by James Ellroy
So, it’s you. Northwestern—spring 1940.
He said, “Lieutenant Conville.”
A prairie drawl. The Dakotas, maybe.
Joan said, “We haven’t met, but I’ve seen you before.”
“My name’s Parker. I’m with the Los Angeles Police Department. I command the Traffic Division.”
“Acknowledge me, will you? ‘I’ve seen you before.’ ”
Parker gripped the bars. “You might well have. I checked your enlistment file. We attended Northwestern concurrently.”
Joan gripped the bars. Their hands were close. Joan moved hers away.
“Can you be more emphatic? You seemed to be surveilling me then.”
Parker got out his cigarettes and offered the pack. Joan took one. Parker lit it.
Joan tossed her head and exhaled. It telegraphed vamp move. She felt stupid and out of her league.
“What happened? Why am I here?”
Parker lit a cigarette. “You’ve been arrested for four counts of vehicular manslaughter. Four men are dead because you drove inebriated in a heavy rainstorm. If you’re lucky, you’ll do five years at Tehachapi.”
Joan stepped back. She grazed the bunk ledge and almost tripped. She caught herself and stepped back up to the bars.
“I need a lawyer. I’ll be charged and arraigned, and there’ll be a trial.”
Parker said, “I’ve had some experience with this sort of matter. Most inebriate killers evince regret or remorse and ask questions about the people they killed. You went to your own survival immediately. I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.”
Joan gripped the bars. Her hands brushed Parker’s. She kept them there.
“Tell me about the people I killed. I’ll react, and you can decide whether to be impressed or appalled then.”
Parker said, “They were Mexican illegals. They were transporting marijuana, and had extensive criminal records. Their offenses included strongarm robbery, aggravated assault, kidnapping, white slavery, and first-degree extortion.”
Joan dropped her cigarette and crushed it. “I’m evincing regret now. I can’t quite embrace remorse.”
Parker grinned a tad. “You’re a cum laude forensic biologist. A prison sentence would scotch whatever degree of success you might ultimately achieve.”
“You’re leading me, Captain. There’s something going on here.”
“Oh, really? And what would that be?”
Joan winked. “Really, sir? It wasn’t that long ago.”
“Lieutenant, now you’re lead—”
“I was shooting skeet off the Evanston Bridge. You were watching me. I thought, That man should go home and be nice to his wife, because his attention has surely strayed.”
Parker blushed. It was almost but not quite endearing.
“You rid the world of four vicious thugs. I’ll extend muted bravos, and add that all opportunities carry a price. If you resign your Navy commission, I’ll see to a dismissal of all charges against you. I’ll secure you a position with the PD’s Central Crime Lab and personally vouch your wartime employment.”
Booze blackouts, skeet guns, cop voyeurs—
“Is this your métier, Captain? Have you made a career out of entrapping young women?”
Parker said, “I’ve only done it once before.”
“And when was that?”
Parker said, “Last month.”
Joan laughed. “I’ve read monographs by your Dr. Ashida. I greatly admire them.”
“Would you like to meet Dr. Ashida?”
Joan said, “When?”
Parker said, “Now.”
8
(LOS ANGELES, 7:45 A.M., 1/1/42)
The bash felt stale now. ’41 was old news. ’42 was au courant.
Nobody danced. Count Basie’s boys dozed in their chairs. A few cops and dates schmoozed. A buffet dispensed Bloody Marys and stale bagels.
Lee Blanchard was out cold. He topped out his bodyguard shift. The dead kids got to him. He hit the party and drank himself insensate.
The day-shift man was due. Elmer J. always ran late. Blanchard said he had late work with the Dudster.
Thad Brown circulated. He ran the Homicide Squad. Kay Lake circulated. She was the PD’s favored seductress. Brenda Allen table-hopped. She ran call girls with Elmer. Jack Horrall and Fletch Bowron dozed on a couch. The Count dozed with them. His head brushed the mayor’s shoulder.
The dead kids.
Ashida teethed on it. He teethed each and every split second. He sipped coffee and stayed alert.
Bill Parker issued a gag order. No reporters, no public exposure. Four male wetbacks, muerto. It stands at THAT. The Navy woman must not know.
Parker called Catholic Charities. He had oomph there. A private hearse hauled the kids off.
