This Storm

by James Ellroy

  So much for Comrade Medtner. Comrade Claire and Comrade Joan had excised him for now. I walked back to my observation perch and looked down at the party floor.

  The Koenigs and Mr. Abromowitz remained bombarded and beleaguered. Partygoers continued to harangue, gesticulate, bloviate, and dubiously critique. I scanned the room for new faces and spotted Meyer Gelb.

  He’d been pointed out to me at a previous party. There he was now—tall, florid, heavyset. Joan had run nationwide records checks on him. They turned up negative; he had no listed address and no driver’s license issued within the forty-eight states. He came to Otto’s parties in cabs. Joan had noted his burn-scarred hands and had surmised the source as the Griffith Park fire. Gelb was waving his hands in Magda Koenig’s face at this very moment.

  I scanned the room again. Faces popped in and out of smoke clouds. I saw Ruth Szigeti necking with Butch Stanwyck’s husband, Robert Taylor. Butch herself watched and delightedly grinned. Someone called out “Jean!” A woman turned and walked toward the voice.

  Jean, as in Staley. Slender, dark-haired, stylish glasses. It had to be her—she fit Joan’s precise description. She entered my line of sight from the back of the house; her hair was noticeably wet. I wondered where she had just come from.

  I walked downstairs and through the big room. It was all war-talk cacophony and gesticulation. Dr. Saul held court for daughter Andrea and Miklos Koenig; I noticed Andrea notice me. She had buzz-sawed me at a Claire De Haven party in mid-December. Andrea lived to harangue, gesticulate, and dish. Party guests were her very favorite victims. She tended to find people. I walked out the terrace, to let her find me.

  I sat in a deck chair and looked out at the rain. Wind buckled the awning above me. I counted days backward to the Rice-Kapek murders. January 29 to March 4. That made thirty-five.

  The investigation had gone fallow since the catastrophic blackout and Joan’s suicide. Hideo split his duty time between L.A. and Baja; Dudley rarely attended briefings. The Crash Squad continued to meet and hash out go-nowhere leads. Lee reported an overarching sense of futility. His drunk act on the jazz-club strip had gleaned no leads; the Negro riot had turned jazz-club regulars that much more truculent. Thad Brown teethed on the bootjacked guns. He was planning to run an East L.A. youth sweep. Rice and Kapek had purportedly sold a good many firearms to Mexican hoodlums.

  “Hello, Miss Lake. I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. I chewed your ear off at one of Claire’s dos, remember?”

  I pulled a chair up beside me; Andrea slumped down and kicked off her shoes. She wore a man’s greatcoat over her party dress. The left breast pocket was pinned with Spanish Civil War medals. Meyer Gelb had worn that coat just a few minutes back.

  Andrea’s hands were a mess. Her nails were chewed bloody; her fingers were nicotine-stained. I lit two cigarettes and passed her one. Let’s dish, Andrea. How about Meyer Gelb as a topic?

  “I like that coat you’re wearing, Andrea. It’s not yours, is it? It’s much too big for you.”

  Andrea jiggled the breast-pocket medals. She said, “To hear Meyer tell it, he killed more fascists than the Red Guard at Leningrad. I think he bought them from an old lefty down on his luck, and passed them off as his own.”

  “He must have whole rooms full of that sort of junk at his house.”

  “If he has a house. If he doesn’t sleep in a coffin like Dracula, and come out only at night. If he doesn’t just appear at Mr. Klemperer’s parties to grandstand and schmooze up his old comrades.”

  “You’re saying that nobody knows where he lives?”

  Andrea flicked her cigarette out in the rain. She’d smoked it in ten seconds flat.

  “ ‘Kay Lake’s nosy. She’s a fascist chippy and keeps her ear to the ground.’ Claire De Haven told me that.”

  “ ‘Andrea Lesnick loves to tattle.’ A little birdie told me that.”

  Andrea giggled and made bird sounds. “ ‘Miss Lake’s a hoot.’ That’s my grand pronouncement, and I figured it out for myself.”

  “Yes, and what have you figured out about Comrade Gelb?”

  “What’s to figure? Meyer’s Meyer. My daddy and I were in his cell back in the early ’30s, and Meyer went off to the Spanish Civil War, and he became this big hero and got his hands burned in a pitched battle with Franco’s Falange. Or, there’s the persistent rumor that Meyer and some Jap Navy man were doing acid dips on their fingerprints way back.”

