This Storm

by James Ellroy

  The Big Where? was everywhere. Him and Buzz were half-ass estranged now. Buzz overthumped Frankie Carbajal. They half-ass made up, in the wake. They agreed to withhold certain shit that Frankie revealed.

  Like Frankie’s sabotage rat-out. Like Abascal’s double-cross on Dud. Like Abascal’s plan to work wetback saboteurs and plant bombs on U.S. soil. The withhold felt dicey and clammy. The withhold felt good. Him and Buzz were running pure rogue now.

  Dud vetted the Tommy Glennon snuff and told him to keep the gold bar. Dud vetted his shot at Wayne Frank’s killer. It all felt dicey-clammy and good. This new Crash Squad had formed. It was him, Kay, Thad, and Bill Parker. Ashida half-ass cosigned their main gig.

  Cornhole Dudley Smith. Nullify his evil shit. Notch a clean klubhaus solve. Ashida was a wild card. Buzz was wild card #2. Buzz was running hurt-crazed and kill-crazed. He laid Joan’s diary scoop on him. The scoop gave Buzz this big hotfoot. Yeah—but toward what goddamn end?

  Everybody yawned. Everybody stretched. Crash Squad vexation meets Crash Squad exhaustion. The jug went around. Elmer abstained. Booze defused his bennie drift. Thad B. intoned some bad news.

  “This Greenshirt fuck Abascal fucked us. He got a lawyer to get Díaz, Santarolo, and Carbajal moved into Federal custody. Hollenbeck Patrol raided their domiciles and turned sixteen revolvers and automatics that Rice and Kapek sold them. The Feds are holding those little Nazi shits under Alien-Sedition Act provisions. My guess is they’ll be in stir awhile, and then get deported to Mexico.”

  The room rippled. Abascal be wicked whammy. Elmer caught a whiff of Ed the Fed Satterlee here.

  Buzz yawned. “This priest Joe Hayes is Tommy Glennon’s bun boy.”

  Parker said, “Ouch—he’s my confessor.”

  That roused some yuks. The jug went around. Elmer abstained. Buzz lit a big cigar.

  “Archie Archuleta recruited out of the CYO at St. Vibiana’s. You got lots of rich-ass Catholic laymen contributing to the cause. Who knows how many 211s those dinks have pulled so far.”

  The room rerippled. Buzz stifled a big yawn.

  “Here’s something that may shock the more naïve among you. The Dudster’s hatching racket schemes down in Baja. I don’t see no dropped jaws on that one, so I’ll add that he’s partnered up with Salvy Abascal on that front, which makes him a second- or thirdhand accomplice to all of Salvy’s seditious shit.”

  The room triple-rippled. Elmer slapped the table and focused eyes his way.

  “Look, Dud’s covered as long as Jack Horrall serves as Chief. We’ve got our next chief right here in this room, and it’s either Brother Bill or Brother Thad. We all know how bent the Dudster is, but we’ve got ourselves a homicide job right now. The next chief can put the hurt to Dud—but we should only talk up real case leads.”

  Thad said, “Hear, hear.”

  Parker said, “Elmer’s right. And all our Dudley Smith accusations are second- and thirdhand supposition.”

  Buzz said, “I hate that mick cocksucker.”

  Blanchard said, “That’s hot off the ticker tape. Roll the presses on that one.”

  More yuks ensued. Elmer slapped the table. He was bennified out to the planet Pluto.

  “I got a lead, but I can’t reveal my source on the first part of it. It’s a no-shit, somebody-killed-those-guys-at-the-klubhaus lead.”

  Thad said, “We’re listening.”

  Blanchard said, “Elmer tends to draw things out.”

  Elmer laughed. “My source told me a crazy Jap and a queer white kid frequented the klubhaus. The Jap was a nutty sword man who killed chickens and licked blood off the swords he used, and the fruit kid was a jazz-club habitué. Rice and Kapek popped a Jap like that in January, and I witnessed the property log-in, but all the paperwork and property has gone missing, and I can’t remember this Jap’s name.”

  Thad said, “Okay, that’s the first part, and you’ve still got our attention.”

  Elmer said, “You’ve got the gist right there, which Frankie Carbajal confirmed last night. But he added that the Jap sold curios for a living, which narrows down a possible make on him. There was queer action going on in the upstairs bedroom, and any Jap sucking blood off samurai swords looks like a real lead to me.”

  Buzz grabbed his crotch. “I got your real lead, throbbing twelve inches.”

