by James Ellroy
“Zeck—zeck—order.”
I spun the .38’s cylinder—more emphasis. “You mean the executive order on the Japs?”
Koenig spat a few loose canines and some gum flaps. “Zat’s right.”
“Keep going. A snitch jacket looks good on you.”
Shitbird held a stare on me; I threw him back some of his manhood to facilitate a speedy confession. “Look, you spill and I won’t rat you. This is just a money gig for me.”
His eyes told me he bought it. Koenig got out his first unslurred words. “I been doin’ a grift with the Japs. The government’s holdin’ their bank dough till the internment ends. I was gonna cash out for Murikami and some others, for a cut. You know, bring ’em to the bank in bracelets, carry some official-lookin’ papers. Japs are smart, I’ll give ’em that. They know they’re goin’ bye-bye, and they want more than bank interest.”
I didn’t quite buy it; on reflex I gave Koenig’s jacket pockets a toss. All I got was some women’s pancake makeup—pad and bottle. The anomaly tweaked me; I pulled Koenig to his feet and cuffed him behind his back with his own bracelets. “Where’s Murikami hiding out?”
“Fourteen-eleven Wabash, East L.A., apartment three-eleven. Bunch of Japs holing up there. What are you gonna—”
“I’m going to toss your car and cut you loose. It’s my grift now, Walter.”
Koenig nodded, trying not to look grateful; I unloaded his piece and stuck it in his holster, gave him back his badge kit, rounded up the bankbooks, and shoved him toward the front door, thinking of Lorna accompanied by Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller, the two of us enjoying Acapulco vacations financed by Axis cash. I pushed Koenig down the steps ahead of me; he nodded toward a Ford roadster parked across the street. “There, that’s mine. But you ain’t—”
Shots cut the air; Koenig pitched forward, backward, forward. I hit the pavement, not knowing which direction to fire. Koenig slumped into the gutter; a car sped by sans headlights. I squeezed off five shots and heard them ding metal; lights went on in windows—they gave me a perfect shot of a once-rogue cop with his face blasted away. I stumbled over to the Ford, used my pistol butt to smash in a window, popped the glove compartment, and tore through it. Odd papers, no bankbooks, my hands brushing a long piece of slimy rubber. I held it up and flicked on the dash light and saw a paste-on scar—outré—just like the one eyewitnesses at the bank job said one of the heisters had.
I heard sirens descending, blasting like portents of doomsday. I ran to my car and highballed it the fuck away.
* * *
—
My apartment was in the wrong direction—away from leads on Maggie into Lorna. I drove to 1411 Wabash, found it postmidnight still, blackout black—a six-story walk-up with every single window covered. The joint was stone quiet. I ditched my car in the alley, stood on the hood, jumped up, and caught the bottom rung of the fire escape.
The climb was tough going; mist made the handrails wet and slippery, and my shoes kept slipping. I made it to the third-floor landing, pushed the connecting door open, padded down the empty hallway to 311, put my ear to the door and listened.
Voices in Jap, voices in Jap-accented English, then pure Americanese, loud and clear. “You’re paying me for a hideout, not chow at two-fucking-A.M. But I’ll do it—this time.”
More voices; footsteps heading toward the hall. I pulled my gun, pinned myself to the wall, and let the door open in my face. I hid behind it for a split second; it was shut, and caucasian-san hotfooted it over to the elevator. On tippy-toes, I was right behind him.
I cold-cocked him clean—wham!—grabbed his pocket piece while he hit the carpet and dreamsville, stuffed my display handkerchief in his mouth, and dragged him over to a broom closet and locked him in. Two-gun armed, I walked back to the door of 311 and rapped gently.
“Yes?”—a Jap voice—from the other side. I said, “It’s me,” deliberately muffled. Mutters, the door opening, a jumbo Buddhahead filling the doorway. I kicked him in the balls, caught his belt mid-jackknife, pulled forward and smashed his head into the doorjamb. He sunk down gonesville; I waved the automatic I’d taken off the white punk at the rest of the room.
What a room.
A dozen slants staring at me with tiny black eyes like Jap Zero insignias, Bob Murikami smack in the middle. Arkansas toad stabbers drawn and pointed square at my middle. A Mexican standoff or the sequel to Pearl Harbor. Kamikaze was the only way to play it.
