This Storm

by James Ellroy

  There’s all these wide streets. They’re unpaved and squared off. The crisscross goes on forever. It’s cold today. There’s nobody out and about.

  Fifty-odd buses were parked by the guard gate. MP’s in hooded greatcoats smoked and chewed the fat. A first lieutenant stood off by himself. Ashida recognized him.

  Al Wilhite. Ex-Burglary hardnose. Known Dudley Smith toady and apologist.

  The new buses pulled up to the bus line. Wilhite approached the lead-bus door. The gun guard kicked it open. Ashida walked out first.

  Wilhite saluted him. “Welcome to Manzanar, sir. Major Smith has requested that I show you to your quarters.”

  * * *

  —

  They were jailhouse de-luxe. Dudley Smith vouched good hotels. The Biltmore in L.A. The del Norte in Baja. This three-room Manzanar suite.

  A bedroom. A well-equipped lab. A workroom with built-in shelves and a large desk. A fresh set of three-case paperwork, all neatly stacked.

  Plus a kitchenette. Plus an Army scrambler phone. He could make and receive his own calls.

  His suite was detached. He had stormproof windows and a Mount Whitney view. Central ducts supplied heat. He had privacy. The shack rows stood a full hundred yards off.

  Al Wilhite pointed to the paperwork. “That’s your job, for as long as it takes you. And, there’s a man at the Lone Pine Hospital. Major Smith would like you to interview him. He’s being treated for severe burns there.”

  * * *

  —

  Dusk settled in. A mountain gale stirred loose snow. It swirled high and obscured rooflines. Manzanar went arctic cold. Steam heat warmed the suite.

  Ashida dozed. Al Wilhite brought him his dinner. The MP’s mess hall employed local cooks. Those guys knew their stuff. The jailbirds rated Army cooks. They got substandard fare.

  The meal was good. It included French champagne. Relentless Dudley. Ever the Dudleyesque touch.

  Ashida heard voices outside. He checked his front-room window. Three young men stood by the steps. They wore Belmont High letter jackets and held whomping sticks. Go, Mighty Sentinels. Green-and-black, 4-ever.

  He walked outside.

  He said, “As you wish.”

  He motioned them forward to beat him.

  They came at him low and knocked him flat on a snowdrift. They arced their sticks and brought them down hard. They thumped his arms and legs. Swirling snow covered their faces.

  106

  (LOS ANGELES, 9:30 P.M., 3/25/42)

  Ruth kicked him out. Lazy love gave her the frets. She cited her violin and an audition. You have other women, Liebchen. Go, pester them for a while.

  Elmer hoofed it. Ruth dispensed good advice. Make the rounds. Visit the girls. Ask those questions you should have asked before this.

  He hopped east. He split Santa Monica and cut back to L.A. proper. The SaMo PD ran shoreline blackouts. That meant doused traffic lights and house lights. He drove out of it and lit a cigar.

  He passed the SaMo-city border. He went from no lights to muted lights and cellophane-dim stoplights. Folks drove faster. Wilshire opened up.

  A light rain kicked in. He cut north to Laurel Canyon. He caught Brenda in her robe and up for a chat. She drew the line there. No transitory woof-woof tonight.

  They sipped Cointreau and noshed salted peanuts. They discussed their hot-sheet biz. Elmer snagged his chance and steered the talk.

  “Bev’s Switchboard keeps popping up in the klubhaus job. I was wondering if you knew who actually owns the place.”

  Brenda blew smoke rings. “This priest Joe Hayes has a small percentage, but the Ness family’s got more of a percentage on the books. You know—that racket buster Eliot Ness, and his nephew, Wallace Jamie. That twerp who’s in the shit on the phone-tap probe.”

  That hitches up. Jamie and Hayes. It bespeaks Fifth Column calumny. Thad Brown turned bonus paper on Mondo Díaz. The INS compiled it. Dig: Hayes and Jamie attended Dresden Polytechnic. Likewise, Mondo Díaz and Juan Pimentel. Sieg Heil—it’s Deutschland ’35.

  “Bev’s is Sheriff’s-protected, right? Gene Biscailuz is taking a few points there.”

  Brenda said, “Eight points, Citizen. One more than we’re paying Jack Horrall. That doesn’t mean that Gene don’t have misgivings. The rumor is that he’s been rethinking the protection, because Bev’s is so damn flat-out crooked.”

