This Storm

by James Ellroy

Juan Pimentel has chartered a twin-engine plane. They’ll cruise the coastline later today. They’ll scan for sub berths and dip south to Magdalena Bay. They’ll swoop by the

Wolf said something’s troubling my old pal Dudley Smith. There’s a backhouse/klubhaus on East 46th. Herr Dudley thinks someone’s mentioned it before. He can’t dredge the memory. What say ye to this? The Jap

Hector Obregon-Hodaka blabbed to the Dudster. He mentioned the klubhaus and wild goings-on there. He said two rogue cops ruled the roost. All hail the Wolf. The Wolf retrieved that lost memory.

Hector’s a Kyoho Hanamaka KA. He’ll photostat Hector’s Statie print card. He’ll get it to Hideo Ashida. Hideo will redust

the klubhaus and try to fix Hector’s presence there. Mike

Lieutenant Juan flew low. The Army supplied a twin Beechcraft and all-purpose weaponry. Flamethrowers, tommy guns, grenades. They hugged the coastline. Dudley binocular-scanned. The cockpit was sun bright and altitude cold. Dudley sat behind the pilot’s seat and peered out. He marked latitudes on a relief map. He X’d coves and inlets and saw no signs of life. They flew south. Dudley scanned fishing boats. They featured all-Mex crews and came off kosher. Lieutenant Juan refueled the plane

beyond. Then—bip!—there’s this lone Jap. He’s

Wavelets doused them knee-high. They walked north. Wet sand sucked at their feet. They approached the inlet. It fronted a cove cave. Dudley saw fishing-net drag marks. Dudley heard jabber: Mex, Jap, Mex. They

saw them then. Thirty-odd souls. Fifth Column familia. Half Jap and half Mex. Right there in front: Hector Obregon-Hodaka, himself. Lieutenant Juan kicked a rock, inadvertent. The noise echo-chambered. La familia turned and looked. Hector looked straight at Dudley and pulled a waistband piece. Lieutenant Juan aimed and cut loose. Flames shot up and out. They hit Hector. He screamed and went all bugshit on fire. Lieutenant

Lieutenant Juan hit the on switch. Flames shot up and out. He fried each and every one of them alive.

(LOS ANGELES, 8:00 A.M., 1/31/42) Crash Squad confab. Jack Horrall’s office.

hand. “I found large quantities of carbolic acid in the three

victims’ livers. This indicates that the terp they were smoking just prior to their deaths had been spiked. They were deliberately poisoned—but organ saturation indicates that all three men were habitual terp smokers.” Call-Me-Jack

under a piece of carpet upstairs. Ray Pinker swooped by and dusted it for me. He turned up two latents. They match to a hot-prowl hump named Tommy Glennon.” Breuning

Thad Brown said, “Jackson, Blanchard, Meeks. You take the address book. Jump on the names, jump on Glennon, and jump on all of it now.” Call-Me-Jack yawned. I’m half-gassed, I need a nap, you’re wearing me thin. “Get out

and slipped Joan a note. It read “Tonight?” Joan whistled and brought him up short. Parker turned and faced her. Heads shot their way. Joan spoke full vibrato. Damn circumspection. Let the world know. “Yes, Bill. I’d love to see you tonight.” — The all-clear

I was being tried for vehicular manslaughter, and the DA asked me if I knew the names of the victims. I said, ‘Well, my policeman colleagues call them wetbacks and cholos.’ ” Parker touched her hair. “Don’t do that. Don’t derail yourself when things start going your way.” Joan kissed his hand and placed it back on his knee. A searchlight beam crossed the moon. Joan saw little craters. She left City Hall and drove back to the klubhaus. She redusted and rephotographed all day. She hadn’t seen the Santa Barbara file. Ashida was there all day. He hadn’t seen it, either. Parker tapped her shoulder. “You’ve developed

pulled him back up. She brought him in close. They kissed. His glasses snagged in her hair. They stumbled inside and into the bedroom. They knocked over a wobbly lamp as they fell.

