by James Ellroy
All that blood. Comunista red. All that offal and blood stink. Dudley smelled Claire through all of it.
67
(LOS ANGELES, 2/12–2/25/42)
I will take fate by the throat.
Beethoven said it. Dudley passed the maxim along. She repeated it to Kay. Diarist Kay loved epigraphs and thus lectured diarist Joan. She said, “It consecrates your opportunism. This war honors arrivistes. So does Los Angeles.”
She should be in Wave training now. She should be field-dressing wounds and reading male VD charts. Fate intervened. A new set of should be’s unfurled. She got drunk and caused four deaths. She should be in Tehachapi now. Elmer Jackson said, “You’re the world’s luckiest white woman, Red. You plowed some wetbacks hauling maryjane.”
That’s true. Luck and fate intertwine and spawn opportunity. And opportunity carries a price. Consider this nightmare.
New Year’s Eve through a booze veil. Blinding rain and the crash. The jail cell wake-up and policeman standing there. He’s an opportunist, as well.
That dream bearably repeats. Repetition renders it banal. The dream sound track retains its verve. She hears young voices and pounding fists. They emanate from some enclosed space. The sound track horrifies.
Fate, thus defined. Cop life beckons her. She joins her fellow opportunists—wartime irregulars all.
Bill Parker and Dudley Smith. Hideo Ashida and Kay Lake. Thad Brown, Nort Layman, Call-Me-Jack Horrall. Elmer Jackson, Lee Blanchard, Buzz Meeks.
All task-assigned. All duty-driven. There for the body-in-the-box and the dead-cops caper. It’s all one story, you see.
The story coheres in her diary. The supporting players recede and make room for the stars. She’s as one with Dudley and Hideo. They all want the gold—and that’s all that counts.
Fate. Opportunity. Misalliance. Fool’s errand. Sacred quest. The gold heist and the fire. It’s all one story, you—
She stands poised. Her forensic skills verge on genius. Hideo supersedes her in all things scientific. Dudley’s fierce will supersedes all forensic application. It’s their one story. It will culminate if and when they solve their intertwined cases. It will end if and when they get the gold.
It’s Fate, prophesied. It’s Opportunity, writ large. It’s Luck, in the form of a boozed-up policeman and his college-girl crush.
I can help you, Lieutenant. Of course you can. I’ve always had my way with men. And you won’t be the only man who finds me.
Her Bill. Her Dudley. A troika yet to resolve. She shared lust and gold fever with Dudley. She shared hurt and dashed faith with Bill. She holds her own with both of her lovers. She shares their stalemates. She shares their secrets. She knows things that no woman of her station should know.
Two-Gun Davis killed the four Watanabes. Werewolf Shudo was framed. Dudley did it. Bill plucked Shudo from death row. He did it to impress her and to wow God. He performed a penitential act to negate his adultery.
You do not cut deals with God. Protestants know this. Catholics do not. Bill snitched to the Fed grand jury. He did it with self-seeking aplomb. Dudley told her that he and Jack Horrall are scheming countermeasures. They will address Bill’s grand-jury play and the ghastly klubhaus case itself. Her lovers blur within their machinations. She’s aswirl with their secrets. She’s powerfully indebted to their conflict. The realization stuns her.
Dudley has pledged to solve her father’s murder. It was not an idle boast. He added the caveat: “If a solution is there to be had.” She told him about the air-warfare tract, mailed to the haus.
Mitch Kupp authored the tract. It was sent to Wendell Rice. That fact stunned Dudley. He held forth on fate and lunar tides. Dudley puts faith in talking animals and spirit worlds aligned. Bill cuts deals with God and weeps in shame. He comes to her nakedly revealed and blinded with desire. She will not give up either man.
Kay Lake mediates both men. She’s the Bill-loves-Joan deus ex machina and piquantly critiques their affair. Schoolgirl intrigue is at play here. Kay is waiting out Bill’s fatuous crush on the big redhead. Kay mediates Dudley Smith with bald malice.
She despises Dudley. She purports to see through to his cold, evil heart. She may or may not know that Dudley and Big Red share the sheets. Kay eavesdrops at Lyman’s. She gleefully catalogues and passes on gossip. She should know the story. She’s never said, “Are you or aren’t you?” That seems odd in itself.
Kay collects rumors, Kay reveals rumors, Kay constellates rumors herself. One pithy rumor surfaces on occasion. Kay Lake shivved Dudley Smith late last year.
