition. Why am I such an inveterate slum crawler? The Germans are slaughtering my people, and I’m powerless to stop it. Why do I add to all the world’s sorrow and grief?”
Dudley leaned on a towel rack. “You owe Ben forty-eight, Harry. You have a hundred and nine thousand in gambling debts outstanding. You can bemoan your unnecessary losses or allow me to offer you relief.”
Harry said, “Fuck you, you mick cocksucker. Don’t think I don’t know where this is going. Don’t think I’m incapable of saying ‘I’m not in the smut biz these days.’ ”
Dudley coughed. “You saw me with Bette Davis.”
Harry coughed. “Don’t gloat, you mick cocksucker. I know you’re schlamming her, and I’m not impressed. I also noticed that punk goon of yours with Joanie. That don’t impress me, either. Gash like that goes for anything beefcake. Bette and Joanie are the town pumps, and given that the town is L.A., that’s saying something.”
Dudley grinned. “Shall I convince Bette to leave Warner’s for a few months, to facilitate her appearance in a film for Columbia? Would my proposition cause you to reconsider, in that case?”
Harry said, “On my hands and knees, you mick cocksucker. In such a case, I would grovel and thoroughly enjoy it.”
Dudley winked and walked back to the party. Ben S. saw him and went So? Dudley nodded and popped through a smoke cloud. Scotty and Joanie necked in a doorway. Clark Gable and the leopard snoozed on a couch.
Sycophants and sinners. What world conflict? The brave and the wrong.
Dudley walked up to the restaurant. Bette owned it now.
Tonged-up busboys hovered. Patrons pushed autograph books. Bette dished out hugs and posed for snapshots. A line went out the door and down the block.
Bette dispensed cards. Call my secretary. Buy war bonds. I’ll sign glossies and kiss them. I’ll send them to you.
She shook their hands. She talked to them. She gave them her eyes. She met them one by one and engaged them. She did not brush a single one of them off.
She looked over and saw him. She blew him a kiss. Dudley’s eyes welled.
The line grew. Radio trucks screeched to the curb. Bette Davis wows Chinktown. Brother, that’s news!
Dudley walked upstairs. The room was small and tidy. He stretched out on the bed.
The wallpaper blurred. The leopard jumped on the bed. He tried to pet him. The beast dispersed into spots.
He went in and out. The leopard jumped back on the bed. In and out. The leopard purred and pawed at his feet. Out and in. There’s Bette. She flopped on the bed and pulled off his shoes.
“I got a hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars in pledges. The line went on for six hours.”
Dudley yawned and touched her leg. She pul
led her dress up to her garter belt. He slid his hand in.
“You embody metamorphosis, darling. You were a leopard just a moment ago.”
Bette flashed her claws. “I’m a tigress, really. They’re much more deadly.”
Dudley undid the straps. Her stockings fell slack.
“I’m close with Harry Cohn, you know. Would you ever consider doing a film for Columbia?”
Bette said, “You’re crossing the line with me, sweetie. Please don’t do that.”
Dudley flinched.
His eyes blurred.
Tears ran down his cheeks.
10:23 p.m.
A siren kicked on. Ashida woke up. He rolled over and looked out the window.
L.A. went black. The Belmont bleachers vanished. Searchlights reared up and swooped.
The siren blare escalated. The fear moment passed. No Jap Zeros swooped.
Ashida dressed in the dark. He got an hour’s sleep. The morgue was a short walk. Nort Layman lived there and never slept.
He stepped into the hallway. Someone painted JAP! on his door. He got home at 8:30. It happened between then and now.
Ashida locked up and walked downstairs. The street was blackout black and searchlight yellow. He walked due east. The sirens sustained a high rev.
He thought of Goleta. He thought of cut-Jap eugenics and muckraking films. He passed the Hall of Justice. Night clerks perched on the roof and enjoyed the show.
He hit the morgue. Hearse drivers shot craps on the roof. A guy pissed over the edge.