(LOS ANGELES, 5:00 A.M., 2/1/42) Ashida dawdled. He felt gob-smacked. It felt indolent and all wrong. He made beaker-brew coffee. It salved

Dudley ordered stingers. Ashida felt like a girl plied with booze. Dudley brought a Statie print card. Hector Obregon-Hodaka/Kyoho Hanamaka’s KA. The klubhaus job dips south. It melds

with Hanamaka and his gold bayonet. The bayonet’s mint marks match the marks on his gold bar. The mint-train heist and Griffith Park fire further intersect. Ashida cracked windows. Cold air fanned a lab-solvent

Joan was Dudley’s lover. He saw them together and sensed it. They had to disclose everything. They had to share the gold, three ways. Rain bounced off window screens. The coffee induced

the klubhaus. He had three lab tasks first. Test the semen-stained sheets. Run the Mexican’s prints. Study the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s heist file. Hope that Reckless Girl hasn’t studied it first. He’d blood-typed the ejaculate and ID’d four secretors. Two O-positive/one A-negative/one rare RH-positive. Dr. Nort would comparison-type the victims’ blood types. He was set to run foreign-substance tests himself. He prepped

Ashida noted swirling particles. One type was dark and granular. One type was viscous and near-transparent. He naked-eyed them. They were forensically compatible and easily ID’d. Human fecal matter. A glycerin-based lubricant. Most likely K-Y jelly. Ashida flinched. He turned off the burner and set the other swatches aside. He wide-cracked windows. A wet breeze raised goose bumps. He pulled the Unknown Mexican print card. Drudgework now. The

name. He studied nine more Alvarez cards. He hit Archuleta, Arturo, aka “Archie.” There’s a tweaker. Check the left-forefinger print.

match. Ashida snatched his eyepiece scope. He went up/down,

cinched it. Bam!—Archie

Archuleta was klubhaus stiff #3. The lab went sauna hot. Ashida cracked all the windows.

A to B file drawer and finger-walked. He pulled Archuleta’s green sheet. It revealed this:

Born: Tijuana, Mexico—8/19/89. Narco jolts back to ’15. Two years at the dope hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Two Chino terms here. Popped for plain drunk/drunk 502/forging doctors’ scripts. 27 dope rousts, total. LKA: 841 Wabash, Boyle Heights. No KAs listed. Last bounce: drunk 502/3-6-39. Popped in ’35 Ford/59th and Central. Ashida wrote up his findings. He’d call Thad Brown

heavy. He checked the bottom of the pile and saw loose paperwork. It pertained to the ’33 liquor-store jobs. Robbery Division weighs in. Reckless Girl forged a file-request slip. She was Sloppy Girl here. His forgeries surpassed hers. Her “Ray Pinker” sigs looked like tomb hieroglyphs. Ashida skimmed the heist file. It detailed the mint train’s Santa Barbara

stop. It featured Leander Frechette and Deputy Karl Tullock. Negro youth Frechette. He’s six-eight and weighs 340. He’s mentally dim and inhumanely strong. The Santa Barbara cops posit this: The gold-cage lock was removed. A look-alike lock was cosmetically affixed. Just enough gold was clouted. The low bar count ensured that the cache would not appear ransacked. The bars were wheeled off, walked off, or tossed off the train. Waiting confederates grabbed them. The cops canned the toss-off theory. It entailed confederates in moving surveillance. Said confederates could not know this: When the gold-cage walkway would stand unobserved. When the theft and toss-off would occur. The cops

the bars meant this: The thief is exceptionally large and strong. He hides the bars on his person and obfuscates the load. He walks on and off the train. His confederates grab the gold. It’s a stop-for-coal stop. The eight convicts escape precedingly. The overall atmosphere remains chaotically charged. It obscures the thief’s actions. One train worker possesses just such strength and bulk. It’s Leander Frechette. Deputy Karl Tullock has at him. Tullock badgers and beats on Frechette. Leander holds firm. I didn’t do it/I don’t

know who did it/I don’t know nothing. Frechette remains in stir. A Negro man named Martin Luther Mimms secures his release. Mimms is tight with L.A. Police high-ups. Frechette is released to his custody. Ashida kicked it around. This seemed certain now: The mass escape and train heist comprised one event. The two repair stops were caused by staged mechanical glitches. It all cohered behind Fritz Eckelkamp. He escapes and remains at large. He was a career heist man. The other escaped cons are shot on sight. It feels like preengendered chaos. Cut to the klubhaus job. Hector Obregon-Hodaka laid the haus gestalt out to Dudley. Hector knew Kyoho Hanamaka. Hanamaka’s gold bayonet: cast from the same ore as the bars on the train. This seems certain now:

Eckelkamp, the German Marxist. Hanamaka, the left-right horror connoisseur. The klubhaus as haunt of debauched politicos. There’s a stench here. It’s Fifth Column mischief couched in criminal greed. Two mug shots were clipped to the file. Fritz Eckelkamp looked Teutonic fierce. Leander Frechette looked bewildered. Ashida jumped files. He went gold heist to liquor-store jobs in one heartbeat. He saw the witness-composite sketch. He saw a list of look...