It was ridiculous. She didn’t believe it. It exposed the fault lines of the Lyman’s rumor mill. Cop work was inherently outré and given to extravagant expression. All provocative rumors have legs. The Kay-Dudley dish was pure fantasia.
Kay was triangle-happy. She observed troikas, and slid in and out of them. There’s Joan/Dudley/Bill. There’s Joan/Bill/Kay. There’s Joan/Dudley/Claire De Haven. Can she credit the war, or is it all just luck and lust, defined?
She’s visited Otto Klemperer’s spread on three more jazzy occasions. Kay and the Maestro play the piano together. The Maestro enjoys flirting with young women. He’s hinted that his house holds a dark secret. Kay plays improvised piano chords. They’re dark and secretly descriptive. There’s an open secret swirling at chez Klemperer. Kay and the Maestro lead a cabal of New York leftists and their “Mexican friend.” They’re smuggling Shostakovich’s new symphony out of Russia. The Maestro intends to conduct a preemptive performance. All proceeds will go to European war relief.
It’s a benign secret. It dovetails with malign cop-world secrets. Kay told her that Dudley smokes opium. Kay said, “Don’t tell anyone—it’s a secret.”
She hoards secrets as well as Kay does. She keeps a secret diary and performs secret deeds. She met Meyer Gelb at her first Maestro bash. He was Griffith Park fire–adjunct and thus adjunct to Karl Tullock and Wayne Frank Jackson. She checked statewide DMV records. There were no Meyer Gelbs listed. She ran nationwide records checks, with identical results. She attended her second Maestro bash. She prowled the Maestro’s office and went through his Rolodex. There was no Meyer Gelb listed. She performed this secret deed sans compunction.
Jean Staley attended her maiden Maestro bash. She once belonged to Comrade Gelb’s Commie cell. Miss Staley was listed in the ’38 L.A. White Pages. She lived in Beachwood Canyon. It mandated a covert approach.
Burglars’ tools. Easily accessible. The crime lab kept an exemplar set.
She surveilled Jean Staley’s bungalow. Miss Staley’s car was missing. Miss Staley appeared to be missing herself. She let herself in to the bungalow. It was musty. The gas had been turned off. The walls bore print-eradication marks. The place had been deftly wiped.
Secret indications. Secrets, not yet revealed.
Claire De Haven attends the Maestro’s parties. Kay calls her the “doomed poetess.” Claire’s morphine habit is a poorly kept secret. Guests see her coming and mime her deft touch with a spike. Claire remains a most stately dope fiend. She observed Claire and Orson Welles talking. Welles refused to go in the steam room with her. He saw both of Dudley Smith’s women naked. Dudley issued commensurate warnings and a brutal rebuke. He probably possessed a secondary motive. She had no idea what. It was Dudley’s secret—and she’s not one to pry.
Terry Lux recut Orson’s face. Orson recuperated in secret. Terry Lux is American First. Bill Parker spilled Terry’s big secret. Terry was privy to the Watanabe snuffs.
Secrets.
Her secrets. The gold cabal’s secrets. Cop secrets, above all else.
Navy blue to police blue. Fate, luck, and opportunity conjoined. Jack Horrall likes her legs and knows grit and brains when he sees them. She joins the ranks October 4. She’ll be Captain J. W. Conville and the highest-ranking woman on the PD. Her precipitous commission w
ill spawn cop resentment. She will rebuff it with imperious ease. Her serendipity mirrors that of Lieutenant Hideo Ashida. Fate, luck, opportunity. Cop noblesse oblige. Dudley Smith’s largesse.
They both love him. They both know what he is. It’s their dark secret, shared.
They talk, long-distance. Their mutual enmity has waned. They speak as fellow scientists and gold questers. She accepts his prissy deviance. He accepts her bedroom bond with the man he loves. They talk for hours. The U.S. Army pays for the calls. They discuss crossover leads in their three complex cases. They dissect every single lead and clue and possible connection. They do not covet the gold from an aggrieved perspective. They’ve both played this war for all it’s worth and come out ahead.
She lucked out of Manslaughter One. He lucked out of the internment. Their war efforts run parallel to their personal ambition.
Hideo fights the Fifth Column in Mexico. His Jap-toady work repulses him. That’s his only rub. It’s her rub, as well. The internment is a disgrace. Wendell Rice and George Kapek exemplify the injustice. J-town stands decimated. The Manzanar camp opens next month. Hideo Ashida dodged that bullet. Great shame undermines his great luck.
