This Storm

by James Ellroy

Claire pointed to Vasquez-Cruz. “I’ve seen him before. I know it.” Dudley

Dudley said, “I’m going to have her tailed.”

and went whee! A man stepped in front of them. He moved alleyway to lamplight. He was unkempt and looked dissolute. He verged on raggedy-ass. He’s got a revolver. He’s aiming it. It’s a hand cannon. The hammer’s cocked. He yelled slogans. They were nonsensical.

The Slogan Man blew up. Such blood you’ve never seen. The scraps disemboweled him. His gun arm severed and flew. Claire and Young Joan fell back. Dudley body-blocked them and covered their eyes. The Sleek Man dipped his fingers in the Slogan Man’s blood. He said, “Comunista.” He spat on the corpse. He saluted Dudley and ran off. — Opium.

He drove to L.A., impromptu. He wanted to see Mike and Dick. He wanted to see Jim Davis. He wanted to conspire with Ace and cultivate Hideo Ashida. Dudley smoked opium. He dipped elsewhere.

A garland of swastikas. An “SQ” wrapped in coiled snakes. The Slogan Man remains unidentified. The Sleek Man, likewise. The attack might be premeditated. The attack might be happenstance.

Ed Satterlee wrote it. Now, hear this: The rumors persist. Coded phone calls have been received. There’s been L.A. pay-phone to Baja pay-phone traffic. The Baja pay phone was tapped and thence transcribed. This was revealed: There are hidden Jap airfields in San Berdoo County. No exact locations have been determined. Indio and Brawley are both rumored. He should talk to Juan Pimentel. Juan developed the phone-tap technique. Opium. The tar, the match, the pipe. His mind untethered, his imagination adrift. He pictured a lineup stage. The lights remain bright. The height strips extend. The dead and the missing stand tall. Eddie Leng and Donald Matsura. Tommy Glennon and Kyoho Hanamaka. They burn under stage lights. He interrogates them. They reveal their interconnectedness and tell him nothing

He’s mentored Elmer Jackson and Whiskey Bill Parker. They dined at Kwan’s. Jim slurped shark-fin soup. His color was off. Malaria yellow meets dead-man gray. “I was hoping

“For you the world, Dud. You say ‘Jump,’ I say ‘How high?’ ” Dudley sipped tea. “Keep your snout down. There appears to be a Chink and Jap Fifth Column play afoot.” Jim

Jim fidgeted. He blotted his necktie and pushed his soup bowl away. “I’m going batshit, Dud. I’ll blow a gasket if I don’t tell someone.” “Tell them what, Jim?” “That Werewolf creep’s no killer. I killed the Watanabes.”

(LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42)

think. That fire drove her to this riddle of two intertwined deaths. The possible-probable arson and the mint-train heist merged there. The gold symbolized her blown shot at the war. She’s a treasure hunter.

She bought herself solid-gold cuff links. They cost half a week’s pay. She found treasure magazines in a used bookshop. She fell prey to Congolese diamonds and man-eating pygmies. She succumbed to gold artifacts in Malaysian caves. She’s a scientist. She stood outside her fixation and watched herself swirl. She’s a sensationalist. She fell prey because it felt good.

No leads surfaced there. She’s logged morgue time with Dr. Nort Layman. No further leads surfaced. Dr. Nort formalized it. Karl Tullock is the man in the box. The downtown

tracts. Ashida translates the tracts. She transcribes the dreary content. They run ballistics tests on impounded guns and compare the results to custody pieces. They dismantle appliances and look for hidden explosives. They’ve found none to date. The squad

She understands men. They’re seducible. Hideo Ashida is not. She

Rumor: Kay Lake tears through men. Ask the long-aggrieved Lee Blanchard. Rumor: Kay and Whiskey Bill are yet to consummate. Rumor: Kay Lake shivved a bull dyke cop named Dot Rothstein. Dot’s pal Dudley Smith nixed reprisals. Rumor: Bill Parker and “Big Red” are madly enjoined. No, it’s not true. He’s an alcoholic voyeur. He abbreviates his marital

Allen witnessed that last kiss. He isn’t tall and handsome. His Catholicism gores her Protestant core. His wild grit mirrors her own and almost makes her love him. Bill Parker

great sin of omission. They were half-gassed at Lyman’s. He told her that Two-Gun Davis killed the four Watanabes. Davis sat at the bar, a few feet away. Parker solved the crime himself. Davis confessed to him. Parker withheld the solution from the at-large PD. The crime derived from Fifth Column intrigue. Davis acted alone. His lunatic cohort did not participate. Rich America Firsters roamed the periphery. Japanese and Chinese saboteurs joined them. The band redefined Treasonous Alliance. There was a Chinese physician. He was a plastic surgeon/eugenicist and very right-wing. There was a Beverly Hills psychiatrist. He was very left-wing. He pandered to film stars and socialites and snitched them off to the Feds. Parker devastated