I smiled, ejected the chambered round from my pilfered piece, popped the clip, and tossed both at the far wall. Jumbo was stirring at my feet; I helped him up, one hand on his carotid artery in case he got uppity. With my free hand, I broke the cylinder on my gun, showing him the one bullet left from my shoot-out with Walter Koenig’s killers. Jumbo nodded his head, getting the picture; I spun the chamber, put the muzzle to his forehead, and addressed the assembled Axis powers. “This is about bankbooks, Maggie Cordova, Alien Squad grifts, and that big heist at the Japtown B of A. Bob Murikami’s the only guy I want to talk to. Yes or no.”
Nobody moved a muscle or said a word. I pulled the trigger, clicked an empty chamber, and watched Jumbo shake head to toe—bad heebie-jeebies. I said, “Sayonara, Shitbird,” and pulled the trigger again; another hollow click, Jumbo twitching like a hophead going into cold turkey overdrive.
Five to one down to three to one; I could see Lorna, nude, waving bye-bye Hearns, heading toward Stormin’ Norman Killebrew, jazz trombone, rumored to have close to a hard half yard and the only man Lorna implied gave it to her better than me. I pulled the trigger twice—twin empties—shit stink taking over the room as Jumbo evacuated his bowels.
One to one, seven come eleven, the Japs looking uncharacteristically piqued. Now I saw my own funeral cortege, “Prison of Love” blasting as they lowered me into the grave.
“No! I’ll talk!”
I had the trigger at half pull when Bob Murikami’s voice registered. I let go of Jumbo and drew a bead on Bad Bob; he walked over and bowed, supplicant samurai style, at my gun muzzle. Jumbo collapsed; I waved the rest of the group into a tight little circle and said, “Kick the clip and the roscoe over.”
A weasel-faced guy complied; I popped one into the chamber and tucked my Russki roulette piece in my belt. Murikami pointed to a side door; I followed him over, a straight-arm bead on the others.
The door opened into a small bedroom lined with cots—the Underground Railway, 1942 version. I sat down on the cleanest one available and pointed Murikami to a cot a few yards over, well within splatter range. I said, “Spill. Put it together, slow and from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
Bad Bob Murikami was silent, like he was mustering his thoughts and wondering how much horseshit he could feed me. His face was hard set; he looked tough beyond his years. I smelled musk in the room—a rare combo of blood and Lorna’s “Cougar Woman” perfume. “You can’t lie, Bob. And I won’t hand you up to the Alien Squad.”
Murikami snickered. “You won’t?”
I snickered back. “You people mow a mean lawn and trim a mean shrub. When my ship comes in, I’ll be needing a good gardener.”
Murikami double-snickered—and a smile started to catch at the corners of his mouth. “What’s your name?”
“Spade Hearns.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“I thought private eyes were sensitive guys with a code of honor.”
“Only in the pulps.”
“That’s rich. If you don’t have a code of honor, how do I know you won’t cross me?”
“I’m in too deep now, Tojo. Crossing you’s against my own best interest.”
“Why?”
I pulled out a handful of bankbooks; Murikami’s slant eyes bugged out until he almost looked like a fright-wig nigger. “I killed Walt Koenig for th
ese, and you need a white man to tap the cash. I don’t like witnesses and there’s too many of you guys to kill, even though I’m hopped up on blood bad. Spiel me, papa-san. Make it an epic.”
* * *
—
Murikami spieled for a straight hour. His story was the night train to Far Gonesville.
It started when three Japs, bank building maintenance workers pissed over their imminent internment, cooked up a plot with rogue cop Walt Koenig and a cop buddy of his—Murikami didn’t know the guy’s name. The plot was a straight bank robbery with a no-violence proviso—Koenig and pal taking down the B of A based on inside info, the Japs getting a percentage cut of the getaway loot for the young firebrands stupid enough to think they could hot-foot it to Mexico and stay free, plus Koenig’s safeguarding of confiscated Jap property until the internment ended. But the caper went blood simple: guards snuffed, stray bullets flying. Mrs. Lena Sakimoto, the old dame shot on the street the next day, was the finger woman—she was in the bank pretending to be waiting in line, but her real errand was to pass the word to Koenig and buddy—the split second the vault cash was distributed to the tellers. She was rubbed out because the heisters figured her for a potential snitch.
