This Storm

by James Ellroy

  She swerve-walked to City Hall and elevatored to the DB. She stared at the floor and cringed at hellos. Ringing telephones scared her. Door slams turned to thumps. Soft voices turned to shrieks.

  Dudley was out. Bill was gone. She looked everywhere and gave up. She locked herself in the women’s washroom. It was somebody else in the mirror. She hid from the thumps and the shrieks. They blasted her through the locked door.

  She killed Mitch Kupp. She did it to break the impasse of Dudley and Bill. She sided with Dudley there. Dudley gave her sex and danger and recast her as himself. She coveted his mastery. She murdered and gave him the power to destroy her. Bill covered up the children. She gave him the power to destroy her before they’d formally met.

  Indictments. True bills. No gold and no captaincy. Justice carries a price.

  Joan swerve-walked to her car and drove to the Strip. She knocked on Kay’s door and got no answer. She sat on the steps and considered true bills and justice. She drove back downtown and conjured the means.

  Central Station. Still vividly chaotic. Don’t fuck with America. The thought startled her and moved her.

  She cleaned out her locker. She placed her microscope in Hideo’s locker and removed her gold cuff links. She placed them face-out on his desk.

  Central Station. Big Earle would have loved it. She memorized every face she saw and sent up appropriate prayers.

  Forgive this theft, Lord.

  She broke the clasp on the evidence locker. She stole fourteen terpin hydrate vials and stashed them in her purse.

  * * *

  —

  Nursing school in Oak Park. That hot Chicago night. Sirens like last night. Prowl cars and morgue sedans. The Feds got Dillinger outside the Biograph. Crowds formed. She saw his hearse on Lincoln Avenue. Woman waved handkerchiefs, men doffed their hats. Vendors sold ice-cream bars.

  Joan looked out her bedroom window. Dusk came on pink-gray.

  She bundled up her diary pages and boxed them. She postage-stamped the box and addressed it to Miss Katherine Lake. She placed it outside for the postman.

  Rain hit. Her next-door neighbor spun disks. Joan heard “Moonlight Serenade” and “Tuxedo Junction.”

  She drank the terp. It burned going down and stayed down. She prayed for her police friends and all the people she’d gone through. She asked God to punish her for her vile and reckless actions and her sinful misconduct with men.

  Forgive my proud follies.

  Forgive my fatuous dream of the gold.

  Forgive my lifelong arrogance.

  Forgive my regret without remorse.

  Forgive my remorse without repentance.

  Forgive this final heedless act and condemn not this expiation.

  Shapes and colors took hold. She stretched out on the couch and kicked her shoes off. She saw Dudley’s wolf. The Maestro’s steam room appeared.

  There’s Orson Welles and Claire De Haven. Orson’s a Wisconsin boy. He hails from Kenosha. She shouldn’t be naked with a wraith socialite and a movie star.

  The steam turned all different colors. Rainbows drifted by.

  Orson said, “So long, Red.”

  Claire said, “Good-bye, Joan. See you in church.”

  76

  KAY LAKE’S DIARY

  (LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 2/28/42)

  The rental pastor substituted Housman for Scripture. He had quite obviously compiled notes as to who this woman was and opted for lilting elegy. She was cut off in her prime; she had everything this life offers to look forward to; her seat at the banquet was very much assured.

  Hardly, sir. Joan Woodard Conville killed herself. She had gorged herself at your banquet already. Stop reciting “To an Athlete Dying Young.” Let me offer up a more suitable graveside selection.

  “This storm, this savaging disaster.”

  It’s from Auden, sir. Joan quoted it repeatedly and never ascribed a specific source. Auden’s lines summarize Joan’s life since New Year’s Eve. Catastrophic events subsumed her; she fell into the police demimonde that has threatened to subsume me. Her proud grit and resourcefulness took her only so far. Ask the man standing next to me. He was Joan’s lover, and should have been mine. When this service concludes, I will reach into his left pants pocket and pull out his cigarettes. He’s a feckless and erratic man, which serves to blunt his great ambition and yet more spectacular gifts. He’ll flinch when I touch him, and know that I’ve restated my claim.

