by James Ellroy
Dudley savored it. “And how did you secure this information?”
“My lips are sealed, boss. I’m a Jap on the Jap grapevine. I know Japs who know Japs who know Japs. If you start bracing them for corroboration, my Jap goose is cooked.”
Uncle Ace walked Lin Chung in. Dr. Chung packed a large satchel. Ace brought a frosty mai tai on a tray.
Dudley said, “Drink up, Jimmy. Mr. Kwan is quite the swell host.”
Jimmy the Jap shrugged and snatched the goblet. It featured almond bitters, high-volt rum and morphine.
He took a jolt and went pie-eyed. Jolt no. 2 dropped his lids. Jolt no. 3 put him supine.
9:07 p.m.
The floor served as a bed. A tablecloth served as a sheet. Dudley jammed a chair cushion under Jimmy’s head. Lin Chung disinfected his instruments with Old Crow. Ace smoked cigarettes to cover wayward scents.
Scalpels, cutting knives, catgut sutures. A bone saw with serrated teeth.
Lin Chung built a mouth vent with paper clips and duct tape. Dudley called Mike Breuning at the Bureau. Mike confirmed Whiskey Bill—the Deutsches Haus, 11:30.
Dudley dug through Ace’s closets. Ace was a big tunnel digger. Yes, he’s got all the tools.
Large shovel, small shovel, pickax. U.S. Army Geiger counter.
Dudley packed them into a duffel bag and carried them out to his car. His evidence kit was stashed in the trunk. Like the Boy Scouts—be prepared.
He walked back to the office. The tablecloth was soaked red. Jimmy the Jap’s brows were cut and clamped wide. Lin Chung wore goggles. He worked through Ace’s smoke.
He cut cheekbone to chin and blotted blood with cocktail napkins. Dudley stayed clear of the spritz. Lin Chung plucked tendons with pencil tips.
Dr. Chung was a witch doctor of subwestern repute. Indeed—no Terry Lux. Dr. Terry owned a dry-out farm in the Malibu Hills. He did movieland plastic jobs and booze and dope cures. Dr. Terry dried out jigaboo jazzmen and Hancock Park swells.
Lin Chung poked Jimmy the Jap. Lin Chung said, “So far, I pessimistic. Physiognomy incompatible, I think. Might not work on mass scale like Uncle Ace propose. Eugenics wave of the future, but still in its infancy. Require thought and study. This cocksucker still look Jap to me.”
Jimmy Namura woke up and screamed.
9:29 p.m.
The screams chased him outside. Dudley hit the parking lot, hell-hounded. He bagged his car and tapped the siren. The sound smothered fading screams.
Dublin, 1919. Black and Tans fire into a Grafton Street crowd. His brother James dies. He hides in a refuse bin. He’s fourteen. His world is all sirens and screams.
He took Broadway to the Arroyo Seco. The parkway shot him straight north. He dry-swallowed two Benzedrine.
Mass surgery might prove untenable. It might be a eugenic conceit. Finer hands might make it work. Terry Lux loved to cut faces. Terry was America First and perhaps further right. Lin Chung could provide cut-rate cuts.
The Watanabe case was his case. The outcome was irrelevant. The case was his laboratory. It sanctioned him to exploit the dark races. The case shadowboxed the war.
He cut through Pasadena and Glendale. He took dirt roads to the northeast Valley. They were rutted and rock-strewn. He dropped into low gear.
Jap farmland. Fertilizer stink. Night irrigation. A constant subterranean hiss.
He had a Watanabe farm map. He’d disinterred before. Dublin, ’22. He located buried British guns outside Galway. Joe Kennedy supplied his cell with metal detectors.
There’s the Watanabe farm. There’s the kanji-script sign. It means “Gate to Japan.”
The bennies tapped his bloodstream. It was all one big long shot. The lead weights on the body rang credible. The “dirt-covered well hole” narrowed it down. Jimmy the Jap might have been conned. The body might be elsewhere. It was worth an hour’s time.
Clouds covered the moon. Dudley parked behind a scrub bush and saddled up. The duffel bag, the Geiger, a flashlight. His full-dress evidence kit.