Double-cross.
Bad Bob and his pals had been given the bank money to hold. Enraged over the deaths, they shoved it into Jap bank accounts, figured the two whiteys couldn’t glom it, that the swag would accumulate interest until the internment was adios. Bob stashed the bankbooks at his crib and was soon to send the white boy fronting the getaway pad over to get them—but he got word a friend of his got greedy.
The friend’s name was George Hayakawa, a vice-warlord in the Rising Sons. He went to Walt Koenig with a deal: He’d get the cash for a fifty-fifty cut. Koenig said no dealsky, tortured the location of the bankbooks and the address of the hideout out of Hayakawa, snuffed him, chopped off his dick, and sent it over in a pizza delivery box. A warning—don’t fuck with the White Peril.
I pressed Murikami on Maggie Cordova—how did she fit in? The epic took on perv-o overtones.
Maggie was Bad Bob’s sister’s squeeze—the femme half of a dyke duo. She was the co-finger woman inside the bank; when Mrs. Lena Sakimoto got shot to sukiyaki, Maggie fled to Tijuana, fearing similar reprisals. Bob didn’t know exactly where she was. I pressed, threatened, and damn near shot Murikami to get the answer I wanted most: where Maggie Cordova got “Prison of Love.”
Bad Bob didn’t know; I had to know. I made him a deal I knew I’d double-cross the second Lorna slinked into view. You come with me, we’ll withdraw all the gelt, you take me to T.J. to find Maggie and the money’s all yours. Murikami agreed; we sealed the bargain by toking a big bottle of laudanum laced with sake. I passed out on my cot with my gun in my hand and segued straight into the arms of Lorna.
* * *
—
It was a great hop dream.
Lorna was performing nude at the Hollywood Palladium, backed by an all-jigaboo orchestra—gigantic darkies in rhinestone-braided Uncle Sam outfits. She humped the air; she sprayed sweat; she sucked the microphone head. Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin, and Hirohito were carried in on litters; they swooned at her feet as Lor belted “Someone to Watch Over Me.” A war broke out on the bandstand: crazed jigs beating each other with trombone slides and clarinet shafts. It was obviously a diversion—Hitler jumped on stage and tried to carry Lorna over to a Nazi U-boat parked in the first row. I foiled Der Führer, picking him up by the mustache and hurling him out to Sunset Boulevard. Lorna was swooning into my arms when I felt a tugging and opened my eyes to see Bob Murikami standing over me, saying, “Rise and shine, shamus. We got banking to do.”
* * *
—
We carried it out straight-faced, with appropriate props—handcuffs on Bad Bob, phony paperwork, a cereal box badge pinned to my lapel. Murikami impersonated over a dozen fellow Japs; we liquidated fourteen bank accounts to the tune of $81,000. I explained that I was Alien Squad brass, overseeing the confiscation of treasonous lucre; patriotic bank managers bought the story whole. At four we were heading south to T.J. and what might be my long-overdue reunion with the woman who’d scorched my soul long, long ago. Murikami and I talked easily, a temporary accord in Japanese-American relations—thanks to a healthy injection of long green.
“Why are you so interested in Maggie, Hearns?”
I took my eyes off the road—high cliffs dropping down to snow-white beaches packed with sunbathers on my right, tourist courts and greasy spoons on the left. Baby Tojo was smiling. I hoped I didn’t have to kill him. “She’s a conduit, kid. A pipeline to the woman.”
“The woman?”
“Right. The one I wasn’t ready for a while back. The one I would have flushed it all down the toilet for.”
“You think it will be different now?”
Eighty-one grand seed money; a wiser, more contemplative Hearns. Maybe I’d even dye a little gray in my hair. “Right. Once I clear up a little legal trouble I’m in, I’m going to suggest a long vacation in Acapulco, maybe a trip to Rio. She’ll see the difference in me. She’ll know.”
I looked back at the highway, downshifted for a turn, and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face Bad Bob and caught a big right hand studded with signet rings square in the face.
