This Storm

by James Ellroy

  Ace phone-booked El Chungo. The hot seat shimmied. The floor hinges creaked.

  Chung whimpered and snitch-babbled. Ace said, “I hear song on radio. This cocksucker ‘popcorn kernel too pooped to pop.’ ”

  Dudley laughed. “What did he just say?”

  “He say he hear rumor. Jap Navy man hiding in L.A. plan second incursion. Man’s name Kyoho Hanamaka. He don’t know where man hide.”

  Bravos pour Le Chung. That’s a swell lead.

  Dudley said, “Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie Archuleta. Ask him what he knows.”

  Ace asked. Chung answered. He slurred his words one at a time.

  Ace translated. “This cocksucker say he meet Rice and Kapek at Deutsches Haus. Very casual. They talk race science and go Sieg Heil. He say Archie C-town and J-town fool. Buy terp and pharmacy hop from illegal sources.”

  Chung rebabbled. Ace retranslated him.

  “This cocksucker say he just waiting to see who win war. U.S. go postwar kaput. Nazis or Reds take over world then. Democracy for nancy boys and weak sisters. ‘Comrade’ or ‘Kameraden.’ All same to this shitbird.”

  Dudley hit the lights. The storeroom went vivid bright. Lin Chung lolled in the hot seat. He’s cuff-gouged down to the bone.

  Ace ripped his shirt down the middle. Ace waved two glass jars. One jar of honey. One jar of big red ants.

  Chung screamed.

  Dudley said, “Restate the threat, my brother. No U.S. sabotage from this point on.”

  Chung caught the gist. He went No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  Ace applied the honey. Ace applied the ants. They were fat red fuckers. They verged on King Kong size. They were famished and deserved a tasty treat.

  Lin Chung screamed. The Wolf materialized. He bayed. Dudley ruffled his fur and kissed his snout.

  * * *

  —

  Chung plus Jamie. That meant two names down. One name remained. This lad deserved a rebuke.

  Dudley took Los Feliz east. Der Wunderkind was der Flash-in-der-Pan and L’Arriviste. He rented a show-off shack in the hills. His type lived to soak up praise and impress.

  Dudley went by the Herald first. He talked to Sid Hudgens and abridged his right of free speech. He laid down the law. I’m your new editor. I will edit all your klubhaus reportage. Give me the final say-so. Let me peruse all your texts.

  Sid agreed. Dudley jumped topics. Sid was a horse-race fanatic. Sid knew from hot-box phones and bookie rooms. Dudley pumped him for this:

  Pay-phone relay bets. L.A. to Baja. Wallace Jamie’s technical spiel. Sid, you dirtmeister. What say ye to this?

  Sid knew three relay spots in Ensenada. Two were floating and unstable. Spot #3 stood upside the White Dog Klub.

  El Dudster thanked El Sidster. And, by the way:

  Mr. Hearst hates Citizen Kane. Orson Welles adroitly defamed him. Would he enjoy a spot of revenge?

  Sid said, “In spades, Daddy.” Dudley grabbed Sid’s Leica then.

  Der Fat Boy’s house was two blocks up Berendo. Dudley caught the light and read curb plates. Spanish casas predominated. Fat Boy rented a posh Tudor job.

  Dudley parked curbside and walked up the driveway. A gate stood ajar. He smelled swimming-pool chlorine and detoured on back.

  Welles was alone. He lounged in a poolside lounge chair. He wore a terry-cloth lounge shirt and swim trunks. He skimmed a film script and oozed lounge ennui.

  L’Auteur looked over. He clocked his visitor and gulped. There’s a big man with a camera. He’s got a badge and gun clipped to his belt.

  Dudley walked up close. Welles said, “Hello there. Are you who I think you are?”

  Dudley tapped the chair-back catch and put him flat on his back. Welles squealed. The film script flew. Dudley foot-stomped Fat Boy’s neck and pinned him faceup.

  “Do you know a man named Tommy Glennon?”

  “Your name’s in his address book.”

  “Are you a Communist?”

  “Are you a Nazi?”

  “When do you leave on your goodwill tour of Latin America?”

  “Did you know that the OIACC is a Communist front?”

  Welles croaked out answers. Straight nos eked out. His eyes bulged. His face flushed. Die fahne hoch!!! He endured the Hobnailed Boot.

  Dudley hummed “Deutschland Über Alles.” Dudley clicked his heels and slipped on sap gloves. Lead weights were stitched in.

