This Storm

by James Ellroy

  She built her own arson file. She worked on it all through grad school. She moved to L.A. and neglected the file. Kupp’s tract brought it all back.

  Bill talked a blue streak. Joan heard every fourth word. She read the airplane pamphlet. It was not a hate tract or a political screed. It was scholarly and technically dense. Mitch Kupp believed that everyday Joes could fly model planes. He did not advocate race hate or seek to barbecue Jews. He advocated an armed civilian air corps. Airplanes could be built from prefabricated parts. Automotive drivetrains and rivet-forged wings would do the trick.

  Bill talked a blue streak. It was all Dudley Smith and Werewolf Shudo and Look what I did. It was all Don’t you love me for it?

  She couldn’t think. She was back at Big Earle’s wake. She pried off the casket lid and viewed his charred corpse. She made herself look.

  “You haven’t been listening. I’ve been talking to the bedpost.”

  “I’m sorry. I know what you’ve been saying, though—and I admire what you did.”

  Bill flinched. “You don’t act as if you feel that way. You act like you’re somewhere else entirely.”

  She touched his face. “I’m here, and I’m with you. We’re in bed, and we’ve just made love, and I don’t know why you require more than that.”

  His eyes glazed up. He knuckled back some tears.

  “I know you’re sleeping with Dudley. I figured it out today. You know what he is, and you still dishonor me in that way. I tell you that I saved a man’s life that he tried to destroy, and you aren’t even listening.”

  Joan brushed off his tears. “Don’t ask me to love you for a self-absorbed grand gesture, when you make such gestures routinely. I won’t let Dudley go, any more than I’d let you go. The difference between the two of you is that he wouldn’t ask.”

  60

  (ENSENADA, 11:00 A.M., 2/8/42)

  Stakeout.

  They perched on Avenida Floresta. They packed zoom-lens cameras and box lunches. They sat in a surveillance sled and orbed the White Dog Klub.

  Sid Hudgens supplied the lead. Wallace Jamie supplied the phone-relay perspective. Dudley supplied the ’34 Ford. Ashida and Lieutenant Juan wore tattered civvies.

  The bookie front worked out of a two-story row house. The house was bright peach stucco. Brisk foot traffic traipsed in and out.

  Ashida had the front seat. Lieutenant Juan had the back. They raised their cameras and shot the basement entry.

  Lieutenant Juan said, “It’s supposedly a forty-man operation. I’ve seen these places. There might be as many as forty phones hooked to a relay board. Look how many men we have walking in.”

  Ashida shot sidewalk loiterers. He’d shot four rolls of film already. Lieutenant Juan ran his mouth. He was an invert. He was a pederast/péde/maricón. Ashida replayed the surveillance haus moment. “We Love You” tapped out in Morse code.

  Men dawdled by the basement steps. El Lieutenant shot them.

  “I’ve got thirty-odd scalps on my belt, you know. I burned up some saboteurs in a coastal cave. I saw loose teeth expelled. Their abdominal cavities burst.”

  Ashida reloaded his camera. Lieutenant Juan draped his arms off the seat back.

  “I hope you enjoy gossip. You’ll become bored with me if you don’t.”

  A woman stood at an upstairs window. Ashida shot her. Lieutenant Juan made a face. Women—ick.

  “Wendell Rice and George Kapek ran wets for Carlos Madrano. I’m not sure that Dudley knows that. They did a trial run for Captain Vasquez-Cruz, too. Dudley distrusts Captain José, because he thinks he has designs on his Claire. She injects morphine, in case you didn’t know. I know the pharmacist who supplies her.”

  The window woman shifted. Her robe fell open. Ashida saw her breasts.

  Lieutenant Juan went Ick. “Nice, if that’s your sort of gambit.”

  Ashida shot the woman. A man appeared behind her. He slipped off her robe and kissed her neck. Lieutenant Juan sighed.

  “Mexican men run teensy. You know that old joke? How can you tell a Mexican man in the dark? He’s got a big belt buckle and a small pee-pee.”

  Ashida squirmed. La Juan’s hands were too close.

  “Salvy Abascal’s seducing Dudley. Not in that way, of course. Salvy’s killed a great many priest-killers, which I applaud him for. He’s muy guapo. Don’t you think he’s got a big—”

  Ashida muzzled him. “Dudley told me a story about a gold bayonet. It was inlaid with swastikas.”

  “Well, the swastikas sound like Dudley. He’s gaga for fascist knickknacks. Don’t get me going on that.”

