by James Ellroy
“We,” “We’re,” “Us.” Sheriff Gene picked up on it and parlayed it to his tactical advantage. I extended “We” to include Annie Staples, and described our phone chat early this morning. Annie called me. She said she was servicing Saul Lesnick tomorrow night; the assignation would take place at Brenda’s Miracle Mile trick spot. This was to our benefit. Doctor Saul unburdened himself to Annie and would most likely whine about the burglary-desecration. And Elmer would be there to film it.
Room service delivered club sandwiches and coffee; Bill and I lunched on the bed. Assignation, rendezvous, shack job. Bill crossed himself every time I said the words.
“The phone records,” he said. “What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Where do they most conclusively point?”
I said, “To collusion and conspiracy. And, given what we know about the principals, a conspiracy that must be judged as politically and socially diffuse.”
“And what string of calls plays most out of sync with the rest?”
“Ed Satterlee’s late-night calls to Lyman’s and Kwan’s. Two all-night PD watering holes. The calls serve to pose the question: ‘Who was Ed the Fed looking for?’ ”
Bill snagged his trousers off the floor. He dug through the pockets and pulled out three mimeographed sheets of paper. The cheapo typeface and multiple exclamation points screamed Sid Hudgens! I breezed through the text; it was the Sidster’s privately circulated subscription scandal sheet.
The inimitable Sidster. Ever alert for watchful postal inspectors. He laid out the lurid lowdown—but stopped short of pure pornography. He used initials in lieu of real names. He gave you the tantalizing tattle and dystopian dish. Celebrity abortions, miscegenist liaisons, lezbo love nests. Alluring alliteration. Muff-munching matrons at the Lincoln Heights Jail. Doped racehorses and fixed fights. Draconian drag queens. A regular “Police Blotter” feature. Perennial poop. Filmland fellators and cunning linguists, caught “in flat-footed flagrante.”
I laughed out loud. Bill said, “We shake down Sid for his subscriber list. We lay out Dudley and all the known Kameraden. You write the text, and insert the appropriate initials. We wallpaper Dudley, the comrades, and every conceivable man jack that might be inclined to do the Dudster dirt.”
D.S.: that hellhound Hibernian. Malevolent Mexicans. S.L.: that sicknik psychiatrist and shitbird shrink. Feckless Fascists and riotous Reds. Waterlogged wetbacks. Pustulant policemen and jungle-bred Japs.
I fell off the bed, laughing. I’d never laughed so hard. I thought my roars would never stop.
113
(LONE PINE, 2:00 P.M., 3/30/42)
They reset the stage. The burn-ward room, the bed, the chair. Benzedrine in the fluid bag. The burn salve and charred-flesh stink.
The Mummy and Mr. Moto. Their second encounter. A vitalized Hanamaka. Ashida, poised to interrogate.
“Tell me about the klubhaus, Sensei. You might begin by giving me your overall impressions.”
Hanamaka plucked at his bedsheets. He was drug-vitalized. His mind sped. His limbs spastic-twitched.
“Egalitarian and degenerate. Those two words define the klubhaus. Mr. Hudgens of the Herald is quite the cheeky man. The German spelling of house. A touch first bestowed by policemen, there on the scene. One can be certain of that.”
Ashida said, “The sexual activity. The use of narcotics. The seemingly at odds political views.”
Hanamaka grinned. Sensei Death rides again. His breath was foul. His teeth rattled. He oozed putresence.
“ ‘At odds’ aptly describes the atmosphere. ‘Fugitives from normalcy’ might best describe the klubhaus clientele. There were no racial or political barriers to hinder conversation. The constant jazz music served to alleviate tension. There was a single consensus among the fugitives. ‘The most discordant jazz is our voice.’ ”
Ashida prickled. The queer white boy. A jazz player. His Jap sword man pal. Elmer J. shared the lead.
“Jam sessions. Phonograph music. The proximity of the jazz strip. Diverse characters passing through.”
Hanamaka jiggled his water cup. “You’re leading me, Dr. Ashida. You want me to identify a specific denizen, and you’re disingenuously setting the scene before you ask.”
Ashida coughed. “A white youth. Blond and tall. Most often accompanied by a Japanese man given to licking blood off samurai swords. That was the Japanese man’s parlor trick. I’m assuming he performed it at the klubhaus. The white youth was homosexual. Forensic evidence indicates homosexual activity upstairs.”
