This Storm

by James Ellroy

  Buzz clocked left and caught it. He nudged Elmer. They slid on their knucks and threaded on over. They came off overt and covert.

  They bopped up behind the booth. Buzz grabbed a fistful of Huey’s hair and plain pulled. Huey flew up and out. He flailed his legs and shrieked soprano. His kiddie paramour shrieked. Elmer kicked Huey in the balls and stuffed a sock in his mouth. A big ruckus materialized.

  Satanites craned their necks and peered over. They jumped up and out of their booths. They went ¿Qué? and ¡Madre mio! Buzz pulled his piece and popped two shots at the ceiling. The donkeys strained at their tethers and brayed.

  Elmer slammed a knuck shot. Huey’s rib cage deflated. Buzz regripped Huey’s hair and plain dragged him. Elmer ran up on the stage and untied the donkeys. They jumped off the stage and did some goooood Satanite trampling. Elmer pulled his piece and popped two shots at the ceiling. Buzz dragged Huey to the door and kicked it open.

  The donkeys capsized tables and hoof-stomped revelers. Ten thousand Satanites screamed. The donkeys made for the door. Elmer held it open. The furry fuckers ex-caped into the night.

  * * *

  —

  El Kasa 69 was out in the boonies. It was perched behind some hills and tucked out of sight. Buzz rifled Huey’s pockets and plucked his room key. Elmer stashed his car in a scrub grove. He walked back to the room. Buzz had Huey double-cuffed.

  El Kasa was a hot-sheet hellhole. Tar-paper huts. Rafter rats. Mismatched wood-plank walls. Huey’s room was a pus pit. Piss troughs and one bare mattress. Huey restrained thereupon.

  He wore a Luftwaffe jumpsuit. He was wrist- and ankle-cuffed. He’d drooled up the sock in his mouth. Buzz dangled El Scorpio upside his head.

  El Buggo malo y feo. He poked at his cage bars and issued evil intent. Huey fright-eyed him. He pissed his pants. The lap lake spread.

  Elmer said, “It’s about Dudley Smith. We want whatever you’ve got.”

  Buzz said, “That means all his current racket plans and everything he’s got on Tommy Glennon and Fifth Column grief here in Baja. That also means whatever you’ve got on Wendell Rice, George Kapek, Archie Archuleta, and those homicides in L.A.”

  Elmer crouched by the mattress. Buzz scootched Huey’s legs over and took a seat. Elmer plucked the sock gag. Huey whimper-screeched.

  Words poked through. It was all I-love-Uncle Dud and I-ain’t-no-snitch. Buzz sapped his legs. Elmer sapped his arms. Huey screeched and thrashed and went hoarse quick.

  Buzz unlocked El Buggo’s cage and poked him out on the mattress. El Buggo gravitated toward Huey. He crawled up Huey’s legs and sniffed Huey’s crotch. Huey screamed. Buzz positioned the cage on Huey’s chest and lured El Buggo back in.

  Elmer uncorked the mescal. Huey went Gimme, gimme. Elmer bottle-fed him three good pops. Huey flushed roseate.

  Buzz placed the cage next to his head. El Buggo stretched his legs through the bars. He got love-struck and tried to nuzzle Huey.

  Elmer said, “Tick, tick, tick.”

  Buzz said, “That’s the clock running out on your life.”

  Elmer said, “These fucking scorpions go straight for your dick. They inject their poison there.”

  Huey went Okay, okay. Elmer bottle-fed him. A worm dribbled out and hit Huey’s chest. Buzz plucked him and dropped him in El Buggo’s cage. El Buggo devoured him faaaast.

  Huey coughed and drooled mescal. Huey evinced snitch fever. Huey tattled this:

  “Uncle Dud’s got these plans to run wetbacks and push horse to the niggers in L.A. He’s got this sort-of partner, who runs the Baja Statie Constabulary. His name’s José Vasquez-Cruz, and Uncle Dud don’t really trust him. He glommed Carlos Madrano’s dope stash, and Uncle Dud’s got these dope-cadre guys in L.A., all ready to go.”

  Buzz said, “Where’d you get this?”

  Huey said, “My pal Juan Pimentel. He’s my bodyguard here. He feeds me all this good dish.”

  Elmer sap-tickled Huey. “For instance?”

  “For instance, this. Uncle Dud’s got his wetback deal all brainstormed, but he’s got to clear it with the Baja governor first. The guy’s name is Juan Lazaro-Schmidt, and he veers mucho right. There’s got to be some kind of U.S.-Mexico ‘guest worker’ pact in place before Uncle Dud starts moving the wets north in big numbers. It’s a combo deal. You pack the horse in the trucks hauling the wets, and kill two birds with one stone.”