  Elmer sipped Cointreau. “That’s some tasty dish. It’s funny how these things drop on you out of the blue.”

  Brenda laughed. “You came here to pump me, Citizen. And I’m not talking about in the sack.”

  * * *

  —

  Ellen kept late hours. The baby bawled nonstop and shitcanned her sleep. She was shooting some back-lot oater. Her hubby was off with the Air Corps. He might catch her bored and eager to yak.

  Elmer cut to Hollyweird. He parked outside the Green Gables and elevatored up. He peeped the fire-escape window. The lights were on. Ellen wore a shorty nightgown. Ellen paced and smoked.

  He climbed back inside and door-knocked her. Ellen opened up and went Ssshhh. He knew the drill. The baby’s sleeping, you dipshit.

  They sat around and tipped Lucky Lager. Ellen cited a migraine. It quashed a stint in the kip.

  They kept their voices low. The baby had keen ears and lived to disrupt. Elmer steered talk to Jean Staley.

  This job I’m on. It’s strictly routine. Her name popped up. You two were fellow starlets, huh? Right here on the Paramount lot.

  Ellen inveighed. Insomniacs ran talkative. Ellen lived to dissect and rehash.

  “Jean was a strange-o. She fell into her actress gig, but I always made her for a grifter at heart. She had a strange-o kid brother. His name was Robby, and he wanted to be an actor, but he couldn’t get his foot in the door. He was a swish, and I think he was in with some swish boys who rolled pathetic old queens for kicks.”

  Elmer cinched it. Robby was Tommy Glennon’s ex-squeeze. Jean told him that. He lashed up loose strands. The queer white boy, the Jap sword man’s pal.

  “Was Robby tall? I’m working off witness descriptions of some fruit kid I’ve never seen.”

  Ellen lit a cigarette. “Robby was short. He was a shrimp in the mode of Alan Ladd, but without the charm and good looks.”

  Elmer said, “Jean and men. There’s got to be a story there.”

  Ellen said, “Sure, if you don’t mind Communist no-goodniks and firebugs.”

  “Shit, don’t stop now.”

  “Who’s stopping?”

  “Ellen, come on. Don’t—”

  “Jean had this strange-o lover named Meyer Gelb. He recruited for the CP at Paramount, and he was hawking a pro-Red script titled ‘This Storm,’ which Jean told me was strictly from hunger. Meyer exerted a sick-o power over Jean. He made her marry a sick-o grip named Ralph D. Barr, who set fires and whipped his pecker out on the girls at Le Conte Junior High. Ralphie used to rig explosives and set contained fires for the cheap-o westerns the studio used to shoot out in the Valley. This was strange—because Meyer had these burn scars on his hands, and the rumor was that Terry Lux and some Chink plastic surgeon did skin grafts on him.”

  Ellen dished good dish. It confirmed prior dish. It cinched up Staley/Gelb/Barr/Lux/Chink-o Chung et al.

  “Sergeant Elmer’s in a trance. Don’t tell me this is ‘strictly routine.’ You’ve got your jaws locked on something.”

  Elmer yukked. “All right. We’ve got all these strange-o types. What about other friends and known associates?”

  Ellen crushed her cigarette. “There was this tall southern guy. He impressed me as a grifter, and he had a drawl sort of like yours.”

  Cinch knots unraveled. Elmer pulled out his wallet and fanned the photo sleeves. He flashed his Wayne Frank picture. Ellen orbed in on it.

  “
Yeah, that’s the guy. And I hate to say it, but that Klan sheet looks pretty good on him.”

  * * *

  —

  Surprise didn’t cut it. Shock missed the point. Spiritus Mundi said it best.

  Kay’s shtick. We share one soul and one fate. Our shit’s all interlocked. We’re as one and fucked-up by life’s follies. We swirl as our foolish fate plays itself out.

  Annie was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She looked 1:00 a.m. in-her-robe goooood. She scoped his dizzy demeanor and fixed him a quadruple scotch. He guzzled it.

  The couch dipped. He saw the six-eyed beasts in the Book of Revelation. Wayne Frank grew six eyes and burned a Klan cross. Tommy Glennon levitated. Gold dust rained down on L.A. Joan Conville resurrected. Revelations ripped his way.

  Mondo Díaz. Frankie Carbajal. The Dresden boys. Joan said it’s all one story. Kay said she’d marry him if he sussed it all out.