The morgue ran ’round the clock. Ashida walked back to Nort Layman’s exam room. It featured disinfecting tables and body vaults. Nort added a couch and clothes rack.
Nort sat on the couch. A gurney played footrest. Ashida took the one chair.
“I hope you’re staying out of phone booths. I did the Shigeta autopsy. He was blown to shit. It feels like a race job, more than anything else.”
Ashida said, “Tell me why.”
Nort said, “His face was obliterated. I think the killer intended to make that statement, either consciously or unconsciously. He eradicated all external evidence of the man being Japanese.”
Ashida considered it. “Racial science, in a way. A malevolent form of eugenics.”
Nort shrugged. “You’ve got progressive eugenicists who want to build healthier people, and Nazi humps who want to wipe out the races they don’t like. The Shigeta deal interests me, though. It feels like a crime of opportunity, with a random victim. And I have a very strong hunch that the guy plugged Mr. Shigeta to impress someone.”
“Like a cat bringing a mouse home to its master?”
Nort lit a cigarette. “Exactly.”
Ashida said, “The Watanabes. We’re ten days in now.”
Nort pointed to a body vault. “I’ve been going through wound texts for days. Not only were the swords at the house too dull to have made the incisions, but no goddamn ceremonial sword in existence could have made them.”
Ashida said, “Let me extrapolate, please. You liked my theory that the killer had the Watanabes drink poison tea. It would account for that rare poison found in their livers. There’s that, and that knife that Captain Parker and I saw in Griffith Park, which significantly matched the faded wound on Ryoshi Watanabe, which—”
“—which could have been the weapon that killed the Watanabes, but not dipped in poison, the way the warlords did. Which could have been used, one blade at a time, to both kill the Watanabes and simulate hara-kiri.”
Ashida smiled. “Is it feasible?”
Nort smiled. “It’s feasible, working on possible. And, if I continue to suffer from insomnia, I’ll probably think up some new tests I can run.”
The all-clear sirens blew. Nort retracted his window shades. Outside lights flared.
They talked crime and science. Nort teethed on the Shigeta job. Ashida thought of Kay Lake. She called him before he sacked out. She talked up a planned Pershing Square rally. Comrade Claire booked a camera crew. It was their opening film salvo.
Crime and science. Eugenics. Nort brought up Dr. Lin Chung. Dr. Lin was a race man and nose-job provider. Ashida brought up Terry Lux and stayed mum on the cut job he saw. Nort disdained Dr. Terry. He went to med school with him. Terry pandered to rich dope fiends. Terry was tight with Ace Kwan. Terry knew the Dudster. Ace supplied opiate base for Terry’s dope cures. The Dudster mediated a southside dope trade. Some Armenian fucks peddled white horse under his flag.
They talked. They teethed. Biology and chemistry. Newfangled spectrographs. The sun popped to life. Nort dozed off in middiscourse. Ashida stood up.
Nort stirred. Nort said, “Stay out of phone booths.”
7:28 a.m.
The morgue left him woozy. Decay and pestilent vapors. He walked outside and sucked in fresh air.
Pershing Square was close. He cut through Little Tokyo and tallied padlocked shops. They ran about 68%. A fat man leaned out a window and hissed at him.
He hit Hill Street. Pershing Square was packed and 8:00 a.m. rowdy. A platform flanked the bronze J. J. Pershing. A microphone was wired to loudspeakers hooked into trees.
A hambone harangued a big crowd. Ashida joined the fray. He was skintight with the great L.A. unwashed.
Speakers huddled on the platform. That’s Dr. Fred Hiltz. He’s been in the papers per the Deutsches Haus raid. Hiltz chatted with Reynolds Loftis. Claire and Kay chatted with a colored man. Ashida made him off a Vice sheet. He was the local Burgermeister of the Negro Nazi League.
The ham was Gerald L. K. Smith. He was a Disciples of Christ cleric and noted Jew baiter. Ashida kept his head down and tried to blend in. Smith whipped up the crowd.