She relented. Her protty guilt pushed her back. She got drunk and plowed the Mexicans. That meant two four-count indictments. Four dead wetbacks and four dead Watanabes. It was

They bagged a terpin hydrate still. The owner killed himself at the Lincoln Heights Jail. She filched a dozen terp vials from Don Matsura’s apartment. She wanted to experience the effect. She consumed two vials in the back room at Lyman’s. She entered a vivid dream state. She saw forest fires near Tomah, Wisconsin. She shotgunned a drunken Indian. She woke up on the couch. Dudley Smith looked down at her. He said, “Hello, lass.

(LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42) Gold. He stole the bar and stashed it in his hotel suite. He kept the key and called Lock-Ur-Self Storage. He learned the provenance of locker 648. It was a permanent rental. A “John Jones” paid

his evidence kit. He print-dusted 648 and got smudges and rubber-glove prints. Dead end.

He’s far ahead of her there. The gold. It’s Joan’s idée fixe. She wears gold cuff links. She works in the lab and fondles them constantly. She’s clocked him clocking

suspicions reverberate both ways. She’s seen all the reports and news clips that he’s seen. She queried him per his ballistics tests. He laid out the liquor-store spree. Joan extrapolated. She said, “Fritz Eckelkamp. Liquor stores were his métier.”

He subtly pumped Elmer Jackson. He quizzed him per Wayne Frank’s death and gold idée fixe. He curveballed “Karl Frederick Tullock.” Elmer deadpanned the name. Wayne Frank and Karl Tullock. This simple conclusion. They converged in Griffith Park that day. This less simple question perplexed him. The gold nugget in Tullock’s trouser cuff. How did it get there? He sought to buttress his fire-case logic. He set out to establish a certain Box Man ID. He recalled gossip. The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Bertillon-charted their deputies. The men were comprehensively measured. Hand spans/arm and leg lengths/twelve phrenological marks. He could measure Box Man. He would measure up or he would not. He

consulted the Bertillon chart and duplicated the measurement regime. He measured hand spans/arm lengths/distances between toes. He tape-wrapped the skull and plumbed the occipital sockets. Box Man and Chart Man measured up exactly. October 3, ’33. The two gold seekers converge in Griffith Park and die there that day. Those are facts. The rest is conjecture. He tracked conjectural logic. It led him back to the ballistics bulletins. He’d studied the spent lodged in Karl Tullock’s skull. He got that partial lands-and-grooves read. It partially matched the liquor-store spents. He

the ’33 liquor-store spree. He saw an eyeball-witness sketch. It vaguely resembled Elmer’s Wayne Frank wallet pic. He

It was pure shitwork. He hit a July ’33 box. He caught a “Jackson, Wayne Frank” file tab. Wayne Frank sustained a vag roust. Note the attached mug shot. It’s a more than vague/half-ass-good match. It veers toward the liquor-store sketch. Tell Joan

The gold is your racial bargaining chip. You diverge in moral intent. She’s a round-heeled girl out for kicks. You’re out to ensure your family’s freedom. You converge as scientists. You both love gold as an entity. He went to a jeweler’s. He bought two solid-gold second lieutenant’s bars. They brought Dudley Smith to mind. They warned him of Joan Conville. They told him not to underestimate her. She’s gifted

Brace Elmer J. Find out what he’s doing. Bring up Tommy Glennon. Mention Eddie Leng and Donald Matsura. Don’t forget the sketchy Lin Chung. He quizzed Elmer. He was subtle. Elmer sloughed him off. He told Dudley that Elmer felt clean. He said the Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung alliance felt Fifth Column. Dudley told him to scour J-town for Kyoho Hanamaka. He’s dubbed Hanamaka Baja’s spy king. Hanamaka runs Baja’s boss saboteur cell. Dudley wants to extort the cell and limit the extent of their damage. Baja suits

“I’ve heard that Bill Parker and your colleague Joan Conville make quite the pair. I met lovely Joan at Lyman’s recently, and became somewhat entranced. Any friend of Bill Parker’s merits my attention. Please keep me apprised of Miss Conville’s activities.” Dudley denotes equal measure. You love him and fear him proportionately. You submit

(LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42) He’s scared. It crept up, belated.