  That roused yuks and yawns. Blanchard nipped on the jug and stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Here’s your real lead, but I’m not sure how it pertains to the klubhaus job. First, there’s this. Ashida broke Mondo Díaz, but he took off and split back to Baja—which I don’t like, given what he is to Dudley. It turns out that Díaz is a chemistry whiz, and he went to college in Germany, and he knows something called ‘microdot technology,’ and he betrayed Salvy what’s-his-name and threw in with some left- and right-wing guys he calls the ‘Kameraden.’ They’re out to profit off the war, they’re running a shakedown racket, they’ve got mail drops and intermediaries, so nobody knows nothing they’re not supposed to. It’s all one big fucked-up megillah, and Mondo’s personal high-up was a certain ex-chief of ours named James Edgar Davis.”

  Oooga-booga. Nobody’s yawning now. Elmer recalled Joan’s diary. Joan laid out good Davis dish.

  Thad slapped the table. The room simmered down quick.

  “We’ve got to act on this. For the PD’s sake, if nothing else.”

  Parker said, “I happen to know that Dudley has plans to pentothal Davis. We need to get to him first.”

  * * *

  —

  Sweep fever resumed. They went Mex sweep to Chink sweep in a hot tick. Two squads formed. One Squad: L. Blanchard, T. Brown. Two Squad: B. Parker, E. Jackson, B. Meeks.

  We rendezvous at Kwan’s, 1300. Chink-o-phile Davis haunts C-town nonstop. He’s Chink-fluent and Chink-defined. He’s got a rumored C-town pied-à-terre.

  The sweep could wait. Elmer detoured first. He racked his brain and snagged that log-in Jap’s name. There it is. It’s Robert “Banzai Bob” Yoshida.

  He dipped by Central Station and combed the Alien Squad files. He found what he missed the first time.

  Banzai Bob’s log-in sheet. 1/24/42. No habeas tab. The klubhaus job occurred 1/29. Banzai Bob was a railroad clerk. Banzai Bob was not a curio dealer.

  Elmer called the Lincoln Heights Jail and talked to the watch boss. The boss checked detention records and came back on the line. He said Banzai Bob had been in stir, 1/24 to now. That nixed him as a klubhaus-job suspect. Elmer told the boss to plant Bob in a sweatbox. He’d be right there.

  He bopped to Lincoln Heights. Banzai Bob spoke good English. Bob was native-born. He voted for FDR three times. This internment drive’s the shits. He’ll be on the bus for Manzanar, 3/25. It’s like Pharaoh and the Jews. Let my people go!!!

  Elmer commiserated. Elmer slipped Bob a ten-spot and a stack of girlie mags. Bob was delighted. Bob revealed this:

  He didn’t know no queer white boy. He didn’t know no klubhaus or jazz-club crawlers. He didn’t know no curio men. His daddy bequeathed him his samurai swords and nail-studded dick sheaths. Who knows where Daddy got them. Daddy was bughouse crazy. Daddy committed seppuku on 10/8/39. Sayonara, Daddy.

  Banzai Bob conceded this:

  Yeah, he sword-slaughtered chickens. So what? He was a part-time Buddhist priest. It was like them Jew rabbis. They kosherized food. He decapitated it.

  Sayonara, Bob. You’ve been exonerated. Elmer laid tracks for Kwan’s.

  Two Squad was set to go. Buzz supplied beavertail saps. Bill Parker supplied rock salt–packed shotguns. He cautioned Elmer and Buzz. The PD was Hop Sing–allied. Ace Kwan was Jack Horrall’s lapdog. Go easy on Hop Sing storefronts.

  They fortified on mai tais and pork fried rice. Ace Kwan served them. Ace professed ignorance. Don’t know Jim Davis’ hideaway!!! Ace lied like a rug
.

  They lit out on North Broadway. It brought back New Year’s Eve and french-fried Eddie Leng and the start of all this multitudinous shit. They lit out three abreast. Elmer gassed on their mission. Oooga-booga. They packed pump guns and walked tall.

  They bypassed Hop Sing fronts. They leveled rival tong fronts. They blew out plate-glass windows. They raided chop suey pits and bookie joints. They dumped the fly-specked produce in open-air stalls. They prowled Chink-smut theaters on East College Street. They saw surreptitious Chinamen slam their underhung ham.

  They ran field interviews. They got Don’t know where Chief Davis live!!! ten million times. They tore through “O” dens. They dumped hopheads off dope pallets and got ditto. They knocked over the late Eddie Leng’s Kowloon. Elmer spotted a Four Families warlord. Buzz dunked his face in a bowl of wor-wonton soup. The warlord revealed this:

  I see Dudley Smith and Lin Chung!!! They wrestle Davis into car!!! Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!!! Parking lot on North Hill!!! Broad-daylight abduction!!!

