by James Ellroy
Running wetbacks. Running heroin. Moving wets and “H.” Their Utopian vision, shared.
It’s all grand, but—
Jim Davis and Bill Parker still trouble him. Jim’s blabbed twice already. Parker might blab.
Beth Short will visit Baja soon. She’ll be eighteen this summer. She’s his favorite bastard spawn. She wants to quit school and roam. He’ll play stern dad and dissuade her.
It’s all grand, but—
He’s due in L.A. The county grand jury has summoned him. He’s set to testify. He’ll be resolute. Werewolf Shudo killed the four Watanabes. He’ll concede that he may be insane.
It’s all grand, but—
Jim Davis and Bill Parker remain meddlesome.
A recent snapshot blinded him. The bulb glare slowly cleared. He saw lovely Joan Conville at Lyman’s.
She stirs and mutters in her sleep. Her skirt’s hiked. She’s red-haired and rangy. She’s got midwestern je ne sais quoi.
She woke up. They spoke briefly. Now she’s back and blinding him. Dear girl, what took you so long?
31
(LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 1/24/42)
Collusion.
City Hall. Room 546. Today’s Monster Matinee. Werewolf Shudo versus the L.A. County grand jury.
The jurors perched at desks. They faced the room. Eight old men and eight old ladies. They were rich-stiff pedigreed. They radiated high-end Pasadena and Hancock Park.
A witness box stood adjacent. Counsel tables faced the perch. DA Bill McPherson repped the county. Note the Werewolf’s seedy lawyer. Check the racing form in his hip pocket.
The Werewolf dozed in his seat. He wore a straitjacket and jail denims. PD men sat behind the DA. Officer Lee Blanchard and police chemist Hideo Ashida.
Dudley Smith sat with the DA. He wore his Army dress uniform. Note the flap-holstered sidearm.
Handsome devil.
Two chair rows faced the show. Joan sat there. Bill Parker got her in. He’d said, “Consider what you know now. You don’t get a deal like this every day.”
Parker supplied drift. The DA liked colored girls. Shudo’s lawyer was ex-PD. He had a night-school diploma and serviced a Negro pimp clientele. He procured for the DA.
Joan doodled up a scratch pad. She’d done research. She knew gold-per-ounce prices in ’31 and today. She teethed on the upswing.
$20.67 then. $35.50 now.
Mint bars weighed 33.3 pounds. She calculated then-to-now prices. $8,268 a bar then. $14,200 now. The heist men clouted thirty-odd bars. Take it from there.
Lee Blanchard testified. It felt pro forma. Joan suppressed yawns.
It’s December 6. There’s a loud-party squawk. Him and Sergeant D. L. Smith check it out and find the stiffs. He called the Watanabes “Japs” and went Oops. The jurors laughed.
Blanchard concluded. Hideo Ashida took the stand. The DA lobbed softballs. The Werewolf dozed. His lawyer skimmed the racing form.
Ashida breezed through the forensics. He described various documents and their evidential value. He forged those documents. Bill Parker told her that.
Persuasive Ashida. Submissive dog Ashida. Fetch, running dog.
Ashida concluded. He walked to the door and passed right by Joan. She looked at him. He stared straight ahead.
Dudley Smith took the stand. The lady jurors swooned. Joan read their minds. Now, that’s a witness.
The Dublin brogue. The idiomatic flair. The wild charm and sheer language.
He ran down the case. He glowed warm and lied with blithe assurance. He noticed Joan. He gave her a bolt-from-the-blue look.
Their eyes snagged and held. Dudley smiled. Joan tried not to smile back. Dudley glitched his testimony and glanced away. It might have been seductively feigned/it might have been real.
Joan observed Dudley. She believed each lie and caught herself duped within seconds. He threw nods and smiles. She nodded and smiled back and caught herself duped again.
Her face burned. She looked away/shit, I’m mortified/she looked back again.
Dudley concluded. He left the witness box and walked to the door. He winked at Joan en route.
* * *
—
The Werewolf jury adjourned. The Fed-probe jury convened. Joan kept her seat.
New jurors heard evidence. More rich stiffs perched. A U.S. attorney replaced “Mud-Shark” Bill McPherson.
Joan fidgeted. She fretted her gold cuff links. She wanted a cigarette, she wanted two highballs, she wanted a steak sandwich.
