This Storm

by James Ellroy

“Was the doctor Saul Lesnick?” Elmer relit his cigar. “He’s a Fed snitch.

His handler’s keeping tabs on him, and he needed me to fill in with the camera. He thinks Lesnick’s prone to blab to young tail.” Kay mulled it. Elmer heard her gears click. She

Annie Staples had green eyes. She ran 5'10"/150. She induced loooooooow growls. They coupled at Brenda’s fuck flop. Elmer made it laaaaast. They basked naked afterward. Elmer lay supine. Annie sat cross-legged on the sheets. She sipped

wouldn’t say Ed’s all that crass.” Annie lit a cigarette. “All right. I’ll concede that Ed’s got me working Saul. He’s a

He dialed their eyes tight. “I want to know whatever that woman Claire De Haven and her cop boyfriend say about me, a woman named Kay Lake, and possibly a kid named Tommy Glennon. Old Saul

(TIJUANA, 2:00 P.M., 1/28/42) “Hirohito’s hellions

Colored Commissar Paul Robeson true?” Charging Charlie Coughlin. Uproarious in short doses. T.J. by way of his Detroit parish and the Emerald Isle. Pope Pius pulled his U.S. show. The padre ran rogue and popped south. The Mex right wing loved him.

links. He watched her unfasten them. He didn’t crave gold as gold or money. The bayonet’s provenance now bored him. He wanted to know who it killed. Only Herr Hanamaka could tell him that. Joan

Her father burned to death. It might have been arson. He wanted to find the killer and offer him to Joan. She’d wield the gold bayonet. Father Coughlin went reverential. His voice

him. The two embraced. Aaay, caramba. Es El Flaco Explosivo. It’s the Sleek Man himself. He dressed pure Greenshirt. He wore jackboots and the coiled-snake armband. He looked through the glass wall and saluted El Dudster. Dudley stood and saluted him back. Salvador

(LOS ANGELES, 7:00 P.M., 1/28/42) Star-studded bash meets field

bayonet. Possible mint marks. A raised swastika. She studies Ashida as he studies her. It’s a holy shit moment. Ashida photographs the bayonet. It’s evidence now. Joan stretched

It’s a two-car caravan. It’s heading west through Beverly Hills. It’s all voyeuristic and inconsequential. Joan reviewed

Hudgens penned it. He laid in a sidebar on Claire De Haven.

Dudley’s screwball lover. A “former Las Madrinas Ball debutante.” “Scrupulously scrutinized in 1940. State HUAC reads Red Claire the ripe riot act.” Claire looked highborn and haughty. Buzz Meeks dished her at Lyman’s. He s...

Claire evinced screechy nerves. She fretted a handkerchief. Her eyes darted. Guests swirled by her. Joan saw her eyes land. On a small

He sported a Sigmund Freud beard. He held a doctor’s bag. He pontificated on overdrive. A big blond girl cleaved close to him. She wore a tweed skirt and a brown crewneck sweater. She wore prep-school saddle shoes. Joan

The Chinaman gasbagged. Joan heard “Hitler”/“Waffen-SS”/“racial science.” Words devolved to jabber. Lesnick said, “Slow down, Lin. I know some French, but I don’t know Chinese.” Lin laughed. “Two-Gun Davis speak Chinese. Not you. Chinese new master race. They fix your Jew wagon.”

Lesnick laughed. The Davis crack ditzed Joan. The whole exchange warped in weird. Someone told her something pertinent. Some Lyman’s barfly. The exact source eluded her. Claire

A guesthouse stood by the back fence. Lesnick led Claire over and in. Joan caught up and peeped a side window. She caught an eye track inside and saw this: Lesnick opens his bag. He pulls out a hypo and jabs a vial of morphine sulfate. Claire rolls up her left sleeve. Lesnick ties a silk-sash tourniquet. Claire shuts her eyes. Lesnick dips a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol. Claire trembles. Lesnick swabs her arm and injects her. Joan walked off. She got the Sad-as-Shit Blues and

“I saw you watching my father. He was talking to that Nazi Chink.” “It’s Miss Lesnick, is it?” “It’s Andrea, or 19832040. That was my booking number at Tehachapi. I married a butch while I was inside, so that would have made me Mrs. Cahill. It wasn’t a real marriage, but it kept the really bad girls off of me.” The

“He supplies a Communist lady named Claire. She throws the best parties, because she’s really rich, and a faux Communist. He tattles her to the Feds, and shares it with me. He showed me a naughty film she was in. She had a scene with an actor named ‘Captain Hook.’ He had this big you know what, shaped like a dousing rod.” Kay walked

Chinese quack hobknob with a famous clinician. She made him. It was Terry Lux—“Plastic Surgeon to the Stars.” Sid Hudgens called him “Herr Eugenics.” Joan

The blond went Oh shit and futzed with a microphone taped to her bra. Bombs away: Joan walked back to the house. Loudspeakers blared Tannhäuser. The ten thousand guests went rouge-cheek opera buffa. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya bushwhacked her. They German-jabbered. They dragged her to a book nook. A projector and movie screen were set

Barbara Stanwyck fellated Walter Pidgeon. Carole Lombard and Anna May Wong went 69. Fredric March keestered Norma Shearer. A German shepherd scoped

Joan pulled up a chair. The woman was dark-haired and wore klutzy glasses. The man was tall and gone to fat. He wore a Spanish Loyalist greatcoat and tuxedo pants. Supplicants buzzed the clique. Lesnick played emcee. He introduced the woman. Her name was Jean Staley. The man got no

intros. His coat did the job. The supplicants fawned. He was “our Meyer” and “Comrade Gelb.” He stood up and embraced his fans. He employed the Spanish-style abrazo. Joan saw his burn-scarred hands. She nailed the full gist then. The fire. L.A. Times coverage. Meyer Gelb fronts the Young Socialist Alliance. The Pershing Square orator. His public rants precede the blaze. Joan

money in it.” “I was quite young when I heard that speech. High school girls are impressionable, and it was very hot that day. I’ll chalk this chance meeting up to disillusionment. You were someone aflame with purpose then, and you’re someone bitter now.” Gelb lit a cigarette. He blew smoke too close to her face. “You’ve