He lugged his gear to the fence line and trampled down a stretch of chain links. He turned on his flashlight. He saw cabbage rows and smelled fertilizer. He flicked on the Geiger. The dial lit up, the needle hovered at zero.
There—a low hill ahead. No crop furrows—just green-brown grass.
Dudley trudged over. The load slowed him down. The bennies supplied extra oomph. The Geiger led the way. The needle stayed low. The clicker click-clicked.
He read the clicks. He made them. Metallic soil traces—innocuous.
The hill was a trudge. His heart rate bollixed his breath. He saw a stonework well up at the top. He low-beamed his flashlight and caught scurrying bugs.
The needle jumped. The clicker clicks clicked click-by-click loud. The intervals shortened. Follow the clicks, follow the needle, look for inconsistent topsoil.
Click, click, click, click, click.
A click-jabber, persistent. See the needle? It’s jumping, click-click-click.
There—that patch of ground. Bugs are digging into it. There’s soil exposed. They want that edible moss and that something underneath.
The needle shot to the end of the dial. The clicker clicked LOUD. The click-clicks said DIG HERE.
Dudley turned off the Geiger and got out his tools. Dudley anchored his flashlight and aimed it at the ground. Dig, now—there’s something there.
Bugs skittered away. He sank his shovel into the swarm and killed the fuckers en masse. He chopped through them and hit soft dirt.
He tossed it away from his gear. Underground bugs squirmed. He smelled corpse-dissolving quicklime.
Dirt—one shovel’s worth. Dirt—two, three, four, five, six. Yes—a flesh underscent.
Yes—yellow skin. Yes—brown dirt in black hair. Paradoxical quicklime. It liquefies flesh, it preserves flesh, it perfumes flesh and emits ghastly scents. It pervades soil and leaves metal traces. It alerts Geiger counters.
Dudley dug through soft dirt and quicklime. Dudley dug around a dead man’s outline. His head’s on top. He was dumped feetfirst. He was stripped nude to hasten the rot.
It had to be Hikaru Tachibana. Loose dirt engulfed him. A stone well space loomed underneath.
The flesh stink outstunk the quicklime. Dudley tied his handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Tachi’s skin still adhered to his bones. It was a grab-and-pull job.
Dudley grabbed. Dudley pulled. The head and torso came out of the hole. The legs and entrails were gone.
Look at the Jap. There’s half of him left. His eyeballs have dropped from his face. There’s maggots atop his leg bones.
Note his bony chest. Note his rising-sun tattoo. Note the needle marks on his arms. Note the seven odd knife wounds on his biceps and abdomen.
Well preserved. Seamless cuts. An overall starburst effect.
Dudley got out his evidence camera. He attached the flash gizmo and screwed in a bulb. He laid Tachi out and held his flashlight close.
He aimed the camera one-handed. He shot the belly wounds first.
The bulb exploded. He ejected it and popped in another bulb. He shot the mid-left bicep wound. He squatted and went contortionist. Lucky seven, seven wounds, seven bulbs in his kit. He got seven tight close-ups.
The bennies ratched up his heart rate. He gouted sweat.
Dudley kicked Tachi back in the hole. Tachi’s left arm dropped off. Dudley refilled the hole and smoothed out the dirt. Bugs reconverged.
Clouds passed over. Dudley made like a hellhound and bayed at the moon.
He packed up his gear. He brushed himself grime-free. He walked to his car and placed the gear in the trunk. He got in the car and drove back to flatland L.A.
It was late. He made the Cahuenga Pass, quick. The pass to Hollywood. La Brea to 15th and east.
The Deutsches Haus was lit up, gemütlich. The raiding party stood out by their cars.
Breuning, Carlisle, Meeks. Whiskey Bill Parker. Ed Satterlee and wet-blanket Ward Littell.
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nbsp; Dudley pulled up behind them. Breuning and Carlisle flashed V for Victory. Parker popped his trunk and dispensed shotguns. Was ist das im Deutschen Haus? It’s Tannhäuser, too loud.
Parker said, “In the door and spread out.”
They racked their shotguns. They ran over and flanked the doorway. Dudley kicked the door off the hinges. Tannhäuser soared, unconstrained.
The Haus was a shithole. Five men sat around a Victrola. It was Pabst Blue Ribbon and Nazi armbands on loden coats.
Flying wedge.