  He said, “No more steam-room encounters with Claire. I will not permit it.”

  Welles raised his hands and covered his face. Dudley kicked his hands away. Welles sissy-shrieked.

  Dudley slammed him. Dudley aimed downward shots. He got Fat Boy’s back, Fat Boy’s gut, Fat Boy’s legs. Fat Boy shrieked and chewed his shirt collar off.

  “I’m building a network of informants, to be run out of Mexico. You are my first recruit. You will rat out leftists and outré rightists within the OIACC and your Hollywood circle. You will rat out the Jewish exiles who sponge off Maestro Klemperer. You will nod once to signal your compliance.”

  Welles squealed. Welles went Yes/yes/yes/yes/yes/yes—

  Dudley kicked him in the balls and beat his face bloody. The camera contained color film. The blood red would predominate.

  59

  (LOS ANGELES, 9:30 A.M., 2/7/42)

  Thad Brown said, “We’re ten days in. Somebody say something to cheer me up.”

  Crash Squad briefing. All hands on deck. Torpor had set in. The klubhaus job as snorefest. Lyman’s back room as sleepwalkers’ den.

  Joan stood by the coffee urn. The klubhaus job was the gold job. She fretted her gold cuff links and stayed wide-awake.

  Mike Breuning mock-yawned. Dick Carlisle lolled his head. Lee Blanchard mimed a heroin nod-off. Buzz Meeks stretched out across three chairs and played dead.

  Dr. Nort laughed. Her Dudley laughed. Her Bill looked nonplussed. Two-lover tension popped between them. Joan recalled the Herald headline. WEREWOLF BEATS GAS CHAMBER!!!

  She sensed the story behind it. Jack Horrall had panicked. Dudley laid out Jim Davis’ confession and caused a big uproar. Jack decreed a Smith-Parker summit. Bill seized the reins and forged a mercy deal.

  Thad said, “Don’t speak up all at once. I don’t think I could take it.”

  Dudley said, “I cleared Lin Chung, Orson Welles, and Wallace Jamie.”

  Buzz said, “An ambulance took Chung to Queen of Angels. It seems that some hungry ants had themselves a nice lunch.”

  Dudley lit a cigarette. “Meeks, you are treading a thin line here.”

  Buzz hooted. The room hubbubed. Elmer Jackson played diplomat.

  “I cleared Jean Staley. She was a Commo back in the ’30s, but that’s all she wrote.”

  Buzz said, “I cleared Monsignor Hayes. He’s Tommy’s priest, so his ass was in the book for a reason. I’ve been looking for Huey Cressmeyer, and I spotted him outside Columbia Pictures. He got into a Mexican Statie sedan, and I trailed him. I lost him on the coast road outside Balboa, and I’m betting he’s in Mexico now.”

  Looks traveled. The whole squad clicked to Buzz. Huey was Dud’s snitch. The whole squad knew it.

  Thad Brown played diplomat. “You and Elmer head down to Baja and shake the trees for Huey. Consult the Staties first thing.”

  Elmer said, “Yeah, boss.” Buzz winked at Dudley.

  “I don’t suppose you know where Huey is? I heard he calls you ‘Uncle Dud,’ which sure implies family to me.”

  Joan flinched and dropped her coffee cup. It doused her skirt. The room froze. Dudley went for his belt sap. He froze a split second on.

  “That line is about to fray, Meeks.”

  Buzz grabbed his crotch. “Does it gall you that you don’t scare me? That you’re just some Pope-sucking shitheel as far as I’m conce
rned?”

  Dudley pulled the sap. Elmer stepped between him and Buzz.

  Thad said, “Enough.”

  Bill Parker said, “This stops now.”

  Dr. Nort said, “Somebody else report.”

  Joan stepped in. “I dismantled the terp stills at the klubhaus. I ran tests and determined that the terp in the feeder vats possessed the same molecular componentry as the terp from the still of a Japanese man named Donald Matsura. Hideo Ashida and I confiscated that still last month. Matsura committed suicide at the Lincoln Heights Jail.”

  Icebreaker. The floe snapped. The room thawed out some.