  Annie said, “Penny for your thoughts.”

  Elmer opened his eyes. The couch resettled. The Revelation gang waved good-bye.

  “Ed Satterlee. You’ve spent time in the sack with him. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Annie furrowed up. “I think he’s a secret Red, but nobody knows it. He’s always saying we’ll win the war with Germany but lose the war with Russia, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He says we should be prepared for that, because the Reds are the wave of the future.”

  * * *

  —

  Ruth said, “Have you ever killed anyone, Elmer? You have heard my own horrible story, and I must insist that you respond in kind and answer me candidly.”

  The bed sagged. They’d sweated up the sheets. The bedroom was cold. A sea breeze ruffled the curtains and induced goose bumps.

  “I clipped a political fanatic in Nicaragua. He was trying to kill the police chief we had here in L.A. then. Jim Davis was grateful, and that’s how I got on the PD.”

  Ruth finger-walked up his rib cage. She did deliberate things like that. Her panther eyes gleamed.

  “You are a bloodthirsty type. I would have thought you would have more scalps on your belt.”

  Book of Revelation. Six-eyed beasts. Tommy Glennon and Catbox Cal Lunceford. Additional scalps on his belt.

  “That’s as far as it goes. I’ve never had the misfortune of passing through Nazi Germany, and I’ve never come up against the likes of Meyer Gelb.”

  “You say Comrade Gelb’s name casually, as if you know this man in a personal way.”

  “I’m working an investigation. His name keeps coming up.”

  Ruth shrugged. “There is not much one can say about Comrade Gelb. He is a Communist, so he is both enlightened and deluded. He is also an extortionist, which has earned him my enmity. I owe my American passage to Herr Comrade, but many good people died as a result. My friends and I will not be impressed into informant duty, and we ardently applaud your coercive efforts with Miss Staley. Maestro Otto has passed along rumors as to Comrade Gelb and his left-right bund, but they impress me as nebulous poppycock.”

  Elmer shrugged. “That’s all you’ve got on Meyer the G., huh?”

  Ruth grabbed his hair and pulled their heads close. She did abrupt things like that.

  “I formally met Gelb only once. It was in Munich, in ’36 or ’37. We met at a reception for Wilhelm Furtwängler. We were two Jews, and we briefly discussed our prospects for leaving Germany alive. Gelb bore an odd resemblance to a Sparticist hoodlum I knew in Berlin in the ’20s. His name was Fritz Eckelkamp, and he was quite the mad boy. I mentioned this to Herr Gelb, and noted that my rather bland comment disturbed him.”

  Revelation. Spiritus Mundi. Six-eyed somethings. Ellen Drew’s dish. Jean Staley’s drift.

  Ellen’s dish enticed. Terry Lux and a Chink plastic man grafted up Gelb’s hands. Jean’s drift gored and perplexed.

  The train escape and gold heist. Jean finagles Fritz Eckelkamp through southbound roadblocks. The roadblocks stop north of Malibu. “Near this ritzy nuthouse.” It’s the Terry Lux clinic, for sure.

  “Elmer, where are you? You are certainly not listening to me.”

  Elmer fought off chills. His goose bumps grew goose bumps.

  “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “I was commenting on Comrade Gelb, and I was saying that when the four of us were flown to La Paz, the airplane stopped in Juarez to refuel. An FBI man boarded the plane and queried us on Comrade Gelb. He wanted to know about Herr Gelb’s plans to relocate refugees, but it occurred to me that he already knew the answers, and that perhaps he and Herr Gelb were in league. He added that we should mind our p’s and q’s, or risk expulsion from America.”

  Elmer tingled. “Was the FBI man’s name Ed Satterlee?”

  Ruth said, “Yes, it was.”

  107

  (TIJUANA, 9:00 A.M., 3/26/42)

  The T.J. Express. Two trucks and two buses. Perched at the border. Japs and wets set to roll.

  To internment camps. To PD road gangs. To San Joaquin Valley farms. Arriba, Japos y braceros. You’re plain old slaves now.

  Salvy was late. Dudley briefed the Statie drivers and gun guards. They resented him. Juan Pimentel was their immediate boss and sub-Führer. El Dudley mollycoddled his killer. El Puto Ashida got a soft stateside berth. It pissed the slave crew off.