  Elmer slurped mescal. Buzz snatched the jug. Elmer sap-tickled Huey. The shitbird resnitched.

  “Okay, you’ve got a bunch of resident Japs all rounded up here in Baja. Okay, so Uncle Dud and this Vasquez-Cruz dink have got this piggyback plan cooked up, all abetted by Uncle Ace Kwan in L.A. The deal is, they’ll move the Baja Japs north and jungle them up with the L.A. Japs, and hire them out as slave labor. Uncle Dud’s already got the Ventura County Sheriff on board. Uncle Dud and Vasquez-Cruz also got plans to move horse up to L.A. in the trucks hauling all the Jap internees. Ace the K.’s got plans to pass off rich Japs as Chinks and hide them out in C-town while he bleeds their Tojo-loving asses dry.”

  Elmer and Buzz swapped looks. They conveyed Vintage Dudster. Huey went Gimme. Elmer bottle-fed him. Huey re-resnitched.

  “There’s been scuttlebutt disseminated at the Deutsches Haus. Uncle Dud don’t credit all this, but I tend to. There’s supposed to be a Jap air attack on L.A. later this month, with some sub shellings of these oil refineries north of Santa Barbara, coming before it. Uncle Dud holds the line at sabotage on U.S. soil. You got to give him that—he’s a pro-U.S. white man. But this Vasquez-Cruz geek’s allegedly bent on chaos. To top all this off, Uncle Dud’s allegedly scared that this here klubhaus job will bleed into the Watanabe job and deep-six the PD.”

  Elmer said, “Where’d you get this? The last part, I mean.”

  Huey went snitch smug. “I got it from Claire De Haven. I’ve been selling her morph on the sly, and she sure loves to talk. She’s also screwing Vasquez-Cruz on the sly, and he tattles her things that she tattles me.”

  Buzz whooped. “Son, don’t you stop there.”

  Huey coughed. “Claire loves Uncle Dud, but she thinks he’s in over his head with all these racket gigs of his. Plus, she knows that Uncle Dud’s putting the boots to some redhead in L.A., that Bill Parker’s likewise poking. Claire says the redhead is just some ‘incremental advance in the Parker-Smith exchange.’ ”

  Elmer and Buzz swapped looks. They conveyed More Vintage Dudster. Huey yawned. Huey said, “I’m half in the bag.”

  Elmer fed him three bennies and one jolt of mescal. Buzz uncuffed him. Huey stretched and rubbed his ankles and wrists.

  “You boys should visit the Deutsches Haus. There’s this Mitch guy who frequents the place. He’s from the Midwest—maybe Minnesota or Wisconsin. He’s a brother model-airplane fiend. He knows all about air warfare, and he builds these real, flyable planes from prefabricated parts. I’m not jiving you, cousins. You can build your own airplane, and fly it. Mitch is always talking up this notion of Japs dropping flammable bombs and setting forest fires. He calls it ‘chaos from the air.’ ”

  Elmer mock-yawned. “What’s this chump got to do with our shit at hand?”

  Huey real-yawned. “Nothing.”

  Buzz jiggled El Buggo’s cage. “What’s with Dud and Tommy Glennon? He was Dud’s snitch, but now Dud wants him clipped. I sense a lively tale there.”

  Huey went harrumph. “I never poked Tommy. Uncle Dud tried to lay that on me, but it was a humbug rap. Tommy’s squeeze was this priest named Joe Hayes. Tommy likes his brown eye Irish and Catholic. He got turned out by priests, so he has to have it that way.”

  Elmer said, “Thank you for them unsolicited comments.”

  Buzz said, “Let’s get back to Tommy and Dud.”

  Huey scratched his balls and picked his nose. He got this bennie-revved look.


  “You want Tommy and Dudley? If you’re sweet to me, I’ll give you Tommy and Dudley like you’ve never had it before.”

  Buzz said, “Don’t you get flirty or pouty with us. You do that, I let this centipede loose.”

  Elmer lit a cigar. “One bite and you’re paralyzed. Two bites and you’re dead.”

  Huey went Oooh, I’m scared. He put on an archfruit lisp.

  “Okay, here’s your Tommy and Dudley. It’s the winter of ’39, and there’s a very posh costume party at a very swell mansion in Brentwood. North of Sunset, daaaarlings—pheasant under glass all the way.”

  Elmer said, “Don’t string this out.”