Well, it’s my case, hound. It’s my very own big-deal investigation. That means Glennon/Leng/Matsura/Chung et al. I’ve got to wrap it up for some special woman—and Dud just got in the way. Who’s the

He’s scared. He’s restless. Diverse shit’s coming and going. The Box Man job went pffft. Dr. Nort, Big Joan, and Hideo did what they could. He retooled memory lane and jawed with Wayne Frank in his dreams. But Wayne Frank’s still dead and buried. Who’s the Box Man? Who gives a shimmering shit?

will it go? He’s got address-book names. Tommy G.’s oddball KAs. We’ll start with Monsignor Joe Hayes. He’s a mick priest and Dudster KA. That tong rumor: “Tommy’s poking some priest.” There’s this Jean Staley twist. He ran her through R & I. File checks revealed this: She’s thirty-three. She’s a carhop. She fell behind maryjane, back in ’36. She did six months honor farm and thenceforth kept her snout clean. He might brace her. She might tattle Tommy for some scurvy misdeeds. She might be bored and het up and sleep with him. Ed Satterlee might roust Huey Cressmeyer.

afield. Plus, new folks orbiting through. There’s Hideo Ashida. He’s all-time tight with El Dudley. There’s Big Joan. She allegedly scares Hideo. Joan haunts Lyman’s and trades looks with Kay Lake.

The war’s got folks calculating. Brenda’s pulling away from him. Ellen’s veering back to her husband. Hideo’s running off to Baja. The Dudster’s got his hooks in deep. Hideo’s feeling his oats.

(BAJA AND LOS ANGELES, 1/9–1/23/42) He can’t shake the thought. He

CATASTROPHE. Jim Davis slaughters four Japs. He tells his ex-adjutant. Bill Parker keeps mum, so far as we know. Parker is a grandiose drunk. He’s remorseful and suffused with blind ambition. He probably won’t blab. Jim Davis has blabbed twice already. A gaudy psychopath seeks absolution. Father D. L. Smith grants it. He now knows this: Lin Chung was privy to the Watanabe snuffs. Ditto Claire’s doctor chum, Saul

Lesnick. Jim Davis runs amok. The local Fifth Column bodes, crazily diffuse and politically inclusive. He’s scared. ...

He’d face criminal indictment. He’d forfeit his Army commission. His dear Claire would disavow him. He’d stand condemned. He’s scared.

compensates. He discussed the pay-phone taps with Juan Pimentel. The deciphered codes suggest Jap air bases in San Berdoo County. The specific wording suggests rumor more than hard fact. He forwarded the allegation to Fourth Interceptor. They

knew the rumor already. They considered it hogwash. José Vasquez-Cruz considers it hogwash. He’s got a brand-new hobbyhorse. He wants to infiltrate U.S. diplomatic junkets. The notion c...

Claire finds Vasquez-Cruz suspicious and attractive. They danced, hands on hips. Captain

Young Joan steals from stores. He’s spot-tailed her and observed her thefts. She consigns junk jewelry to street vendors and takes a quarter cut. She’s a petty thief and seasoned prevaricator. He was killing British soldiers at her age. He likes the girl nonetheless. He likes Juan Pimentel. Lieutenant Juan is competent and adroit. He watchdogs Kyoho Hanamaka’s hideaway. He sees Captain Smith visit the premises. Captain Smith locks himself

The bayonet consoles and confounds him. He’s run a magnifying glass down the whole length. He picked up the probable remnants of U.S. mint marks. Buff-out marks also appear. The provenance. That’s what confounds him. FDR banned gold hoarding back in ’33. The dictate was widely ignored. Let’s indulge fantasy here. There’s a wealthy U.S. fascist. He employs an artisan. A gold bar is cut into bayonet shape. It makes its way to the Fatherland and Kyoho Hanamaka. Fetishistic horror ensues. Provenance.

FE

chaos. A man tried to kill him. That made two attempts in two months. He scanned Statie mug-shot books. He ID’d his second would-be assassin. The Slogan Man. Victor Trejo Caiz. Born Calexico, 1901.

The Sleek Man killed him. He mug-shot ID’d the Sleek Man. He’s one Salvador Abascal. The Sinarquista Führer. Born 1910. Blood foe of all Reds and anticlerical slime. Devout Catholic hegemonist. Fiery supporter of the Irish Republican cause. A man

Jackson seems to have curtailed his rogue antics. The Baja Jap roundups proceed. Two more L.A.-to-Baja pay-phone calls have hit. They were decoded. Sub berths were abstractly discussed. No exact locations or coordinates