  That was lead #1. A B-girl at Moo-Shoo’s Mandarin disgorged lead #2.

  Jim Davis live above garage off Alameda and Ord. He fly Hop Sing and Don’t Tread on Me door flags. He keep sewer rats as pets.

  Two Squad hotfooted on over. They kicked down said door. Jim Davis was gone. The ex-chief lived in a rodent resort. Note the swastika wall flags. Note the beaver pix taped beside them. Sewer rats ate out of dog dishes. A box of hand grenades sat by the bed.

  They tossed the place. Buzz snatched the beaver pix. No further leads surfaced. Bill Parker decreed a breather. They schlepped back to Kwan’s and revitalizized.

  Uncle Ace served lunch-crowd leftovers and Singapore Slings. He told Elmer Miss Lake called and said to call her back. Elmer ducked over to the pay phone and slug-dialed Kay’s number. He got two rings. Kay came on the line. She said, “Elmer, is that you?”

  “It’s me, for sure. I’m at Kwan’s, and Ace told me you wanted to gab.”

  Kay said, “Lee called me from Chinatown. He told me about Mondo Díaz and what he said about Jim Davis and the ‘Kameraden.’ Díaz said they were running shakedowns, and Annie Staples told me some things that got me thinking.”

  Elmer yukked. “Well, shit, then. When you think, I listen.”

  “All right. Annie told me that Jean Staley wasn’t really a Red, and that she and Meyer Gelb planned to extort a group of Jewish refugees that Otto Klemperer has befriended. Otto shares a minor history with your friend Jean, and she’s been staying in his guesthouse while she’s been sending you postcards from her automobile trip.”

  Elmer went woooo. “I can tell you found out some things that I didn’t tell you.”

  Kay said, “I’ve got that knack—which is why you love me so much.”

  Elmer said, “Hold that thought. A notion just smacked me, and I’ll let you know if it pans out.”

  * * *

  —

  Brentwood was swank. Lots of leafy streets and big Spanish houses. Brentwood north of Sunset was woodsy swank. You had deep-set yards and cribs more like estates.

  Elmer surveilled the Maestro Manse. He hunkered low in his sled. Dusk came and went. He settled in for a loooooong eyeball stint.

  He parked behind Jean Staley’s ’35 Ford. He got her DMV stats and ID’d her car. He went by Central Station, en route to here. He burgled Hideo Ashida’s locker and stole a priceless something. He laid said something on the front seat of Jolting Jean’s car.

  The Maestro Manse was done up modernistic. Elmer perched across the street and got the looooooong eyeball view. He pissed in a cardboard coffee cup and smoked cigars. He scratched his balls and brain-strained Jean Clarice Staley.

  Jean, the carhop. Jean, the ex-starlet. Jean, the faux Red and Fed fink. Jean, the ritzy-house subletter. Jean’s jungled up with Meyer Gelb. Red Meyer extorted movie stars and Commos. That was back in the ’30s. Meyer and Jean got current blackmail plans. There’s these hebe exiles swapped out of Krautland. Meyer’s got designs on them.

  Jean, baby—say it ain’t so.

  Tommy G. tattled her good. Jean went back with Fritz Eckelkamp. That cinched her to the gold heist. Jean was hitched to an arson dog named Ralph D. Barr. That cinched her to the fire. Tommy G. revealed all this. Tommy G. dubbed Jim Davis his spy conduit. Mondo Díaz tapped Chief Jim, likewise.

  Elmer lit a fresh cigar. Elmer pissed in his piss cup and tossed the piss out the window. Elmer scoped the Maestro Manse and heard a door slam.

  Then a cough. Then high-heel taps. Then Jean herself. She made for her car. Moonglow lit her up. She wore a tight skirt and a camel-hair coat. She wore nifty tortoiseshell glasses.

  Elmer hunkered extra low. Jean crossed the street and went for her sled. She opened the driver’s door. The roof light flashed. She saw you know what and fucking SHRIEKED.

  Elmer jumped out and swooped down on her. Jean dumbstruck’d the gold. She was bug-eyed and all trancelike. She sensed nothing else on planet Earth.

  She touched the bar. She traced the mint marks. She caressed the bar and all but drooled. She fondled the contours. It’s the Fatted Calf. Come, let us adore—

  Elmer swooped and clamped her mouth shut. Elmer said, “You can keep it, if you tell me some things.”