(LOS ANGELES, 10:00 A.M., 2/1/42) The boys are back in town. That bluegrass ditty nailed them. The

widows. It revealed this: Call-Me-Jack pulled Rice’s and Kapek’s Personnel files. Them boys were just toooooooo dirty. Dirt leaks might besmirch the PD. Their bust lists were in those files. The

Rice pimped his wife to cover his poker debts. Rice fathered Kapek’s three kids, and vice versa. The widows were lezbo lovers and turned dyke tricks out of Linda’s Little Log Cabin. Rice and Kapek filmed their antics and peddled the lez epics down in T.J. The widows evicted their hubbies at least

Widow Rice said he bought it from some right-wing geek in Minnesota. Georgie Kapek possessed twenty-six incendiary bombs. The Widow Kapek called him a “Secret Firebug.” Georgie possessed two terp stills and thirty-four back issues of Goldlover Magazine. Georgie’s swag gored Elmer’s gourd. He knew he’d seen similar shit somewhere. It hit him belated: The late Don Matsura owned that selfsame shit. Terp stills and Goldlover Magazine. Elmer

That approach tanked. They braced the watch boss at Newton Station then. They pressed on complaints levied against the klubhaus. Nope—there were none. That approach tanked, likewise. Buzz said, “That’s the address.” Elmer

companions. Water seeks its own level. He was a pendejo and a borracho. He snitched to the police and mainlined the white horse. You pay the piper, the piper calls the tune. You buy trouble, you get what you pay for.” Buzz

grass, but I told him ‘Don’t you bring no mice home to me.’ ” Elmer said, “Archie must have had himself a parole officer. He’d have known Archie’s associates.” “He always

Arturo knew his way around C-town and J-town. He sought most of his trouble there. ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ He sold his dope and bought his dope there, and he snitched to these two Alien Squad bulls who worked around there. He knew lots of tong men, crooked Japs, and these Jap Fifth Column types. He bought these Nazi-type trinkets from some Jap, and he sold them to the zoot-suit pendejos here in the Heights.” Elmer said, “Is that the Sinarquistas you’re talking about?”

“Give us some names, mama. Feed these two weary dogs a bone.” “I don’t got no names. I know Arturo went back with them Alien Squad bulls, to when they worked the Narco Detail. Arturo said, ‘Better to snitch to the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.’ ” Rice and Kapek worked Narco. They allegedly grafted there. It was pre-established drift. Elmer teethed his cigar. “What else can you tell

“Arturo said he only snitched off one real Fifth Column fool. Some fool white boy named Huey Cressmeyer. The Alien Squad bulls said, ‘Huey’s sacrosanct. He’s got high-up friends, and he’s our pal.’ ”

(LOS ANGELES, 5:00 P.M., 2/1/42) Call-Me-Jack shagged phone calls. He lived

Mike reported this: Tommy Glennon’s address book appeared at the klubhaus. It contained Huey Cressmeyer’s name. Ditto Lin Chung’s name and Saul Lesnick’s name. Plus more provocative listings. Chung and Lesnick were Watanabe-case adjunct. That mandated discretion. Huey was a glue addict and plainly psychopathic. That mandated a T.J. retreat.

“Jim Davis killed the Watanabes. Bill Parker put it together. Jim confessed to him in late December, and unburdened himself to me more recently. I’m assuming that no one else knows. That stated, I should

Dare I say that we need to be careful here?” Jack went deep-vein

call. “Adjudicate this thing with Parker, Dud. Make whatever concessions you deem necessary. Brace Jim D. and tell that lunatic cocksucker in no uncertain terms to keep his fucking mouth shut. As for the klubhaus job, I’ll state this. We need a clean solve and dead suspects who’ll never enter a courtroom. Keep that in mind, along with this. Do whatever you deem necessary