This Storm

by James Ellroy

(LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 3/1/42)

  There’s Beth. She’s almost eighteen. She’s stunningly lovely and most stunningly refracts him.

  Her small eyes. Her set jaw. Her dark hair. She’ll see him and run to him. This Army captain’s her dad.

  Dudley lounged outside Union Station. Porters wheeled luggage carts. Cabs clogged the breezeway. Parked cars stretched up to Alameda. Beth stood on her tiptoes and shielded her eyes.

  She’d called him, impromptu. She was up in Vallejo with her cuckold dad. El Cornudo stifled her joie de vivre and made her keep house. It mandated a Baja retreat.

  She had blue eyes. He had brown eyes. He was tall, she was petite. They were otherwise of the same—

  She saw him and beelined. Her standard gambit was sprint and collide. She knocked him up against his staff car. She dropped her grip and burrowed in.

  He said, “My dear girl.”

  She said, “I’ve never seen you so handsome.”

  They stepped back and squared off. There’s that full view. Beth wore Claire’s Christmas gifts. Twill slacks and a dark red sweater. The ensemble complemented and jazzed up his ODs.

  “I’m here. It’s twice in three months, so it must mean that I love you.”

  Dudley laughed. “You’re a Boston provincial no longer. You’ve seen Los Angeles, and now you must brace yourself for Mexico.”

  * * *

  —

  They talked themselves hoarse. Beth’s faux dad and half-blood sisters. His rocky road with Claire. Claire’s faux child, Joan Klein. His split L.A. and Baja duties. Compliant Major Melnick cuts him travel slack. Her day-to-day crushes. Cute boys off to war. Navy pen pals, Point Loma to Pearl.

  They fell quiet. Beth played the civilian-band radio. She scootched close and laced up his free hand. Swing broadcasts whooshed them south.

  They crossed the border and cut through T.J. Beth went agog. His sheltered lass viewed raucous Revolución. She orbed the nude barkers outside the Blue Fox. The famed negrito waved his two-foot dick and drew stellar crowds.

  Dudley swung south on the coast road. Half-assed beauty washed out the T.J. stink. High cliffs and sea swells. Fishing craft and Statie speedboats. Full-scale Jap cove alert.

  He’s meeting Juan Lazaro-Schmidt in La Paz today. Juan Pimentel’s flying him down. El Governor wants to talk turkey. He wants El Dudster to attend a moving wingding. His cable included a postscript. “You will see through it, of course.”

  He misses Hideo. Hideo’s his brilliant son, in with all his daughters. Major Melnick signed a dual-duty chit. Hideo has been assigned to probe spy mischief in L.A. He convinced Melnick that Baja fiends lurked there. “Hideo’s our man, sir. I strongly recommend him.”

  It’s a white lie. Hideo will hit L.A. and work the klubhaus job. Lee Blanchard will watchdog him. Field interviews loom.

  The case slogged on. They were thirty-two days in. Jack H. fretted the gun angle. Rice and Kapek glommed Jap weapons, wholesale. A great many were likely sold to Boyle Heights pachucos. Thad Brown proposed an East L.A. youth sweep. Roust local cholos. Stress the gun angle. Note this downside:

  Some Sinarquista lads might draw heat. That’s discomfiting.

  Beth said, “Mexico is hard to fathom. I can’t quite believe everything that I’m seeing.”

  “Ensenada is a bit more genteel. I have to fly down to La Paz, but Claire and Young Joan will give you a proper first look.”

  “You say ‘Young Joan’ like you’re not sure you should trust her.”

  “She’s sui generis, that one. She lacks your grace, but she’s possessed of grit in abundance. I can’t imagine how she’ll turn out.”

  Beth smiled. “You take guff from women that you’d never take from men.”

  Dudley smiled. “It’s my Achilles’ heel—but don’t tell anyone.”

  * * *

  —

  La Paz.

  Off the south Baja coast. Swell Pacific and inland gulf views. Tuna boats and shack shanties. Grand white houses and yet-more-grand churches. Thick foliage and gargantuan insects. All quintessentially Mex.

  Captain Juan dropped him at the Statie airfield. They discussed their plans on the flight down. Wetbacks and heroin. Jap slaves, to boot. Captain Juan urged caution. Lazaro-Schmidt was no pendejo.

  He’d dropped Beth off at the del Norte. Claire swarmed her and laid on the love. Young Joan was less effusive. Ever watchful, that one.

