This Storm

by James Ellroy

  It was her sin omitted. Bill Parker covered it up. Their shared complicity ran breathless deep.

  She went to the library. She read Sid Hudgens’ series on the Watanabe case. Hudgens fawningly praised Dudley Smith. Equal praise went to Hideo Ashida.

  Parker and Smith chat at Lyman’s and Kwan’s. She’s observed their brusque civility and the hatred underneath. They attend the same church. They drink with Archbishop Cantwell and confess to Monsignor Joe Hayes. They worship God, to the detriment of God’s law.

  She drinks and jousts with Bill Parker. They drink, to their equal detriment. She worked a property-confiscation string with Hideo Ashida. They bagged a terpin hydrate still. The owner killed himself at the Lincoln Heights Jail.

  She filched a dozen terp vials from Don Matsura’s apartment. She wanted to experience the effect. She consumed two vials in the back room at Lyman’s. She entered a vivid dream state.

  She saw forest fires near Tomah, Wisconsin. She shotgunned a drunken Indian. She woke up on the couch. Dudley Smith looked down at her.

  He said, “Hello, lass. You were extolling the wonders of gold in your sleep.”

  28

  (LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42)

  Gold.

  He stole the bar and stashed it in his hotel suite. He kept the key and called Lock-Ur-Self Storage. He learned the provenance of locker 648.

  It was a permanent rental. A “John Jones” paid the full fee in June ’31. A file card listed John Jones’ address. It was a fake.

  Dead end.

  He reprowled Lock-Ur-Self and brought his evidence kit. He print-dusted 648 and got smudges and rubber-glove prints.

  Dead end.

  He wants the gold. Joan Conville wants the gold. He saw Joan at the library. She was reading old newspapers and jotting notes. He cruised the reference desk and scanned Joan’s request slip. The words fire and gold jumped out.

  Joan knows most of what he knows. He’s certain of that. She knows nothing of Lock-Ur-Self. She has not seen the gold. He’s far ahead of her there.

  The gold.

  It’s Joan’s idée fixe. She wears gold cuff links. She works in the lab and fondles them constantly. She’s clocked him clocking her. Their omissions and suspicions reverberate both ways. She’s seen all the reports and news clips that he’s seen. She queried him per his ballistics tests. He laid out the liquor-store spree. Joan extrapolated. She said, “Fritz Eckelkamp. Liquor stores were his métier.”

  She’s a natural detective. She knows how to cull facts and think. They have not discussed fire or gold since.

  He subtly pumped Elmer Jackson. He quizzed him per Wayne Frank’s death and gold idée fixe. He curveballed “Karl Frederick Tullock.” Elmer deadpanned the name.

  Wayne Frank and Karl Tullock. This simple conclusion. They converged in Griffith Park that day. This less simple question perplexed him. The gold nugget in Tullock’s trouser cuff. How did it get there?

  He sought to buttress his fire-case logic. He set out to establish a certain Box Man ID. He recalled gossip. The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Bertillon-charted their deputies.

  The men were comprehensively measured. Hand spans/arm and leg lengths/twelve phrenological marks. He could measure Box Man. He would measure up or he would not.

  He called the SB Personnel Office and stiffed the request. He said it pertained to a missing-persons job. The photostat arrived the next day.

  He went by the morgue. Nort Layman was out. He consulted the Bertillon chart and duplicated the measurement regime.

  He measured hand spans/arm lengths/distances between toes. He tape-wrapped the skull and plumbed the occipital sockets. Box Man and Chart Man measured up exactly.

  October 3, ’33. The two gold seekers converge in Griffith Park and die there that day. Those are facts. The rest is conjecture.

  He tracked conjectural logic. It led him back to the ballistics bulletins. He’d studied the spent lodged in Karl Tullock’s skull. He got that partial lands-and-grooves read. It partially matched the liquor-store spents.

  He walked over to the DB and pored through Robbery files. He snagged a file for the ’33 liquor-store spree. He saw an eyeball-witness sketch. It vaguely resembled Elmer’s Wayne Frank wallet pic.

  He walked back to Central Station. A basement storeroom housed misdemeanor files. He breathed dust and mold and tore his hands bloody. He wagered on this:

  Alky Wayne Frank. At loose in L.A., summer ’33. It’s logical. He would have been popped for plain drunk or vagrancy.

  He dumped file boxes and went through them. It was pure shitwork. He hit a July ’33 box. He caught a “Jackson, Wayne Frank” file tab.