  Or, he burned his hands in the Griffith Park fire.

  “Was the Navy man’s name Kyoho Hanamaka?”

  “I don’t know. Rumors are rumors. All I know is that it was just some loopy Jap.”

  “Jean Staley was in your cell, wasn’t she? She’s here at the party now.”

  Andrea snatched my cigarettes. She lit one up and dropped the pack in her purse. The awning dripped rain just a few feet away.

  “Meyer’s Meyer and Jean’s Jean. Everybody made her for a snitch way back when. The CP was full of snitches then, and everybody made Jean for a secret right-winger, because she was such a conniver and a square. She’s a carhop, but she sucks up to rich people in the arts. She bunks in their guesthouses, like she’s hiding out and on the lam, even though she’s got a nice little place in Hollywood. My daddy says Jean’s a piece of work. She plans theme parties for rich people and hides out like the bogeyman’s on her case. She’s holed up in Mr. Klemperer’s guesthouse right now, and she leaves the curtains down all the time. My daddy says she’s a nympho and an exhibitionist. He said she blew Clark Gable at a party, while all the other guests watched.”

  Andrea paused to catch her breath and chain cigarettes. I mulled the Jean Staley dish. Jean’s name appeared in Tommy Glennon’s address book. Kyoho Hanamaka touched the book and left a burn-scarred fingerprint. Jean Staley was on Elmer Jackson and Buzz Meeks’ interview list. Jean was bunked up across the backyard. That fact explained her wet hair.

  Andrea stood up and slipped her shoes on; Meyer Gelb’s greatcoat brushed the ground. She said, “ ‘Miss Lake’s not as smart as she thinks she is.’ My daddy told me that. ‘Miss Lake’s a stooge for the L.A. cops.’ That’s another good one you can chalk up for Claire.”

  I stood up and extended my hand. I almost said, “Thanks for the dish, kid.” Andrea swatted my hand and skipped back inside the house.

  It was midnight. The party was approaching its gesticulating and fawning nadir, and the guesthouse lights were still on. I walked to the door of the main house and peered in. Jean Staley was ardently occupied with Mr. Abromowitz and the Koenigs. Mr. Abromowitz snoozed while Jean gesticulated and fawned.

  I took off my shoes and ran across wet grass to the guesthouse; rain plastered my dress and soaked me down to my skin. The shades were up and wind had blown the door all the way open. Careless Jean. Exhibitionist Jean. Sloppy Jean, ditto.

  The front room was a jumble of tossed clothes and dumped cosmetics. I walked into the bedroom and left squished-stocking footprints. Jean would know there had been an intruder. An open suitcase sat on the bed. A stack of picture postcards was arrayed atop a pile of lingerie.

  The cards displayed the Mississippi River and the low skyline of Des Moines. I turned the top card over and whooped audibly. It was addressed to Elmer V. Jackson. Elmer’s address was scrawled below.

  Jean plied Sergeant Elmer with schmaltzy greetings from the American Midwest. The postmark caught my eye and stopped me cold.

  It was postmarked Des Moines. But it wasn’t a canceled postmark. It was dated March 9. Today’s date was March 4.

  I checked the rest of the cards. All four featured Des Moines pictorials and breezy greetings to Elmer; all four featured uncanceled Des Moines postmarks. The postmarks ran a full week ahead of today’s actual date. That meant the postal cancellations and forwarding would be accomplished in L.A.; that meant Comrade Jean was jobbing and/or sleeping w
ith horndog Elmer. It meant that Elmer had become entangled with a material witness in his own brother’s probable arson death.

  I left everything where it was and squished back across the wet grass to the party. I ignored the bloviators and gesticulators and squished upstairs to the conservatory. Otto kept spare blankets in a closet there. I grabbed one and swaddled myself. The couch by the piano supplied a cozy roost. I stretched out to think and/or doze.

  Goofball Elmer and What Is This? fought the tug of my late-night exhaustion. My next-door neighbor’s cat jumped on the couch, but I knew he didn’t really. I saw picture postcards of Des Moines and heard Joan’s casket go thunk. A woman said, “Katherine?”

  I opened my eyes. Claire De Haven was perched on the edge of the couch. Claire, the doomed poetess. Edna St. Vincent Millay for the poor.