Parker admonished Blanchard and Ashida. I demand silence. Do not talk about this.
Ashida trawled the room. The Count was up and bleary-eyed. He chatted with Kay. La Grande Katherine looked up-all-night fetching.
Brenda Allen blew a kiss. Ashida waved back. Colored sax men fish-eyed him. Yeah—we ain’t white, but you’re a JAP.
Elmer walked over. He straddled a chair and drained Blanchard’s highball.
“Sorry I’m late. Dud had us hopping.”
Ashida sipped coffee. “You tend to be overextended.”
Elmer said, “It’ll get worse, starting tomorrow. The roundups’ll kick in again, and your few remaining countrymen on the loose’ll be headed for the pokey.”
“We’re backlogged on your confiscations. You’re bringing in more than we can process.”
Elmer relit a cigar. “You’re lucky we got thieves on the squad. Georgie Kapek and Wendell Rice got your swag appropriated.”
Ashida laughed. Elmer eyeballed the room. He said, “Kay looks swell, don’t she?”
“Are you in love with her?”
“I’m entranced. That’s worse. You acknowledge that you ain’t got a chance, so you act even dumber than you usually do.”
Ashida jumped topics. Romantic intrigue bored and vexed him.
“I read a Teletype from Fourth Interceptor. There’s allegedly hidden air bases out in Indio and Brawley. The command picked up coded pay-phone calls from here to Baja.”
Elmer shrugged. “Dud’s headed south. He’ll nip that grief in the bud. ‘Knock, knock, who’s there? Dudley Smith, so spies beware.’ ”
Ashida smiled. Elmer scoped the doorway. Ashida tracked his gaze.
Bill Parker walked in. He wore a fresh uniform and looked all spruced up. He brought a date.
A Navy lieutenant. Rumpled blues, red hair, quite tall and statuesque. Vehicular manslaughter/six counts/two counts unacknowledged.
Elmer waggled his eyebrows. Elmer wolf-growled.
Ashida deployed Man Camera. He framed Parker and the redhead. He panned to Kay Lake and caught her reaction. He zoomed in for a close-up. Kay and Parker shared This Big Freighted Look.
Parker and the redhead hit the buffet. They ignored the food and mixed high-test Bloody Marys.
They clicked glasses. Their hands brushed. Kay saw it all.
Thad Brown walked up. He ignored dozed-out Blanchard. He braced Ashida and Elmer.
“Let’s go. We’ve got mud slides in Griffith Park. They’ve dislodged a body by the golf course.”
9
(LOS ANGELES, 8:30 A.M., 1/1/42)
They ran Code Three/red lights and siren. It goosed squarejohn drivers curbside. Thad Brown hauled. Ashida rode shotgun. Elmer hogged the backseat.
First reports state this:
The stiff is a long-term decomp. That means all bones. It washed up on the par-3 golf course. Said course adjoined Mineral Canyon—i.e., the spot where Wayne Frank Jackson died.
&nbs
p; Elmer agitated it. Elmer segued to more pressing shit. Eddie Leng’s deep-fried feet. Tommy Glennon’s address book.
He’d dropped the book on the day-watch Vice clerk. He’d slipped him a yard and told him to run a phone-number check. Chop, chop. I need results, pronto. And don’t blab on this.
Brown hauled up Vermont. Rainwater jammed the wheel wells. The car belly-flopped and drifted. Brown veered right and caught a flat surface. They shimmied down a golf course access road.
Elmer saw two black-and-whites and a prowl sled. Plus a snack hut. Plus green fairways and the dump site.
There’s two harness blues and two plainclothesmen. They’ve got arc lights and a rain tarp set up. They’ve got a steep hillside all lit.
Brown fishtailed over and yanked the brake. They all went whew. Elmer bundled into his hat and trench coat. They all got out and ran.
Elmer got there first. He saw Al Goossen and Colin Forbes—Hollywood Squad hard-ons.
Nods circulated. The tarp fluttered and dripped rain. Brown and Ashida caught up. The arc lights lit this:
Soaked grass up the fairway. The mud spill and all this loose soil. A big dirt hole. Exhumed mud sluicing down to this flat spot.
The spill dislodged a box. It tumbled down the hillside. It’s a pine box—six-six by two feet.
