This Storm

by James Ellroy

  Whiskey Bill keestered Jack Horrall. Ouch!—straight up the shit chute. Bill pulled Breuning and Carlisle off of the klubhaus job. Bill told Jack he’d quash a bogus-suspect solve. Ouch!—Bill keestered Dudley Smith.

  Elmer went Yikes. Buzz tapped his wristwatch—wrap this shit up. Thad motor-mouthed. He said Parker’s wrangling a material-witness writ. Link Rockwell’s at some Navy flight school in Florida. Parker wants to extradite him. Jack Horrall’s dragging his heels.

  Elmer went Yikes. Thad went Chop, chop, you dumb hayseeds. Thad went Quit jerking off and go to work.

  * * *

  —

  They restaked the post office. The posh hamlet cocooned them. La Jolla was swanksville. Cypress trees and golf courses. Nice stores with candy-cane awnings. A nifty beach close by.

  The stakeout was yawnsville. They pondered a more direct approach. Brace the Postal Inspection Service. Have the postal cops dump Tommy’s PO box.

  They discussed it. They nixed it. This was a strongarm job. The postal cops would demur. They had to snatch Tommy. They had to hurl some hurt on him before they dumped him on Thad.

  Swanksville. Yawnsville. They sat in Elmer’s civilian sled and evinced ennui.

  Buzz said, “Maybe Tommy ducked down to T.J. He’s bored, so he’s thinking he’ll go catch the donkey show and see his pal Huey. I say we go down there and stir up some shit.”

  Elmer said, “We overstirred the shit the last time we went down there. I say we check with SDPD Burglary. We’re brother officers looking for a hot-prowl man. They might have some fresh cases and some leads they could share.”

  SDPD was close by the Seaglade. That greased the skids. They drove over and parked in a visitor’s slot. The building was whitewashed adobe and two stories high. They walked up to the DB. Dago was a turkey town. Burglary Division was one fat-slob cop.

  The dink sat in a gnat-sized office. His desk plate read SGT. LEW SARNI. They walked in, deliberate. The dink shook himself awake.

  “L.A., right? You’ve got that look. You’re down here on a job, and you need a hand.”

  The dink dwarfed his dink-sized desk. Elmer and Buzz straddled chairs and faced him. They lit up cigars. Elmer tossed the dink a one-dollar Cuban. It bounced on his desk.

  “We’re looking for a hot-prowl geek named Tommy Glennon. He’s a homo, but he rapes women. He’s got a postal box in La Jolla, and we thought you might have made him for some incidents down here.”

  Buzz slid the dink a mug-shot strip. The dink lit the cigar and studied the fotos.

  “We’ve got a series of 459/rapes, and your guy matches the suspect’s description. The victims are all Navy women, working out of Point Loma. Navy CID’s handling it, because they make the rape-o for a sailor. The guy’s vicious, and he’s pulled six jobs so far, but the whole thing’s going nowhere.”

  Elmer said, “That’s it?”

  The dink savored his cigar. He flicked ash and went Yum-yum.

  “No, that isn’t it. A Wave officer called us and reported a man following her and skulking around her apartment house. He matches your guy’s and our suspect’s description, but CID and the DB here can’t spare a stakeout team or a woman cop to play decoy.”

  Buzz whipped out his flash roll. He peeled off two yards and dropped them on the desk.

  “Let us handle it. What CID don’t know won’t hurt them.”

  The dink coughed cigar smoke. “Well…uh…I like to accommodate the L.A. boys whenever I can.”

  Elmer said, “Give us the Wave’s statistics. We’ll take it from there.”

  * * *

  —

  Ensign Margaret May Mewshaw. An Omaha transplant. Ensign Meg lived in Pacific Beach. She lived alone and had no boyfriend. She lived in a second-floor/street-facing crib. It was a two-crib stucco building. Outside stairs led up to her door.

  They waited for dusk. They hunkered in and car-sat across the street. Ensign Meg was home alone. They brought a short dog of 151 rum. It got them lubricated and motivized.

  It was late-winter warm. Ensign Meg kept her front window cracked and the shades up. She played the radio. Bucky Beaver shilled Ipana toothpaste. Charlie Barnet played “Cherokee.”

  Ensign Meg schlepped around in her slip. She was a big blonde. She had that Annie Staples scope and je ne sais quoi. Elmer got erotified. Tommy G. was a leg man. Ensign Meg had legs from Dago to Detroit.

  Elmer said, “I don’t get it. Tommy’s a fruit, but he rapes women.”

