Perfidia

by James Ellroy

  Dudley grinned. “You are a charming witness, Mr. Namura. Please continue with your intriguing discourse on the Watanabe family.”

  Jimmy the Jap rocked his chair. “He was a secretive cat, Ryoshi. He went to meetings here and there, but he never spilled on who he saw or what he knew. He figured the Hitler-Tojo boys would win the war, so he converted all his U.S. coin into reichsmarks and yen, which may have been premature, given the latest news from the Russian front. He was running his farm on a shoestring, and he brought me up for a couple of weeks last winter, to ride herd on his slaves. His pickers were all wetbacks. The Mex Staties supplied them. Ryoshi told me the jefe was a Statie captain named Carlos Madrano. He pushed heroin down in Baja and was some kind of crime boss down there. I saw him once. He wore this snazzy outfit. Black shirt, jodhpurs, jackboots. He was muy fascista, ándale pues.”

  Grand Carlos, adroitly observed. Wetback runner—old news. Heroin? New news.

  Dudley signaled the boys. They got out their notebooks. Breuning tossed the change-up.

  “What about mama? What have you got on her?”

  “What’s to get? She wore kimonos and bowed a lot. She walked out of rooms backward. She limped because Ryoshi made her bind her feet.”

  Meeks said, “What about those fraternal societies? What have you got in the way of names?”

  Jimmy the Jap laughed. “I’ve got nothing, because I don’t speak Japanese. I dig the lore and the politics, but those fraternal guys take it all the way to the Middle Ages. What’s the point of establishing a new world order if you can’t accommodate a new generation? It’s like I said. Ryoshi knew those guys and went to those meetings, but he kept it zipped up.”

  Carlisle said, “Cousins, uncles, other known associates?”

  “Nix, boss. Ryoshi and I drank tea and gassed on world events, but that was all that we fraternized. I worked up at the farm and saw El Fascista nosing around, but I did not partake of the Watanabes’ private lives, outside of that.”

  Breuning said, “Hikaru Tachibana. Ring a bell?”

  “Nix, boss. No bells there.”

  Meeks said, “You pushed maryjane at Nightingale. Did you push to Johnny and Nancy?”

  “Nein, mein Herr. Some Narco cops kicked the piss out of me in ’37, so I put that dodge down and got into politics. I’ve got a front on Alameda. If you’re in the market for rising-sun flags or Nazi armbands, call me.”

  Breuning said, “Johnny and Nancy. Give on that.”

  “What’s to give? Nancy was a yawn. She wore kimonos in the house and bobby sox to school. Johnny was a snot-nose punk. He was gassed on all of Ryoshi’s far-right hoo-haw and dressed like a cholo, but he was strictly a cream puff. He had a pervert streak. He used to peep Nancy. He said she had a thick bush.”

  Meeks said, “Silencer-equipped Lugers. What’s the first thing you think of?”

  Jimmy the Jap yawned. “I think ‘from hunger.’ Guns don’t yank my chain, Tex. If you’re asking me about that kind of gun or any kind of gun and the Watanabes, all I can say is ‘I don’t know’ and ‘It doesn’t jibe with my truck with them.’ ”

  Breuning said, “You didn’t seem surprised when we told you the family had been killed.”

  Jimmy the Jap scratched his balls. “Nothing surprises me these days. I’m sleeping it off when the Feds kick in my door and tell me I’m Fifth Column. Fifth Column what? I sell fascist trinkets, gas on hop and chase cooze. Yeah, I dig the Emperor—but when push comes to shove, give me the old U.S.A.”

  Dudley slapped his knees. “Mr. Namura, you’ve exonerated yourself to my satisfaction. Lads, do we have a consensus?”

  The boys nodded. Jimmy the Jap said, “I’ve got one more thing.”

  “Go ahead, lad. We’re listening.”

  “Ryoshi told me that El Fascista and some ‘white stiff’ owned their place in Highland Park. It was some kind of ‘phantom ownership,’ ‘unofficially recorded,’ all that surreptitious jive. El Fascista and the stiff were buying lots of Japanese property and were ‘planning big things,’ which Ryoshi did not elaborate on.”

  Ryoshi was on the A-1 list. The War Department ordered all A-1 property seized. The property records would be Fed-sealed. Carlos Madrano was tight with Call-Me-Jack. El Fascista could not be braced—

  Yet.