Jack Horrall testified. He was disingenuous. Phone taps and bugged squadrooms? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.
Mayor Fletch testified. He grandstanded and burnished his crimebuster credentials. He failed to understand all this hoo-ha. He was a lawyer himself. “Frankly, I know whereof I speak.”
Wallace N. Jamie testified. He extolled his noted uncle. Eliot Ness was a T-man and certified hotshot. He bragged up his electronics know-how. He laid out his dirty-cops probe in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Fletch B. hired him. Mayor Fletch wants the truth. Mayor Fletch don’t know bupkes per wall bugs. “The truth will out here.”
Joan yawned and stretched. A shadow hit her. She split-second knew.
“It’s what we call the ‘rubber-stamp’ grand jury. True-bill indictments are ever assured.”
Joan smoothed her skirt. She shot her blouse cuffs and displayed her gold cuff links.
“You framed that man Shudo. It’s as much an open secret as the phone taps.”
Dudley sat beside her. They brushed arms. He kept his voice low.
“I’ll concede the possibility. But I could hardly have accomplished it without the brilliant assistance of your Dr. Ashida.”
Her face burned. Shit, there’s the blush.
Joan blinked. She suppressed a full primp. She thought fast and dredged up a punch line.
Shit—one split-second blink, and he’s gone.
* * *
—
She got her highballs and steak sandwich. Lyman’s was Saturday-packed. She bridged the lunch crowd and the early bar crowd. The grand jury crowd bled in.
Wallace Jamie schmoozed Eliot Ness. Uncle Eliot cruised the bar and glad-handed Fletch Bowron. Big Earle Conville hated Ness. Big Earle had a beef. Ness raped the Monroe County Forest Service on extraditions. Big Earle called Ness “that preening cocksucker.”
Kay Lake walked in. She saw Joan and waved her little snoot wave. Joan snoot-waved her back.
They never spoke. They hadn’t been introduced. They knew each other secondhand. Cops supplied two-way drift and tantalized them.
Joan sipped highball #3. Kay bootjacked Elmer Jackson’s stool and eased him down the bar. Lee Blanchard pulled his stool close. Kay leaned into him. They discussed household hoo-ha. Kay made her voice carry.
Kay always did that. Kay wanted her to hear. Kay telegraphed her moves. Kay Lake, grandstander and ham actress.
The backed-up sink. Otto Klemperer’s party, next Wednesday night. Name-dropper Kay. Bertolt Brecht and Orson Welles. Spy-mistress Kay. A symphonic score, smuggled from Russia.
Joan hexed Kay Lake. Shut up or drop dead, you poseur. She killed off her highball. Bill Parker walked in.
He passed by the bar. He wore leave-me-the-fuck-alone blinders. He spotted Kay and dumped them. Kay saw him. Their hands laced up for one second.
Parker weaved to the back room. Joan stood up and shoved her way over. She hit a waiter. His drink tray flew.
Some Shriners got booze-doused. A whole table, spritzed. A fat man eeked and wiped his face with his fez. Joan hit the door at a sprint. The hinges shook.
Parker stood by the Teletype. He held a photostat and a cold beer. He saw Joan and blinked.
Joan slapped the beer out of his hand and ripped up the photostat. She got t
his close to him. Parker just stood there.
They were this close. Joan said, “Whose man are you? Are you your wife’s, mine, or Kay Lake’s?”
They were this close. Joan said, “How dare you tell me that Jim Davis killed those people, and you refuse to reveal it? How dare you lay that burden on me?”
They were this close. Joan said, “Or, did you dream it all up? Does that make Dudley Smith and Hideo Ashida credible? Is Fujio Shudo’s life worth saving, given his established transgressions?”
This close:
“Whose man are you?”
“How many women do you plan to entrap before this war is over?”
“Why haven’t we made love?”
“How can you live with what you know and do nothing?”
“What do you think you’re doing with me?”
Parker swerved out of the room. Joan slammed the door and threw the bolt and locked herself in.
She dug in her purse. She pulled out a terp vial. She drank the terp and shuddered. The terp burned going down.
There’s the heat and the whoosh. There’s the gleaming gold bars right behind.
32
(LOS ANGELES, 8:30 P.M., 1/24/42)
His photostat popped from the tube. The PD and FD shot him paperwork. The Griffith Park fire. Two agencies weigh in.
