This Storm

by James Ellroy

  Dudley entered the building and found 214. Lieutenant Juan delivered. He had the homey touch.

  The desk, the chair, the coffee. The ashtray and ceiling fan. The worm-in-the-jug mescal. Forty-four files laid out.

  Dudley read through them. He chain-smoked. He read from this spark point:

  Kyoho Hanamaka. He’s a naval attaché. Hideo skimmed his file and nailed a big inconsistency.

  There were very few KAs. There were no naval KAs. It startled Hideo. Hanamaka was still on the loose. That fact troubled him.

  Dudley reread the file and studied the clipped photograph. Hanamaka looked psychopathic.

  Born in Kyoto, 1898. Career Navy man. Intel background. Toured Europe, ’35-’36. Toured Russia, likewise. Brilliant student at the German Naval Warfare School.

  There were three male KAs listed. They were all fishermen. That was enticing. Jap Navy man, the Baja coast, beached submarines.

  Three KAs. Hiroshi Takai, Hector Obregon-Hodaka, Akira Minamura. All coastal fishermen.

  Dudley thumbed custody files. He checked name tabs and hit Obregon-Hodaka.

  He read the file. The man was a Jap-Mex half-breed. He spoke English. His moniker was “Big Tuna.” He had a valid U.S. travel visa.

  Dudley snatched the desk phone and dialed double ought. A jail noncom picked up. Dudley said, “Inmate Obregon-Hodaka. Room 214, please.”

  * * *

  —

  “I know I’m headed for the shithouse, boss. What I’m angling for is a nice internment berth up near L.A. The Chino work farm, maybe. Dexter Gordon’s there. He blows tenor. You’ve got to gas on his chord changes for ‘Ol’ Man River.’ ”

  Hector the hepcat. More Mex than Jap. He knew the type. They bred like rats in L.A.

  “Quite the jazzman, are you?”

  “You ain’t lyin’, daddy. I know L.A. niggertown like I know the coast here. All the coons on Central Avenue call me ‘El Tojo,’ ’cause of my mixed bloodline. I’m the Big Tuna here, and El Tojo in L.A.”

  They sipped mescal. Dudley got a glow on. 160-proof. Satanic worms afloat in the jug. No drink for nancy boys.

  “Do you possess strong political convictions, sir?”

  “Well, I’m not Fifth Column, if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m a live-and-let-live, hold-for-the-downbeat sort of cat. I’m looking to get interned at some amenable spot, sit out the war and go home.”

  Dudley smiled. “I wish you well in that regard, sir.”

  Hector sipped mescal. His eyes buzzed. He looked halfway blitzed.

  “I’ve got a colored girlfriend in L.A. She’s a waitress at the Club Alabam. They’ll let me out once Uncle Sambo wraps this war up. I’ll marry her and have some whelps with her, even though she’s got four pups with Coleman Hawkins already.”

  Dudley bowed. “You have convinced me of your political solvency and your allegiance to the Allied cause, sir. Now, please describe your relationship with the Japanese naval attaché, Kyoho Hanamaka.”

  Hector made the jack-off sign. “That cocksucker owes me money.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’d been supplying him with prime tuna for over a year—and by that I mean boatloads. He skipped town owing me mucho dinero.”

  “So, your relationship with Hanamaka was entirely professional?”

  Hector plucked a worm from his glass and ate it. Hector evinced great style.

  “We’d bat the breeze sometimes. I knew he was pals with the governor, Juan Lazaro-Schmidt, who’s a Nazi sympathizer and a big Jew-hater. So what? World conflicts breed strange bedfellows. I could live with that, but not with him stiffing me for three big boatloads of fish.”

  Dudley said, “Did the quantities that he purchased in any way arouse your suspicions?”

  “Yeah, they did. After Pearl Harbor, I started thinking, What’s he want all that fish for? You follow me, boss? Fish, submarine crews, sailors with hearty appetites?”

  Dudley lit a cigarette. “We are having parallel thoughts, sir.”

  “Okay, so I’ll wrap it up, then. I was having these suspicious thoughts, and Hanamaka owed me money. He lives up in the Baja hills, so I drove up there to collect. It was December 18—I remember because it’s my birthday. I drove up there, but the house had been cleaned out.”

  Dudley said, “Take me there. We’ll leave now.”