Hanamaka shrugged and shook his head. Sensei Death emits deceit.
“No. I did not encounter such men at the klubhaus. I disdain homosexuals and Japanese who perform parlor tricks. Such individuals would most certainly catch my eye and rouse my indignation.”
Ashida jumped tracks. “Let’s discuss the gold. I want to conclusively determine the chain of possession.”
“The chain began with Leander Frechette and the Reverend Mimms. Meyer considered Leander reliable, because they dated back to Meyer’s previous incarnation, as Fritz Eckelkamp, and Leander was there for the conception of the robbery, along with Wayne Frank Jackson. Meyer trusted Leander, and, by extension, the Reverend Mimms. Meyer put great stock in Negroes, and held them to be avant-garde. The Reverend Mimms’ buffoonish black nationalism delighted him no end.”
Ashida undid his necktie. “Please continue, Sensei.”
“Leander had been exonerated by the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s. He had withstood the brutal ministrations of Deputy Karl Tullock, and had prevailed. The Reverend Mimms bailed Leander out of custody, and was a noted friend of Chief Jim Davis, a nativist huckster known to have close friends on the Left. He later became a comrade–Kamerad, as you must know.”
Ashida said, “The gold. Let’s continue with the chain of possession.”
Hanamaka sipped water. He’d cracked his glass straw. Blood dripped off his lips.
“You must realize that unforeseen events intervened, along with fortuitous circumstances. Dresden Polytechnic, for example. The serendipitous convergence of Hayes, Díaz, Pimentel, and Jamie. The Spanish Civil War converged. Meyer earned his share of battle stripes there.”
Ashida shook his head. “You’re repeating yourself, Sensei. Let’s return to the chain of possession. I’m trying to establish a chronology.”
Hanamaka shrugged. “Frechette and Mimms returned the gold to Meyer at some point. I don’t know where it was stashed during what I would call an ‘intervening period.’ Juan Pimentel took possession of the gold after the Baja conference, at Meyer’s directive. It has since gone to the Stalinist priest-killer. I mentioned him to you in the course of our first interview.”
Ashida said, “Wayne Frank Jackson. Where was he during this interim period?”
“He was in periodic touch with Meyer, but beyond that, I have no idea.”
The room broiled. Steam heat jacked the burn stink. Ashida removed his suit coat.
“Frechette and Mimms returned the gold at some point, and Meyer once again took possession. Were Frechette and Mimms reluctant to relinquish it? Did a disagreement occur? Was force employed?”
“I was surprised at how easily they forfeited the gold. It shocked me at the time. Meyer gloated over the ease of the transaction. He held Negroes to be the most malleable of beasts. He considered them exalted, prone to whimsy, and subservient at their core. When one exalts, one is compelled to demean.”
Ashida coughed into his handkerchief. The burn stink and salve stink accreted.
“Let’s return to the klubhaus. I find it illuminating that you decided to nest there, in a hotbed of degenerate behavior and impolitic discourse. Were you sent there? Were you told to observe, inform, or attempt to impose order?”
Hanamaka licked his lips. The blood had congealed. He looked worse today. The give-and-take taxed him more.
“José Vasquez-Cruz sent me in. I knew him from Meyer’s cell, when he was Jorge Villareal-Caiz. He was a Kamerad, in both his guises, and in the latter he was a captain in the Mexican State Police. He smuggled me out of Baja in the wake of Pearl Harbor, at the behest of Governor Lazaro-Schmidt. So, yes, El Capitán installed me in the house down the street. As you state, I was told to visit the klubhaus and ‘observe and inform.’ Most preposterously, I was also told to attempt to restore order.”
The room went ice-cold. Ashida glanced out the window. Snowflakes brushed the screen.
“The klubhaus offended you. You discontinued your visits. I’m wondering if you were told to investigate the murders of Rice, Kapek, and Archuleta, on your own. The comrades must have feared the police investigation. We had drawn very close to a number of your people. Were you told to investigate? Did you arrive at a suspect or suspects?”
The Mummy cranked his bed up two notches. The Mummy pushed himself off his pillows and bowed at the waist.
