by James Ellroy
Elmer said, “Is that the Sinarquistas you’re talking about?”
Mama crossed herself. Mama whipped out some voodoo amulet and hexed the world at large.
“Evil fascistas. May they boil in a vat of nigger pus and potato-chip lard.”
Buzz winked at Elmer. “What about that clubhouse, ma’am? 46th and Central, off the jazz strip?”
Mama went ¿Qué?/Who cares?/So what?
Elmer said, “These two Alien Squad cops. Do the names Wendell Rice and George Kapek sound familiar?”
Mama went Huh?/¿Qué?/So what?
Buzz spritzed tobacco juice. He nailed Mama’s mailbox gooooood.
“Give us some names, mama. Feed these two weary dogs a bone.”
“I don’t got no names. I know Arturo went back with them Alien Squad bulls, to when they worked the Narco Detail. Arturo said, ‘Better to snitch to the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.’ ”
Rice and Kapek worked Narco. They allegedly grafted there. It was pre-established drift.
Elmer teethed his cigar. “What else can you tell us about these nameless Narco guys?”
Mama waved her amulet. “They were dos fascistas. They loved Hitler, Tojo, and Father Coughlin. Arturo mostly finked out these Jap pharmacists who wouldn’t sell him no morphine.”
Buzz said, “Names, ma’am?”
A rat zipped across the porch. A big cat-sized fucker. Mama hexed him.
“Arturo said he only snitched off one real Fifth Column fool. Some fool white boy named Huey Cressmeyer. The Alien Squad bulls said, ‘Huey’s sacrosanct. He’s got high-up friends, and he’s our pal.’ ”
50
(LOS ANGELES, 5:00 P.M., 2/1/42)
Call-Me-Jack shagged phone calls. He lived to wheedle, bully, and schmooze. Dudley shagged the chair by his desk.
Jack blah-blahed and yeah-yeahed. He bloviated with Fletch Bowron and Fourth Interceptor. Dudley lit a cigarette. Jack went Un momento.
His phone-light blinked. He winked at El Dudster. He coo-coo’d and oh-baby’d now.
It was surely Brenda Allen. The two shared a history. It predated Brenda’s liaison with doltish Elmer Jackson.
Dudley wore civvies and a belt piece. He drove up rápido. Mike B. called him in Baja. Mike reported this:
Tommy Glennon’s address book appeared at the klubhaus. It contained Huey Cressmeyer’s name. Ditto Lin Chung’s name and Saul Lesnick’s name. Plus more provocative listings.
Chung and Lesnick were Watanabe-case adjunct. That mandated discretion. Huey was a glue addict and plainly psychopathic. That mandated a T.J. retreat.
Jack coo-coo’d good-byes and hung up. He stared across his desk. He read the Dudster’s dire look.
“Lay it out. Bypass the blarney and get to it.”
“Jim Davis killed the Watanabes. Bill Parker put it together. Jim confessed to him in late December, and unburdened himself to me more recently. I’m assuming that no one else knows. That stated, I should add that we now have peripheral names crossing over to the klubhaus job. Dare I say that we need to be careful here?”
Jack went deep-vein sclerotic. He chugged digitalis straight from the vial. He chased it with desk-jug scotch.
“Parker won’t blab. He goes way back with Jim, and Jim’s got dirt on him that could sink his career.”
Dudley said, “Yes, but our Bill is nothing if not capricious. He’ll do anything to appease God and impress young women.”
The desk phone rang. Jack squelched the call.
“Adjudicate this thing with Parker, Dud. Make whatever concessions you deem necessary. Brace Jim D. and tell that lunatic cocksucker in no uncertain terms to keep his fucking mouth shut. As for the klubhaus job, I’ll state this. We need a clean solve and dead suspects who’ll never enter a courtroom. Keep that in mind, along with this. Do whatever you deem necessary to put the quietus on those ‘peripheral names’ you just mentioned. ¿Tú comprende, muchacho?”
Dudley chained cigarettes. “You pulled Rice’s and Kapek’s Personnel files. That severely restricts our access to their arrest records. I’ll hazard a guess here, sir. They ran bag for you when they worked the Narco Squad back in the Davis regime.”
Call-Me-Jack tipped scotch. The pills kicked in. His color receded.