  “I thought he might have told you about the bayonet.”

  “Well, all I know is that there was supposed to have been a secret Nazi and Russian meeting here, sometime in ’40. All these alleged counteropposites got cozy. They discussed melting some gold cache into political artifacts, to save their keesters regardless of who wins the war. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t. Dudley’s bayonet story sounds rather like that. The nice thing about gossip is that it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s true.”

  * * *

  —

  SIS was Sunday dead. Ashida worked the squadroom, solo. The Klein girl studied surveillance files and kept to herself. Dudley gave her a kid task. It kept her busy and supplied pocket change.

  The gold cache. Melted artifacts. The Red-Nazi confab. La Juan’s gossip reverberates.

  Ashida pushed it aside. He developed the bookie-drop snapshots. It took three hours. He pulled SIS sedition sheets. Mug-shot strips were attached.

  It was drudge work. Cull the bookie-drop shots. Cull the mug shots and compare faces. Confirm or refute bookie-drop/Fifth Column malfeasance.

  Ashida worked photo-to-photo. The Klein girl kept to herself. Ashida eyeball-hopped. Bookie shots, mug shots, repeat the process.

  It was drudge work. He viewed right-wing and left-wing fiends and traveled sedition-sheet byways.

  With Redshirts and Goldshirts. With priest killers and priest avengers. With Stalinists, Trotskyites, and Sparticists. With the full idiot spectrum.

  Ashida flipped photographs. The mug-shot stack dwindled. He yawned. He scratched. He chugged coffee. He rubbed his eyes and—

  Hit Santa Cruz, Luis Ramon. Born 4/19/11, Ensenada.

  Santa Cruz killed two puto comunistas. He beat them with a nail-studded plank and cut their dicks off. All misdemeanor charges were dropped.

  Luis Santa Cruz:

  Snapped outside the bookie front. Exalted Cyclops of the White Dog Bund.

  * * *

  —

  Dudley decreed a raid. He said, “Go in with shotguns, lad. You and our chum Juan. The Wolf will walk point and provide for your safety.”

  It was a test. Ashida knew that. He must not disappoint.

  They parked by the White Dog Klub. They’d discussed the play. They carried 12-gauge pumps. Dudley decreed lethal loads. Oooh—double-aught buckshot, rat poison–laced.

  Lieutenant Juan ticked off numbers. On three, now. Uno, dos, tres—

  They ran across the street. Pedestrians wigged out and scattered. They charged the basement door. It refused to give. Lieutenant Juan racked his shotgun and blew off the lock and jamb.

  Ashida kicked the door in. The bookie room was right there. Bookie dinks saw them and raised a raid ruckus. An alarm siren blew.

  Fifty-some desks. Fifty-some men. Blaring telephones and stacks of flash paper. Wall-to-wall chalkboards, chalked with horse-race odds.

  The dinks lit the flash paper. Bet slips ignited. Ashida saw a relay transmitter at the front of the room.

  Lieutenant Juan triggered a spread. A chalkboard blew up. Men yelled en español. Smoke covered the room. Ashida triggered a spread and blew up a chalkboard. The recoil knocked him flat.

  He hit the floor
and crawled forward. Scrambling legs hit him. He crawled toward the transmitter. A man stopped to kick him. Ashida took four head shots. He jammed his shotgun up against the man’s belly and blew his guts out.

  His own scream outscreamed fifty-some screams. Blood spattered wide. Ashida crawled under the smoke line. He saw Luis Santa Cruz by the transmitter. Luis Santa Cruz flipped a switch.

  The transmitter exploded. Santa Cruz vaporized. Legs ran over Ashida. Men fell on top of him. Flames shot up and out.

  Ashida crawled and fired his shotgun. He hit legs and severed legs and brought down fleeing men. He killed them and crawled over them. He screamed in English and Japanese. He coughed out black smoke and crawled for the door.

  61

  (TIJUANA, 8:00 P.M., 2/8/42)

  The boys are back—

  Said boys crossed the border. Elmer wheeled his spiff ’40 Buick. It featured wide whites and an 8-ball shifter. Buzz badged the turnstile goons. They salaamed to los jefes. Buzz dispensed dollar bills and contraband smut pix.

  The goons cheered. They wore Nazified threads and went Willkommen. Buzz Sieg Heil’d them back. Elmer haw-hawed.

  He peeled rubber southbound. We’re here now. We’re sanctioned. Let’s find Huey C.