  Buzz said, “Sex is powerful juju.”

  “Moonlight Serenade” drifted over. Elmer yawned. That tune and 151 put him dozy. He wisped off somewhere. He saw Wayne Frank in a limousine packed with gold bars. He saw Dudley in the green room at San Quentin. Buzz went Ssshhh and elbowed him awake.

  “Hush now. We got a prowler.”

  Elmer rubbed his eyes and looked out his window. This jamoke stood by the stairs. He’s wearing gloves. He’s holding a tool pouch. He’s pivoting to creep upward. Hold the phone, mama. It’s Tommy Glennon.

  They bolted the sled and ran over. They crouched low at the foot of the stairs. Tommy stood outside Ensign Meg’s door. He brandished a lock pick and blew on it for luck. Buzz kicked a tin can, accidental. Tommy heard it and glanced down the stairs.

  He saw the boys. He was trapped-rat confined. He dropped the pick and pulled a shiv and charged down the stairs.

  Elmer charged up. He pulled his belt sap and crashed Tommy low. Tommy stabbed down and snagged his sport coat. Elmer sap-slammed a nut shot and cartwheeled him. Tommy screeched and tumbled ass over elbows.

  He hit the ground, all bruised and splayed. Buzz rabbit-punched him and bashed his head on a stair ledge. Elmer tripped down the stairs and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  They cuff-dragged him across the street. They made the sled in one split second. Elmer unlocked the trunk. They dumped Tommy in and slammed the trunk shut. Ensign Meg looked out her window. What’s all this ruckus? Elmer blew her a kiss.

  Tommy thunked around in the trunk. Buzz jumped in the car. Elmer got behind the wheel and burned tread. They had a spot all picked out. The caustic-sewage dump behind the Point Loma base.

  Elmer wheeled them there, rapid. The spot adjoined an air-artillery range. The dump was barb-wired up. Caustic gack bubbled and gurgled. Evil swamp creatures gamboled within.

  Elmer brodied up to the fence. He got out and unlocked the trunk. Buzz got out and jerked Tommy up on his feet. Tommy was beat-on and green at the gills. Buzz tossed him in the backseat and scooched him toward the middle. Elmer got in and sandwich-jobbed him on the other side.

  Tommy huffed and squirmed. Elmer tapped the roof light and halo-lit him. Buzz pulled his throwdown piece. He popped the cylinder and flashed the six-bullet load.

  Elmer said, “We got some questions.”

  Tommy quiver-quaked. Buzz dumped five bullets and spun the cylinder. He snapped it shut and winked at Tommy. He put the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger twice.

  The hammer hit empty chambers. Tommy wriggled and squealed. Elmer said, “We got some questions.”

  Buzz held up his piece. He spun the cylinder and snapped it shut. He winked at Tommy.

  Tommy said, “Fuck your mother.”

  Buzz put the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger. The hammer hit an empty chamber. Tommy wriggled and squealed. Elmer said, “We got some questions.”

  Tommy wriggled and squealed. Tommy bleated and squealed. Tommy said, “Okay, okay, okay.”

  Elmer said, “You dropped your address book New Year’s Eve. I guess you figured that out.”

  Buzz said, “There’s some names we were curious about.”

  Elmer relit a cigar. “Let’s start with Eddie Leng. The number to his slop chute was right there in your book.”

  Tommy coughed. He was bruised and contused. He
talked, squeaky-frail.

  “Eddie was an old pal of mine. He was a terp man. He was all tonged up, and he got snuffed in C-town on New Year’s Eve. You’re climbing the wrong tree if you think I did it. It was this Jap, Don Matsura. He had a terp still at his place in J-town, and he peddled terp to the Japs and the Chinks. He hung himself in the Lincoln Heights Jail, but Ace Kwan might have helped him.”

  Buzz said, “You’re in the know, son.”

  Elmer fed Tommy a jolt of 151. Tommy gulped and coughed out residue. Elmer caught a residual spritz.

  “What else you got on Eddie and Don Matsura? You got any KAs for them?”

  Tommy coughed. “How’s Cal Lunceford sound? He was this shitheel cop on the Alien Squad, but he’s dead now. It was in the papers. Some ex-caped Jap shot him. Cal was Fifth Column, and he was in with Eddie and Don Matsura, plus a whole lot of other shitheels. Before you ask, I ain’t got no proper names.”

  Elmer fed Tommy a jolt of 151. Tommy sucked it in and kept it down.

  Buzz said, “St. Vibiana’s. What’s going on there? What’s with you and Monsignor Joe Hayes?”