  Dudley stood up. “I will try to get you released, Mr. Namura. In exchange, I will ask that you attempt to determine the verifiable ownership of those Japanese properties you mentioned. My name is Dudley Smith, and I can be reached at City Hall.”

  Jimmy the Jap went Sieg Heil! Dudley Sieg Heil!ed him back.

  Breuning and Carlisle yukked. Meeks fish-eyed Dudley. The Okie fish eye—quite severe.

  Jimmy the Jap said, “Mein Führer.”

  Dudley bowed. “You honor me, lad. But I must insist that you stop.”

  1:07 p.m.

  The farm was way northeast. Dudley’s report included a map. The Watanabes grew lettuce and cabbage. A wood carving marked their property line.

  “Gate to Japan”—carved in kanji script.

  Ashida idled his car by the fence. The far-east Valley was Japanese farm turf. The acreage stretched up to the San Gabriels. The soil components sustained vegetable crops.

  The Watanabes were dead. Their braceros worked on. Scrawny Mexicans. Stoop labor. Plunge that grub hoe, hack those roots.

  “Wetbacks.” Probably run by Carlos Madrano. El Capitán supplied the Ashida farm’s workers. Their low pay assured borderline profits. El Capitán provided slaves for most of the East Valley farms. He was hooked tight with the PD.

  Mexican Staties straw-bossed the Watanabe slaves. They wore starched khakis and SS-style hats. The Feds were out bagging Nisei and Issei. The Staties flaunted fascist garb.

  Ashida stepped out of the car. A smell hit him—anomalous, distinct.

  It was fish oil. He caught the same smell on broken glass at the Watanabe house. He read Nort Layman’s autopsy protocol. It noted shrimp oil on the four victims’ feet.

  A work boss noticed him. He wore a cross-draw piece and a belt sap. Ashida got in the car and gunned it. He couldn’t talk to the workers. It would get back to Dudley.

  Why do you care about this?

  He was thinking in his native tongue. It was really his second tongue. He was birthright American. He was racial-code Japanese. The answer was this:

  I need to know WHY.

  He cruised perimeter roads. He saw the same setup four times. Japanese farms, Statie slave drivers, desiccated labor crews. Akira was the sole boss at their farm. The Statie bosses felt like a new Medrano mandate—trabajo muy difícil.

  The roads curled southwest. He passed carrot fields. Skinny braceros stooped and cut roots. A non sequitur loomed up ahead. Healthy pickers, no fascistas in view.

  He pulled up to the fence. A Japanese man lounged across the wire. He wore short pants and a pith helmet. He leaned on a long-handled hoe.

  Ashida tried native tongue. It felt garbled, straight off.

  “Do you know Ryoshi Watanabe? He has a farm nearby.”

  The man spoke Japanese. He mauled nouns and dropped connecting verbs. “Have not seen Ryoshi lately. Quiet man. Sold farm. Don’t know who to.”

  Ashida held up his ID card. The man dead-eyed it. He had no English. Ashida deployed native tongue.

  “I’m a police chemist. When did Ryoshi sell his farm? What can you tell me about his family and friends?”

  It sounded off-kilter. He was native-tongue rusty.

  The man mumbled in Japanese. Ashida fumble-caught the words.

  “Family kept to itself. Sold farm recently. Got no cash. Got percentage of crop.”

  Ashida built a response. He started to talk and lost words. The man spat at his feet and walked off.

  A breeze stirred up dirt. It rose off crop furrows and swirled. Ashida got in the car. His farm was close.

  He drove though dirt clouds. The road was half-visible. He skittered on gravel all the way there.


  His illegals looked fit. They had a heated bunkhouse and got Sundays off. Akira straw-bossed them. Black-shirted Staties—verboten.

  Ashida parked by the truck shack. The breeze leveled off. Dirt clouds went Poof!

  Akira walked up. He brought Coca-Colas. Ashida slid out of the car and grabbed one.

  They clinked bottles. Akira said, “Mariko’s driving me crazy. She hasn’t figured out that it’s a new world now.”

  “The FBI has a list. There’s agents and city cops rounding people up.”

  “If there’s a list, her name’s on it. She called me this morning. She was half-gassed, and this time you can’t blame her. They’re knocking on doors and hauling away whole families. Half the doors on her floor have been padlocked. It was going on all night.”

  Ashida sipped his Coke. It was lukewarm. He tossed it in a trash can.

