by James Ellroy
The man entered the drugstore.
Ashida checked his watch. It was 9:24 a.m.
Pinker turned around and lit a cigarette. Ashida scanned the drugstore window. The man walked down the toothpaste aisle. Ashida checked his watch on the sly.
The man hunkered out of sight. 9:25, 9:26, 9:27.
Pinker said, “My wife thinks it’s dirt in the air, but I say it’s just excess phlegm.”
The man ran out of the drugstore. He gripped a paper bag and a half-visible pistol. He knocked over the newsboy. He shagged his car and peeled out.
Pinker said, “Holy shit.” The cigarette dropped from his mouth.
The newsboy ran into the drugstore. Pinker ran toward a call box. Ashida ran up to the gizmo.
He unlocked it and knelt close. He studied the negative in the feeder. There, faint and blurred: Cal KFE-621.
A car idled by. The driver was a Shriner, replete with fez. He saw Ashida and got all contorted. Ashida stood up and made fists. The car pulled away.
“FDR in Last-Ditch Talks with Japs!” The newsboy stared at Ashida and shrieked it.
There—a cop siren at 9:31.
Ashida stood poised. A K-car took the corner and skid-stopped just short of the gizmo. Ashida was eyeball close. He recognized the guys: Buzz Meeks and Lee Blanchard.
They got out. Meeks worked Headquarters Robbery. Blanchard worked Central Patrol. Meeks wore a fresh-pressed suit. Blanchard wore a slept-in uniform.
Meeks said, “What gives, kid? How come you beat us here?”
Blanchard said, “What gives, Hirohito?”
Meeks jerked Blanchard’s necktie and snapped his head. Blanchard blushed.
Ashida pointed to the gizmo. “Mr. Pinker and I were testing this device. The store’s a patsy, so we chose it for our test site. Car wheels set off a camera under that tubing. We lucked into the robbery. The suspect’s plate number is KFE-621.”
Meeks winked and squatted by the gizmo. Blanchard got in the car and sent out the squawk. Meeks was a Dust Bowl vet and ex–cowboy film actor. He came on under James Edgar “Two-Gun” Davis. He was a bagman to Mayor Frank Shaw. The county grand jury sacked Shaw and Chief Davis. Meeks dodged fourteen indictments.
Blanchard was an ex–heavyweight contender. He bought a house above the Sunset Strip with his fight stash. He cracked a big bank job in ’39 and cinched his cop reputation. He was shacked up with a woman—Kay something. Shack jobs were verboten under Chief C. B. Horrall. The Chief was soft on Lee and turned a blind eye. Meeks and Blanchard were rumor magnets. The most prevalent: Lee was tight with Ben Siegel and the Jewish syndicate.
The drugstore was all hubbub. Voices bounced off the windows. Ashida looked inside. Pinker had the witnesses huddled.
Meeks picked his teeth and admired the gizmo. Blanchard stepped out of the K-car.
“The car was snatched in front of a pool hall on East Slauson. The 77th Street desk logged it at 8:16. It’s got to be a spook. White don’t survive from Jefferson south.”
Meeks checked his watch. “Call Traffic, tell them to issue a bulletin, and tell them to spice it up. One-man crime wave, armed and dangerous. Make it sound like a meat-and-potatoes job.”
Blanchard made the Churchill V sign. Meeks primped in the window reflection. Ashida walked into the drugstore.
He imprinted the floor plan. He memorized the witnesses’ faces. He gauged distances geometrically. He moved his eyes, details accrued, he smelled body odors imbued with adrenaline.
Two white-coat pharmacists. A suit-and-tie manager. Two old-lady customers. The fat pharmacist had a boil on his neck. The thin pharmacist had the shakes. One old lady was obese. Her vein pattern indicated arterial sclerosis.
The witnesses were pressed in tight. Meeks walked behind the front counter and stood facing them.
“I’m Sergeant Turner Meeks, and I’m listening.”
The manager said, “He walked in and went straight to the pharmacy. He wore a mask and had a gun, but I don’t think it was the man who robbed us those other times. This man was taller and thinner.”
The pharmacists bobbed their heads—yeah, boss, we agree.
Meeks said, “What happened then?”
The fat pharmacist said, “He lined us up and stole our wallets. He walked us down the first pill aisle, stole a bottle of phenobarbital and fired his gun into the ceiling.”