  Hector said, “This jungle juice has got me hopped up. I might try to escape.”

  Dudley said, “I’m prone to whim, sir. I’ll either shoot you dead or bid you sayonara.”

  * * *

  —

  They cut inland. They hit half-paved roads and breezed through lettuce fields and scrub hills. Bugs bombed the windshield. Dudley tapped his wipers and scraped them to pulp.

  They hit low mountain ranges. Low clouds blurred the view. Hector was blitzed. He blathered out his hopes and dreams and extolled jigtown L.A.

  He’d get a soft internment berth. He’d deflower Jap virgins and learn to play the bass sax. He’d teach the virgins to play skin flute. He’d rent his boat out to full-blood cholos while he was inside.

  Central Avenue. Está the most. Ivy Anderson’s chicken shack. Minnie Roberts’ Casbah—the best spook gash in the West. Club Alabam, Club Zombie. Stan Kenton, mud shark. He’s got twenty-eight Congo cuties on the string.

  Jam sessions. Back-to-Africa mosques. Political clubhouses. Zoot-suit pachucos, zorched on Sinarquismo. These two rogue cops and their craaaaaazy crib on East 46th. Crap games and cooked terpin hydrate. Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.”

  Maybe he’ll learn the bass clarinet. Maybe he’ll open a seafood dive—Hector’s Hacienda. Bring la familia. He’ll import that Cuban guy with the two-foot dick. El Cubano will poke your mujer while you watch and jack off.

  Dudley half-heard it. He took rickety bridges across arroyos and climbed more scrub hills. Hector switched gears and jabbered: right there, it’s right there!

  Dudley swung a tight left turn. Dudley braked and saw it:

  A mock ski chalet. Two stories/pitched frame/big glassed-in view. Front carport and no cars extant.

  Dudley pulled into the carport. Hector smiled at him. So, Ichiban? What have we got here?

  Dudley winked. Dudley slipped him a border pass and a ten-dollar bill.

  Hector took off. He amscrayed, vamoosed, and vanished in five seconds flat.

  Dudley stepped from the car. He sniffed the air. He felt raindrops. He pulled his piece and walked up to the door.

  It was locked. He stepped back and threw his weight. He slammed hard and shouldered the door in.

  He looked right and saw dumped furniture. He looked left and saw a blood-spattered wall.

  19

  (LOS ANGELES, 4:30 P.M., 1/4/42)

  Morgue Powwow. One forensic agenda. ID the Charred-Box Man.

  Morgue personnel: Joan, Dr. Nort, Hideo Ashida.

  They measured Box Man. Joan stifled a yawn. She’d indulged a late night at Lyman’s. She’d hit the sack at 5:00 a.m.

  Ashida placed the bones on a gurney. Dr. Nort unrolled his tape. Joan steadied Box Man. Dr. Nort marked the height at seventy-five inches.

  Joan said, “He was six-three. If we factor in erosion at the joints and the compression of the spine that comes with age, we can posit that he was as tall as six-four and a half in his youth.”

  Dr. Nort poked odd bones. “He was tall, and heavyset. Note the pelvic width.”

  Ashida measured the back-to-front rib cage. He got a fifty-two-inch circumference.

  Joan said, “Big man.”

  Dr. Nort said, “He must have gone two forty-five. His spine’s crunched. Note the socket frays. You carry that much weight, you pay a price. I’ll go out on a limb. He went DOA in his early forties.”

  Joan jiggled the foot bones. “Hey there, cutie.”


  Ashida flushed. He balled his fists and glared.

  “We’re having a scholars’ lark here, Miss Conville. I should add that our late friend in no way constitutes a breaking case, while the lab is currently backlogged with breaking-case evidence, which demands our more immediate attention.”

  Joan flushed. She balled her fists and glared back.

  “We’re backlogged with Japanese-property confiscations, Dr. Ashida. I think you might feel a certain ambivalence about that aspect of our work. I deem that understandable, and I can hardly condemn you for dragging your feet and exploiting our late friend’s reappearance, so that you might abstain from facilitating your own countrymen’s misfortune.”

  Oooh—hear that pin-drop silence? Now, hear it streeetch.

  Joan glared at Ashida.

  Ashida glared at the floor.

  Dr. Nort said, “Children, enough.”

  Joan lit a cigarette. Dr. Nort, ditto. Ashida looked up. Joan blew smoke in Box Man’s face. Dr. Nort laughed.