It’s charred black. They’re char marks, for sure. Intermittent marks—mud-and-root-matted.
The lid was warped and soil-eroded. The mud slide sprung it off, clean. It’s a jig-rigged casket. There’s green goo caked inside. There’s skeletal remains.
Ashida pointed to the goo. “That’s congealed quicklime. It serves to speed decomposition.”
Elmer relit his cigar. Forbes and Goossen lit cigarettes. Brown spit tobacco juice.
“That tags it Murder One.”
Ashida leaned in close. Elmer said, “Genius at work.”
Bluesuit #1 rolled his eyes. Bluesuit #2 said, “Like Charlie Chan.” Elmer said, “Charlie Chan’s a Chinaman, dipshit.”
Bluesuit #2 blanched. Ashida foot-tapped the box.
“Note the width of the pelvis and the overall length and breadth of the remains. The victim was male, tall, and heavyset.”
Brown said, “Talk to me, dead man.”
Forbes said, “Who killed you, boss?”
Ashida futzed with the stiff’s jawbones. They went creak. He pulled them loose.
“The killer knocked his teeth out. Note the mandible fractures. The uppers and lowers are unidentifiable stubs.”
Elmer studied the box. The fire aspect gouged him. October 3, ’33—the Griffith Park blaze.
Ashida tapped a shattered rib bone. “It’s a knife-thrust homicide. The killer hit hard, went in deep, and twisted the knife.”
Brown leaned low. He studied the skull. He pointed out a hole and faint cracks adjacent.
“He was shot once. You’ll find a spent round embedded.”
Elmer looked up the hill. Lightning backlit the whole golf course.
“You remember that big fire, back in ’33? I’m thinking it could have whooshed over the box and caused all the charring.”
Ashida said, “I don’t think so. There’s too much mud for the fire to have gone that deep.”
Brown poked at some rags. They were quicklime-caked and bore singe marks.
“That green shit dissolved the clothes off the body.”
Forbes said, “Who killed you, dead man?”
Goossen said, “It’s a missing-person job. That stuff puts me to sleep. Give me a nigger homicide any day.”
Brown said, “You’re out of luck there. Get the box and the stiff to Doc Layman at the morgue.”
Forbes and Goossen sulked. Elmer chewed his cigar. He recollected Wayne Frank. He felt all razzle-dazzle.
“Here’s what gets me. Some of the box is burned, but some ain’t. I don’t see no special flame pattern on the wood.”
Forbes said, “Elmer’s brother died in that fire. He’s got fires on the noggin.”
Goossen said, “I remember that day. Fire trucks were backed up all the way down Los Feliz.”
Forbes said, “It was the Reds. They never proved arson, but some Red cell was supposed to be good for it.”
Ashida studied the box. Genius at work. All eyes on Ashida now.
He said, “Elmer could be right. I think the box was burned concurrent with an aboveground fire. 1933 might be a good guess.”
* * *
—
The rain let up. Black clouds hovered. Thad B. drove Elmer and Ashida back downtown. L.A. was hungover. Shops closed, nil traffic, local yokels sleeping it off.
Ashida hopped out at the Biltmore. Elmer snagged his civilian sled at City Hall. That Vice clerk delivered. He’d stuck the phone-call list under the wiper blades.
Elmer had a bachelor flop at 1st and Saint Andrews. He drove by and fed his tropical fish. Brenda had a house up Laurel Canyon. He part-time shacked there. Brenda might be home. She might toss him some New Year’s woof-woof.
He drove over and let himself in. The place was done up Spanish Hacienda. Brenda scrounged used sets from The Sword of Zorro. Some homo art director went nuts.
Elmer built a highball and buzzed the call-service switchboard. The dispatch girl delivered the dish. She knew Elmer was het up and voyeurizized.
Dig tonight’s roster:
Fletch Bowron booked a threesky. DA Bill McPherson booked a colored cooze. Sheriff Gene Biscailuz booked a tall blonde.
The service featured house calls, plus three fuck flops. Apartment-building tryst spots. Replete with hidden wall peeks and cameras. Folks paid to peep bedroom action. The camera shit doubled as potential shakedown gear.