Blood blinded me; my foot hit the brake; the car jerked into a hillside and stalled out. I swung a haphazard left; another sucker shot caught me; through a sheet of crimson I saw Murikami grab the money and hotfoot it.
I wiped red out of my eyes and pursued. Murikami was heading for the bluffs and a path down to the beach; a car swerved in front of me and a large man jumped out, aimed, and fired at the running figure—once, twice, three times. A fourth shot sent Bob Murikami spiraling over the cliff, the money bag sailing, spilling greenbacks. I pulled my roscoe, shot the shooter in the back, and watched him go down in a clump of crabgrass.
Gun first, I walked over; I gave the shooter two good measure shots, point blank to the back of the head. I kicked him over to his front side and from what little remained of his face identified him. Sergeant Jenks, Bill Malloy’s buddy on the Alien Squad.
Deep shit without a depth gauge.
I hauled Jenks to his Plymouth, stuffed him in the front seat, stood back and shot the gas tank. The car exploded; the ex-cop sizzled like french-fried guacamole. I walked over the cliff and looked down. Bob Murikami was spread-eagled on the rocks and shitloads of sunbathers were scooping up cash, fighting each other for it, dancing jigs of greed and howling like hyenas.
* * *
—
I tailspinned down to Tijuana, found a flop and a bottle of drugstore hop, and went prowling for Maggie Cordova. A fat white lezbo songbird would stick out, even in a pus pocket like T.J.—and I knew the heart of T.J. lowlife was the place to start.
The hop edged down my nerves and gave me a savoir faire my three-day beard and raggedy-assed state needed. I hit the mule act strip and asked questions; I hit the whorehouse strip and the strip that featured live fuck shows twenty-four hours a day. Child beggars swarmed me; my feet got sore from kicking them away. I asked, asked, asked about Maggie Cordova, passing out bribe pesos up the wazoo. Then—right on the street—there she was, turning up a set of stairs adjoining a bottle liquor joint.
I watched her go up, a sudden jolt of nerves obliterating my dope edge. I watched a light go on above the bottle shop—and Lorna Kafesjian doing “Goody, Goody” wafted down at me.
Pursuing the dream, I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.
Footsteps tapped toward me—and suddenly I felt naked, like a litany of everything I didn’t have was underlining the sound of heels over wood.
No eighty-one-grand reunion stash.
No Sy Devore suits to make a suitably grand Hollywood entrance.
No curfew papers for late-night Hollywood spins.
No EL buzzer for the dramatic image of the twentieth century.
No world-weary, tough-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside sensitive code of honor shtick to score backup pussy with in case Lorna shot me down.
The door opened; fat Maggie Cordova was standing there. She said, “Spade Hearns. Right?”
I stood there—dumbstruck beyond dumbstruck. “How did you know that?”
Maggie sighed—like I was old news barely warmed over. “Years ago I bought some tunes from Lorna Kafesjian. She needed a stake to buy her way out of a shack job with a corny guy who had a wicked bad case on her. She told me the guy was a sewer crawler, and since I was a sewer crawler performing her songs, I might run into him. Here’s your ray of hope, Hearns. Lorna said she always wanted to see you one more time. Lor and I have kept in touch, so I’ve got a line on her. She said I should make you pay for the info. You want it? Then give.”
Maggie ended her pitch by drawing a dollar sign in the air. I said, “You fingered the B of A heist. You’re dead meat.”
“Nix, gumshoe. You’re all over the L.A. papers for the raps you brought down looking for me, and the Mexes won’t extradite. Givesky.”
I forked over all the cash in my wallet, holding back a five-spot for mad money. Maggie said, “Eight-eighty-one Calle Verdugo. Play it pianissimo, doll. Nice and slow.”
* * *
—
I blew my last finnsky at a used clothing store, picking up a chalk-stripe suit like the one Bogart wore in The Maltese Falcon. The trousers were too short and the jacket was too tight, but overall the thing worked. I dry-shaved in a gas station men’s room, spritzed some soap at my armpits, and robbed a kiddie flower vendor of the rest of his daffodils. Thus armed, I went to meet my lost love.
Knock, knock, knock on the door of a tidy little adobe hut; boom, boom, boom, as my overwrought heart drummed a big band beat. The door opened—and I almost screamed.