Hideo works in Baja. Her L.A. workload has now doubled. It’s all Japwerk and klubhaus job. Thad Brown ran three lineups at Newton Station. Lineup #1 featured jazz-club patrons. #2 featured “political types.” #3 featured uninterned Japs.
46th Street residents viewed fifty-odd men. No positive IDs resulted.
The Crash Squad meets daily at Lyman’s back room. Their APB turned Link Rockwell. Ensign Rockwell was ensconced at a Navy flight school in Florida. Jack Horrall declined to extradite. Young Link and Call-Me-Jack were tight with Martin Luther Mimms.
Jack wants to bury the klubhaus job. Dudley considers it insoluble. He wants to isolate klubhaus leads that point to the gold and shitcan the rest. She and Hideo want the gold and a unified solve. Dudley is currently pondering klubhaus countermeasures. Hideo told her that. The phone receiver froze in her hand.
Secret measures. Secret pleasures. Secret locales.
Dudley smoked opium. She asked Kay where. Kay said, “The basement at Kwan’s.”
She crashed the party there. Uncle Ace proved amenable. They’d met socially. Ace fed PD folks on the cuff.
He supplied the tar, the pipe, and the pallet. She joined twenty-odd Chinamen and DA McPherson’s colored girlfriend. The pallet was too short for her. She smoked opium and flew off someplace. She traveled in a gold rocket ship. Gold dust dropped from the clouds.
68
(TIJUANA AND ENSENADA, 2/12–2/25/42)
He jumped rank. Major Melnick passed the word. He’s now First Lieutenant Hideo Ashida.
Silver outranks gold in the U.S. Army. He traded gold bars for silver. The bookie-front fiasco secured his promotion. Juan Pimentel moved up to captain. He replaced the late José Vasquez-Cruz. Vasquez-Cruz está muerto. La Juan is the new Baja Statie boss.
Who killed Vasquez-Cruz? His first thought was rival wetback and/or dope runners. The Mexican papers set him straight. Vasquez-Cruz was really Jorge Villareal-Caiz.
The ex-Communist. Once installed in Meyer Gelb’s cell. Linked to the Griffith Park fire. Linked to Dr. Saul Lesnick. Linked to Jean Staley. Linked to Tommy Glennon’s address book.
Consider this:
It’s January 8. Victor Trejo Caiz misbehaves. He’s Jorge’s brother. He foolishly draws down on Dudley Smith. Salvy Abascal slays him right there.
Dudley Liam Smith—ever present. Dudley Liam Smith—por vida.
Dudley instigates his promotion. Dudley recommends and vets Juan Pimentel. Note the design. Pimentel is fearsome and most competent. He’ll serve as Dudley’s enforcer. Wetbacks/heroin/the Jap-prisoner dodge. Dudley has plans for La Juan.
Dudley—por vida. All circuits terminate there. Dudley rules his thoughts. La Juan flits in counterpoint. All alliances reign under Dudley Smith’s command. Dudley indebts his underlings. Dudley corrupts and/or seduces. Ask Joan Conville. Ask Lieutenant Ashida himself.
They’ve been seduced and corrupted. They’ve become inexplicable friends. Comrades says it best. They’re rogue scientists held spellbound by one man.
Phone calls sustain their new kinship. There’s long stints of forensic and investigatory surmise. They interpret evidence across three case lines. They fondle gold objects as they talk.
They’ve reached conclusions. They agree. It’s not a single conspiracy. It feels like three conspiracies and random events interlocked. The conspiracies are imperfectly contrived and erratically enjoined. The klubhaus murders do not mark termination. All of it continues. The acquisition of the gold and the explication of all things past is the only permissible end.
He thinks that. Joan thinks that. They move from gold heist to fire to klubhaus to now—ceaselessly. They never-endingly probe evidence and indulge supposition. As per Tommy Glennon’s address book. As per the Baja pay phones listed. They indicate a new and revised Tommy G.
He’s more than Dudley’s snitch and a pro-Axis blowhard. He’s more than a rapist and wetback runner for Carlos Madrano. He’s more sinister than that. Consider this fact. Kyoho Hanamaka touched Tommy’s address book. He left a burn-scarred fingerprint.
The fourteen pay phones. Plus the coded slug calls. The bookie-front inferno blitzed that line of inquiry. No more code calls will be received. No more messages will pass through the front. They can’t trace Hanamaka and Tommy G. that way.