  Salvy was late. It pissed him off. Salvy was set to ride north with the slaves. He was charged to glad-hand farm and road-gang jefes and dispense bonus cash. Salvy excelled at such tasks. Salvy possessed the gift of gab and the PR-man touch.

  Salvy was late. Dudley was double-pissed. Al Wilhite called him last night. He reported Hideo Ashida’s first day in camp.

  Hideo praised his accommodations. Youthful thugs beat him up. That was most regrettable. Hideo had pressing tasks. He had file work to assess and a french-fried Jap to debrief.

  Kazio Hiroki. Note the suspect initials. Wilhite snagged him off the Hanamaka APB. Hiroki is bilingual. Hideo will brace him in English and Japanese.

  Salvy was late. Dudley fumed and performed roll-out tasks. He head-counted slaves. He stashed heroin in engine compartments. He teethed on Constanza, nonstop.

  He saw her naked. He saw her clothed. He dressed her in fascist garb. She wore brown jackboots and carried a riding crop. She surveyed Waffen-SS troops and found them unkempt. She lashed them and drew blood.

  Salvy was late. Dudley teethed on Constanza. He loved her. He did not fully trust her. He’d run intermittent stakeouts on the La Paz post office. Hideo snatched and mailed Elmer J.’s microdot letter. Constanza must have received it.

  His stakeouts continue. He wants to nail her at the location. Tell me why I should trust you. Declare your loyalty and lead me to the gold.

  Salvy was late. Dudley teethed on Constanza. He saw her in white gowns. Her shoulder straps kept slipping. He saw her in Brownshirt riot gear. She raised her riding crop and whipped Marxist thugs.

  “Mi hermano, I apologize for my tardiness. Greenshirt business has kept me occupied.”

  There he was. Salvy snuck up on you. He was Latin decorous and ever deferential. Dudley raised a hand to slap him. Dudley hugged him instead.

  “Your tardiness is confounding, but I trust and revere you, regardless.”

  Salvy laid on back slaps. He had that Latin love-tap touch. Salvy beamed. Latins lived to ingratiate.

  Dudley pointed to the lead bus. The driver goosed the gas. The engine purred. The gun guard jacked shells in his piece. The shackled slaves pitched boo-hoo.

  “Bon voyage, lad. Call me from Fresno or Bakersfield. I’ll be staying with Constanza in La Paz.”

  Salvy shook his head. “I cannot accompany the convoy, Dudley. La Causa needs me here. I have urgent duties in Ensenada, and at the encampment. There will be many other convoys, but I cannot go with this one.”

  Dudley s
aw red. He flushed and felt his veins swell. Salvy love-tapped him. Poquito cuffs.

  “Do not be angry, brother. I see that you are disappointed, and your anger hurts me. The Staties will perform my duties, and I will accompany the very next convoy. I promise you that.”

  Dudley flushed, warm to hot. He stepped close and almost threw elbows. Salvy love-tapped him. Dudley almost screamed.

  * * *

  —

  The box rows flanked a service counter. The boxes were pullout, shelf-parcel size. They were numbered off-kilter. 1823 adjoined 901.

  Dudley stood by the stamp machines. The PO resembled a pint-sized Alamo. He’d caught an Army flight down. He wore civvies and a belt piece.

  Constanza called him in Ensenada. She suggested a tryst and come-hithered him. He said, “Sí, mi corazon.” She said, “My place at six.”

  It was 3:20 now. Constanza said she had afternoon errands. She mentioned the grocery store and the post office. She decreed this surveillance herself.

  It was stand-around/blend-in surveillance. That’s the most boring type. Dudley read postal circulars and wanted bulletins. The bulletins tagged U.S. fugitives and deserters. Dudley yawned and stayed awake.

  3:40, 4:00, 4:20. Dudley got impatient. His thoughts boomeranged.

  Salvy had mollified him. He should have hit him and cowed him right back. Constanza had a darkroom. She developed her wildlife photos there. She might possess her own microdot camera.

  The Wolf appeared. He enjoyed La Paz. He hunted wharf rats and peeped Mexican women. Constanza loved the Wolf. He slept between them most nights.

  4:40, 5:00, 5:10. Constanza walked in and strolled to box 1823.

  Dudley peeped her. She unlocked the box and pulled out four envelopes. She sifted through them. The last one tweaked her. She evinced surprise.

  She slit the envelope. Dudley stepped close. She examined the contents. Dudley got muy close. He saw a soft-blotter page.