“They covered niggertown for Jim D. and yours truly. Envelopes changed hands. My old Army pal the Reverend Mimms greased the skids south of Slauson. That’s the drift, and here’s the upscut. I burned the Personnel files and the Narco files. Leave Mimms alone, and get me a clean solve despite those restrictions. Elmer Jackson and Buzz Meeks are playing gadfly with you, but I’m disinclined to cut them loose. As our pal Sid Hudgens says, ‘That’s all the news that’s unfit to print.’ ”
The phone rang. Jack squelched it. He slurped scotch and wagged his eyebrows.
“You’re working angles in Baja. My best guess is that Ace the K. is covering you here. By my calculations, I should be in for 8%.”
Dudley smiled. “12%, sir. With a codicil attached.”
“Would that be latitude on everything we’ve just discussed?”
“Yes, and I would like you to detach Lieutenant Ashida, effective immediately.”
“Yes to the former, no to the latter. I need Ashida here.”
Dudley stood up. Jack said, “I met Jim Davis in 1919. He’s always been good to me. Here’s my codicil. I positively forbid you to kill him.”
* * *
—
Whiskey Bill dozed in his prowl sled. Long naps served to revive him. Dudley tagged him in the City Hall lot.
Herr Bill snored. He was unkempt and looked stale overall. Note the photograph taped to the dashboard.
Joan Conville, hometown seductress. She’s posed on a split-rail fence. Note her fetching huntress ensemble.
Fierce Joan. Note the shotgun. She blew a randy redskin’s foot off with it.
The passenger door stood ajar. Dudley slid in beside Parker. He rattled him awake. Parker flinched and went for his gun.
Dudley pinned his hand. “Wake up, Captain. We’ve a serious matter to discuss.”
Parker blinked and rubbed his eyes. He had boozehound breath. Dudley passed him a mint lozenge.
“You woke me up.”
“Yes, and with good cause. Jim Davis told me that he killed the Watanabes. He told you in December, and I’m wondering who else he might have told.”
Parker crossed himself. His eyes zipped to the dashboard.
“There’s the issue of who you’ve told, Captain. Have you confessed to Monsignor Hayes? Have you told your wife or the twin sirens, Miss Conville and Miss Lake?”
Parker recrossed himself and reogled the dashboard. Of course—the sodden shit told Joan.
* * *
—
Sea winds bore down. Bad rain threatened. Wave chop doused his boots. It rendered the beach trek unpleasant.
He drove back last night. He left pressing biz in L.A. A deal with Bill Parker. A bedroom chat with fair Joan.
The Wolf urged his return. The Wolf told him to check the other caves near the death cave. The Wolf wondered this:
Juan Pimentel. Did he torch those saboteurs with undue haste? Herr Juan was the slow-torture type. French-fried Japs and spics played out of character. The Wolf was most emphatic here.
Dudley trekked north. He carried a flashlight and a tommy gun. He saw the death cave and smelled it concurrent.
The scorched flesh. The stale stomach gas and burst entrails.
He entered the cave. The Wolf growled. They walked back and viewed the charred-corpse mound. The Wolf wagged his tail and gnawed flame-bleached bones. Dudley counted thirty-four dead.
They walked back to the beach and turned north. Dudley spotted a cave cove fifty yards up. They walked over. Dudley racked his tommy gun and st
epped in. The Wolf walked point ahead of him.
Yes. It’s the same setup. A deep cave. Numerous forks. Beachfront recessed. Wave-free access.
They explored the cave. The Wolf chased enticing scents. They saw this:
Empty food cans. Two dozen bedrolls. A smashed and thus useless shortwave radio set.
Plus this:
Charred airplane parts. Oddly flimsy. Rivet perforations. Incongruous construction.
The wings snapped onto the fuselage. Flimsy wires secured them. They resembled model-airplane parts.
The engine compartment laid there, exposed. Four small cylinders leaked gas. There’s a flywheel and an automotive gear train attached. There’s hammer-and-sickle decals on a wing plate.
The Wolf cocked his head and perked his ears. Dudley said, “Yes, I know—it’s quite the mad contraption.”
They left the cave and trekked farther north. The Wolf frolicked and chased beach rats. They found four more saboteur nests.
All abandoned. Smashed radios/empty cans/dumped bedrolls. No more jig-rigged airplane parts.