German atrocities have been overplayed. The Red Control Apparatus ladles on the boo-hoo. Hitler mollycoddles the Jews. He’s a heartwarming humanist. Join the Christian Nationalist Crusade. Derail the “Jew Deal” of President Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld. Write to P.O. Box 8992/Glendale, California. Purchase our informative tracts.
The crowd cheered. The crowd booed. The crowd tossed paper cups. A water-filled condom hit the platform and exploded. Gerald L. K. Smith hugged the Negro Nazi. They faced the crowd and Sieg Heil!ed.
More cheers. More boos. More water-balloon bombs. The crowd grew. Ashida got compressed. A skullcap man brushed by him and mouthed “Goddamn Jap.” He saw the film crew. They stood on benches at the back of the crowd.
Kay Lake walked to the microphone. She wore a police blue dress. The crowd simmered down. Ashida caught the gist.
Let her talk. She’s a girl. Feed us some shit we can work with, doll. We’re here to act up.
Ashida scanned the crowd. He saw Bill Parker back by the film crew. Parker stood on a trash can and leaned upside a tree. He wore civilian clothes. He had a high balcony view.
Kay placed her hands on the mike stand. Kay looked straight at the crowd.
“We live in a time of the vile act justified. Vile acts spawn immediate and reactive injustice. Such reaction is often obscured by righteous intent. The empathic bond of shared catastrophe creates an unshakable will to power that binds each and every one of us to a world outside of and most deeply within ourselves. We comport in this shared world at great moral peril, and understand that this is the moment that calls us to self-sacrifice. The name that we give to this moment is History, and that moment is now.”
She paused. Ashida read it. She’s catching her breath. She’s got them for one instant.
Kay said, “History afflicts both individuals and nations. History assumes the form of a mass debt that common people pay in blood. History is this moment, and at this moment we are charged to love and hate on a mass scale, as we act as individuals called to the best within ourselves, as we react to atrocity by euphemizing atrocity, for atrocity assumes forms both subtle and strident and obliterates everything within its path, and as individuals we are thus charged to the near-impossible task of enacting love that much more ruthlessly, and with a self-sacrifice th
at would have been unknowable had History not summoned us. At this moment, our options become do everything or do nothing.”
She paused. Ashida read it. She’s still got them. She knows they won’t hold off much—
Kay said, “War is the mass imprisonment of the individual will and the paradoxical liberation of the individual voice. Thus, self-sacrifice oft becomes the voicing of unpopular sentiment within more popular outrage. History is this moment. This moment must acknowledge the merger of the individual voice and our nation’s will to power, and bring it to a more specific moment of conscious and contrary statement. We must avenge the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with the full assumption of our mass will to power, which will be in the end our individually enacted wills to fight and risk death. Because we are honorably called to that duty, we must honorably call ourselves to the recognition of the sordid fact that we are now perpetrating a blood libel on the honorable Japanese people of this city, that our best selves have been countermanded by fear and irrational hatred, and—”
Boos. Jeers. Catcalls.
Shouts, yells, shrieks.
Kay moved her lips. The crowd yelled over her. Lowlifes dumped the loudspeakers. Kay moved her lips. No sound came out.
She had no voice. They stole her voice. Somebody yelled, “JAP!” It was right up close to him. A man jumped in and hit him.
He pitched forward. He flailed and stayed upright. He heard Goddamn Jap! a million times.
A man hit him. A boy hit him. A girl kicked him. He raised his hands and covered his face. A woman yanked at his arms.
Ashida went down. People hit him and kicked him. He lost sight of Kay. People hit him. People kicked him. People spit on him. He felt beat-on and shit-on and fucked-up anesthetized.
Something hit the people.
They stopped. They stumbled. They tripped. They fell down themselves. Something hit them and made them run.
It’s hard to see. There’s blood in his eyes. It might be Scotty Bennett and Bill Parker. They’re hitting the people. They’re hitting them and kicking them and making them run.
8:36 a.m.
