This Storm

by James Ellroy

  The prelude deprotracted. Joe Hayes lit a cigarette. Shyster McBride lit a cigar. Parker pushed an ashtray across the table.

  “The Sinarquistas, Monsignor. Their leader, Salvador Abascal. They’re going on the Feds’ 1-A subversive list next month.”

  Hayes said, “I wouldn’t call them subversive. A great many Catholics support them, morally and financially, and I’m proud to stand among them. We’re not subversives—we’re just concerned Catholics, like you.”

  Parker said, “Like Dudley Smith?”

  “Yes, like Dudley.”

  McBride said, “Captain Parker’s a nonpracticing lawyer. I’ve got a hunch he’s about to introduce People’s Exhibit A.”

  Parker popped his briefcase. He pulled out a wire-player gizmo and plugged it into the wall. He tapped two switches. Hold tight, fuckers. Dud’s in the hot seat now.

  Mike Breuning and Ed Satterlee gabbed. Elmer gassed on the replay. Breuning finked El Dudster. Hayes got the scandal sheet already. This tapped call doubled it down.

  Wetbacks. Heroin. Jap slaves. Nazi fucks and Red fucks and a lost gold cache. Dud’s priest-killer snuffs.

  Hayes went pale. McBride went all flushed. Parker turned the gizmo off.

  “There are a few issues I’d like to discuss, Monsignor. Chiefly, your partial ownership of Bev’s Switchboard, and your Dresden Polytechnic alliance with Wallace Jamie, Mondo Díaz, and Juan Pimentel.”

  McBride shook his head. “Monsignor Hayes declines to answer.”

  Parker lit a cigarette. “Continuing, then. Bev’s Switchboard as a confirmed seditionist mail drop. Your own mail-drop collaborations, coded phone calls to a relay station in Ensenada, and the general range of your far-right, and/or far-left, alliances.”

  McBride said, “Monsignor Hayes declines to answer.”

  Hayes squirmed. He quick-lit a cigarette and fumbled the match. Elmer gassed on the show.

  Parker said, “Continuing, then. Mr. Abascal as a possible saboteur and/or seeker and hoarder of a gold cache stolen from a U.S. Mint train in 1931.”

  Elmer squirmed. That saboteur query ditzed him. Frankie Carbajal blabs at the sweep. El Salvy plans sabotage in the San Joaquin Valley. Him and Buzz held back the lead. It’s their fallback card. It’s insurance against all forms of censorious shit.

  Hayes and McBride huddled. They pressed heads. Whisper, whisper. Parker cleaned his glasses on his necktie. He looked devil-dog pissed.

  McBride said, “Monsignor Hayes will issue a blanket statement that addresses your last few points. No rebuttals, Captain. This is a police interview, not a courtroom proceeding.”

  Hayes said, “I would never condone sabotage. I seriously doubt that the Sinarquistas would ever perform it or even consider performing it. I have heard vague rumors as to a cache of gold, including the rumor that Salvy took possession of it, and somehow all of this pertains to a leftist-rightist cabal out to establish their postwar credentials, regardless of which side wins. Concludingly, let me state that these rumors impressed me as poppycock, and the Salvy I know would never collaborate with anyone on the Left.”

  Elmer relit a cigar. Fuck you, Father Joe. You speak with forked tongue.

  Parker said, “Continuing, then. A clubhouse on 46th Street, east of Central Avenue. Homosexual activity, on the premises. One Thomas Malcolm Glennon, one Robert Clinton Staley, a homosexual jazz musician and his known associate—a Japanese purveyor of fetishistic curios.”

  Hayes and McBride huddled. Whisper, whisper. They pressed heads again. McBride snapped his suspenders and kicked his chair back.

  “The Monsignor admits to intimate relationships with Tommy Glennon and Robby Staley. Should you be fishing for leads on the murders of Wendell Rice, George Kapek, and Arturo Archuleta, I’ll state that the monsignor has a beaut, and it’s yours for across-the-board immunity.”

  Parker went all Donald Duck. Steam hissed out his ears. His eyeballs popped in rage. His glasses fogged up.

  “DA McPherson has authorized me in that regard. I’m listening, Monsignor.”

  Hayes said, “I know of the musician, but I don’t know his name. His Japanese friend is named Johnny Shinura, and his curio business is located on East 2nd Street. The musician has a friend. She’s a high-strung woman, about twenty-eight years of age. I don’t know her name, either. Rice, Kapek, and Archuleta purportedly raped a woman at the klubhaus. I credit the rumor, but I don’t know the victim’s name. One might call rape a good motive for a triple homicide, although I’ve never seen the allure.”