  * * *

  —

  Santa Monica was close. They car-o-vanned to the Goody Goody Drive-in. They sat in Elmer’s car. Elmer ordered coffee and spiked it with 151.

  It was cold and clear. The beach was close. Cars whirred by on Wilshire. Jean snuggled close to him.

  Elmer nudged her back. Ixnay, sister. Don’t you vamp me tonight.

  “Tommy Glennon’s my source on most of this. Some police-file dirt fills out the rest.”

  Jean said, “How is Tommy? I haven’t seen him in a coon’s age.”

  “Tommy’s off for parts unknown. Sort of like you, with that fake-postcard shuck you were running on me.”

  The gold bar sat on the floorboard. Jean kicked off her shoes and foot-fondled it. Her nylon stockings went screee.

  “You’re telling me you sussed out the drop at Bev’s Switchboard, and you know what’s going on there.”

  Elmer sipped spiked coffee. “Let’s start with Tommy. He was making what he called ‘gibberish calls’ to some sort of relay phone down in Baja. He got his so-called scripts for the calls at Bev’s. All of this here shit is specifically spy shit, and you’ve got to have some sort of knowledge of it, because everybody knows everybody in this tight little world of yours, and all this shit is rolled up in a tight little ball.”

  Jean lit a cigarette. “You’ve got to be more specific than that. I don’t know anything about Tommy making ‘gibberish calls,’ and I don’t know anything about spies in Baja or elsewhere. I was in the CP back in the ’30s, back when it was the thing to do. I met some questionable folks, but I’m not part of any spy ring run by the Comintern or the domestic CP, or anybody else. Get it? I renounced Communism, and you know what I am in my heart?”

  Elmer smiled. “You’re a shakedown girl.”

  Jean smiled. “Give Sergeant E. V. Jackson a gold star, because he hit it right on the head.”

  Elmer respiked their coffee. “Let’s get back to Tommy for a second. All that code-call stuff got decoded and sent to a brother and sister in La Paz, way south in Baja. There’s some hotshot left-wing/right-wing cabal looking to make hay with whoever wins this here war. Does any of this make sense to you?”

  Jean said, “No. But I’ve been around CP guys and their pals for a long time, so I can tell you that the far Left and the far Right share a lot of spit, because what they really hate is the square white man’s U.S.”

  Elmer sipped coffee. The 151 subverted the bennies and had him seeing wisps.

  “There’s a klubhaus off of 46th and Central. Two cops named Wendell Rice and George Kapek got snuffed there
. They had a Mex pal named Archie Archuleta. He got snuffed, too.”

  Jean shrugged. “If you’re asking me if I know anything about all this, the answer is no.”

  “Frankie Carbajal, Miguel Santarolo, Mondo Díaz, and Salvador Abascal.”

  “No. It sounds like a cavalcade of cholos to me, and I don’t play the Latin-lover field.”

  Elmer smirked. “What about Two-Gun Davis? He’s the ex–L.A. police chief.”

  Jean tossed her cigarette. “Strictly from hunger. He’s a fellow traveler all over the spectrum, but he sways distinctly right. We talked about Meyer Gelb that first time we met, and Meyer and Jim Davis go back a ways. Jim’s also tight with Saul Lesnick, for what that’s worth.”

  Elmer teethed on it. Elmer flashed the klubhaus smut pix. Jean squinted at them and went nein.

  “If you’re asking me who the two skirts are, I’ve got no idea.”

  “Sex shows at the klubhaus? Queer stuff at the klubhaus? A nutty Jap who licks blood off swords, and his homo companion?”

  “Elmer, I know nothing about that clubhouse, so why would I know something about the strange-o types who congregate there?”

  Elmer teethed Jean overall. “Tommy said you knew Fritz Eckelkamp. That takes you back to ’31, Eckelkamp’s escape, and the gold robbery later that same day. You’re tight with Meyer Gelb, so that takes you back to ’33 and the fire that killed my brother. Them first two events are all hooked together, and don’t tell me they’re not. They’re both a ways back, and now we got the klubhaus job tethered in, and the same names keep popping up. There’s some kind of story here, and you’re the only one I got to tell it to me.”

  Jean sipped spiked coffee. She took little sips. 151 was hoodoo hooch.

  “I’ll tell you what I know. I’ll start at the start, and you can fill in whatever blanks you can.”

  “That’s what I need to hear.”

  “You haven’t issued any kind of threats yet. I haven’t heard you say ‘Give me this’ and ‘Roll over on this guy, or I’ll run you in.’ ”