  Wayne Frank sustained a vag roust. Note the attached mug shot. It’s a more than vague/half-ass-good match. It veers toward the liquor-store sketch.

  Tell Joan Conville none of this. She wants the gold, to your exclusion. Your probity exceeds hers. The gold will buy her a man-trap wardrobe and front-row nightclub seats. The gold is your racial bargaining chip.

  You diverge in moral intent. She’s a round-heeled girl out for kicks. You’re out to ensure your family’s freedom. You converge as scientists. You both love gold as an entity.

  He went to a jeweler’s. He bought two solid-gold second lieutenant’s bars. They brought Dudley Smith to mind. They warned him of Joan Conville. They told him not to underestimate her.

  She’s gifted but erratic. She’s conjoined with the gifted but erratic Bill Parker. Their union comes off deluded. It may play out effective. It mirrors his own union with Dudley Smith.

  Ever-gracious Dudley. His proffered Army commission. It carries a price. He’ll abet evil designs. He’ll enter the man trap that is Dudley Smith.

  Dudley has usurped Bucky Bleichert. Dudley is now the naked man in his dreams. Dudley calls him twice a week. He always issues directives.

  Brace Elmer J. Find out what he’s doing. Bring up Tommy Glennon. Mention Eddie Leng and Donald Matsura. Don’t forget the sketchy Lin Chung.

  He quizzed Elmer. He was subtle. Elmer sloughed him off. He told Dudley that Elmer felt clean. He said the Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung alliance felt Fifth Column.

  Dudley told him to scour J-town for Kyoho Hanamaka. He’s dubbed Hanamaka Baja’s spy king. Hanamaka runs Baja’s boss saboteur cell. Dudley wants to extort the cell and limit the extent of their damage.

  Baja suits Dudley. He’s created a second family there. He’s got Claire and her street-urchin daughter. Dudley’s screen sleuth Charlie Chan. He’s Dudley’s #1 son.

  He loves Dudley’s egalitarianism. He loves Dudley’s realpolitik. Dudley sees the internment as fear-spawned race hate. The Manzanar camp opens March 25. The Owens Valley broils in the summer and sustains winter’s deep freeze.

  Dudley, the Irish arriviste. Dudley, ever strategic. Dudley, most chilling here:

  “I’ve heard that Bill Parker and your colleague Joan Conville make quite the pair. I met lovely Joan at Lyman’s recently, and became somewhat entranced. Any friend of Bill Parker’s merits my attention. Please keep me apprised of Miss Conville’s activities.”

  Dudley denotes equal measure. You love him and fear him proportionately. You submit to him because it delights him and proves your utility.

  Lieutenant Hideo Ashida, Army SIS.

  You will survive and exploit this war by Dudley Smith’s sole decree.

  29

  (LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42)

  He’s scared. It crept up, belated. Oooga-booga. Dem demons done launched demselves his way.

  He’s scared of the war. He’s scared of the draft. He’s scared of Jap infantry. He’s ex–Marine Corps. They’ll resnag his cracker ass and get his cracker ass slayed quick.

  That’s surefire terror. It’s regulation issue. It’s standard for this shitstorm time and place. It pales before his fear of Dudley
Smith.

  Oooga-booga. It’s like he back in de ole south. He done ex-caped Parchman. De hellhound’s on his trail.

  Dud won’t kill him. He’s too tight with Brenda and Jack H. Dud’s too savvy for Murder One. He’ll just nullify his redneck ass in some cagey way.

  The hellhound’s got him pinned. The beast’s baying baleful. Elmer, why’d you pull all this meddlesome shit?

  Well, it’s my case, hound. It’s my very own big-deal investigation. That means Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung et al. I’ve got to wrap it up for some special woman—and Dud just got in the way.

  Who’s the woman, shithead?

  I don’t know—but L.A.’s full of candidates.

  He’s scared. He’s restless. Diverse shit’s coming and going. The Box Man job went pffft. Dr. Nort, Big Joan, and Hideo did what they could. He retooled memory lane and jawed with Wayne Frank in his dreams. But Wayne Frank’s still dead and buried. Who’s the Box Man? Who gives a shimmering shit?

  There’s still his case. It’s breaking wide. Where will it go?

  He’s got address-book names. Tommy G.’s oddball KAs. We’ll start with Monsignor Joe Hayes. He’s a mick priest and Dudster KA. That tong rumor: “Tommy’s poking some priest.”