  Dudley cabbed to El Governor’s casa. It was sunny and gulf warm. He wore a tropical-weight suit and a belt piece. Flaunt your allegiance. He wore his swastika lapel pin, face-out.

  The casa was built up a hillside. Lazaro-Schmidt knew from flaunt. It was double-deck, peach-pink adobe. The pitched roof was inlaid with hand-painted tiles. Big-name artists’ work on glazed cement. Picassos, Klees, and Kandinskys overlapped. Squiggles and doodles baked in the sun. The effect was modernist chaos.

  The front door was flush with the street. Dudley walked up and rang the bell. It sparked shrieks from Strauss’ Elektra. The door clicked open, full automatic.

  Dudley stepped inside. The front room dipped below sea level. Four steps took him down. The room was done up fasco moderne.

  Thronelike chairs. All brown leather. Ebony tables and settees. Hammered-bronze lamps and Axis-flag-motif carpets. Mussolini’s lair meets Better Homes & Gardens.

  Recessed wall paintings. Lit by pink neon tubes. More Picassos, Klees, and Kandinskys. Der Führer and Red Beast Stalin would frown. It was decadent art.

  “Franco’s men sacked a train passing through the Pyrenees. These paintings and my roof tiles were to be sold to raise funds for the Loyalist cause. The general and I are old friends. I appreciate art in a way he does not, which explains his most generous bequest.”

  Dudley wheeled. The thick carpet threw sparks. There’s Lazaro-Schmidt. Note his cashmere lounge suit. It befits Hermann Goering at play. His swastika pin beams, face-out.

  “I’m impressed, sir. Your lovely home expresses a grand theme.”

  Lazaro-Schmidt plopped into a throne. Buffed leather engulfed him.

  “Which would be?”

  “These times we live in. Art as the sole voice that will transcend the clash.”

  “ ‘This savaging disaster.’ A friend of mine exhorts crowds with those words.”

  Dudley plopped into a throne. He faced Lazaro-Schmidt head-on. The fasco motif disfavored his host. El Governor ran elfin. He lacked Il Duce’s notable heft.

  “You may recall our brief chat at the recital, sir. I have schemes to propose and resources to pledge. I can vouch your immediate profits, and all I require is your promise of protection and a wave of your official pen.”

  Lazaro-Schmidt smiled. “Wetbacks. We must not euphemize here. I am set to sign the guest-worker pact with California’s Governor Olson in August. It will effectively legalize the temporary immigration of Mexican braceros, who will pick crops in the verdant San Joaquin and Imperial valleys. You wish to move wets north more urgently. All that the traffic will bear. You are prepared to offer me a price per head, and I am prepared to consider offers.”

  Dudley smiled. “Yes, but that’s just one operation I have to propose.”

  El Governor plucked lint off his lounge suit. He was dainty. He lacked Il Duce’s feral depth.

  “Let me anticipate your other proposals. You wish to defray the cost of the Baja internment by housing our resident Japanese in U.S. internment camps and municipal-police road camps for the war’s duration. You have a plan to hide wealthy Japanese in Los Angeles, under the protection of Hop Sing and Uncle Ace Kwan. You plan to implement the heroin racket you took over from José Vasquez-Cruz, belatedly revealed to be Jorge Villareal-Caiz. My official signatures will provide the unrestricted travel visas that you require. They will free you to move wets, Japs, and dope north, free of scrutiny.”


  Dudley flicked lint off his trousers. Monkey see, monkey do.

  “You know my plans in advance of my comradely pledges and supplications, sir. Have you had me surveilled?”

  Lazaro-Schmidt said, “Yes, and I am aware of the purging of Cruz-Caiz’s men that you and Salvy Abascal performed in the wake of El Capitán’s death. I know that you killed Carlos Madrano, in advance of your army posting here in Baja. I have assessed you through secondhand sources, and have largely extrapolated your designs. I am ready to do business with you, should we come to felicitous terms.”

  Dudley scanned the room. He saw gold statuettes on a wall ledge. Tigers, panthers, jaguars. Perhaps solid gold.

  “I’m chastened, sir. I thought I’d walk in here and knock you off your feet.”

  Lazaro-Schmidt laughed. “I am not easily dislodged.”

  “Nor am I easily chastened, sir.”

  “I will add that I know you are quite concerned with the whereabouts of my friend Kyoho Hanamaka, and further add that I did not facilitate his exit from Mexico, nor do I know where he is now. I know that you have discovered Kyoho’s hideaway, and are spending considerable time there.”