  Elmer yodeled Old Crow. “We’ve got to bypass the Staties. It’ll get back to Dud, rápidamente.”

  Buzz snatched the jug. “I’ve been thinking about that hump, and I’ve come to some ripe conclusions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, he’s a sissy. Such as, he’s pussy-whipped. He’s got his put-upon Irish wife and his bitch-in-heat Claire what’s-her-name, and his umpteen daughters and that bastard girl Beth Short—and without them goo-goo talking him, he ain’t shit. In my view, he ain’t nothing but a charming lunatic who’s got the world bamboozled. Moreover, he ain’t as smart as Bill Parker—which just about kills him.”

  Elmer snatched the jug. “They’ve got each other dialed, that’s for sure.”

  “You want the drumroll here? They’re both poking the big redhead, which means they’ve got some juice that we don’t.”

  Elmer brain-broiled the spiel. It got him torqued. He chronologized his own Dudster drift.

  He don’t gun down Tommy G. He finds char-broiled Eddie Leng. Eddie’s Fifth Column, boocoo. He’s Tommy’s KA. Dud wants Tommy muerto. Sergeant E. V. Jackson’s bored. He goes rogue behind feisty ennui.

  Buzz gargled Old Crow. “We got to wrangle Huey someplace secluded and put the spurs to him. All these Fifth Column geeks are jungled up. Huey’s got some answers that’ll take us back to Kapek and Rice.”

  “Jack Horrall wants a clean solve on this one. Clean by his standards, I mean.”

  Buzz said, “Ditto yours truly. A clean solve puts it to Dud, not that I give a shimmering shit about those whipdick cops and how bad the PD looks.”

  They hit T.J. proper. Elmer slow-trawled Revolución. Buzz checked their backseat stash.

  Brass knucks. Beavertail saps. Two sawed-off shotguns. Leg restraints. Come-along chains. Thumb screws. Friction tape. Wadded-up socks. This cattle-prod gizmo.

  Elmer slow-trawled. Buzz orbed multitudinous street whores. Elmer daydreamed.

  He daydreamed Jean Staley. Their hot date reverberated. He called Jean mucho times and got no answer. She didn’t call him. He sent her flowers. No sweet thank-you call ensued.

  He daydreamed Jean and Wayne Frank. Jean’s Red cell ran adjunct to the Griffith Park fire. He sleep-dreamed Wayne Frank scorched alive and living flush on some island. Brown girls engulf him. He’s melting gold bars into greenbacks.

  They passed a farmacia. Buzz went Whoa now and jabbed him. Elmer idled the sled curbside. Buzz jumped out and ran in.

  Kid beggars swarmed the car. Mangy muchachos all. They hawked religious medals and nudie pix of their mamas. They jabbered, “Joo want pussy?”

  Elmer dispensed chump change and illustrated hate tracts. FDR with fangs and Jew beanie. Frau Eleanor blowing Joe Stalin. The kids whoop-whooped. Buzz hopped back in the sled. He waved a brown paper bag.

  The kids waved adios. Elmer peeled out. Buzz dumped the bag in his lap. It contained this:

  Liquid terp. Bennie rolls. 180-proof mescal. Diseased worms afloat in the brew.

  They pulled into an alley and fortified. It juked their resolve. They jammed the knucks and saps in their waistbands. They ate two worms apiece.

  Elmer said, “He’s in T.J., if he’s anywhere.”

  Buzz said, “He’ll have some Statie watchdog. Dud won’t let him go around unchaperoned.”

  Elmer said, “We’ve got to get him alone.”

  Buzz said, “You can chaperone me. Them worms got me seeing double and thinking evil thoughts.”

  * * *

  —

  T.J. by nite. It’s this fucked-up phantasm. White man, beware. Hock your souls at your own risk.

  They ditched the sled behind a church and paid two nuns to guard it. They scoured on foot. Buzz packed the flash roll. It was all yanqui five-spots. Elmer packed pidgin Spanish and bilingual savoir faire. They bopped loose and orbed for Hugh C.

  Huey was a notable pervdog. He sniffed cocaine and model-airplane glue. He boffed boys and butch dykes like his mama. He was a Fifth Column shitheel and smut-film connosewer. T.J. offered all such deelites.

  They scoured accordingly. They hit farmacias and flashed Huey mug shots. You see this fucker? He buy dope from you? No, señor—he don’t.

  The sky melted. The sidewalks weaved. Terp and mescal supplied the effect. The bennies supplied bounce. The terp supplied grip. The mescal sent sparks off their footsteps. Elmer saw his dead redneck kin in with all the nite-hopping spics.