  The PD bounced for the service. A twelve-car cortege traveled out the Arroyo Seco to this hillside memorial park. The service commemorated Joan’s brief transit in Los Angeles, to the exclusion of her Wisconsin years and her nursing school and university stints in Chicago. The mourning corps was all PD, with two exceptions. Joan loved official garb and regalia; I first saw her in her Navy lieutenant’s blues. She would have loved this mourners’ conclave, because she loved a certain breed of man.

  Captain Bill Parker wore dress blues; Captain Dudley Smith and Lieutenant Hideo Ashida wore Army olive drab. Jack Horrall, Elmer Jackson, and Buzz Meeks wore dress blues, along with Thad Brown and my cohabiting friend, Lee Blanchard. Nort Layman and Ray Pinker wore black suits; Brenda Allen wore a charcoal gray ensemble. I wore a black cashmere dress, because I look good in it, and because I pander to men as shamelessly as Joan did.

  Two men stood apart from the graveside gang. Sid Hudgens eulogized Joan in the Herald. The piece was entitled, “Adios, Big Red,” and bore Sid’s trademark low wit and leer. The subhead read “Girl Forensic Whiz a Suicide. Worked Baffling Cop-Killing Case.”

  Adios, Big Red failed to address Joan’s crowded love life and the New Year’s Eve misadventure that brought her to us and to here. Orson Welles stood behind Sid. Joan met him briefly at Otto Klemperer’s. She told me that Dudley savagely beat him and turned him out as an informant. Dudley was Joan’s other lover. I never told her that I knew.

  “ ‘Eyes the shady night has shut/Cannot see the record cut,/And silence sounds no worse than cheers/After earth has stopped the ears.’ ”

  The pastor droned on. His delivery stank. Spoken poetry requires snap and verve. Elegies should inform rather than soliloquize. Big Red packed a wallop. She was a brilliant forensic biologist and consort of brilliant rogue cops. All men wanted to sleep with her. Don’t mess with Big Red. A drunken Indian groped her. She blew his left foot off with a 10-gauge shotgun. Lee was there for Joan’s New Year’s Eve mishap, and told me the full story last night. Joan’s sodden drive up from San Diego claimed six lives, rather than four. Two of them were children. Bill Parker withheld that fact from her.

  The burial crew placed Joan in the ground. I recalled a song I heard at a colored dive in Sioux Falls. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, stormy weather cause your pump to rust.” I laughed as Joan’s casket went thunk. The pastor glared at me. I’m a cutup, as Joan was. We’re both prairie Protestant girls, and we both believe.

  That was it. Adios, Big Red. The wake’s on the PD. Scrambled eggs and booze at Kwan’s await.

  I stuck my hand in Bill’s pants pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. Don’t look so shocked, Captain—I loved her just as much as you did.

  * * *

  —

  The wake was boozy and predictably weepy. I sat with Elmer and heard his account of the Negro riot and Catbox Cal Lunceford’s death. Elmer said he’d been scanning mug books, in an attempt to ID the Jap gunman. He was nervous about something but refused to tell me what.

  Uncle Ace Kwan served Ming Dynasty Eggs and his world-famous mai tais. He is a remorseless psychopath, known crime partner of Dudley Smith, and Jack Horrall’s Chinatown enforcer. I sipped a single mai tai and chain-smoked my way through the wake. The liquored-up testimonies bored me; I indulged my sport of imputing motive as I watched people interact. Only two mourner-celebrants held my interest today. Of course: B
ill Parker and Dudley Smith.

  They are both devoutly Catholic and bound by faith and enmity; I share a recent history with both men. Pearl Harbor storm-tossed our lives and revealed startling opportunities. Joan succumbed to them in the romantic form of Dudley and Bill. I was more circumspect and possessed the presence of mind to avoid Dudley at all costs. Our one clash was brief and remains unacknowledged by the police world and by Dudley himself. I very simply love Bill and want him for my own. Joan gave herself to both men; it was a stunning act of idiot courage and self-abnegation.

  Both men stood at the bar; they eyed each other sidelong and retained a decorous distance. They were brusquely civil in all their dealings and only met to negotiate. Bill respected and despised Dudley. Dudley respected Bill and glibly concealed his hatred. Each was astonishingly aware of the other’s presence. I saw it now. I watched them drink, smoke, and talk to others as they remained in psychic sync. Ace Kwan walked up and whispered to Dudley; Bill caught every nuance of the approach.