  “She’s got an agent baby-sitting her. A captain on the PD set it up. He wants to mollify me, for now. There’s a multiple homicide I’m working.”

  Akira tossed his Coke. “Special Agent Ward J. Littell. Mariko kept saying his name. He knows the way to the old girl’s heart, I’ll give him that. He boozed and played pinochle with her until 2:00 a.m.”

  Ashida smiled. “You only call her ‘Mariko’ when you’re angry with her.”

  “She thinks Father Coughlin’s the Pope. She calls the president ‘Franklin Double-Cross Rosenfeld.’ She told me Pearl Harbor is a ‘Zionist encampment.’ ”

  Ashida toed the trash can. “Has anything odd occurred with Captain Madrano? Has anyone tried to buy this place?”

  Akira shook his head. “No. Madrano supplies the slaves, and that’s it. He gets his cut, says ‘Gracias’ and comes back with his hand out the next month. And nobody wants this place. The topsoil stinks, and we’re harvesting second-class crops.”

  The wind kicked up dirt. Ashida got back in his car. Akira leaned on the driver’s door.

  “We’re in the shit, Hideo. The goddamn Emperor pops his cork in Tokyo, and we’re paying for it in L.A.”

  Ashida said, “I’m working on something. It could benefit the Department. If I benefit the Department, they’ll make efforts to benefit us.”

  Akira laughed. “Really? You trust that calculation like you trust some chemical formula you got from a textbook? You’re the only Japanese on the Department. Do you think you’ll get civil service protection in all of this?”

  A gust rocked the car. Pebbles raked the windshield.

  Akira said, “That man Littell told Mariko that the FBI’s bringing in Bucky Bleichert. They think he’s got some dirt on Nisei subversives. He knows Mariko backward and forward. Do you think he won’t squeal? Do you think they won’t hold his police appointment over him?”

  Belmont. The showers. The trip-action camera clicks. Bucky stands under the stream.

  Ashida shook his head. Swirling grit stung his eyes.

  “Mother never liked Bucky. She’s blowing it out of proportion.”

  Akira said, “There is no proportion. Pearl Harbor took care of that.”

  2:21 p.m.

  He saw random words in kanji script. They bounced off his windshield. He pulled away and made the perimeter road.

  He felt like a pilgrim fresh off the boat. Don’t speak Jap—speak American.

  I must become indispensable. I must be essential to the Los Angeles Police. I must act boldly. I must abet justice and secure the safety of my family—whatever it costs, whatever it takes.

  Dirt roads to blacktop. The Cahuenga Pass to Hollywood. Flags at half-mast. Christmas decorations. No colored lights—it violated blackout codes.

  Ashida took Sunset east. He kept the windows up. His car buffered him. Motorists might see him and yell, “Jap!”

  It hit him then. He missed something at the house. Something very obvious. Something that the killer missed.

  He was restless. The lab felt like a ball and chain. He bypassed Figueroa and cruised Chinatown. He saw tong boys in colored kerchiefs. He saw Mayor Bowron and Sheriff Biscailuz outside Kwan’s.

  The Chinks hate the Japs. There’s good reasons why. The Rape of Nanking—1937. Japanese soldiers behead Chinese babies.

  Chinatown adjoined Little Tokyo. The local Chinese are jubilant, the local Japanese are bereft. There’s four dead Japanese in Highland Park.

  Close quarters begets combustion. Now, there’s no Japanese in Highland Park.

  The crime felt racially circumscribed. The crime felt geographically contained.

  Ashida cut south on Alameda. He rolled down his window and caught some cool air. A tin can hit the windshield. He blew a red light and slow-crawled to Little Tokyo. Fed sedans were double-parked along the east edge.

  He slow-crawled up 2nd Street. American flags adorned storefronts. Broken windows, padlocked doors, seized-property bills attached. White men in dark suits with gun bulges. A roust outside Saji’s Fish Mart.

  Four Alien Squad bulls. Six Japanese boys. Lee Blanchard tossing wallets and car keys. Thad Brown and Elmer Jackson with shotguns.

  He slow-crawled by his mother’s building. The widow Nakamura stood outside, cuffed. A Sheriff’s paddy wagon was up on the sidewalk. Mariko was on her fire escape. She was standing with a tall Fed. They laughed and sipped cocktails.