  Elmer brain-drained the lead. It played good and backstopped Hideo Ashida. Hideo theorized a male-female deal.

  A Vice bull walked up a desk phone. He looked bored. The phone cord was stretched taut.

  “It’s Meeks. He sounds agitated.”

  Elmer snatched the receiver. “Yeah, boss.”

  Buzz said, “I found Meyer Gelb.”

  123

  (ENSENADA, 3:00 P.M., 4/8/42)

  AWOL. “Absent without official leave.” Abdication, flight, retreat.

  He trashed the squadroom four days back. He abandoned his command. SIS men witnessed his tantrum. He holed up with Constanza. They made love and sniffed cocaine. They donned Nazi uniforms and fondled his gold bayonet.

  He told her he killed Cruz-Caiz with it. She told him to kill her brother with it. She reprised haughty words.

  “I cannot truly give myself to a man as long as my brother remains alive.”

  Dudley drove the coast road north. Constanza left this morning. She flew back to La Paz. She has a chamber recital tonight. Call him the widower, adrift.

  Adrift, untethered, bereft.

  He assigned himself tasks. Make phone calls. Shore up the home front. Visit the dope ranch. Issue command directives. Visit the Jap holding pens. Hold sway over your peons. Return to duty, starched and pressed.

  Dudley cut inland. His phone task had backfired. He called Claire’s house in Beverly Hills. A maid brushed him off. He called Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle at home and got no answer. He called Beth at her real dad’s place in Vallejo. She hung up on him.

  He’d lost weight. His trousers hung slack. He stood two days awake. He’d brought Claire’s stash kit with him. He could geez and rest up at the ranch.

  Constanza called him an hour ago. She told him that Bev’s Switchboard had contacted her. Bev said she’d received a letter. He told Constanza to read it to him.

  She did. The note was ruler-block-printed. It restated a prior note she’d received.

  “I’ve got the minutes. I want ten thousand dollars. I’m tired of waiting. I’ll write again soon.”

  Dudley cut through scrub hills and desert patches. A warm wind kicked in. Tumbleweeds hit the car and caromed off. He ran a tumbleweed gauntlet. Tumbleweeds scraped the windshield and rendered him blind. He floored the gas and plowed past them. He got scared and went whee! and laughed.

  It hurt to laugh. He sounded shrill. Wisps passed in front of his eyes. The wind lulled and died. He saw the ranch up ahead. He saw cars he knew and cars he didn’t recognize.

  He pulled up and parked outside the lab hut. He saw the foreman’s car and the head chemist’s car. He saw no straw-boss jalopies. He saw a low-chopped ’40 Ford and a ’38 Packard. He smelled high-test gasoline fumes.

  He got out and stretched his legs. He unholstered his piece. He weaved and saw wisps, wisps, and wisps.

  The lab door flew open. The sound echoed loud. Three Blackshirt Staties walked toward him. He smelled burnt-almond fumes.

  Boots scuffed gravel behind him. The Wolf growled, out of nowhere. A wet rag smothered him and scoured out the wisps.

  * * *

  —

  Stench. Mildew and urine. Words—off to what we call left. Cognizance. Brain function. Spanish words. What we call language. Crackle sounds. What we call r
adio.

  “Bombing attacks.”

  “Suspected sabotage.”

  “Crop-farm acreage.”

  “San Joaquin Valley.”

  Cognizance. Scent. Of blood and entrails, of rancid fur. His face burned. Burnt almonds means a chloroform tincture. That’s brain function. It’s the will to forge thought and isolate sensation. It’s the ability to link sensation to thought.

  Dudley Liam Smith, you’ve been sandbagged. Dudley Liam Smith—you took a nap.

  He opened his eyes. He saw four squashed rats and his own bloody hands. Entrails and fur. Bite marks on his wrists. He’d squashed them himself.

  The Wolf licked his face. It revived him. The Wolf supplied a travelogue.

  We’re in the Statie barracks jail. Blackshirts commandeered your biz fronts. Japs, dope, wetbacks. You’ve been usurped.

  He kissed the Wolf and thanked him. The Wolf told him to torture and kill Meyer Gelb. Herr Gelb has the gold. Es la verdad. Kill Juan Lazaro-Schmidt. Constanza will leave us if you don’t.