He’d forged the stat request. He signed Ray Pinker’s name. Mr. Pinker was off somewhere. He was Fed bait. He was scrounging lawyer money. He shined his lab duties on.
Ashida unrolled the photostat and read at his desk. He saw a Fed-routing code. He jumped on the text.
Two agencies weighed in. Two agencies zeroed in on the Young Socialist Alliance.
The YSA was a Red front. The membership fluctuated. College kids came and went. The state AG’s Office deemed the group harmless. One fact bothered them.
The YSA cloaked a Communist cell. It was live-wire CP. It was cloistered and clandestine. A nameless Fed snitch finked it out.
Ashida recalled an L.A. Times piece. The YSA boss man was one Meyer Gelb. He was a Pershing Square slogan shouter and didactical creep.
Gelb’s really Comrade Gelb. The Comintern bankrolled the cell and presumably issued directives. Bold obfuscation spawns bold cover.
Gelb, the florid buffoon. Gelb, the cell Führer. Kommisar Gelb, the Red cell master of:
Jorge Villareal-Caiz. A Mexican national. No further facts.
Jean Clarice Staley. No further facts.
Saul Lesnick, M.D. No further facts.
Andrea Lesnick. No further facts.
Ashida broke a sweat. He got the mean megrims and the shakes.
He knew the Lesnicks. He’d observed them at a Claire De Haven party. Saul Lesnick was a Beverly Hills psychiatrist. He was a left-wing eugenicist. He was a pal of right-wing race man Lin Chung. Andrea Lesnick was Dr. Saul’s daughter. She’d been convicted of vehicular manslaughter. She served a brief term at Tehachapi.
Ashida wiped his face. He fought off the mean megrims and stifled some shakes. He went through the L.A. phone books. The lab kept a full set.
There was no Meyer Gelb listed. There was no Jean Staley and no Villareal-Caiz. Dr. Saul’s office was listed. There was no Andrea Lesnick listing.
The cell names felt seductive. They confirmed the pervasive presence of the 1930s Left. Police-file names were police-file names and most often no more. They lived in the non sequitur void of snitch-out information. This new lead felt seductive and inconsequential. It was more than trivial and less than germane.
Ashida plumbed the lead. He vowed to withhold it from Joan Conville. She craved the gold to his exclusion. He held the upper hand there. He possessed a gold bar and she didn’t.
The bar troubled him. It was casually but expertly stashed. The heist occurred almost eleven years ago. The bar remained unutilized.
He’d checked ’31 and ’42 gold prices. The bar had nearly doubled in value. Heist men ran long on impulse and short on circumspection. He saw circumspection here. He sensed motives that contravened pure greed.
“Hello, lad.”
Ashida wiped his face. His hands jumped. He squared his shoulders and patted his hair. Stop it—you’re primping.
He checked the doorway. Dudley wore a tweed suit now. His uniform flattered him more. He turned heads at the grand jury.
Ashida kicked his chair back. I’m nonchalant and indifferent. What’s your name again?
Dudley held a suit coat on a hanger. Dark cellophane covered it.
“I couldn’t go back without dropping this off. It’s a moment to celebrate.”
Ashida stood up. His legs held. He said, “Dare I ask?”
Dudley unveiled the coat. It was Army OD. Second lieutenant’s bars gleamed.
“Fourth Interceptor has approved your commission, and there’s a great many papers to sign. Your mother and brother have been granted Mexican amnesty for the war’s duration. You will serve as my adjutant in Baja. You will interpret the Japanese language, assist in the roundup of resident Japanese, and work to further our antisabotage mandate.”
Ashida walked over. Dudley unbuttoned the coat and held it open. Ashida slipped it on.
It fit perfectly. The lieutenant’s bars were pure gold.
Dudley said, “My Japanese brother.”
Ashida said, “My Irish brother.”
33
(LOS ANGELES, 11:00 P.M., 1/24/42)
J. Kurakami/DR #8619641/one console radio, one snubnose .38.
Check.
D. Matsushima/DR #8619642/one spring-loaded sap, twelve Nazi armbands, one lead-filled baseball bat.
Check.
H. “Hophead” Hayamasu/DR #8619643/one hypodermic syringe, one rising-sun flag, twelve Mr. Moto novels, twenty-nine vials of terpin hydrate.