The Wolf possessed a keen intellect and sharp fangs. He gnawed on this:
Did Herr Juan torch those shits judiciously? Did he torch them to warn off other cave dwellers?
Dudley had sharp fangs. He gnawed on it.
* * *
—
A thunderstorm blew in. The Wolf stayed home with Claire and the Klein girl. Dudley teethed and drove back out in the rain.
He gnawed on the Jim Davis snafu. He gnawed on the klubhaus job. He gnawed on his nascent Baja rackets and José Vasquez-Cruz. He gnawed on his L.A. versus Mexico duties and his Army mandate. He gnawed on Kyoho Hanamaka and the gold bayonet.
He took Benzedrine and gnawed with revived gusto. He drove to T.J. and bootjacked a Border Patrol office. The Benzedrine induced brainstorms. It said do this:
Study photo-device footage. Check the northbound passages only. Look for covered vehicles and exposed license plates. Test the efficacy of Hideo Ashida’s grand creation.
The Staties had stockpiled eight photo boxes. Trip wires caught approaching and departing bumper plates. They’d rigged a viewfinder thingamajig in the office. It was crank-scroll operated. Plate numbers appeared on a bubble screen. Date markings ran below them.
Let’s look for suspect vehicles. Let’s study upward-jerking pix and nail suspect trucks.
Overpacked trucks. Trucks riding low on their axles. Fleeing Japs. Internment-dodging Japs. Saboteur Japs.
Dudley scrolled and rescrolled. His mind scrolled and unscrolled as he descrolled license plates. He saw Joan Conville naked. He saw her dressed in SS black. She swung the gold bayonet. She killed the man who killed her father.
License plates abundant. License plates redundant. Front plates, rear plates. Car plates, truck plates, all heading-adios plates.
Dudley got eyestrain. He went through two full boxes. He scrolled up to 1/25/42. He kept seeing Jap goblins who weren’t really there. He kept seeing Joan naked and the Wolf abed with naked Claire.
He fed in the 1/25 pix. He scrolled through boring turistas waving good-bye and leering jarheads sated from the Blue Fox. His brain scrolled/unscrolled/rescrolled/descrolled.
He kept seeing Joan naked/Joan naked/JOAN NAKED. He blinked to rescroll reality. He reinstilled the imposition of boring license plates. He plate-scrolled up to 10:14 p.m., 1/25/42.
He caught a northbound bumper plate and truck grill. The camera lens jerked upward. He caught an up-to-the-windshield shot and caught this:
Wendell Rice and George Kapek—right there in the cab. They’ve got three fucking nights left to live.
51
(LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 2/3/42)
Cramped quarters. They verged on SRO. Lyman’s back room as Crash Squad HQ.
The crammed-in chairs. The food table and coffee urn. The Teletype and phone lines. The corkboard-hung walls.
The booze table. The sweat room upstairs. A bolted-down chair for recalcitrant suspects. Rubber hose and phone-book-thumping tools, on call.
Joan sat between Elmer and Buzz. Ashida sat beside Dr. Nort. Breuning, Carlisle, and Blanchard hogged the back row. Bill Parker and Thad Brown stood and faced their crew. Brown summarized.
We’re six days in. We’ve ID’d the Mex. He long-term snitched for Kapek and Rice. Jack Horrall dumped their Personnel and Narco files. The Mex topped out his paroles. We’ve got no leads there.
We’ve got two rogue cops. They’re embroiled in a secret life deal. We’ve got Tommy Glennon’s address book and jizz-stained sheets. We’ve established a unique cause of death. The lab folks are still at the klubhaus. We need names. We’ve got to stretch this goddamn thing.
Joan ignored the spiel. She jotted gold-heist notes and snuck looks at Bill Parker. Call him lover #1. Dudley was here in L.A. She was seeing him tonight. Call him lover #2.
Brown haggled with Breuning and Carlisle. They wanted to haul in “jazz-club niggers” and “put the boots to them.” Brown told them to pipe down. Joan tuned most of it out.
She doodled. Her thoughts scattergunned. She had breakfast with Kay. They discussed Kay’s diary. She started it the day before Pearl Harbor. Bill Parker knocked on her door that night.
They discussed Joan’s diary. She started it right after the Maestro’s party. Bill Parker lay insensate in her bedroom. Bill Parker, ubiquitous. La Conville and La Lake—now screwball friends.