  A Japanese man sprinted west. He held a bloody toupee and a piece of his scalp. Cal Denton chased him. Cal Denton was notorious. He once bodyguarded Two-Gun Davis and kicked a Negro pimp to death.

  There’s Captain Bill Parker. He’s measuring traffic skid marks. He looks exhausted. He looks like he might need a drink.

  Ashida passed a building draped in crepe red, white and blue. A window sign read ANTI-AXIS COMMITTEE. It was a pipe shop in the ’30s. It was empty on Saturday. It’s a patriotic hot spot now.

  Ashida slow-cruised Main Street and looped back east on 1st. Dusk came on, sloooooow. A siren smothered street noise. 4:55—five minutes to the test blackout.

  He pulled to the curb. The siren blare extended. He timed it off his watch. The repetitions stopped at 4:59.

  Window lights went off. Drapes were drawn. Shutters were pulled. Motorists doused their headlights and hit their parking lights. Traffic lights went dim.

  Soft dark, more dark, full dark. A commensurate street hush. Traffic thinned. People moved indoors. The Feds piled into their Fed cars and drove off.

  It came to him. He didn’t say it, see it or think it. He just knew.

  The spot was a mile and a half southwest. He ran his parking lights and drove alleyways. There’s no neon, no building light. The world is dark and flat now.

  Shapes slid across 3rd Street and 6th Street. They were low-lit somethings. They had to be cars.

  They drove too slow. He drove too slow and felt himself blend in. He turned west on Wilshire. Stop and go lights hardly beamed. He swerved south on Union and almost plowed a truck. The spot was right there at 15th.

  No sound, no lights. Wilkommen, Deutsches Haus.

  Ashida parked and looked over. No sound, no light. He heard a car crash somewhere.

  His dried-blood scraper might work. His penlight, for sure.

  He grabbed them. He walked over and banged on the door. The adjoining window glass shook.

  The world is dark and flat. There’s no one here. It’s a simple 459.

  You know it’s wrong. You know you must hoard evidence unilaterally. You know you must produce your own quantifiable results.

  Ashida stuck the scraper in the keyhole. Call it a scalpel now. Probe the tumblers, click-click.

  He did it. The keyhole was well oiled. The scraper blade had give.

  Wait for the clicks. Wiggle the blade. Once more, that’s—

  The lock snapped. The door popped open.

  Ashida stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He clamped his teeth on the penlight. The Watanabes’ attic, now this.

  He arced his penlight. The beam hit on this:

  Swastika wall flags. Framed photos atop bookshelves. Hitler in brownshir
t, Hitler in short pants, Hitler with wildly tossed hair.

  Mein Kampf on the shelves. The screed in English and German. Clothbound books with blank spines.

  Ashida grabbed a book and flashed the pages. It was all photographs.

  Ravaged men in striped pajamas. German soldiers holding severed heads. Pigs foraging in a corpse pile.

  He replaced the book. He went light-headed. Penlight first—breathe as you walk.

  He stepped into an office. It was twelve feet square. Note the trinket-packed shelves.

  Hitler and Hirohito key chains. Jewish skullcaps with toy propellers. Swastika-embossed poker chips.

  A desk and swivel chair. Six sliding drawers.

  He tried the drawers. They were locked. There were no keys on the desktop. He scraper-stabbed the keyholes. His hands dripped sweat, the scraper slipped, he popped one drawer.

  It was empty. He left tool marks. They revealed the break-in.

  He took a breath. He kept at it. He jimmied, he yanked, he gouged, he pulled, he jiggled, he shoved, he pried. His hands slipped. He wiped them on his suit coat. He sweated through his shirt cuffs.

  There—two, three, four, five, six drawers popped. There—wipe your face, smear your fingerprints, catch your breath.

  His jaw ached. His teeth ached. The penlight ratched his mouth.

  He went through the drawers. Three were empty. The fourth held a big wad of reichsmarks. The fifth held a velvet drawstring bag.

  He picked it up and laid it on the desktop. The heft aroused him. He pulled the string and dumped the bag on the desk. Four crude silencers and four Lugers fell out.

  Blue steel automatics. Pearl grips with onyx swastikas.

  He touched the guns. He stroked the guns. He held the guns to his cheek. He placed the guns and silencers back in the bag and cinched it.

  Look for paperwork. Member lists, receipts, transaction books.

  He looked under the desk. He checked the adjoining bathroom. He disrupted the shelf knickknacks. He made too much noise.