Ashida prickled. There—the uncommon detail.
“Mr. Pinker and I were across the street. We would have heard the shot.”
The fat pharmacist went nix. “The gun had a silencer. It stuck off the end of the barrel.”
Ashida walked back to the pharmacy. Note the cash register, Hershey bars and Christmas-card display. He rang up a one-dollar sale. The money drawer popped open. The slots were stuffed with ones through twenties.
Instinct.
The bandit wanted dope more than money. The wallet thefts were secondary. They were undertaken to obscure the primary motive.
Anomaly.
Why steal only one bottle of phenobarbital? The action rebutted the dope-fiend robber archetype.
Ashida vaulted the counter and walked down the first aisle. There—no ejected shell casing. There—two options.
The robber picked it up, or the gun was a revolver.
There—the bullet hole in the ceiling. Metal shards on the floor below—decomposed silencer threads.
He knelt down and studied them. The edges were burned from muzzle heat. The threads dropped off in little swirls.
Ashida walked back to the front counter. Pinker had his evidence kit. Meeks uncorked a bottle of drugstore hooch and passed it around. Blanchard raided the chewing-gum rack. Meeks stuffed his pockets full of rubbers.
The jug made the rounds. Ashida declined it. The pharmacists took healthy pulls. The old ladies giggled and sipped.
Blanchard said, “We got a kickback from Traffic. The car was dumped three blocks from here. We got glove prints on the dashboard so far.”
Meeks lit a cigar. “Did he touch anything inside the store? Can you folks help me with that?”
The fat pharmacist coughed. “He brushed the comic-book rack on his way out. I think he might have snagged his coat.”
Pinker went Now. Ashida caught it and ducked past the witnesses. The rack was stuffed with Mickey Mouse and Tarzan. Ashida swiveled it twice. Nothing and nothing. Yes—right there.
Bright red threads, attached to one prong.
Wool felt, densely woven, familiar.
Ashida pulled out a pen and evidence envelope. He plucked the threads and sealed them. He wrote “211 PC/Whalen’s Drugstore/10:09 a.m., 12/6/41” on the envelope flap.
More laughs up front—Blanchard and Meeks made like the Ritz Brothers. Ashida sniffed the envelope. He smelled the fabric through the paper. He made the synaptic catch.
The suspected MP rapist. The fibers off his armband. Pinker said he just raped another lady. The fool wore the armband on his rape prowls.
There was no red in the robber’s overcoat. The rack prongs were situated at the man’s waist level. The overcoat featured open-topped pockets. The fabric threads might have come from something sticking out. He had comparison fibers at his mother’s place. He could confirm or exclude the match.
There’s the whistle—Pinker’s I need you now.
Ashida tracked the sound. Pinker was back in the pharmacy. He had his evidence camera out. He shot three exposures of the bullet hole, three exposures of the silencer shards.
“This job intrigues me. He didn’t terrorize the witnesses with the gun, he didn’t steal till cash, he squeezed a gunshot off for kicks.”
Ashida nodded. “It’s as if he was testing the silencer. And why did he only steal one bottle of the phenobarbital?”
Pinker nodded. “I like the test-fire theory. It’s obviously a homemade suppressor, because you’ve got thread burns from a single firing. Eight or ten shots would render the thing useless.”
“You’re right, and the ma
nager said it’s not the same man who robbed the store on the prior occasions. Whatever his primary and secondary motives, he picked out a patsy.”
Pinker scooped shards into an envelope. “There’s probably a crawl space between the ceiling and the roof.”
The ceiling was made from loose gypsum-board panels. Ashida jumped and popped the one beside the bullet hole. Pinker made hand stirrups. Ashida caught the boost and got up.
The crawl space was all mildewed planks and cobwebs. Ashida hoisted himself in. He smelled stale gunpowder. He stood up and snagged himself on a cobweb. He brushed it off and got out his pocket flashlight. The beam caught insect swarms and a scurrying rat. There—six decomposed bullet chunks.
Be careful. You’ve been in this from inception. There’s your official duty—and there’s You.
Stanford, ’36. Introductory Forensics: “All true clinicians succumb and hoard evidence. The practice creates a symbiosis of it and you.”