  Lee Blanchard said, “I’ve recanvassed until I’m blue in the face. I got a lead that the klubhaus fools filled up their own trash cans and started dumping their debris in their neighbors’ cans. It was all booze bottles, used rubbers, musical-instrument reeds, and otherwise what you might expect. The neighbors said the haus was a hot-sheet spot, a jam-session joint, and a hobknob pit for whites, spooks, and beaners—which I think is what’s behind these snuffs, not all this Sinarquista and Nazi jive. I’ve also got four eyeball-wit sightings of Rice and Kapek in the thick of it with colored whores that they obviously picked up on the jazz-club strip—even though them snatch-hair samples that Ashida found belonged to a white girl and a Mex girl. I realize that all of this contradicts Sid Hudgens’ campaign to whitewash our dead pals, but then I’m not the one telling Sid what to write.”

  Mike Breuning coughed. “Dick and I have put together a list of the Japs that Rice and Kapek rousted while they worked the Alien Squad. We’re doing divisional DB checks now, looking for cross-filed paperwork. Jack Horrall sealed their Narco files, so we’ve got no truck there. We’re looking for file notes on Archuleta, but I think Jack foiled us there, too. He’s trying to build a wall between our guys and Archie, because Archie’s a low-life sack of shit.”

  Thad coughed. “Post the list and stand ready to roust the Japs who’ve managed to stay out of custody since the night of the homicides. Blanchard, you hit the jazz strip, get drunk or act drunk, and try to get a line on any whores or other women who might have frequented the haus.”

  Joan said, “There’s been no mail deliveries since two days before the homicides. I called the branch P.O. on Slauson and asked why. It seems that the route carrier’s been off on a toot, and his mail’s gone undelivered. He’s out of the honor farm and back at work now. There should be a large stack of mail delivered later today.”

  Thad nodded. “Grab it, Joan. Read it, catalogue it, and compile a list of the senders.”

  Dr. Nort raised a hand. Thad went Hold on, now.

  “I’m thinking of running a series of lineups. One for jazz-club types, one for suspect Japs, and one for Mex political types. The Deutsches Haus keeps popping up, and I’m thinking of raiding it, even though half of the habitués are Fed plants. Those Sinarquista flags keep vexing me, so I got Sinarquista membership lists from Treasury and the Feds’ Subversive Detail. We’ve got a whole battalion of those punks right here in Boyle Heights.”

  Dudley cracked his knuckles. “I’m Spanish-fluent. I’ll make a stab at some interviews before I head back.”

  Thad nodded and yawned. He went shoo. Get out of here/solve this fucking thing/don’t scotch my fucking shot to be Chief.

  The room evaporated. Dudley signaled Joan. It meant Tonight? She signaled back. It meant No, I’ve got Bill. Her Dudley chuckled. Her Bill caught the exchange.

  * * *

  —

  Joan pulled a klubhaus shift. She worked, distracted.

  Hideo Ashida booked to Baja and left tasks incomplete. It vexed her. The Dudley-Meeks tiff vexed her. Her Dudley—baited and goaded. Her Dudley—enraged past control.

  Joan print-dusted. Ashida left her an undone-surface list. Pipe fittings, radiators, phonograph legs.

  She did the work. She powdered hard-to-reach places and got bupkes. She worked, distracted.

  The gold quest felt stillborn. Dudley nixed more file checks. He believed they’d arouse suspicion. Don’t state undue interest or provoke it.

  Ashida backstopped Dudley in Baja now. It juked his propensity to lust and deceive. Ashida tweaked Dudley’s vanity perversely. Dudley viewed their compact as two geniuses entwined. Baja inspired corruption. It played to the venal and rewarded deceit. Ashida would seek to undermine Dudley. His lust was covetous and malignantly defined. He would conspire against her. His motive was jealousy. She had what he did not. He would attempt to steal her fair share of the gold.

  Joan dusted phonograph tubes. She worked, distracted. Sid Hudgens had jammed her outside the haus. He flashed a sheaf of color snapshots.

  It’s Orson Welles. He’s tear-streaked and bloody. There’s poolside cushions soaked red.

  Sid said, “Guess who?” It was easy. Welles saw her naked. He saw Claire De Haven, likewise. Actions spawn consequences. “Big Red” made this occur.

  Joan dusted tubes. Large tubes and small tubes. It was tight brushwork. She got smudges, smears, and one latent print.

  She applied tape and lifted it. She pressed it to stiff cardboard. She pulled her elimination-print file and ran comparison checks. She got no match.

  She slipped on her headband light and reading glasses. She counted loops, whorls, and pocket dents. She numbered an unknown-print card.

  The doorside mailbox clanged. There’s the postman. He’s back from his dry-out retreat.

  Joan walked out to the porch. Two Newton blues stood guard. One woofed her and waved. One said, “Hey, Red.”