  They all stretched and unclenched. They put out some small talk. Safe topics—the weather, the war, the ’42 congressionals. The PD’s Fed-probe travails.

  Ashida coughed. “We can check CCC worker lists and DB lists in the newspapers. We’ve got report carbons stored somewhere, and the fire department Arson Squad must have a comprehensive file.”

  Dr. Nort said, “That’s assuming our late friend was a CCC worker.”

  Joan said, “We can cross-check the death lists to height listings on California drivers’ licenses and CCC registration cards. We can cross-check those names against missing-persons reports.”

  Dr. Nort tapped Box Man’s skull. He’d extraction-bored the bullet hole last night.

  “I dug out the spent. It’s flattened and badly decomposed.”

  Ashida said, “I’ll examine it at the lab. I might determine a partial make on the lands and grooves.”

  Joan said, “We could try for a match to ballistics bulletins from ’33. We could run test fires with old custody guns.”

  Dr. Nort slow-cruised Joan. She knew the drill. The cruise ran head to toe. It was half-leer comprehensive.

  “How did you get this job anyway?”

  Joan laughed. “I was drunk New Year’s Eve. I hit a car and killed four Mexicans. Bill Parker goes for me, and I’m sure you can fill in the rest.”

  Dr. Nort went oooh-la-la. Ashida balled his fists and glaaaared.

  * * *

  —

  Oooh-la-la? Well, not quite.

  Joan walked to Lyman’s. She was cash-flush. She’d hit an Alien Squad crap game and won forty scoots.

  The game ran most Sunday nights. Wendell Rice and George Kapek draped the squadroom floor and steered the show. Bluesuits and Bureau men rolled.

  Lee Blanchard and Elmer Jackson rolled hot. Joan put five on the pass line and let it ride. She cashed out right on cue. Forty clams—Man-O-Manischewitz!

  The boys called her “Red.” That’s a new one. Elmer slipped her a mash note. She ruffled his hair and laid one on him. Rice and Kapek wolf-howled. Catbox Cal Lunceford roared.

  Joan cut south on Hill. She counted back to New Year’s Eve and ran highlights. Her Navy life then, her PD life now. The show ran four days, door-to-door.

  She liked the PD. She liked Mike Lyman’s Grill. She perched there and eavesdropped most nights. She rebuffed passes and logged scuttlebutt. She learned the personnel.

  There’s Two-Gun Davis. He’s tonged up. He speaks Chinese and drills underage slash. There’s Lee Blanchard—shacked with PD siren Kay Lake.

  Big Lee did not drill Kay. His abstinence stemmed from old grief. La Kay scorched for Bill Parker. Whiskey Bill scorched back. He refused to pounce. His abstinence stemmed from his dead-dog marriage and prim Catholic guilt.

  Rumors. Barroom scuttlebutt. The skinny, the dish, the drift.

  Lyman’s back room. The PD’s haven and redoubt. Here’s how it commenced:

  A beaner exposed himself to Mike Lyman’s niece. Sensitive Mike was distraught. Sergeant Buzz Meeks shot Whipout Juan dead. Grateful Mike bestowed the back room.

  She joked with Buzz at Lyman’s. They had a running shtick. “I’m too tall for you, sweetie.” “Yeah, but I know how to climb.”

  Joan hit 8th Street and breezed into Lyman’s. She clocked tableside traffic and breezed to the back room.

  There’s Oooh-La-La Bill. He’s Two-Fisted Bill now. He’s wolfing a highball and a club sandwich. His uniform’s a mess.

  Joan said, “Don’t spoil your dinner.”

  “That can’t be an invitation.”

  “I’m rich tonight. You should take advantage.”

  Parker tossed his sandwich and brushed off stray crumbs. The wastebasket thunked.

  “You’ve got me thinking there’s a catch.”

  “ ‘Catch’? Me? As catches go, you’re the master.”

  “Well…”

  “Come on. I owe you dinner, at least.”

  Parker blushed. It was almost endearing. Joan almost swooned.

  * * *

  —

  They ate at the Biltmore. It was swank meets plush de-luxe. Joan had roast sirloin. Parker had apricot duck. Their table overlooked Pershing Square.

  Soapbox pundits declaimed. Partisan crowds egged them on. Fistfights ensued. White winos shrieked at colored winos and vice versa.