  They braced cat-meat taco vendors. They braced sailors down from Dago. They logged nada and no. They braced male prosties in Roman breastplates and padded jockstraps. They got ditto and nix. They hit the noxious nitespots next.

  The Chicago Club. The Blue Fox. The Red Cat. Donkey dives. Cunnilingus caves. Fellatio fiefdoms. Cocktail bars with built-in piss troughs. All-nude stage acts. Connie Lingus and her Cunt Corsairs. Some Cuban coon with a two-foot dick. Dig: he table-hops and dunks it in your drink!!!

  They flashed Huey mug shots. Buzz dispensed five-spots. Elmer logged ¿Que? and Huh? They weaved outside and over to Klub Falangisto. The motif celebrated boss man Franco. The walls featured atrocity shots from Guernica and Bilbao. Mex girls danced nude on tabletops. Marines match-singed their snatch hair and made them hop-hop.

  Elmer and Buzz table-hopped. Buzz flashed the mug shots. Elmer gagged on burned-hair fumes. They got no, no, no, and one yes.

  A fat corporal pointed upstairs. He said there’s a camera club. He saw that Huey guy there. Look for a bare-chested Mex. He wears chaps. He’s got bad acne. Huey keestered him while some slumming Shriners snapped pix.

  Elmer and Buzz weaved over to a freight lift. An old guy in Sinarquista garb operated it. Buzz whipped a fivesky on him. The old guy ran them up. The doors slid open. They saw this:

  One jumbo room. Blasting flashbulbs and wall-to-wall bedrolls. Ten thousand penetrations. Disembodied dicks and holes. Camera fiends jumping bedroll-to-bedroll. More flashbulb blips. “In The Mood” blasting from wall vents. Ten thousand fuck shrieks.

  Elmer just stood there. Flashbulb pops made him see quintuple. He saw five of everything. He thought he saw a guy in chaps. Buzz ran toward him or it.

  He stumbled over bedrolls and kicked fuckers and fuckees elsewhere. He dumped camera fiends and sent cameras airborne. Elmer saw it all quintuple and lost it just as quick. He popped sweat. He almost lost his legs and his lunch. He shut his eyes and felt himself grabbed.

  Buzz screamed upside his face. Elmer heard gibberish and “We got us a lead!”

  * * *

  —

  Here’s the drift:

  The Mex in chaps
turned tricks with El Huey. He poked Huey last night. Huey stole his trick stash. Huey’s got a Statie bodyguard. His name’s Juan. He goes Greek, too. Huey ex-capes from Juan and spawns trouble. Huey’s HQ is the Klubb Satan. It’s due east of T.J. He’s bunked in at El Kasa 69. It’s close by.

  The boys are back in—

  They scrammed. They retrieved Elmer’s sled and tore eastbound. Buzz drove. Elmer mixed terp-and-bennie cocktails. Buzz made a purchase en route.

  A roadside vendor sold scorpions in small cages. One sting and you’re dead. They ate bugs and made dandy pets.

  El Scorpio snoozed in his cage. Elmer prepped a kidnap kit. It featured one stuffed-sock muzzle/two brass-knuck persuaders/one come-along chain.

  They tore east. They hit dirt roads and scrub hills. They topped a rise and caught this red neon blaze.

  Buzz pulled up to it. There’s Klubb Satan. It’s perched on a packed-dirt flat.

  The red blaze was El Diablo. He was two feet high. His dick was fifteen feet long. Said dick blinked, on and off. Note the pulsing pitchfork head.

  The building was all cinder block. Sandbags formed the foundation. Locals porked in parked jalopies. Transaxles banged the dirt.

  Buzz parked snout-out. Let’s be prudent here. Let’s boogie and ex-cape quick.

  Elmer winked at Buzz. El Buzzo winked back. They slurped some mescal. Elmer noshed a toxic worm. They got out and stretched their legs. They hit the Klubb two abreast.

  Loud noise/barnyard stink/tethered donkeys onstage. Wraparound booths and a strolling trio. They crooned into microphones. A Mex castrato warbled this:

  “I’ve got a girl, her name’s Roseanne, she uses a tortilla for a diaphragm!!!”

  Elmer clocked the room. He went eyes left. Buzz clocked eyes right. Elmer clock-snared Huey—right there at ten o’clock high.

  He’s in this big booth. He’s biting some boy’s neck. Pervdog Huey. The boy was twelve, tops.