Where are they? Hanamaka’s a long-gone fugitive. Japs on the hoof draw heat. Tommy’s a disordered psychopath. Such fiends leave traces. No one has visited Hanamaka’s hideaway. Juan Pimentel continues to surveil it. No cars have tripped the photo-device wires. No license plates have been glimpsed. All this dizzies and confounds him.
He feels overmatched. Joan feels overmatched. The Jap and The Skirt. Sid Hudgens wrote them up that way.
He secured permission to visit L.A. and conduct field interviews. Dudley spoke to Major Melnick and got his okay. He’ll drive up on his days off. Lee Blanchard will bodyguard him.
He’s overmatched in L.A. and Baja. Dudley commands him in both locales. Dudley commands him domestically and commends him to voyeurize.
He lives in the Hotel del Norte. His suite adjoins Dudley and Claire’s. He hears them make love. He rarely hears words and often gleans impressions. He senses chaos.
Claire now appears gaunt. She accosted him in the lobby one morning. She said, “Do you know what Dudley’s capable of?”
He said, “Do you know the extent of my debt?”
Claire rarely speaks to him. The feral Joan Klein talks blue streaks. She spins teenage-girl tales. She’s expecting an “important package from the East.” Her comrades in New York will pass it on to her. She’ll deliver it to “the Maestro in L.A.”
Young Joan excels in puerile blather. One schoolgirl yarn stands out.
She’s “spot-tailed” Aunt Claire. She got that term from one of Uncle Dud’s soldiers. Aunt Claire had an affair with José Vasquez-Cruz. She saw them at it once. Vasquez-Cruz was really Villareal-Caiz. Somebody “slayed his greaser ass.” She got that term from one of Uncle Dud’s soldiers.
Spot-tails. Uncle Dud and Aunt Claire. Dudley Smith adopts and corrupts children.
Cruz-Caiz is dead. Dudley must have killed him. La Juan has replaced him. A second batch of Jap slaves will ship out on March 10. Manzanar opens its Jap-slave doors on March 25. Internment centers have sprung up regionwide. The Jap-slave diaspora now runs on overdrive.
His most pressing Army task is Jap-language translation. He gets Japs to rat other Japs. This Army task sickens him. His secret task thrills him. He tweaks Japs per gold-germane and three-case-germane topics.
Herr Hanamaka and Herr Rice. Gold political artifacts and the Nazi-Soviet meet. He’s got zilch thus far. He logs sullen looks and spit glob
s. He now carries two handkerchiefs.
He’s a traitor and a war profiteer. His fellow Japs sense that.
They’re right. He’s a gold bug. He wants to touch THE specific gold cache. It’s alchemized gold. It’s been molded into artifacts. It consecrates monstrous ideologies. It’s his world war/I was there/I did my part souvenir.
He wants to earn the enhanced esteem of the monstrous Dudley Smith. He wants to pave a gold pathway through this war. He will see his racial countrymen slaughtered. He will see his native countrymen imprisoned in horse stalls. He wants to pave a gold pathway to a three-case solve. He wants to alchemize the riddles of that shithole backhouse on East 46th Street. He wants Dudley Smith to love him—because he’s fought and endured.
He’s heard Harold John Miciak’s wire-recorded statement. It vividly explicates the cut-loose male id. The staggering range of misconduct. The mixed-race escapades at a fascist meeting spot. The booze- and dope-fueled obliviousness.
The klubhaus commemorates nihilistic bonhomie. It’s avant-garde in that way. The klubhaus feels Fifth Column–tangential. The murders have begun to feel incidental. They are thus coincident to the ’31 gold heist and the ’33 Griffith Park fire. The crossover leads to those earlier cases are simply address-book and police-file names. The Hanamaka-to-Rice leads are all present-day. There’s Rice’s gold bayonet. There’s Hanamaka’s print in Tommy G.’s address book.
The klubhaus caper. It feels like a sexual crime. It reads as coincident to Fifth Columnism and all preceding cases. Two women left pubic-hair exemplars upstairs. Said women play as prostitutes or jazz-club pickups and thus as non sequiturs. The klubhaus job feels like a homosexual crime. It may possess roots within the wide range of klubhaus misbehavior.
The bedroom sheet. Stained with feces and K-Y jelly. It’s the sole forensic indicator. It complements his overarching instincts. The upstairs wall indentations. Low indentations. Surely made by a woman’s right shoe. That indicates a two-person/three-victim crime. He postulates a homosexual man with a female accomplice.