  There’s this Jean Staley twist. He ran her through R & I. File checks revealed this:

  She’s thirty-three. She’s a carhop. She fell behind maryjane, back in ’36. She did six months honor farm and thenceforth kept her snout clean.

  He might brace her. She might tattle Tommy for some scurvy misdeeds. She might be bored and het up and sleep with him.

  Ed Satterlee might roust Huey Cressmeyer. Ed’s considering it. He’ll write Ed’s script and peep the sweatbox mirror. Ed’s a phone-book man. Huey’ll be hurtin’ for certain.

  Huey might hold his mud. Huey might break. Huey might reveal Tommy’s whereabouts or some extraneous dish. Here’s for sure—Dud will get wind of it quick.

  Ed hasn’t utilized Brenda’s trick spot. He’s checked the piggyback camera four times to date. Ed’s on some trap-spies crusade. He’s out to honey-bait Fifth Columnists. The wall peek could yield roundabout leads on his case.

  Ed’s played out as a white man. It rebuts his nosebleed rep. Ed’s evinced high class per the phone-tap hullabaloo.

  “You’re afraid we’ve got wires on you, right? Okay, I’ll give you the chance to listen to any calls you might be on. You can erase them, if we keep it on the q.t.”

  Wartime camaraderie. Spy chasers afield. Plus, new folks orbiting through.

  There’s Hideo Ashida. He’s all-time tight with El Dudley. There’s Big Joan. She allegedly scares Hideo. Joan haunts Lyman’s and trades looks with Kay Lake. Oooga-booga—she de hellhound on Kay’s trail.

  The war’s shifting things. The draft’s depleting the PD. The phone probe’s an undulating undercurrent. Jack Horrall wants to ride the war and probe out and retire. Let Thad Brown or Bill Parker take over then.

  He braced Jack at Kwan’s. Rotate me back to Vice, boss. I hate the Alien Squad. Most of these Japs were sandbagged. They ain’t pulled no ruinous shit.

  Jack said, “The Squad rates you war-essential. Stick it out, son. If you rotate back to Vice, you’re draft bait.”

  Sage fucking advice.

  The war’s got folks calculating. Brenda’s pulling away from him. Ellen’s veering back to her husband. Hideo’s running off to Baja. The Dudster’s got his hooks in deep.

  Hideo’s feeling his oats. He blows off his bodyguards. Him and Lee Blanchard got pink-slipped there. The crime lab’s fielding a Jap-woman team. The goddamn rain won’t stop.

  The Box Man job worked some hoodoo on him. He’s had all these Wayne Frank dreams. Plus dreams of tall redheads in gold lamé gowns.

  The war’s a moneymaker. His call biz has gone gold post–Pearl Harbor. Everybody’s scared and fucking willy-nilly. He got plastered and tried to kiss Kay. She pushed him away and said this:

  “The war’s got us all by the scruff of the neck. That doesn’t mean we should succumb.”

  Sage fucking advice.

  He wants to succumb. He’s more hopped up than scared. That’s his dilemma here.

  30

  (BAJA AND LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42)

  He can’t shake the thought. He can’t exploit it for profit. The revelation bodes CATASTROPHE.

  Jim Davis slaughters four Japs. He tells his ex-adjutant. Bill Parker keeps mum, so far as we know. Parker is a grandiose drunk. He’s remorseful and suffused with blind ambition. He probably won’t blab. Jim Davis has blabbed twice already.

  A gaudy psychopath seeks absolution. Father D. L. Smith grants it. He now knows this:

  Lin Chung was privy to the Watanabe snuffs. Ditto Claire’s doctor chum, Saul Lesnick. Jim Davis runs amok. The local Fifth Column bodes, crazily diffuse and politically inclusive.

  He’s scared. He’s hamstrung. He can’t kill Jim Davis or Bill Parker. He ran the Watanabe job. Widespread knowledge of Jim Davis’ guilt would create widespread panic. It would keelhaul Jack Horrall and Hideo Ashida. It would ruin one D. L. Smith.

  He’d face criminal indictment. He’d forfeit his Army commission. His dear Claire would disavow him. He’d stand condemned.

  He’s scared. He’s hamstrung and stalemated there. His Baja work compensates.

  He discussed the pay-phone taps with Juan Pimentel. The deciphered codes suggest Jap air bases in San Berdoo County. The specific wording suggests rumor more than hard fact. He forwarded the allegation to Fourth Interceptor. They knew the rumor already. They considered it hogwash.