  Dudley said, “Yes, and I discovered a gold bayonet in a cache hole. It was swastika-adorned, and I’ve come to learn that there’s a companion piece, adorned with a hammer and sickle.”

  It was a curveball. El Governor deflected it.

  “I would call Kyoho ambidextrous. He plays the totalitarian field, and he does not know which beast will prevail in the end.”

  Dudley said, “The Red Beast, I fear.”

  “Yes, the Red Postwar Beast, who will turn on the Allied nations that buttressed its dubious triumph to begin with. This poses a challenge to the more farsighted members of the German high command. They must sow the seeds of their postwar redemption now, while the outcome of the war remains in doubt. They must prove themselves palatable and potentially valuable to the postwar West, and see to the hoarding of monies for their ultimate relocation.”

  Dudley fondled his lapel pin. “I’ve heard that there was quite the confab in Ensenada. November of ’40, it was. The Russians and the Kameraden got down to brass tacks. The Hitler-Stalin pact won’t last. One of us must lose this war. How will civilized and enlightened men like us survive in such a predicament?”

  Lazaro-Schmidt fondled his lapel pin. “I attended the conference. I told both factions that Mexico might well prove to be a gateway for the establishment of gainful resettlement throughout Latin America, with proper guarantors of safety provided by U.S. Intelligence services based in Mexico herself.”

  Dudley said, “I would be loath to hide godless Reds.”

  “You won’t have to. Germany will lose the war—and a newly reformed civilized world will require Nazi brainpower to help keep the Red Beast in check.”

  Dudley slapped his knees. “Will all unruly Nazi acts be forgiven?”

  “Of course. The concept of realpolitik holds sway here. Seeds of reconciliation have already been planted. Humanistically inclined Nazis have begun a process of atonement with world Jewry. You will see a moving example at the ceremony I’ve invited you to. It is realpolitik at its bald-faced best.”

  Dudley scanned the wall ledge. He caught a boffo photograph. Abwehr boss Canaris. NKVD boss Beria. A festive cantina backdrop.

  “Is that your conclave there?”

  Lazaro-Schmidt twinkled. “Indeed. As subtext, I’ll add that Canaris has been leaking German secrets to British Intelligence since ’37, during the same time frame that Beria has been sending parcels to Churchill himself. As further subtext, I’ll add that both men were quite anxious to visit the legendary Blue Fox.”

  Dudley roared. The Wolf appeared. He pointed to a photograph on a bookshelf. Dudley studied it. Constanza Lazaro-Schmidt attacked her viola.

  El Governor plucked the photograph and passed it over. Constanza bore down bellísima. Her bow threw sparks. She’d snapped a string. Her white gown dipped off one breast.

  “My frenzied sister. She was Kyoho Hanamaka’s lover, some time ago.”

  * * *

  —

  The Statie airfield had been prettified. It was a rush job. The theme was Welcome Exiles!!!

  WILLKOMMEN signs lined the runway. Statie goons rolled out a red carpet. An old lady distributed pamphlets. They were quasi–symphony programs. A Spanish-language text ballyhooed the virtuosi.

  Four uprooted souls. All first-chair musicians. Late of the Dresden Staatskappelle and Hitler’s death camps. Miklos and Magda Koenig. Sandor Abromowitz. Ruth Szigeti. Mittel European Jewry. Austro-Hungarian, all.

  Their flight was due. Dudley stood behind a rope line and mingled. The welcome crowd ran forty, tops. They were all Mex and ran to type. Oldster kultur hounds. Konzertgoers in this heathen land.

  A small airplane swooped toward the runway. A baggage cart rolled into view. The kultur hounds applauded. A Statie sergeant wheeled the Lazaro-Schmidts. They waved Hungarian flags on sticks.

  Governor Juan wore a seersucker suit and white bucks. He eschewed his swastika lapel pin. Constanza wore a pink summer dress and spectator pumps. The Wolf strained at the rope line. He plainly desired her.

  The Lazaro-Schmidts hopped off the cart and stood by the red carpet. A Statie corporal carried out a long-cord microphone. Dudley leafed through his program and checked the photographs.

  The overfed Koenigs. The aged Abromowitz. The thin-sculpted Ruth Szigeti. They wore symphony black and held stringed instruments. Das Vaterland was good to them then.

  The airplane dipped and landed. The pilot fishtailed up to the carpet. The kultur rubes cheered. The Wolf cocked his head and pawed the ground. What is this shit?