He checked his watch. He held the flashlight in his teeth and got out another envelope. He wrote “211 PC/Whalen’s Drugstore/10:16 a.m., 12/6/41” on the front. He scooped four bullet chunks into it. He put the other two in his pocket.
The rat squirmed by him. He brushed himself off and dropped out of the hole. He landed deftly. He saw Buzz Meeks eyeballing the narcotics shelves.
“Look at this, kid.”
Ashida looked. Bingo—four bottle rows neatly arrayed. The fifth row—disarrayed. Vials of morphine paregoric—rifled, for sure.
“The pharmacist said he only stole phenobarbital.”
Meeks said, “Yeah, and I believe him. But the skinny pharmacy guy’s got the heebie-jeebies, and his shirt collar’s soaked through. My guess is he’s got a habit.”
“Yes. He took advantage of the robbery to steal a vial of the paregoric. He only took what the robber could have carried on his person, and what he could hide himself.”
Meeks winked. “You are so right, Charlie Chan.”
“I’m Japanese, Sergeant. I know you can’t tell the difference, but I’m not a goddamn Chinaman.”
Meeks grinned. “You look like an American to me.”
Ashida went swoony. Praise always made him flutter like a—
He glanced up front. Pinker dusted the door. Blanchard scrounged razor blades off the manager. The hophead pharmacist was green at the gills. His hands twitched, his Adam’s apple bob-bobbed.
Meeks walked up to him and grabbed his necktie. The tie was a leash. Meeks pulled him back to the pharmacy and shoved him into Ashida. The hophead pissed his pants. Ashida shoved him into the counter and checked himself for stains.
The hophead quaked. The piss stain spread. Meeks pulled the sap off his belt.
“You swipe a jug of the paregoric? That a regular practice of yours?”
“One a week, boss. I’m cutting down. If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
“You got thirty seconds to convince me that you didn’t finger this here robbery. You got twenty-nine seconds as of right now.”
The hophead made prayer hands. “Not me, boss. I went to pharmacy school at Saint John Bosco J.C. I was raised by the Dominican Brothers.”
Meeks grabbed a bottle of morph off the shelf. The hophead licked his lips.
“Who are you going to call to snitch off pushers in exchange for confiscated hop? Who’s your Oklahoma-born-and-bred papa?”
“S-S-S-Sergeant T-T-Turner M-M-Meeks. He’s my daddy—if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
Meeks tossed the jug at him. The hophead caught it and vamoosed down the aisle. Meeks said, “You’re fastidious, Ashida. I don’t know why you got such a fascination for this line of work.”
The party up front was adjourning. Blanchard hugged the old ladies. The manager whipped out a camera and took snapshots. He got Pinker with his print brush and Big Lee in a boxer’s crouch. Meeks walked over and traded mock blows with him. The old ladies squealed.
They all waved bye-bye on the sidewalk. Ashida smoothed out his suit coat and let the crowd disperse. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks stood over the gizmo. Blanchard and Meeks had that Holy shit look.
Ashida walked outside and over. A prowl car swung north and grazed the curb. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks snapped to.
Pinker said, “Look sharp now.”
Meeks said, “Whiskey Bill.”
Blanchard said, “Pious cocksucker.”
A uniformed captain got out and inspected the gizmo. He wore glasses. He was dark-haired, midsize and trim. Odds on Captain William H. Parker.
Ashida snapped to. Parker examined the feeder cords. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks stood at parade rest.
Parker toed the cord. “It’s innovative, but the wider practical applications are eluding me. Address this point and describe the creative genesis and full mechanical workings in significant detail, and have your report on my desk by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
Ashida and Pinker nodded.
Parker looked at Meeks. “You’re offensively overweight. Lose thirty pounds within the next thirty days, or I’ll have Chief Horrall put you on the ‘Fat Husband’s Diet’ recently extolled in the Ladies’ Home Journal.”
Meeks nodded.
Parker looked at Blanchard. “Roll down your sleeves. Your mermaid tattoo is repugnant.”
Blanchard rolled down his sleeves.
Parker tapped his watch. “It’s now 10:31. I want a stolen-car report, with a synopsis of the robbery, on my desk in fifty-nine minutes.”
Pinker nodded. Ashida nodded. Ditto Blanchard and Meeks. Parker got in his car and took off.
Meeks said, “Whiskey Bill.”
Blanchard said, “He lost money on my fight with Jimmy Bivens. He can’t let it go.”