  The mailbox was stuffed. Joan dislodged manila envelopes. Wendell Rice received four parcels. They were sent from Terminal Annex. All box mail was rerouted there. It bollixed mail traces up.

  She opened a six-by-eight parcel. A small booklet was stuffed in. It was glossy-bound and cheaply printed. It comprised a gold-case lead.

  The Back-to-Africa Manifesto. Authored by Martin Luther Mimms. The Rev bailed out Leander Frechette. Elmer and Buzz interviewed him.

  Joan skimmed the text. It was plainly nuts. Nazi U-boats would escort Negro warships to the verdant Congo. Pilgrims would feast on barbecued Jews. Enslaved Congolese would guide the pilgrims downriver. Tame crocodiles would pull ten-ton canoes.

  Joan slit the second envelope. It contained a sister tract.

  AmeriKKKa for Whites!!! AfriKKKa for Blacks!!! (in support of the Reverend M. L. Mimms), by G. L. Rockwell.

  The young Navy flyer. The Rev’s white sidekick. Elmer and Buzz braced him.

  Joan skimmed the text. It predicted racial apocalypse. The Learned Elders of Zion had annexed the Jewnited States. The Ku Klux Klan fought them back. Noble Negro legions rallied and joined their KKKause. The Jews sought to Jewnify the U.S. and Russia. All noble Negroes must flee to AfriKKKa NOW!!!!!

  Joan recalled pillow talk. Dudley riffed on Wendell Rice and George Kapek. One—they were batshit crazy. Two—Hideo Ashida’s photo device snapped them in Tijuana. Three—they were probably running wetbacks and/or fugitive Japs.

  Envelope #3. The Red Swastika, by Salvador Abascal. It’s a catchy title. Pithy subtitles cover a full page.

  A Polemic on the Potential Brotherhood of Dispossessed Totalitarians.

  A Utopian Vision of Hoarded Monies and the Promulgation of a New Gold Standard to Assure the Solvency of Catholic Nationalists Worldwide.

  Joan skimmed the text. Abascal was a devout papist and proponent of Sinarquismo. The tract extolled Nazis and defamed Jews. It extolled the Spanish Falange and defamed the Loyalist cause. It extolled Irish nationalism and defamed the British-Protestant oppressor. It was anti–U.S. imperialist. It was pro–Catholic workers worldwide.

  Abascal veered hard right. He added hard-left hoo-ha and spiced up the brew. His first subtitle stated the theme. He described its first “radical implementation.”

  November 1940. A secr
et conference is held in Ensenada. The Hitler-Stalin pact flows in full bloom. Nazi and Soviet high-ups attend. They pooh-pooh their political divisions. They blare their antidemocratic ideals. They discuss fascism and communism. They define it as one philosophy, united. They acknowledge the curse of factionalism. They defame the divergent rhetoric that individuates and self-defines them. They redefine themselves as nonopposites. They are as one in their hatred of the democratic West.

  Hitler will breach the pact. The Germans and Russians both know this. Hitler will invade Russia. The cost will be ghastly. America will enter the war. America will align with Russia and turn against Russia should the Allies win. How will WE survive such a catastrophe? How will WE surmount the horror of an Axis victory? What will WE do should der Führer decree Russia’s annihilation?

  The dialogue extends. Postwar strategies are discussed. What should WE do? WE must probe beneficial solutions. WE must assure totalitarian survival.

  Joan caught the upscut. The all-caps WE said it. How do WE prepare for contingent postwar shitstorms? What do WE enlightened few do?

  Abascal was crazy draconian. Rockwell and Mimms were race-baiting buffoons. They were collectively ridiculous. All three “Polemicists” were booby-hatch bait.

  Joan slit envelope #4. She slipped out a tract. The title packed punch:

  New Implementations of Air Attack in the Coming World Conflict, by Mitchell A. Kupp.

  * * *

  —

  Bill talked a blue streak. Joan tuned him out. They lay in bed. She heard every third word he said.

  Mitch Kupp. The airplane nut and Charles Lindbergh boon companion. Her father’s death. Her personal vendetta. Kupp was her one hard suspect.

  Kupp charters a plane in Duluth. He flies over Monroe County, Wisconsin. A blaze consumes Big Earle Conville that day.

  There’s a fuel spill nearby. She cannot prove that it caused the fire. She traces the fuel to the charter service. She cannot attribute motive. Mitch Kupp did not know Earle Conville. It all goes away.