  Huey tittered. “The party was aaaall about the Night of the Long Knives, which anybody who’s anybody will tell you occurred in Germany in the summer of ’34, when boss man Hitler had a beef with his Brownshirt Sturmbannführer, Ernst Röhm. Ernst liked boys, which anybody who’s anybody does, but boss man Hitler just couldn’t countenance that. So, he rounded up some hunky young Blackshirts and sent them to this spa hotel in Munich, where Ernst and numerous like-minded Brownshirts were consorting, and the Blackshirts found the Brownshirts all cozily entwined, and liquidated them presto-changeo.”

  Elmer said, “Don’t stop now.”

  Buzz said, “Cut the travelogue and get to it.”

  Huey went butch baritone. “So, the party celebrated this noteworthy event, just for giggles. Everybody wore masks, the men wore Nazi uniforms, and the women wore these beautiful gowns. This highbrow opera music played on this Victrola. I was there, my mama was there, and Harry Cohn was there—even though he’s a yid. Lots of Hollywood hotshots were there, Tommy G. was there, and this little Jap guy with burned fingers was there. He told people that he was there for the real Night of the Long Knives, but nobody believed him.”

  Elmer got goose bumps. He looked at Buzz. He had goose bumps. Huey sighed and strung out a looooooong pause.

  “Well, Dudley was surely there. He was veeery handsome in his SS uniform. He wore a sidearm and a bayonet on a black leather belt. Orson Welles was there. He wore a mask, but I knew it was him. He was chummy with this guy who owned the house—some music maestro. Welles always premiered his smut films at the house, and he showed a new one at the party. It was the dirty version of the Night of the Long Knives—and, daaarlings, it was a hit.”

  Huey paused. Huey stage-sighed. Huey tossed his hair. This glue-sniffing psycho mimes Marlene Dietrich.

  “Well, meine Herren—the movie. The killing was all faked, but the oooh-la-la was all real. It was men and women, women and women, men and men. The party quieted down when the movie ended, and the guests started fondling out in the open. They started peeling into the maestro’s bedrooms. And, of course—Dudley had women fighting over him.”

  Huey paused. Huey stage-sighed. Huey threw his hair over one eye. The fruitcake loon mimes Veronica Lake.

  “Uncle Dud kissed and petted with at least a dozen women. The last woman was very tall and thin, and she led Uncle Dud outside and over to a pergola. Tommy and I were close by, but Uncle Dud couldn’t see us. We were wearing Brownshirt uniforms, and we were cuddled up and collaborating with two cute Blackshirt boys. Uncle Dud didn’t know that we saw all of this, but Tommy spilled it to him when Uncle Dud visited him in Quentin last November.”

  Huey paused. Huey stage-sighed. Huey blew mock smoke rings. This Nazi shitheel mimes Bette Davis.

  “Uncle Dud and the tall woman kissed passionately. Tommy and I watched. The woman knelt between Uncle Dud’s legs. Well, her gown hiked, and Tommy and I saw those hairy gams. The moon passed over, and Uncle Dud saw them, too. The woman coughed, meine Herren—and it was surely a man’s cough.”

  Elmer went dry-mouth. The room spun topsy-turvy. Huey turned female for real.

  “Well, Uncle Dud screamed then. He pulled out his bayonet and stabbed the girl-boy in the face and the chest. He walked away, sobbing—and if you tell Uncle Dud that I told you all this, I’ll be very peeved with you.”

  62

  (LOS ANGELES, 9:30 A.M., 2/9/42)

  Rain loomed. Low clouds hovered and seeped. Boyle Heights went garish to bleak.

  It was Shitsville, both ways. Shack rows and strutting pachucos. Tripe-stew emporiums. Invasive food stench.

  Dudley cruised Brooklyn Avenue. The cholos had subsumed the Jews, circa ’35. The zoot suit reigned now. Frock coats and beanies, verboten.

  Three interviews loomed. Thad Brown had cherry-picked a Fed subversive sheet. Local Sinarquista boys. Three, todos. Thad’s curious. Did they frequent the klubhaus?

  It’s a bind. He served two factions here. He had to plumb the extent of Wendell Rice and George Kapek’s exposure. He served the PD there. He served Salvy Abascal and the Sinarquistas, most inimically.

  He had to warn and exonerate. He wore Sinarquista green himself. He had to revamp the klubhaus job and provide a credible solution.

  To wit: kill a plausible suspect or suspects. To wit: spics, spooks, or treasonous swine. To wit: quash crossover leads to the Watanabe job. Nullify Bill Parker’s Free-the-Werewolf extravaganza.

  Dudley scanned curb plates. He was vexed. He felt constrained. The fucking klubhaus job consumed him. He should be back in Baja. He had nascent rackets to run. He had to revamp his search for the gold.