Breuning, Carlisle and Meeks went right. Littell and Satterlee went left. Dudley and Parker took the chute.
The Kameraden just sat there. They ranged thirty to sixty. They looked innocuous. A Munich rally, the guys selling peanuts.
Parker kicked over the phonograph. Tannhäuser crashed and died. Littell aimed at a Hitler bust and blew it up. Stray pellets took out a window. Breuning and Carlisle cheered.
Meeks and Satterlee went in butt-first. They head-smashed the Huns. They knocked them out of their chairs. They kicked them prone and cuffed them facedown on the floor. Shrieks, yells and protest slogans—all gobbledygook.
Littell pumped in a fresh round and blew up the Victrola. Tube glass exploded. Dudley scoped the room—this sissy’s Berchtesgaden.
Herr Breuning stomped Hun to Hun. He raged in German and kicked the Huns in the balls. Dudley watched Parker watch him. They traded eyeball clicks.
The Huns squealed. Parker yelled, “Toss the place! We want silencers and guns!”
“The place” was blitzkrieged. Shattered Führer, shattered glass, shotgun-pocked walls. Five Übermenschen, five piss-your-pants pools.
Dudley walked up to Parker. The pious pest looked haggard. His blue suit hung off of him. Hate tracts were stacked on a bookshelf. Dudley examined them.
“They look like the tract at the Watanabe house, sir.”
Parker examined them. “They look like a left-wing tract in an outside deal I’m working.”
The lads hit the back office. Flying wedge—two Feds, three city cops. Dudley heard five shotguns rerack.
Explosions overlapped. Wood sieved through the doorway. Parker ran back to the office. Meeks whooped—mother dog!
Lads, did you blow up a desk?
Satterlee yelled, “Nothing so far! No silencers and no guns!”
A Hun bleated something. Dudley caught “silencer.”
He squatted beside him. The man looked vaguely Semitic. The man was seedy-debonair.
“What was that you said, lad? I’ll loosen your handcuffs if you repeat it.”
The man gasped. The man said, “We got burglarized last night. We lost our Lugers and silencers.”
There’s a lead—snag it.
“And your name, lad?”
“Robert Noble, Esquire. Order of the Iron Cross and the Thunderbolt Legion.”
Dudley patted Esquire’s leg. “And before you anglicized it? Speak in a whisper, so your friends won’t know you possess mongrel blood.”
Esquire rasped it. “It’s Moskowitz.”
“And how many silencers and guns did you lose?”
“Four.”
“Does this grand establishment sell silencer-equipped Lugers?”
Esquire squirmed. “I’m the ordnance lieutenant. I consigned two silencers and two pieces to a heist guy. He wanted to lay the goods off on some Japs he knew. He was a young, snotty guy. I don’t know his name.”
Dudley uncuffed Esquire. “Did you tell this lad how to demonstrate the silencers and the guns?”
“I don’t read you.”
“Think, Robert. Did you advise the young man as to how he might best demonstrate the effectiveness of the ordnance?”
“Oh, yeah. I told him to fire into roofs or ceilings, that that would impress the Japs good.”
Crash noise echoed. Cops run amok. They’re dumping shelves and punching through wallboards.
Dudley whispered. “My colleagues will be busy in your office for the next few minutes, which will allot me the same amount of time. I think you have a business ledger stashed on the premises. Tell me where, or I will kill you. I will unlock your handcuffs, pull a gun from my back pocket, fire it and place it in your hand. I will then blow your brains out and cite self-defense.”
Satterlee yelled, “American money! We found a hidey-hole!” Dudley patted Esquire. “Your answer, lad?”
Esquire whispered. “I don’t truck with the ledger, but it’s behind that high shelf with the Mein Kampfs.”
Dudley walked over and stood tiptoed. He reached behind Herr Hitler’s screed and pulled out a clothbound binder. He stuck it in his waistband.
He brushed a pile of swastika pins. He laughed and pocketed them. Archbishop Cantwell was a Coughlinite and loved a good trinket. Shamrocks were passé.
12:04 a.m.
A wind kicked through. Broken glass shattered. Door padlocks thumped.
Ward Littell called it a “pogrom.” Mariko had her very own bleeding-heart Fed. They played cards and swilled cocktails. Her son’s old room was Ward’s room now. Mariko was living it up.