  Elmer drifted off to talk to Buzz Meeks. I threw a bold stare at Dudley Smith. I knew he’d turn around and see me at some point. Ever bemused and bent on seduction, he’d smile and wink.

  Brilliant girl. It took some fifteen minutes, but the evil bastard did just that.

  * * *

  —

  I went home and practiced. Otto has been teaching me Medtner’s “Sonata Reminiscenza,” and the shifts in tempo continue to perplex me. This was my moment to play the entire piece through, in honor of Joan. I was determined to do it, regardless of gaffes and flubbed notes. The piece depicts the passage of time as both temporal and eternal. I arranged the sheet music on the stand and commenced.

  I possess the ability to play and actively daydream in concurrence, and it laid waste my interpretation here. I thought of Otto and his part in smuggling the Shostakovich symphony out of Russia, a convoluted journey with numerous stops scheduled along the way. My impromptu performance was meant to honor Joan, but snapshots of my late friend undercut my concentration. I flubbed a great many notes and scotched my narrative momentum. Otto had received a V-mail letter from Maestro Shostakovich. It contained note sketches meant to portray German tanks approaching Leningrad. I started hitting those notes, and begged Joan’s forgiveness. I played those notes to the point of exhaustion.

  The doorbell rang. I got up and walked out to the porch. The postman had left a good-sized package.

  It was addressed to me. I noted Joan’s handwriting and return address.

  77

  (LOS ANGELES, 4:00 P.M., 2/28/42)

  The wake protracted. Joan, we hardly knew ye.

  She left him her microscope and gold cuff links. It was symbolic. It meant Follow my lead and carry the torch.

  The PD owned Kwan’s today. Jack Horrall deposed Uncle Ace and reigned as potentate. The main dining room was all PD. Cops juiced and table-hopped.

  Ashida watched. He sipped tea, cold sober. Cops deferred to him now. He held Army rank and carried a gun. He soared at the riot. Close-range dumdums inflicted brutal damage. He felt no remorse. That could change. Kill now, pay later. Hold for probable nightmares.

  Jack H. worked the bar. He rolled dice with Thad Brown and chomped rumaki sticks. Breuning and Carlisle snoozed in their booth. Lee Blanchard arm-wrestled Lew Collier. Buzz Meeks showed off his pet scorpion. Elmer Jackson fed the beast chop suey tidbits.

  Ashida eye-tracked Elmer. Cal Lunceford’s death stank. Elmer’s part felt schizy and all wrong. Jack Horrall dumped the Lunceford snuff. Catbox Cal knew Rice and Kapek and veered hard right. Screw Cal, over and out. Thad Brown debriefed Elmer and took a threadbare statement. Thad bought the “unknown” Jap suspect. Sayonara—that’s it.

  Elmer caught his eye and table-hopped over. He maneuvered a highball and a plate of egg rolls. He plopped down and stroked his broken heart.

  “I’m grieving for Red. I should have stolen her away from them shitheels Parker and Smith. She was too much woman for them. I would have tamed her rangy ass with my warm redneck love. We would have bred some good-looking kids.”

  Ashida smiled. “Kay’s your woman. If you have to love from afar, she’s the one.”

  Elmer belched. “You’re on target today. Dead-eye Hideo. You take some scalps, and it goes to your head.”

  “Kay called me. She said Joan sent her a package, and she wants to meet with us to discuss it.”

  “Us? Yours truly, E.V. Jackson? I never say no to a hobknob with Kay, but you’ve got me scratching my head.”

  Joan kept a diary. They’d discussed the contents. The diary described everything. The gold. Elmer’s gold-crazed brother. The three-case confluence. Kay Lake hates Dudley Smith. She demands an audience, now. It must pertain to the diary. What fresh hell awaits?

  Ashida sipped tea. “I read the statement you gave Thad. There were spatial discrepancies in your account of the shooting and the Japanese man’s escape. You’ve worn a spare .38-snubnose in an ankle holster the whole time I’ve known you, but suddenly it’s gone. Lunceford was felled by a .38 Special two-inch. I ran the ballistics myself. You killed him, Elmer. I’ll give you a skate if you’ll tell me why.”

  Elmer killed his drink and lit a cigar. He brushed ash off his coat and blew smoke rings.

  “Cal was in with a Japanese guy, and he warned him out of the hideout. I caught a glimpse of him, and Cal came at me. I pulled my throwdown piece and dropped him. That’s all you need to know, and all I’m going to say.”