  Tommy said, “Come on, don’t make me say it.”

  Buzz said, “I’ll say it for you. You and the monsignor travel the dirt road together. You’re both Coughlinites and Jew-haters. Let me hazard a guess here. Being tight with priests got you juice with Dudley Smith.”

  The roof light haloed Tommy. He got this caged-mick look.

  “I snitched for Dud. I’m pals with Dud’s boy Huey Cressmeyer. I ran wets for Carlos Madrano, so you could say I been around and know some people you might be interested in. Dud visited me in Quentin, last November. I put the squeeze on him, which I shouldn’t have done. Dud put your cracker pal, Mike the B., and Dick the C. on me, but I got away, because your cracker pal here didn’t have the stones to shoot me.”

  Elmer brain-strained it. Tommy extorts Dudley. Let’s call his shakedown wedge this:

  Winter ’39. That Nazi costume bash. Tommy gets a biiiii­iiiii­iig eyeful. Dud slays that he-she bitch.

  Buzz pat-patted Tommy. Good snitch dog. Let’s give him a treat.

  He snatched the 151 and fed him two jolts. Tommy coughed and joy-kicked the front seat.

  Buzz said, “Let’s get back to the address book. What’s with that hot-box phone, by the Herald.”

  Tommy said, “I was relaying gibberish calls. It was all dot-dash-dot, dog-cat-pig, code shit that means something if you know how to decode it. My call scripts got patched through to a bookie drop in Ensenada, and I got the scripts at my mail drop in L.A. It was all through what you call cutouts, so I never knew who was writing the scripts or giving the orders. I got this sort-of tip from a Mex bookie who was forwarding the messages. He told me they were going to this political guy and his sister in La Paz, but then he clammed up.”

  Elmer said, “Come on, there’s got to be more there.”

  Tommy coughed. “Okay, okay, okay. The bookie guy zipped it, but I extrapolated some shit, because Fifth Column’s Fifth Column, and it’s all one big sort-of-happy family, which sure loves to talk. I know Deutsches Haus guys, guys with the Mex Staties, and guys from that nutso 46th Street place. I know things just as good as I know all these guys. I know Dud killed Carlos Madrano, I know there were some sub-berth killings in Baja, and it was all part of a play to pass Japs off as Chinks, and—”

  Elmer cut in. “Eddie Leng was tight with a Chinatown doctor named Lin Chung. You’re a guy who knows guys, so I’m wondering if you know him.”

  Tommy smirked. “I know Lin. Everybody knows Lin, including a notable dead guy named Eddie Leng, who don’t know him no more.”

  Buzz poked him. “Don’t string this out. Finish whatever it is that you got to say.”

  Tommy resmirked. “Okay, okay, okay. Eddie was tight with Lin, and Lin was tight with these rich white guys who were behind that first sub landing. Eddie introduced me to Lin, and Lin said the second landing was the work of a left-wing/right-wing alliance, and they were setting up some kind of postwar reconciliation deal. They’re pulling all sorts of evil shit in the here and now, but they intend to make themselves look good by exposing it after this war is over.”

  Elmer brain-braced it. “Was Dud embroiled in any of this?”

  Tommy laughed. “Nein to that. Dud leans Fifth Column, but it’s just a cocktease. He loves Nazi threads and regalia, but he ain’t no saboteur. He’s just some kind of fetishist.”

  Buzz said, “Let’s revisit the klubhaus.”

  Tommy said, “Goody. That sounds like kicks.”

  Elmer said, “Link Rockwell. Them smut pix he planned to send from his mail drop to yours.”

  Buzz flashed the key pix. Elmer shot good camera dupes. You’ve got two women. One’s white, one’s Mex. There’s that klubhaus backdrop.

  Tommy shrugged. “If you’re asking me who the two janes are, I don’t know. They’re just jazz-club chippies out for distraction.”

  Elmer said, “We’re here, and we’re all ears. Give us some more on the klubhaus.”

  Tommy said, “I’m parched. Give me another nip first.”

  Buzz grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. It stretched his mouth wide. Buzz juked in the juice.

  Tommy gargled it and kept it down. Buzz wiped his hand pomade-free. Tommy’s mouth snapped shut. He went electrizized. He looked sloshed, slammed, and slathered to shit.

  “I like this stuff you’re slipping me. It makes me want to hot-prowl and commit some swell misdeeds.”

  Elmer said, “The klubhaus. Let’s get back to that.”