  Who had aged since the first time I saw her. Who had given herself to Dudley Smith. Who held a rosary and prayed for Dudley to survive my knife wounds. Who survived the idiot onslaught of Bill Parker and my dilettante self.

  Her fingers were as tobacco-stained as Andrea Lesnick’s. I said the first thing that came to me. It was, “Oh shit. I’m sorry.”

  Her voice was raw. “It’s not enough.”

  “It has to be.”

  “You gained my trust and betrayed me. It’s not within me to forgive you.”

  “Ask Monsignor Hayes about forgiveness. Ask Bill Parker the next time you see him at Mass.”

  “He’s a man. I expect less from them. I expect women of your caliber to behave more gallantly.”

  I said, “Word travels, Claire. I’m a prairie slattern and a switchblade assailant, or so you believe. How could I behave gallantly?”

  She said, “I admire your sense of risk, even as I despise you.”

  I said, “I admire your ability to withstand Dudley Smith, even as your love for him confounds me.”

  A single tear ran down her cheek. I reached up and brushed it away.

  “Will you continue to crash the party, Katherine? Will you continue to bombard people who’ve done you no harm?”

  “You threw the party, and I crashed it. You instilled the sense of risk that you see in me. I’ll repay the debt and nullify my meager apology.”

  Claire took my hand and placed it back on her cheek. She kissed the palm and placed my fingers in her mouth. Her eyes flickered between hard and soft. She placed my hand on her breast. The nipple pebbled up at my touch.

  “Sweet girl, you don’t know who you are.”

  “Dear lady, you don’t know my resolve.”

  * * *

  —

  Bill’s prowl sled was parked in front of my house. He tapped his headlights as I swung into the driveway; I got out of my car and got into his.

  Joan’s diary was there on the seat. Bill turned on the roof light and illuminated the pages. I leafed through the stack. Bill had marked the full manuscript in red ink.

  He handed me his flask; I took a sip and passed it back. Bill killed the roof light. Late-night shadows fell over us; light rain tapped the windshield.

  “You’ve been to a party, and your dress took a beating.”

  “I would have asked you to escort me, but I thought your wife might disapprove.”

  Bill said, “Don’t get catty. We have things to discuss.”

  I squared off the manuscript between us. The numbered pages ran to 324. Joan wrote them in one month’s time.

  “You should hear this injunction first. I’ll expose any and all manufactured resolutions to the klubhaus case, regardless of how it affects the craven deals you’ve cut with Dudley Smith.”

  Bill nipped on his flask and mumbled in Latin. He started to cross himself; I reached out and pinned his hand to the seat.

  “Send one up for Joan, before you even think of the plight you’re in. Think of what your sweaty crush got her.”

  Bill sighed. It was too dark to see his face. I pictured him rolling his eyes and thinking, For the love of God, WOMEN.

  I hit him. I swung around and punched his face and knocked his glasses into the backseat. Bill wiped his mouth and reached for the flask; I grabbed it first and tossed it out my window.

  “You killed her. Don’t put it off on Dudley for one instant. She killed six people in a drunken stupor worthy of you, and you robbed her of the dignity of paying a just price for her actions. You wanted her, and that was all that mattered. You swooped down on her and used her, and she couldn’t resist Dudley, because he was so unlike you in all the easy ways and so like you in his soul. You used her, and Dudley used her, and you didn’t have the kindness or decency to pull her out of this crazy world you forced her into.”

  Bill said, “Yes. But I’m the one you trusted with her diary.”

  85

  (LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 3/5/42)

  Thad Brown said, “We’re thirty-six days in. This job commenced back when Hitler was a corporal. It you’re as bored as I am, raise your hand.”

  Ashida polled the room. Breuning and Carlisle raised their hands. Buzz Meeks raised his hand. Lee Blanchard raised two hands. Ray Pinker had assumed Joan’s lab slot. He Sieg Heil’d Thad and roused some laughs.

  Captain Parker looked hungover. He disdained Crash Squad shtick and kept his hands down. His lip was split, like somebody had smacked him. Elmer J. was AWOL. Dudley was down in La Paz.

  The back room looked worn-out and threadbare. The food and booze inducement felt thin. The blackboard hung loose. The bulletin board drooped. The tacked reports wilted.