The Chapman Park flop was booked tonight. Cary Grant, Butch Stanwyck, and Ruth Mildred Cressmeyer were tricking with “Ten-Inch” Tony Mangano.
Tony tricked switcheroosky. He turned Ruth Mildred straight in one-night allotments. Ruthie was a disbarred physician and scrape doc. Ruthie was tight with Dudley Smith. Ruthie recruited lez girls for Brenda.
Fourteen peepers had booked seats for the show. The peepers peeped anonymous. They paid fifty scoots a head. Butch and Tony commanded top dollar.
Also, on tonight’s roster:
Mickey Rooney booked a girl. Likewise John “Cricket Dick” Huston. Eight girls for a USC frat bash. Six boys for a Brentwood hen party.
Elmer signed off the call. The phone rang and startled him. He snagged the new call.
“Talk to me.”
“It’s Kay, Elmer.”
“Well, then. Some weather, huh? It’s like the flood in the Bible. You think it’ll ever stop?”
Kay laughed. “I didn’t call to discuss the weather.”
Elmer laughed. “Well, it sure ain’t the war, because we hashed all that out the last time we talked.”
“Don’t be a C.T. You know what I’m angling for.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’s that, pray tell?”
Kay stage-sighed. “Come on, Elmer. Give.”
Elmer stage-sighed. “The party? The big redhead with Bill Parker? That catch your eye?”
“Now, he gets to it.”
“Hard not to notice, huh?”
Kay laughed. “I’ve known William Henry Parker the Third for twenty-seven days, and during that time he has repeatedly cast his eyes about for tall, red-haired, naval-officer women.”
Elmer said, “You’re counting the days since you’ve met him. What’s that tell you about yourself?”
Kay said, “You’re deliberately tweaking me.”
Elmer said, “I don’t know no more than you do, except how much you love that man.”
Kay blew him a kiss and hung up. The ten-second phone call was her standard MO.
Elmer yawned and kicked his shoes off. He got out th
e Vice clerk’s list. He studied Tommy G.’s address book and put shit together.
St. Vibiana’s Church. He decoded that one already. It’s the home of papal poobah J. J. Cantwell. He’s the Dudster’s old pal.
The Deutsches Haus. 15th and Union. Pro-Nazi hot spot. Kraut regalia for sale.
Let’s backtrack. We’re in Tommy’s hotel room. There’s that tattoo stencil. It features swastikas and an “SQ” circled by snakes. The “SQ” snake job was embroidered on the late Eddie Leng.
More names, more phone numbers. Huey Cressmeyer. A Hollywood phone exchange. That’s no surprise. He’s Ruth Mildred’s perv-o son and a Dudster informant. C-town tattle: Huey and Tommy were reform-school chums.
Monsignor Joseph Hayes. A West L.A. exchange. More C-town drift: Tommy and “some priest” travel the Hershey Highway.
Jean Clarice Staley. A Hollywood exchange. That rates a Huh? She’s a woman—but Tommy runs Greek. He rapes women—he don’t call them.
That hot-box pay phone. It’s right upside the Herald. It’s drilled for slug calls. Plus this head-scratcher. It rates a big Huh?
Fourteen pay phones. All down in Baja. All in Ensenada. All eighty miles south of T.J.
Let’s backtrack. Tommy ran wetbacks for Carlos Madrano. That Spanish-language book in Tommy’s room.
Head-scratchers. Brain-broilers. Code 3 Alert. Look out, son. You’re brushing upside Dudley Smith.
Rain kicked up hard. Elmer walked to the front window and looked out. He saw fresh mud slides. He saw storm crews on Crescent Heights.
Let’s backtrack. The Griffith Park slide, the old-new DOA. Let’s backtrack. The 1933 fire.
It’s October 3. It’s 103 degrees in L.A. Santa Ana winds change course. CCC workers are out cutting brush. Wayne Frank’s among them.
Thirty-four men die. It gets ambiguous here. There’s sloppy rosters and files and fly-by-night work crews. Who died and who didn’t? There’s un-ID’d bodies. There’s Wayne Frank—ID’d off old dental charts.
Arson or not? It gets ambiguous here. It’s the Depression. There’s Red revolt in the vox populi. Garment workers agitating. Labor marches. Kreepy Kremlin prophecies. Fires, tidal waves, storms.