  Tommy squirmed. He was cuffed tight. Steel ratchets gouged his wrists. The evil punk bloodied up the backseat.

  “The smut pix were just some Link Rockwell deal. Beyond that, the klubhaus was just this place where anything goes.”

  Elmer gnawed his cigar. “Our lab guy found jizz stains and fecal matter on an upstairs bed. That reads ‘queer shit’ to me.”

  Tommy went C’est la vie. “I hid out at the klubhaus for a week, after you blew that stakeout on me. Okay, I knew Wendell Rice and Georgie Kapek, but just to say hi to. I knew they were cops, and I knew they were Fifth Column, but then so’s everybody else in the exalted Thomas Malcolm Glennon’s world.”

  Buzz sighed. “The ‘queer shit,’ Tommy.”

  Elmer sighed. “Chop, chop, you pervert. It’d delight me to put some hurt on you.”

  Tommy yawned. It was I’m-so-bored stagy. Elmer bitch-slapped him. Tommy licked blood off his lips and rebounded quick.

  “Okay, ‘queer shit,’ a topic dear to my heart. I didn’t really know Rice and Kapek, but I knew they were afraid of this queer kid who hung out on the jazz strip and brought boys to the klubhaus for some pokey-pokey. He was a blondie kid, sort of tall, maybe some kind of musician, and he was pals with a crazy Jap that Rice and Kapek busted, but the Jap made habeas and got himself sprung. Now, Mr. Jap was a sword man. Rice and Kapek popped him with this big blood-caked sword, and after he waltzed, he became a sure-as-shit klubhaus regular. He used to kill chickens for all these slop chutes in J-town, and he licked the blood off the swords that he used.”

  Elmer brained-snagged it. He witnessed that log-in. Rice and Kapek/the blood-flecked sword. This could be good. Paperwork might still exist.

  Buzz said, “The haus, Tommy. Keep going there.”

  “What’s to tell? It was too crazy for me, so I vamoosed.”

  Elmer said, “What did you squeeze Dudley with?”

  Tommy said, “Brace yourself, daddy. Dud snuffed a drag boy at a party. Huey C. and I witnessed the whole thing. I’ll give you my long-held opinion on that, for what it’s worth. Dud knew that she was really a he, and he was looooving the encounter until something flipped his switch.”

  Elmer looked at Buzz. Buzz looked at Elmer. They both orbed Tommy G.

  Buzz sa
id, “Kyoho Hanamaka? Ring a bell?”

  Tommy said, “Nix.”

  Elmer said, “José Vasquez-Cruz. His aka’s Jorge Villareal-Caiz.”

  Tommy said, “Ixnay.”

  Buzz said, “Archie Archuleta?”

  Tommy said, “I knew that pendejo. I used to see him at the klubhaus, and from what I heard, he was a notable J-town and C-town crawler. He was cinched up with more strange-o’s than you can count, and he veered Fifth Column right. He knew Mex girls who’d pose for smut pictures, and he knew Sinarquista heist guys and set them up with Rice and Kapek, to buy these guns they’d confiscated from these Japs they’d tossed in the clink. RIP, Archie. He was a white man, as much as any Mex can be.”

  Elmer soft-lobbed it. “This Commie girl, Jean Staley. How come she’s in your book?”

  Tommy drop-jawed that one. He’s gone on 151. He’s all stage ham now.

  “Jean’s been known to play Red, but she’s been a Federal snitch since the ice age. She was in a CP cell back in the ’30s, while she was meanwhile tattling to her handler and running shakedowns on movie people and her fellow Reds with this yid, Meyer Gelb. Meyer’s a ganef and a penguin-fucker from way back. There’s nothing he ain’t done or considered doing. He got Jean shaking down these Trotskyites he hates, because he’s a Stalinist, and these Red-faction humps hate other Red-faction humps more than they hate confirmed fascistos like yours truly.”

  Elmer digested it. Tommy credentialed it. Jean, baby—say it ain’t so.

  Buzz wiggled the 151. “Bottoms up, Tommy.”

  Stage Ham Tommy. He goes all rubber-faced.

  “I’ve heard that one before, but I have to add that I’m the brunser, more than the punk.”

  Elmer cringed. Buzz bottle-fed Tommy. The stage ham smacked his lips. The backseat socked in heat. Elmer rolled down his window and breathed deep.

  “What’s Meyer got Jean doing now? There’s a picture of you three at the Club Alabam, just last week.”

  “Souvenir pictures are the blahs, hoss. They send girl photographers around, and Meyer always succumbs.”