  Ashida twirled his teacup. “Did you recognize the Japanese man?”

  “Ed Satterlee showed Buzz and me a surveillance pic. It was that Navy guy you and Dud were looking around J-town for.”

  “Kyoho Hanamaka?”

  Elmer said, “That selfsame hump.”

  78

  (LOS ANGELES, 10:00 P.M., 2/28/42)

  Uncle Ace pulled the plug. He said, “Time to go. I got business to run. Mourn dead girl enough.”

  He pried Breuning and Carlisle off bar stools. He shook Buzz awake. Buzz jiggled El Scorpio’s cage and hexed him. El Dudster and Whiskey Bill were long gone. Ditto Kay and Brenda. The wake veered to stag night. Call-Me-Jack slept it off in his limo. Nort Layman snoozed with him. Thad Brown and Lee Blanchard single-filed out.

  Ace said, “Elmer, you go. Chop, chop, you cocksucker. You perpetual thorn in my ass.”

  Elmer hit the road. He wolfed bennies and Old Crow and got eroticized. He drove to Brenda’s place and promoted some woof-woof.

  It was perfunctory. The postlude went ten seconds. Brenda said, “Shoo. Don’t think you’re spending the night. You’ve got Joan and who knows who else on the noggin. Let me sleep in peace.”

  Elmer hit the road. He drove down to the Strip and pay-phoned Ellen. She said, “Okay, sure. But make it a quick one. The baby’s got the flu.”

  That dick-wilted him. He went over anyway. It was perfunctory. The postlude stretched. Ellen war-talked him into a coma. Wake Island this. The Solomons that. “Go back in the Marines, you dippy cracker. My husband’s older than you. You’ve got no right to sit this one out.”

  Elmer hit the road. He was wide awake and still libidoized. He cut down to La Brea and pay-phoned Annie. She invited him over and said she was hungry. She told him to snag a pizza pie.

  Annie lived on Hi-Point off Pico. Elmer found a pizza pit on San Vicente and turned a quick loop. Annie snarfed half the pie and plopped him down on the couch.

  She said, “You’re scared. You’ve got the jimjams like I’ve never seen.”

  He said, “I’m in the shit like I’ve never seen, and it’s not like the shit and I ain’t acquainted.”

  “Is this police-type shit that you aren’t inclined to discuss?”

  Elmer rolled his eyes and went Yep. Annie stretched out on the couch and plunked her head in his lap. She yawned and stretched. She pat-patted her mouth.<
br />
  “Wake me if you get lonely. We’ll play the radio or hit the sack.”

  Rain drummed the windows. Annie dozed. Elmer percolated. He lied to Thad Brown. He said he scanned mug books and ID’d Catbox Cal’s killer. It was a dink named Kyoho Hanamaka. He’s the fiend at large.

  He covered his tracks there. Hideo uncovered them. Hideo won’t blab. He was re-covered there. Add on Dudley, Buzz, and the Huey snatch. Yeah, sweetie—I’m scared.

  Annie started snoring. Elmer hit the road. He drove to Hollywood and B and E’d Jean Staley’s place. It was you’re-way-deep-in-the-shit dark.

  He sniffed her lingerie and got transported. He time-traveled Jolting Jean’s life. Beaumont, Texas. The dust bowl. Jean goes west and goes Red. Meyer Gelb’s cell. The Griffith Park fire and Jean’s queer brother. The whole deal induced hink.

  Elmer hit the road. It was 3:14 a.m. He knew she’d be there. She’d be wearing the black cashmere dress and sipping the bright red Manhattan. She had permanent back-room access. She was just that jungled up.

  Elmer drove to Lyman’s. He’s the mystic maharajah. He nailed it just that tight.

  The dress. The cocktail. Kay at Crash Squad HQ. She’s snooping. She’s reading the file carbons tacked to the board.

  She said, “I knew you’d show up.”

  He said, “I had a hunch you’d be here.”

  Kay lit a cigarette. “Something’s frightening you.”

  Elmer lit a cigar. “Women keep telling me that.”

  “Joan sent me her diary. There’s some things you should know.”

  Elmer dug on her dress. It head-bopped him, periodic. There’s only her. There’s no one else.

  “You shivved Dudley. It had to be you.”

  Kay said, “Yes, it was.”

  79