  Cognizance. Brain function. They stole his gun, his watch, his money. He’s on a bare cement floor. Cognizance. Language. “Sabotage,” “San Joaquin Valley.” Brain function. The ability to extrapolate.

  You’re still exhausted. You remain impaired. Let the Wolf explicate here.

  Sid Hudgens spoke la verdad. Salvy Abascal has betrayed you. He smuggled saboteurs in with that last batch of wets. It’s why he refused to ride north. Salvy es El Grand Jefe de los Kameraden. You are a dupe of your own sentimentality. Trust wolves before you trust dashing and fawning young men.

  124

  KAY LAKE’S DIARY

  (LOS ANGELES, 7:00 P.M., 4/8/42)

  The Crash Squad HQ stood abandoned. Daily briefings had been discontinued; the report boards drooped off the walls. The once-hot cop murder job now ran parallel to cases going back eleven years. Attrition and factionalism had decimated the squad proper. Mike Lyman’s back room returned to what it once was: a rendezvous spot for married cops and their girlfriends.

  Like Bill Parker and me, drinking highballs and dining on cheese puffs. Meeting in cop-assigned places. Utilizing them as love shacks and hole-ups, where we hashed out What the hell is all this?

  Elmer was off somewhere; Buzz notched an address for Meyer Gelb and was staking out the location. He talked to that bail bondsman in San Francisco; the man kicked loose Leander Frechette’s address. The DA granted Joe Hayes immunity. The Japanese sword man was ID’d as Johnny Shinura. The invert white boy had a gal pal. Hideo Ashida considered them viable klubhaus suspects. Kyoho Hanamaka was dead. Hideo lied to Dudley. Sensei Death told me nothing. Hideo crossed the line over to God’s side.

  It might all be breaking. It might dwindle down to dashed leads and misinformation. None of us knew.

  We had the back room to ourselves. I wanted to head to our Ambassador spot and make love. Bill wanted to hash out What the hell is all this?

  I said, “Hideo wants to interview Frechette. It’s part and parcel of his forged-document deal.”

  Bill said, “We’ll have Lee bodyguard him. He can’t go to San Francisco alone.”

  “Hideo called me this morning. He’s completed the minutes, and he’ll be sending them along to the Lazaro-Schmidt woman.”

  Bill just nodded. I dug through his pants pockets and pulled out his cigarettes. It was a regular routine of ours; Bill always gasped.

  “Say something, please. It’s a nice breezy night, and I’m antsy.”

  Bill smiled. “Here’s two observations. First, you know how to get a man’s attention. Second, I need to have a talk with Buzz Meeks. He most certainly intends to kill Dudley, and I have to dissuade him, before he goes off half-cocked.”

  I laughed. The Teletype clacked and rolled paper; Bill got up and detached the sheet. He read through it and crossed himself.

  “It’s from Fourth Interceptor. They’re reporting multiple incidents of sabotage, up near Bakersfield. There’s three dead at a private-plane hangar. A garage filled with bomb materiel was blown up in Taft, with two more dead there. Maricopa’s got a Bund hall, arsoned. It was packed with illegal ordnance, and was torched to the ground.”

  I crossed myself. “It’s truck-farm country. Dudley’s running illegals up there.”

  * * *

  —

  Bill ran the full distance Code 3, lights and siren; we made the night trek to Kern County in probable record time. Bill called ahead and spoke to a Sheriff’s captain. The man said his Subversive Squad had raided the Bund hall on Pearl Harbor Day. The ordnance had remained on the premises; the county and the Feds were embroiled in a big jurisdictional brouhaha. The man closed with “If you’ve got questions, I might have some answers by the time you get up here. And there might be an L.A. angle on this thing.”

  Kern County was low, wide, and flat; U.S. 99 north cut straight through it. It was farm and oil country. Pump derricks stood tall; they framed the low-lying terrain. We crossed the Maricopa city limits and saw lights beamed up a half mile ahead. It had to be arc lamps at the arson scene. Bill sighted in on the glow and drove straight to it.

  Forty-odd lamps threw light on a half block torched to a husk. Rubble mounds stood ten feet high. Firemen probed them with axes and shovels. Bill parked beside a perimeter rope closing off a slew of fire trucks and prowl cars. The mounds hissed and spat embers. Uniformed deputies lounged around and watched.

  We got out and walked over to them; a tall man noticed us and ambled up. He said, “Captain Parker and Miss Lake, right? Who else could it be at this time of night?”