  The Statie corporal pushed steps up to the airplane. The door swung open. The four refugees filed out.

  The men wore overcoats and winter-wool suits. The women wore long dresses and fur wraps. The gulf heat smacked them. They looked like they’d pass out.

  They weaved onto the carpet. Lazaro-Schmidt and fair Constanza dispensed abrazos and handshakes. The refugees looked gaunt and all beat-to-hell. They broiled in their winter ensembles. Old man Abromowitz grabbed Ruth Szigeti’s arm for support.

  The rubes lapped it up. They tossed bravos. An old girl dipped into a paper sack and tossed rose petals. The Koenigs glared at the crowd. Old Abromowitz reeled. The Szigeti woman waved.

  Lazaro-Schmidt braced the microphone. He spoke high-end Spanish and cut straight to the Big Theme Gist. He hit Expiation, Redemption, Reconciliation. He hit Forgiveness and Asylum. Our hermanos y hermanas were spared certain execution. Honor knows no national or ideological boundaries. German men of conscience saw to the rescue of these four gifted people. They are dedicated to the overthrow of Adolf Hitler and determined to create a better tomorrow for all citizens of the world. Our four new friends will be resettled into the exile community in Los Angeles. They will resume their musical careers as this storm of catastrophic war rages around us.

  Applause blitzed the wrap-up. Constanza grabbed the mike and announced a reception. “My home, tonight. There will be music.”

  The refugees reeled. Sing for your supper. Ruth Szigeti fumed and peeled off her fur coat.

  Her arms were bare. Dudley saw torture scars and an SS tattoo.

  * * *

  —

  The Wolf pre-prowled the wingding. Dudley walked the beach outside the house and peeped windows.

  Said house was classic Spanish. It ran inimical to El Governor’s modernist spread. A night breeze stirred sand. The Wolf loped back and reported.

  The refugees greeted Los Beaners. Well-wishers engulfed them. It was mucho enlightened and disingenuous. El Governor played host. Juan Pimentel wore Statie black and clicked his heels, Nazi-esque. The refugees avoided him. The kultur hounds swilled free champagne and snarfed free hors d’oe
uvres.

  Constanza circulated. Her dress straps kept slipping down her shoulders. She had short hair and wore no makeup. She went barefoot. Open windows stirred that beach breeze. Her pink dress swirled.

  She’d coupled with Kyoho Hanamaka. It was “some time ago.” That mandated thought.

  The Wolf curled up on a beachfront chaise. Dudley peeped a picture window. A valet laid out folding chairs. The refugees unpacked their instruments and sat down. Ruth Szigeti wore a black cocktail dress. She rolled up the sleeves and revealed half her tattoo.

  They ripped into baleful Bartók. The room went kultur-hushed. Dudley slipped inside and skirted the crowd. He walked toward the back of the house.

  Bisecting hallways. Brushed-adobe walls. Hardwood floors and silk tapestry rugs. Garish oil paintings. An all-jungle motif. Green foliage and predator cats.

  Dudley opened doors and flipped light switches. He saw servants’ quarters and storage rooms and a closet jammed with skeet guns and horse-riding tack. He opened the adjacent door and caught Constanza’s scent.

  She wore sandalwood perfume. He’d smelled it at the del Norte recital and the airfield. He flipped a wall switch. Floor lamps popped on and cast light.

  The room ran fifteen-by-fifteen. It featured rough wood walls and floors. Phonograph records, a Victrola, a desk. Ornament shelves and framed wall photographs.

  Dudley walked wall-to-wall. The shelves held small gold statuettes. Constanza’s wolf pack glared at him. Male wolves snarled. Mother wolves suckled their cubs. It refracted her brother’s menagerie. It refracted his own wolf worship. He hefted a wolf cub. It was solid gold. Gold plagued him and followed him, everywhere.

  He studied the photographs. Constanza feeds jackals large slabs of meat. She’s wearing a bush jacket and safari hat. There’s Constanza kissing a jaguar. She’s wearing a summer dress tossed above her knees.

  Constanza feeds wolves. She’s wearing lederhosen and a loden coat. Rhine maiden Constanza. Constanza, the Black Forest nymph.

  The German motif extends. Constanza stands with pianist Wilhelm Kempff and conductor Karl Böhm. Wehrmacht officers huddle behind them. It’s a symphony bash. Constanza’s laughing and blowing smoke in the air.