Lee Blanchard squawked. He canvassed ninety-one houses and didn’t learn shit. Joan tuned him out. She fretted her gold cuff links and rehashed the Santa Barbara file.
Ashida got to it first. He’d thumbed it. She saw that. She’d dog-eared random pages. He undid them. She set a trap for him. He fell into it.
She left the file out for him. He hadn’t mentioned it. He was starting to omit and dissemble again. She simply knew it.
She’d included some liquor-store 211 reports. She’d skimmed that paperwork first. There’s “Jackson, Wayne Frank” on a detain-and-release slip.
Ashida had thumbed that file. Ashida did not mention the Wayne Frank Jackson lead.
It was Bingo #1. Bingo #2 surpassed it.
Martin Luther Mimms sprung Leander Frechette. That was 5/31. Now jump to 1/42. Martin Luther Mimms owns the klubhaus. Elmer Jackson and Lee Blanchard turned up the lead.
Mimms: purportedly tight with high PD brass. Mimms: southside slumlord and bilk-the-poor preacher. Mimms: there for the gold-heist aftermath.
The room trapped cigarette smoke. Ashida fanned it away and made faces. Elmer and Buzz winked at Joan. Joan smiled and winked at Bill Parker. Lover #1 blushed.
Thad Brown said, “Breuning and Carlisle. Check DB files and see if you turn any paper submitted by Kapek and Rice. Blanchard, you recanvass the same radius, whether you like it or not. Jackson and Meeks, shake the names in Tommy Glennon’s address book, and put your snouts down for Tommy himself.”
Get it? We’re finished here. Go to work. This fucking job’s going nowhere so far.
Chairs scraped. The room thinned out. Parker shot Joan a look. It meant Tonight? Joan shot a look back. It meant Sweetie, I can’t.
Parker slunk off. A bottleneck hit the door to Lyman’s proper. The room thinned all-the-way out.
The smoke clouds dispersed. Ashida hit the doorway. Joan grabbed his arm and pulled him back in. She slammed the door and leaned against it. Talk to me, you prissy queen.
“You’ve seen all the paperwork, and you haven’t said a word. We need to follow up on Mimms and see what we can get on Wayne Frank Jackson.”
Ashida shook his head. “I’ll be called down to Baja soon. The gold bayonet derives from there. I’ll uncover leads in Mexico. That’s how I can best serve this venture.”
“That’s not an answer. It’s an evasion. And ‘this venture’ does not begin to d
escribe all of this.”
“Yes, and ‘all of this’ means that ‘half of this’ is down in Mexico. I told you about Kyoho Hanamaka and Dudley’s fixation with him, and we’re not going to turn leads on him here in Los Angeles.”
Joan shook her head. “That’s not what you’re saying. You’re leading me and playing me blithe, and you’re withholding the punch line.”
Ashida shook his head. “All right. Here’s your denouement. Dudley’s in Mexico, and we don’t stand a chance without cutting him in. He uncovered the Mexican lead, but I know he hasn’t connected the bayonet to the heist. We can’t work around him, not with leads crossing over to the klubhaus job. He has to be told, and he has to share in whatever gold we take possession of.”
The room spun off-kilter. Joan got ground-floor vertigo. The prim little shit—
“Who tells him?”
“You do. You’re his lover.”
Joan said, “Yes, I am—however much you’d like to be.”
Ashida hurled his coffee cup across the room. It hit a file cabinet and shattered.
52
(LOS ANGELES, 11:00 A.M., 2/3/42)
He hid from Reckless Girl. The klubhaus as hideout. He worked upstairs. She worked downstairs. The klubhaus as haunted house. He felt her through the floorboards and walls.
Reckless Girl. Brutal Girl. Hausfrau and Harlot. Consort of two brutal cops.
Ashida rephotographed the upstairs bedroom. He wanted to re-create the full-scale haus and run forensic reconstructions. He cracked the front window. Full-scale chatter chattered up.
Patrol cops and press. They crowded the yard and spritzed rumors. “It’s a coon caper” persisted. “It’s a jealous-wife job” ran second. “Nazis and Sinarquista humps” ran third.
Gossip persisted. Sid Hudgens said he got a tip. There’s a big powwow brewing. It’s a face-off. Whiskey Bill versus Dudley Smith.