Check.
Elmer prelogged confiscations. He called out the juicy bits. Rice and Kapek ran their mouths. Catbox Cal Lunceford picked his nose and watched.
They slogged through a late duty stint. The fucking squad pen froze. The fucking janitor fucked with the heat vents. Rice and Kapek habituated the squadroom. Their fucking wives tossed them out like the fucking shitheels they were.
A. Takamina/DR #8619644/one vial of Spanish fly, fourteen smut books, 142 Japs-kill-Chinks atrocity pix.
Check.
Rice said, “That Takamina guy’s a beast. I pondered killing him for a minute there.”
Kapek said, “You should have. I know this Chink’s selling Jap shrunken heads.”
Lunceford said, “I heard about that. Frisco PD put out a bulletin. They found twenty-one decapitated Japs in the bay.”
Rice said, “Remember Pearl Harbor.”
Kapek said, “I remember—but don’t tell my draft board that.”
The squadroom was jammed floor-to-rafters. Elmer tagged boxes and logged shit. Hey, check this:
R. “Banzai Bob” Yoshida/DR #8619645/nine spike-studded dick sheaths, four blood-flecked samurai swords.
Lunceford said, “Ouch.”
Rice said, “The guy told me he used the swords to kill chickens. Some Jap voodoo ritual. He supplies the rice bowls on Alameda.”
Kapek said, “Yeah, and them riceheads feed the slop they cook to white cops.”
Ed Satterlee walked in. Elmer clocked him. The kibitzers flashed fuck-the-Fed looks.
Satterlee hooked a finger. Elmer dumped his confiscation box and trailed him out to the hall.
“I’m in a bind tonight, Elmer. I figured you could help me out.”
Elmer said, “Short notice, but okay.”
“I’ve got a mark set up with one of Brenda’s girls, but I’ve got nobody to work the camera. The gig just fell in my lap.”
“And the girl’s all primed to pump him?”
Satterlee lit a cigarette. “
That’s right. Annie Staples. She could get the sphinx to cut loose.”
College Girl Annie. The bobby-sox type. Woof!!! Woof!!! Ivy League threads and long blond hair.
“Who’s the mark?”
“An informant of mine. A geezer named Saul Lesnick.”
The name reverberated. It reprised some Kay Lake dish. La Kay worked old Saul for Bill Parker. She’d mentioned some upcoming soirée. Old Saul was sure to attend.
Elmer said, “Okay, Ed. I’d be happy to help out.”
* * *
—
The lovebirds showed at midnite. Elmer crouched in the wall peek. Annie winked at the two-way mirror. Elmer yocked and rolled film.
The birds peeled and hit the sheets. Doc Saul looked cancer-cough consumptive. Annie vibrated Viking Vixen Supreme.
Perfunctory woo-woo ensued. Annie rode old Saul. She straddled him and found the fit. She faced the mirror and went mock craaaaazy.
Elmer timed the ride. It ran 4.8 minutes and felt practiced. Elmer nailed the gestalt.
Annie’s Ed the Fed’s mock girlfriend. She’s a shakedown pro. Fey Edgar Hoover looooves this shit. He watches it and slams the ham. It justifies his political agenda. He thus entraps Red slime.
Annie disengaged. She patted Saul’s pecker and walked to a sideboard. She poured two Drambuies and spritzed in seltzer. Saul lit cigarettes.
The lovebirds cozied in. Annie sipped her drink and blew smoke rings. She basked nude. Old Saul covered himself.
Talk hit the wall mikes. Elmer goosed the volume. Saul said, “…and Hitler’s not what people think he is. He’s more subtle than that.”
Annie patted her mouth. It expressed big ennui. Elmer yuk-yukked.
“The war’s a yawn. I’ve had it up to here. My sister joined the Wacs, because she’s a lezbo, and it’s full of young tail. She looks like the Bride of Frankenstein, and she got fired from her gym-teacher job for honking this girl on the volleyball team.”
Old Saul chained cigarettes. “That confirms my point about Hitler. He places a premium on physical culture. His Aryan breeding program impresses me. He subsidizes good Nordic stock and pays the females a breeding bonus. He’s convinced that the selective breeding of superior specimens can eliminate the specter of congenital disease.”