  A bar waiter brought cognacs. Parker lit their cigarettes. Joan said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Parker warmed his snifter. “That I should be fighting this war.”

  “I’ve heard the stories. Chief Horrall won’t let you enlist, despite your stated intention to steal his job and enact reforms that might well land him in jail, if the Fed probe fails to do so first.”

  Parker smiled. “You’re a quick study.”

  “I am, yes.”

  “What else have you heard?”

  “Tales of your feud with Dudley Smith. Intimations that then-Sergeant Smith clashed with you on the Watanabe case, and perhaps rigged a convenient solution, abetted by Dr. Hideo Ashida.”

  Parker sipped cognac. “Policemen run their goddamn mouths, with no sense of consequence.”

  Joan crushed her cigarette. “I clashed with Dr. Ashida today.”

  “He’s uncomfortable with women. I’ve observed it with…”

  “With Kay Lake? The PD’s favorite round heels and all-around provocatress?”

  Parker slugged cognac. “Can it, will you? I realize that you’ve had a heady few days, but you’re being quite indiscreet.”

  Joan scanned the dining room. It was dinner-rush packed. She read faces. She sensed outrage and furious intent.

  “It’s America’s moment, isn’t it?”

  Parker said, “Yes, it is.”

  “We’re going to win, aren’t we?”

  Parker said, “Yes, we are.”

  “We’re going to lay out the Japs and the Nazis, and woe be to the Russians if they try to crowd us then.”

  Parker said, “Yes, you’re right.”

  Joan got goose bumps. She felt all torn up. A cloudburst hit. Rain banged the picture window right beside her.

  “This war is the shit, isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to get lost, make love, and go crazy?”

  Parker said, “Miss Conville, you go from zero to sixty faster than any—”

  Joan grabbed his face and kissed him. Water glasses capsized. Parker kissed her back. He leaned in and pinned her arms to the table.

  He trembled. She felt it. It went all the way through her.

  20

  (LOS ANGELES, 10:15 A.M., 1/5/42)

  The rain let up. The sky gleamed. The Central Station roof supplied views.

  Ashida took advantage. He brought binoculars and trained th
em due east. He caught a roust at 1st and San Pedro.

  He zoomed his lens and played Man Camera. The roust’s Alien Squad. There’s Wendell Rice and George Kapek. Catbox Cal Lunceford’s running backup. They’ve got four Japanese men, shackle-chained.

  Rice waved a red-sun flag. Ashida supplied a thought balloon. “Say! This would make a swell crap-game blanket!”

  Ashida swiveled south and scanned upward. Sun framed the Biltmore Hotel. He caught his mother’s bedroom window. He saw Mariko looking out.

  Their elegant suite. Dudley Smith bestows gifts. His pending Army commission. Lieutenant Hideo Ashida.

  Shakespeare, revised. I owe this bad man more tears than you shall see me pay.

  Joan Conville was a briefly tenured Navy lieutenant. Bill Parker bestows gifts. He entraps comely women. The silly girl works with him now.

  Parker bestows gifts and abrogates justice. Do you see the children in your dreams, sir? The reckless girl killed them. I see them every night.

  Ashida turned northeast. He saw a foot procession. It was all male and mostly Chinese.

  Tong thugs. Jap-haters astroll. They waved casket pix of Eddie Leng. The bigwigs marched up front. Uncle Ace Kwan, Two-Gun Davis, Dr. Lin Chung.

  Ashida dialed a close-up. He caught Chung gesticulating. He knew Chung, secondhand. He’s the butcher plastic surgeon. He’s the mad eugenicist. He’s the bagman for last month’s sub approach.

  This new approach feels somewhat different. It’s like the first approach, refined and revised. The first approach was oddball inclusive. The new approach could be much more or much less of that.

  Right is Left and Left is Right. Dr. Chung is tight with a leftist eugenicist named Saul Lesnick. Dr. Lesnick is a psychiatrist and FBI informant. He is Claire De Haven’s analyst. Kay Lake knows Dr. Lesnick. He figured in Bill Parker’s anti-Red crusade.

  Inclusion. Confluence. Wartime folly. The Fifth Column is everyone.

  Ashida walked back down to the lab. Two chemists logged evidence. Ray Pinker and Joan Conville were out.