“I prevaricated on the topic of your white youth and his Japanese friend. I cannot tell you whether or not the youth was homosexual, but he was surely tall and blond. He played the saxophone, and he worshipped the Negro jazz greats most exaltedly. A woman frequently accompanied him to the haus. She was frizzy-haired and roughly thirty years of age. And, yes, the white youth had a Japanese friend, who was plainly psychopathic.”
Man Camera. Time Machine. The klubhaus job now stands some sixty days in. We’re back in the upstairs hallway. There’s dent marks on the wall facing the bedroom. There’s his working hypothesis.
Two killers. One male, one female. Rice, Kapek, and Archuleta—terped to the gills. The man and woman lead them downstairs. The woman stands to the right of the victims. She sways. She punctuates the death march. She kicks out at the wall and leaves shoe-mark indentations. There’s his overarching conviction. The crime was organically homosexual and homosexually spawned.
“The blond youth, the woman, and the sword man. Did you hold them to be murder suspects?”
“Instinctively, yes. They stood out as unique in a most unique milieu.”
“Once again, Sensei. Who possesses the gold at this moment?”
Hanamaka said, “Once again, the Stalinist Mexican. The most exalted slayer of priest-killers is our Führer and most exalted comrade. I would give you his name, but I don’t know it.”
114
(LOS ANGELES, 9:00 A.M., 3/31/42)
They huddled at Kay’s place. Bill Parker snagged four wire players and four earmuff sets. Four socket plugs supplied juice.
They worked at the dining room table. Elmer divvied up the spools. Lesnick had scrawled analysand names on the boxes. They stuck to Claire De Haven, Orson Welles, Otto Klemperer.
Those three adjoined the whole megillah. No Kameraden wires existed. That meant no Meyer Gelb.
Kay distributed coffee and ashtrays. Buzz plugged in the cords. El Buzzo crowed a bit. He’d triple-checked their subpoenaed phone bills and snagged a doozy.
Ed the Fed Satterlee. 2/14/42. He calls a bail bondsman, up in San Fran. Buzz calls the bondsman and hits pay dirt.
Here’s the pitch. Leander Frechette’s been jailed for a soft-prowl 459. Ed the Fed bails him out.
Attaboy, Buzz. You pin-mapped Big Leander. Now, what about these calls?
Ed’s late-night calls. All to Lyman’s and Kwan’s. Interchangeable calls. All to pay phones there. Who you looking for, Ed?
Everybody set up and lit up. The room got smokeified. Everybody pushed buttons. Wire spools spun.
Elmer heard static and line fritz. It cleared inside six seconds. Doc Saul and Orson Welles schmoozed the big Leningrad siege. They exhausted that topic. Welles bemoaned his weight. Doc Saul said he’d prescribe pharmaceutical cocaine.
It got boring then. Welles pitched boo-hoo. He was a genius. Boo-hoo. America was a philistine encampment. Boo-hoo. “I get more ass than a toilet seat, Saul. How come I’m so damn unfulfilled?”
Boo-hoo. The government should subsidize his movies and pay him a hundred Gs per. Boo-hoo. “I should lose weight. A hatcheck girl at the Trocadero blew me. We steamed up the hatcheck booth.”
Kay pulled off her earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Elmer dumped his earmuffs. Buzz and Whiskey Bill followed suit.
Kay said, “Claire’s weeping. Dudley takes his pleasure, and then ignores her. He spends hours tending to his clothes. A cobbler custom-fitted him for jackboots.”
Buzz said, “That’s a good one. All I’ve got is your maestro chum haranguing the doc about Beethoven. The late quartets are some shitfire ‘Apotheosis.’ Lesnick told him Beethoven’s got certified coon blood, which accounts for his rhythmic stance. He read it in some eugenics journal. Herr Goering is going to exhume the body and take bone samples. They’ve got some Nazi breeding farm in Norway. Kraut wenches and Norse-god men screw all day. The wenches pop frogs for the Fatherland.”
Elmer said, “Count me in.”
Kay laughed. Whiskey Bill rolled his eyes. They redonned their earmuffs and went back to work.
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo. Orson Welles talked drivel. Elmer listened in. Boo-hoo. The plight of the artist. Boo-hoo. The burden of social consciousness. “I drilled Norma Shearer, Saul. That old girl shtups with the best.”
Elmer switched spools. He swapped Welles for Claire De Haven. Claire defamed El Dudster and Joan Conville. “Really, Saul. She’s beyond Amazonian. She’s something out of the National Geographic.”