  Bill flashed his badge; the captain introduced himself as Bob Boyd and passed us calling cards and BIG BOB BOYD FOR SHERIFF campaign buttons. I pinned on my button; Big Bob all but swooned.

  He said, “Here’s what we’ve got, and here’s the consensus. We’ve got eight dead at three sites, with three holed-up winos fried in this Bund hall. We think some ex-caped wetbacks from some farms south of here are good for all three jobs. They took off just preceding the blasts, so that has to be it. We tossed out a dragnet right quick, and we snagged a hinky Mex named Mondo Díaz at the Bakersfield bus depot. We ran a subversive-sheet check on him, and damned if he didn’t get nailed by your police department just recently. He bailed into Federal custody, hightailed to Mexico, then made his way back here. He’s not a righteous wet—but we think he’s the ringleader of these bomb-tossing sacks of shit. We leaned on him at the county jail, and he admitted as much. He’s in with some Nazi beaners called the Sinarquistas, so why they’d want to up and bomb a Bund hall, I’ll never know.”

  Bill said, “Plant Mr. Díaz in a sweatbox, Captain. I’d like to have a few words with him.”

  * * *

  —

  The All-Star PD hits Kern County. Big Bob Boyd proves himself a most gracious host.

  The Sheriff’s Detective Bureau hopped at midnight. Off-duty deputies showed up for the show. They brought their wives and girlfriends; they were all Big Bob supporters and inclined to think I was swell. The incumbent Sheriff, “Kickback” Kit Denkins, was a notorious no-goodnik. He took bribes from crooked building contractors and solicited high school girls for their soiled underwear. Big Bob was running an insurgent campaign against him. He called up a group of his partisans and suggested a hoedown. The bite was a dollar a head. All the proceeds went to his campaign pot. Big Bob provided corn liquor and potato chips. Plus a gallery peek at the Bill Parker–Mondo Díaz tiff.

  The gang convened in sweatbox #2. A see-thru mirror framed booth #1. I dropped a ten-spot in the kitty and drew a round of applause. It was an SRO crowd: eighteen deputies and their dates. Big Bob joined his fans. He jacked up the volume on the wall speaker and supplied us with swell front-row seats.

  Bill and Mondo Díaz sat at the #1 table. Why mince words? Díaz looked beat to shit. The gang tossed back corn-liqu
or shots. A preperformance hush enveloped us. We crowded up to the see-thru and watched.

  Bill dispensed commiseration. Those hayseed cops sure thumped you. I don’t feature that, myself. Mondo, you’re looking at a gas-chamber bounce. We’ve got you for eight counts of Murder One, easy. Plus capital-charge sedition and treason. You’ll suck gas inside six months.

  The gang cheered. “Suck gas” spurred the ovation.

  Díaz said, “Your mama sucks Chihuahua dicks.”

  The gang booed. “Chihuahua dicks” spurred the response.

  Bill pulled out his pocket flask and urged Díaz to take a few pops. The gang rumbled; they admired the ploy; the city-slicker cop knew his stuff.

  Díaz chugalugged Old Crow. Bill spoon-fed him. Things look grim, Mondo. I won’t lie to you there. One hand washes the other. There’s a few things I’d like to know about Salvy Abascal and the Sinarquistas. If you’ll provide a few answers, I’ll see what I can do for you.

  Díaz said, “Okay, pendejo. Ask me something simple first, so I don’t get all gun-shy talking to you.”

  Bill slid his cigarettes across the table. He smiled as Díaz lit up.

  So, Mondo. Tell me this, Mondo. Why would a right-wing cabal like the Sinarquistas blow up a Bund hall? I’m perplexed, Mondo. I’m out of my depth here. Call me a pendejo—but you’re taking me beyond my ken.

  Díaz killed off the flask. Entranced cops pressed up to the see-thru and left nose prints on the glass.

  “Here’s your primer on the new dialectic, pendejo. Sinarquismo’s left as much as it’s right. Suppose I told you La Causa’s financed by the NKVD, out of Moscow? Suppose I told you the Hitler boys contribute to the Redshirt Brigade in Ensenada? Suppose I quote this Greek guy, Aristophanes? He said, ‘Whirl is king.’ ”

  A fat deputy said, “What’s ‘dialectic’?”

  Big Bob said, “This guy’s the guy talking Greek, not that Aristo-whoever guy.”