  He’s vexed. He’s constrained. He’s diverted.

  There’s dumb cracker Elmer Jackson and smart Okie Buzz Meeks. He’s constrained there. He cannot dissolve their partnership. Jack Horrall straddles a fence. Clean solve, staged solve—he’s ambivalent. Jackson and Meeks are in Baja now. They have not liaised with the Staties. They may or may not locate Huey. Juan Pimentel has the lad sequestered. Huey was staunch in his way. He would never blab to rogue cops.

  He’s vexed, he’s constrained, he’s diverted. He’s buoyant, otherwise.

  He has Joan. She exemplifies wartime passion and binds him to the gold. He has his brilliant Hideo.

  The lad turned a single fiber. It placed Wendell Rice at chez Hanamaka. Hideo Ashida plumbed minutiae. He turned Hanamaka’s print at the klubhaus. A triple print check revealed it. He endured the raid at the White Dog Klub. The first Jap-internee transport is at the ready now. It will leave for Ventura County tomorrow. A load of “H” will be stashed on the bus. Hideo will debrief the captive Japs at the border.

  He’s vexed. He’s constrained and diverted. He’s more optimistic now.

  He conducted his three interviews. They ran prosaically. The three boys attended LACC and bunked with their moms and dads. They eschewed zoot suits and went to Mass thrice weekly. They expressed their intent to avoid conscription and sit out this Jew-derived war.

  They knew all about the klubhaus. They had never set foot inside. They conceded a stern right-wing presence there. The presence of hopheads and jigaboos negated that. The klubhaus was inherently un-Catholic. Está un sacrilegio.

  They offered up no names. They snitched off no klubhaus klubmen. ¿Qué? ¿Qué? ¿Qué? We don’t know mierda.

  Three convivial chats. A felicitous morning. Somewhat loosened constraints.

  Rain loomed. Black clouds seeped and burst. Dudley drove west and hit his wiper blades. Pachucos ducked under awnings. Note their sodden zoot suits. No Sinarquistas, they.

  A car nudged his back bumper. A horn went toot-toot. Dudley checked his rear-view mirror and grinned.

  Well, now—it’s Salvador Abascal.

  * * *

  —

  They lunched at a taco tavern. Salvy knew all the good spots. They shared spicy platters and quaffed beer. Their back booth assured privacy. A waitress cleared their table. They lit cigarettes.

  Dudley said, “I’m wondering how you knew where to find me.”

  “I called Major Melnick in Ensenada, and your Lieutenant Brown here in Los Angeles. He passed me on to the impolitic Sergeant Bre
uning, who said, ‘Oh, yeah—Dud told me about you.’ ”

  Dudley smiled. “You mustn’t consider me suspicious.”

  Salvy crushed his cigarette. “You have every right to be suspicious. I entered your life in quite the spectacular fashion. We surveil each other from afar and understand each other adroitly, even though we are but casual friends. We touch upon only the most obvious high points of our shared ideology, and rigorously avoid the specifics. This indicates mutual respect. We are not the type of men who indulge frivolous friendships. For men like us, there is no point in friendships that preclude a defining efficacy.”

  A grand lad. A mind reader and a seer. Father Coughlin thought the world of him. “He’s an honorary mick, that one.”

  “I’m wondering how you came to save my life, and how you arrived at that man Trejo Caiz as my potential assassin.”

  Mariachi men strolled up. Salvy slipped them a dollar and shooed them off.

  “Trejo Caiz was a Stalinist and a wheelman for the murder of Leon Trotsky. He had compiled a death list of fascist sympathizers, and you were on it. I learned of this in quite the roundabout way. Some three years ago, the late Carlos Madrano told me about you. He described you as a ‘budding American fascist with profound law-enforcement credentials,’ and a ‘notable killer for Irish Republican causes.’ I despised my boon acquaintance Madrano, and was overjoyed to learn that you had killed him and would soon join the SIS contingent in Ensenada. I have a superb intelligence network. They learned of Trejo Caiz’s plan to kill you. I had both of you under surveillance up to the moment of your convergence.”

  Dudley roared. The Wolf appeared and lapped beer from the pitcher. Dudley reversed his coat lapel. Joan Klein’s swastika map pin gleamed.

  Salvy laughed. “Victor’s brother lives on. Jorge Villareal-Caiz. A yet more pernicious comunista. There are no photographs of this evil puto extant. I see his face everywhere and nowhere, which confounds me. He is a priest-killer with many scalps to his credit. I have vowed to kill him.”