Parker pulled off his earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Elmer dumped his earmuffs. Kay and Buzz followed suit.
Parker said, “Klemperer’s telling Lesnick about the headaches that he diagnosed as a brain tumor, and he’s fawning over Lesnick for saving his life. Then there’s a gap, where the two discuss the war, and then it gets good. Klemperer begins talking in fragments. He says that a man was ‘hectoring’ him and ragging on him as a Jew and a leftist, and the man says that he knows ‘Meyer’s girl Jean.’ Klemperer tells Lesnick that this man is taunting him, and he ‘plays horn’ in Negro jazz clubs. Klemperer repeats the phrase ‘He’s taunting me’ at least a dozen times. Then he states that he beats the man to death. Then he begins fawning over Lesnick again. Then he states, ‘And you took care of it, Doctor—you and your FBI friend.’ ”
Elmer went wooo. “The FBI friend’s sure as shit Ed Satterlee.”
Kay said, “Otto told me that story. He confirmed that Satterlee was the FBI man, but the story itself was fragmented to the point of incomprehension.”
Buzz said, “The part about this guy being a horn player gores me. For one, it takes us back to the jazz strip again, and we all know our current klubhaus suspect is a queer and a jazzman.”
Parker shook his head. “Our homicides occurred on January 29. This Klemperer-Lesnick session occurred the week after Pearl Harbor. That exonerates this particular jazzman, and it’s not like he’s the only jazzman in captivity, queer or otherwise.”
Buzz shook his head. “Yeah, but this guy tells the Maestro he knows Meyer’s girl Jean. That’s fucking significant, and it takes us back to the klubhaus job and the whole shooting match again.”
Kay lit a cigarette. “Yes, and I’m not convinced that Otto killed anyone, which means that this particular jazzman could be our jazzman, who’s good for the klubhaus job and possibly a whole lot more.”
Parker shook his head. “Jazzmen are jazzmen. There’s millions of them. Gelb and Staley aside, I don’t consider this any sort of real lead.”
Elmer said, “We’ve got Hideo deposing Kyoho Hanamaka now. He’s our key source. Somebody should talk to Hideo and see what Hanamaka spilled on the klubhaus angle, and if any of it pertains to our queer jazzman and his Jap playmate.”
Buzz lit a cigar. “Meyer Gelb. This whole deal comes down to him. He’s Fritzie Eckelkamp cut into Gelb, which takes him back to �
�31 and the gold job. He’s all over this whole thing, and I am currently doing everything within my power as a member of this white man’s police department to find him and have a long chat with him.”
Parker sighed and redonned his earmuffs. It cued the gang. Talk gets us nowhere. Let’s get back to work.
Elmer redonned his earmuffs. Kay and Buzz followed suit. Elmer fish-eyed Buzz. El Buzzo radiated the lynch mob gestalt. Buzz had Meyer Gelb on the brain. Ditto El Dudster. Buzz figured Dud would kill him soon. Buzz figured he should kill Dud first.
Elmer switched spools and spun spools and smoked himself hoarse. He played the analysand field. Orson Welles boo-hoo’d and bragged up his conquests. Claire De Haven boo-hoo’d and skewered Dudley Smith. The Maestro extolled the Bruckner symphonies and the upcoming “exile migration.” Elmer perked up and took note.
Well, shit. There’s Meyer Gelb, again.
Elmer pulled off his earmuffs. It cued the whole gang. Kay dumped her earmuffs. Parker and Buzz followed suit.
Elmer said, “Here’s the Maestro. He’s talking up his comrades Ruth Szigeti, the Koenigs, and old man Abromowitz. They’re being repatriated to L.A., and he wants to help out. Lesnick talks the Maestro into getting them jobs as movie-studio musicians, then says to have them keep their snouts down and report to Comrade Gelb.”
Buzz cracked his knuckles. “I intend to have words with that whipdick.”
Kay said, “That entails finding him first.”
Parker four-eyed Elmer. He tapped his wristwatch. We’ve got pressing biz downtown.
* * *
—
They reconvened outside the Fed Building. Elmer lapel-pinned his badge. Parker displayed his search warrant.
“A Fed district judge signed it. He’s an old law school classmate, and he hates Fey Edgar like death itself.”
Elmer skimmed the legalese. Limited premises/custody vault only/all wire recordings on-site. On-site listening consent granted/one day only.