  Ashida sipped coffee. He wore his winter Class As and gun belt. He scrolled back to Joan’s place every half second. He’d betrayed Dudley there.

  Thad said, “We’ve got collateral cases up the wazoo now. We’ve got the Lunceford snuff and that Hanamaka guy that Elmer ID’d. We’ve got the klubhaus arson, and the presence of that hideout crib down the block. And don’t tell me the proximity is a coincidence.”

  Ray Pinker said, “I’ve forensic’d the place three times. It was repeatedly vacuumed, so there’s no trace elements worth a shit. I can’t turn a latent print to save my life. There’s rubber-glove prints on all the room surfaces and cooking utensils, so I’d bet the inhabitants were gloved up at all times.”

  Thad leaned into the blackboard. “What about the klubhaus torch?”

  Pinker kicked his chair back. “It was deliberately set. I found powdered-accelerant traces on a downstairs floorboard. The first floor ignited, and the rioters caught arson fever and started chucking bottle bombs.”

  Breuning said, “Monkey see, monkey do. The firebug lays down the accelerant and drops a match. He’s got the blackout and all the air-raid grief for cover. The jigs go all copycat and get up a bonfire.”

  Thad cracked his knuckles. “We’re coming up against that Miciak shitheel’s statement. There’s the sheer bulk of all the criminal and PD-implicated shit that transpired at the klubhaus. We’ve got to work the confiscated guns that Rice and Kapek were selling. I want to run a sweep out of Hollenbeck Station. We’ll raise some hell, rattle some cages, and see if we can tie some beaners to our homicides.”

  The room rumbled. That’s policework. The boys foot-stomped the floor. Ashida went aw-OH.

  Blanchard said, “My so-called drunk act on the jazz strip is going nowhere. I’m a well-known cop, and the coons have got all closemouthed since the riot.”

  Carlisle smirked. “Mr. Celebrity. ‘The Southland’s good but not great white hope.’ He spawns fear and envy wherever he goes.”

  Blanchard kicked Carlisle’s chair. Carlisle cringed and unsmirked. Fight fever peaked and fizzled, fast.

  Thad pitched Blanchard. “You and Lieutenant Ashida work a Mutt and Jeff and comb the strip again. We’ve got to ID the women who left those pubic-hair samples.”

  Blanchard said, “We should try to ID the other cops who ha
bituated the klubhaus. We might pull some leads there.”

  Thad went nix. “Chief Horrall says no. He thinks it’ll open a whole can of worms.”

  The Teletype clacked and unfurled paper. Parker walked up and tore out the sheet.

  He read it. He rubbed his split lip. He glanced at Ashida.

  “They’re moving the Werewolf back to Atascadero today. I thought you’d want to know.”

  * * *

  —

  Ashida watched the move-out. Sayonara, Werewolf—thanks for the memories.

  Two male nurses plucked him out of his cell. They wrestled him to the catwalk floor and shot him up with jungle juice. The Werewolf flailed and bared his fangs. He bayed at some nutso moon and went loosed-limb floaty.

  Ashida stood close by. The nurses fish-eyed him. He’s a Jap. He’s Army brass. Who gave him that .45? The Werewolf’s his daddy.

  They cuffed and shackled the Werewolf. They straitjacket-wrapped him. They grabbed his arms and wrangled him upstairs and outside. Ashida followed them out.

  Newshounds sent a cheer up. Sid Hudgens and Jack Webb led the pack. The hounds howled and pawed the sidewalk outside Central Station. Flashbulbs pop-pop-popped.

  Ashida blinked back bulb glare. Monster Matinee. He saw passing papas hold their toddlers up to watch.

  Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle lounged on the steps. Breuning flicked his cigarette butt and hit the Werewolf’s back. A little girl tossed her ice-cream cone and missed the Werewolf by inches. The Sidster scribbled up a scratch pad.

  A nuthouse wagon idled curbside. The driver slid out a gurney on casters. The nurses hoisted the Werewolf and triple-wrapped him in. More flashbulbs popped.

  The nurses hopped in the back. The driver fishtailed eastbound on 1st Street. News fotogs snapped Ashida. He’s this Jap stoic. He’s all dolled up, Army style.

  Ashida rubbed his eyes. That bulb glare had him seeing double. He saw two Elmer Jacksons, straight across the street. Two Elmers bolted the Moonglow Lounge and booze-weaved toward the station.