Pinker said, “The fight was fixed. You should have told him.”
10:32 a.m.
Army half-tracks rolled down Spring. Trucks hauling howitzers tailed them. The convoy ran for blocks. It was all over the radio. Fortifications for defense plants and Fort MacArthur.
Soldier-drivers waved to the locals. Pedestrians stopped to applaud. Men doffed their hats, kids cheered, women blew kisses.
The traffic rumble was bad. Ashida cut east on 4th Street and north on Broadway. Passersby kept eyeing him.
He felt disembodied. He broke the law to observe lawlessness from a criminal act’s inception. He succumbed to criminal pathology. He initiated an experiment. Would early access and distanced empathy allow him to understand criminals more clearly?
Introductory Forensics. He knew he’d succumb in time. He’d know the case as it grabbed him. That symbiosis—it and you.
He seized a textbook opportunity. He had to determine the pathology of a prosaic heist and report his findings first. His findings might serve the greater cause of forensic criminology. His findings might serve no cause at all. He was compelled to act. He was quintessentially Japanese. Japanese men were born to embody the concept of Act.
Ashida turned east and hit Little Tokyo. His pulse decelerated, his breath relaxed. A black-and-white cruised by. The driver recognized him and waved.
His mother had a walk-up at 2nd and San Pedro. The halls always reeked of broiled eel. He had his own apartment, across from Belmont High.
It was brimful of lab gear. The overflow filled his old bedroom at his mother’s place. Mariko welcomed his intrusions. They allowed her to torque him at whim.
Ashida entered the building and unlocked the door. The place was quiet. Mariko was off somewhere, probably boozing and fomenting. He walked to his old bedroom and locked himself in.
Shelves packed with textbooks. Chemical vials and vats. Beakers, Bunsen burners, a hot plate. A spectrograph and three microscopes bolted to a table.
Ashida placed the bullet chunks on the table and grabbed his ammo-ID text. He held a magnifying glass over the chunks and studied the creases and dents.
The bullet pierced gypsum. The book was cross-referenced—ammo types to material fired upon. The photos were clear. Page 68—gypsum board. Two page
s on—a bullet fragment with near-identical creases and dents.
The classic German firearm. The 9mm Luger.
The Luger had a floating-toggle ejector. The rounds always arced slowly. A deft shooter could catch an ejected shell in the air.
He ID’d the bullet independently. He withheld two fragments. He gave Ray Pinker the remaining four. Pinker would or would not ID them.
Pinker was not as skilled at bullet identification. He was cultivating this evidential lead all by himself.
The fibers next.
Pinker knew he kept the book-rack fibers. Pinker knew he had the armband fibers here. They were sharing this lead. It was hypothetical, thus far.
Ashida got out both fiber sets. They looked naked-eye similar. He placed them under the slides of his comparison microscope.
He swiveled in close. He scanned for texture and color consistency. Almost, almost, go in closer still. Yes—the book-rack fibers were cut from the same type of armband cloth.
He could boil out the fabric dye and blotter-dry it. He could run chemical tests. The tests carried their own systematic flaws. The results would prove inconclusive.
A key-in-lock noise jarred him. He walked into the living room. Mariko had 11:00 a.m. booze breath.
He said, “Hello, Mother.” She spoke slurred Japanese back. He bowed and tried to take her hand. She pulled away and flashed a magazine.
A “picture bride” rag. Choose a photograph and send for a young woman. She’ll be shipped from Japan. Include the five-hundred-dollar steamship fare. All brides guaranteed to be fertile and subservient.
“I’ve told you, Mother. I’m not going to marry a fifteen-year-old girl out of a brothel.”
“You too old to be bachelor. Neighbors get suspicious.”
“The neighbors don’t concern me. Akira’s a bachelor, why don’t you pester him?”
Mariko segued to pidgin talk. She learned it in railroad camps, circa 1905. She spoke it to demean his education.
“Speak straight English, Mother. You’ve been here for thirty-six years.”
Mariko plopped on the couch. “Franklin Double-Cross Rosenfeld back down to Minister Togo. ‘U.S. surrender to China imminent,’ Chiang Kai-shek say.”
Ashida laughed. “You’ve got your geopolitics confused, Mother. I’d ask you where you heard it, but I’m afraid you’ll tell me.”