  José Vasquez-Cruz considers it hogwash. He’s got a brand-new hobbyhorse. He wants to infiltrate U.S. diplomatic junkets. The notion consumes him. It’s his #1 intel priority.

  El Capitán is politically savvy. He hates FDR. FDR’s Latin American stance is “One Big Red Ruse.” Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld has seduced film folk en masse. He’s sending them out to hawk the Jew Deal and the Allied war effort.

  Captain D. L. Smith has blackmailed numerous film stars. Vasquez-Cruz wants him to recruit junketeering informants. Claire finds Vasquez-Cruz suspicious and attractive. They danced, hands on hips. Captain D. L. Smith noticed it then.

  Claire lives within herself. He feels her slipping away. She’s a capable woman, underemployed. She pervs on odd beaners and boots morphine. She communes with Joan Klein. Young Joan steals from stores. He’s spot-tailed her and observed her thefts.

  She consigns junk jewelry to street vendors and takes a quarter cut. She’s a petty thief and seasoned prevaricator. He was killing British soldiers at her age. He likes the girl nonetheless.

  He likes Juan Pimentel. Lieutenant Juan is competent and adroit. He watchdogs Kyoho Hanamaka’s hideaway. He sees Captain Smith visit the premises. Captain Smith locks himself in and lingers loooooong.

  He visits the wall cache. He brings the gold bayonet. He poses with it.

  He found a discreet tailor in T.J. The man altered wall-cache uniforms to fit him. He’s bypassed the Russian garb. He poses in Wehrmacht gray and SS black.

  A cobbler fitted him with jackboots. He bought a sheath for the gold bayonet. His fascist trousseau stands complete.

  The bayonet consoles and confounds him. He’s run a magnifying glass down the whole length. He picked up the probable remnants of U.S. mint marks. Buff-out marks also appear.

  The provenance. That’s what confounds him. FDR banned gold hoarding back in ’33. The dictate was widely ignored. Let’s indulge fantasy here.

  There’s a wealthy U.S. fascist. He employs an artisan. A gold bar is cut into bayonet shape. It makes its way to the Fatherland and Kyoho Hanamaka. Fetishistic horror ensues.

  Provenance. A fantasy rendition. Fantasy as necessity and a firewall against chaos.

  A man tried to kill him. That made two atte
mpts in two months. He scanned Statie mug-shot books. He ID’d his second would-be assassin.

  The Slogan Man. Victor Trejo Caiz. Born Calexico, 1901. Priest killer under Kommisar Calles. Commandant of a Redshirt Battalion. In disfavor under Lázaro Cárdenas. Suspected wheelman for the Leon Trotsky snuff.

  Caiz was the Slogan Man. Está muerto now. The Sleek Man killed him. He mug-shot ID’d the Sleek Man. He’s one Salvador Abascal.

  The Sinarquista Führer. Born 1910. Blood foe of all Reds and anticlerical slime. Devout Catholic hegemonist. Fiery supporter of the Irish Republican cause.

  A man to honor. A man to covet. A man to scrutinize.

  He drove south on a whim. He hit Magdalena Bay and surveilled the Sinarquista encampment. He watched a priest perform outdoor Mass for six hundred Greenshirts.

  Abascal gave a rip-roaring speech. He stood too far off to hear. He admired the Führer’s fluent gestures and delivery.

  He drove back to Ensenada. Joe Hayes called. He was in town with Charlie Coughlin and the Archbishop. They came to fish and drink. “And, you owe us dinner, Dud.”

  He made good. They dined at the Hotel del Norte. He steered talk to the Sinarquistas. His pals praised Salvador Abascal. Es un hombre magnifico.

  Father Charles brought up Tommy Glennon. You know Tommy, don’t you, Joe? Monsignor Hayes blushed and blanched.

  Tommy tops the still-missing list. Elmer Jackson seems to have curtailed his rogue antics. The Baja Jap roundups proceed. Two more L.A.-to-Baja pay-phone calls have hit.

  They were decoded. Sub berths were abstractly discussed. No exact locations or coordinates were mentioned. It was just abstract chat.

  Human voices spieled code words. Said voices were muffled and barely audible. They might have been prerecorded. Pay-phone stakeouts were the logical next step.

  He discussed it with José Vasquez-Cruz. El Fascisto was bored. They discussed their racket plans. That perked him up.