Because Bill Parker pulled strings.
Ashida stood on the fire escape. Sleep was a pipe dream. He’d been up since Monday morning.
He was woozy. Bucky finked him to the Feds. Kay Lake knew it. She knew things that other people didn’t.
Because Bill Parker pulled strings.
The wind escalated. Broken glass flew. Cops paced adjacent rooftops. Ward left an hour ago. Captain Bill ordered a Deutsches Haus raid.
He had the guns and silencers. They were stashed at his apartment. He hid them with his Bucky photos.
Elmer Jackson stood one rooftop over. His cigar bobbed and glowed. Elmer and Lee Blanchard were his new bodyguards. Ray Pinker called and told him. He said Bill Parker pulled strings.
Police work. Kay Lake’s male hierarchy. Kay Lake, the sorority girl Mata Hari. She was keyed in on Bucky. He’d seen her at Bucky’s fights. They shared a certain reverie.
They worked together. He pilfered a tap disk. He took it to his apartment and played it. He heard four ghastly phone calls.
All from mid-’39. Fletch Bowron/Two-Gun Davis/Call-Me-Jack Horrall. They discussed the “Jap issue.” It prophesied now.
The inevitable war. The inevitable internment. Property seizures, bank raids, confiscations. Lists compiled and names named.
The “Chinks” as potential enforcers. Chinatown and Little Tokyo are this close.
Two-Gun Davis spoke Chinese. He mediated tong truces. His negotiations always favored Hop Sing. The Chinks stood ready to assist the local white man.
Casual chat. Tong-snuff cover-ups and Ace Kwan’s dope den. The Dudster pitched a Four Families lad off a building. A passing truck severed his head.
Bowron called the Chinks their “storm troopers.” They’d be the ones to steamroll the Japs.
Ashida walked down the hall. Mariko snored in her room. Ward drove off to the raid and left his door open. The room felt magnetic.
Ashida picked up Ward’s pajamas and held them to his cheek. He caught a scent and memorized it. Ward’s briefcase was out and open. Ashida stroked it.
He skimmed a carbon sheet. It was the top page of the “B” list. The names ran from Akahoshi to Aridosho. He knew half of the people. They were all fine citizens.
He walked back to the fire escape. Ward’s car pulled to the curb. The wind felt good. He heard, “Hey, Hideo!” out in the dark.
Elmer Jackson waved his shotgun. Ashida yelled, “Hey, Elmer!” back.
12:37 a.m.
The basement is full of Lee’s boxing memorabilia. There’s a passel of publicity stills, along with framed posters for Lee’s “Big Money” bout with Jimmy Bivens. The fight was fixed. Lee “went in the tank.” The poster is dated July 16, 1937. It precedes Ben Siegel and the Boulevard-Citizens heist.
Lee will probably spend the night at City Hall. He will show up here when he damn well pleases, and right at the po
int that I begin to miss him. He’ll apologize for his loathsome conduct at Mike Lyman’s. He might heap praise on Dr. Hideo Ashida.
Who possesses a remote sort of courage. It’s the courage I once mistakenly ascribed to his friend Bucky. The intersection of these two men fascinates me. I keep thinking, Why now? and go to the war as the only explanation. In the meantime, I can’t sleep and remain hungry for Scotty Bennett. In the meantime, Captain William H. Parker has sent me a movie.
I’m set up to watch it. The screen is a roll-down contraption hooked to the rear basement wall. Lee bought it to view old fight films, and I’ve learned how to run the projector. I was there for the first show of Gone with the Wind. I want to see this movie much more.
I loaded the film and thought about Scotty. We left Lyman’s in the wake of Dr. Ashida’s embarrassed exit; we checked into the Rosslyn Hotel and made love. I wanted to spend the night—but Scotty said that he couldn’t. He’d borrowed his father’s car and promised to return it by midnight. My rough boy remained in the thrall of the Reverend James Considine Bennett. I resisted the urge to comment. I said, “You can go, but I’m not done with you yet.”
It angered Scotty. He brought that anger to our good-night kiss; I started wanting him all over again.
I stuck the first piece of film under the slide, hit the switch and turned off the lights. There it was—Storm Over Leningrad.