“It was ’33, Comrade. I remember the time vividly. The Griffith Park fire occurred a few days after your speech. My father was a greenskeeper on the golf course. He was lucky to escape with his life.” Gelb twitched and flicked his cigarette. It hit damp grass and fizzled. Joan said, “It was ‘a low, dishonest decade.’ That’s another line you could have stolen from Auden. ‘This storm, this savaging disaster’ has got more punch, but the former acknowledges History, which I know you Red shitheels deem essential.” Gelb balled

Claire said, “Orson’s set to tour Latin America. Our faux-left president has him eating out of the palm of his hand. It’s a cultural mission. Orson’s been told to brownnose fascist despots to shore up the Allied cause.” Welles mock-whispered, “This from the lady shacked with a cop who gets his kicks beating up Negroes.” Claire

know that I don’t.” Joan said, “I credit everything I hear—because I’m the new girl in town, and I haven’t developed a knack for discernment.”

you listening?” Joan said, “Give.” Kay said, “Jack dates Brenda once a week, at her place. It goes back to when Brenda was a line girl. She’s his confidante, and he tells her everything. The dish is he goes for you, and he wants you to run the lab and the whole Scientific Division. Ray Pinker’s taking a teaching post at Cal Tech in ’44. Mind your p’s and q’s, and the job’s yours. You’ll be the highest-ranking woman on the PD, and you’ll be sworn in as a full-boat police officer. Are you ready? You’ll attend the Academy and come out a captain.” The room rolled cockeyed. Joan went breathless. Obscure psalms passed through— Kay pushed

and Bill. Two years from now. 1944. The war might well be over. America would win. She’d be twenty-nine then. Joan

(LOS ANGELES, 6:00 A.M., 1/29/42)

He developed photo prints. He enhanced his snapshots of Dudley’s bayonet. He close-up shot his gold bar and microphotographed them both. Eureka. The mint marks matched. Ashida clamped two photo slides and

Dudley knew nothing of the gold heist and subsequent fire. He determined that at his swearing-in bash. The bayonet was stashed in Kyoho Hanamaka’s stash hole. It was the fetishistic apex of his Red/fascist cache. Ashida

His bar and Dudley’s bayonet. Separate-source items. They comprise a perfect match. They’re both gold-heist contraband.

Pinker said, “I’m what’s wrong. I’m short on lawyer money, so I back-doored you. The Feds have got me cornholed, so I sold the plans for your photo device to the Mexican Staties. A Baja officer named Juan Pimentel brokered the sale.” Ashida

her. Ashida shut his eyes. He shut out Reckless Girl and Cunning Girl. He braced for her voice. She said, “Well?” Ashida opened his eyes. Reckless Girl and Cunning Girl stared him down. Shameless Girl. He saw suck marks on her neck. “We both want the gold. You’ve withheld from me. That might be a good place to start.” He stammered. His hands twitched. He fought back chills and nausea. He laid out what he’d withheld. Joan said, “Half the gold’s mine. Don’t trifle with me. I’ll ruin you with Dudley Smith if you do.”

(LOS ANGELES, 11:00 A.M., 1/29/42) Annie was goooooood. She laid on the gee-whiz. Her tell-me-more, sweetie? The cream de la cream. Elmer

impressed me as a fruitcake.” Go, Annie, go! You gots me all voyeurizized! Old Saul hacking-coughed. It fritzed up Elmer’s headphones. He said, “…and she’s prone to grandiose whim. To wit—this brutal cop-beast

Old Saul said, “Claire accedes to none of this, of course. She accedes to her cop-brute lover and passively condones his horrid beliefs, but she can’t comprehend the simple truth as far as Hitler is concerned.”

Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle popped in the door. They looked hot-fevered. Elmer dumped his headphones. Mike said, “There’s a callout. We’ve got three down at 46th and Central. Thad Brown wants you there.” — It was niggertown.

It’s a two-story backhouse. It’s dilapidated. The in-front house looks gutted. Note the surrounding crabgrass and discarded short dogs. The caravan screeched up and braked all in sync.

Elmer elbowed up to the front. He got there first. He saw this: It’s some jazz fiend/dope fiend/right-wing-geek klubhaus. There’s two pool tables. There’s ratty furniture. There’s a terp still. There’s a dry bar stocked with Mex mescal and tequila.

There’s a phonograph. There’s a sax, trombone, and trumpet dumped on a chair. There’s smut mags piled beside them. There’s Hitler pix taped to the walls. There’s Sinarquista flags interspersed. Thad Brown ran in. Breuning and Carlisle

Everybody cased the stiffs. Three dead men. All clothed. Perched upright on one couch. They’ve got upraised heads and wide open mouths. They’re sucking in last gasps of breath. A low-life Mex. Officer George Kapek. Officer Wendell Rice.

(ENSENADA, 12:30 P.M., 1/29/42) Dudley said adios. Long-distance fuzz

Dudley spun his desk chair. He orbited his office and applied the brakes. He brooded up the coontown job. Two options appeared. Possible ODs. That meant cover-up. Dope-fiend cops just would not do. Possible homicide. That meant showcase. It’s the PD’s first double cop killing. Pull out the stops. Whitewash the victims. Enact justice at all costs. Sound recent and

Juan Pimentel walked in. He clicked his heels and saluted. He placed a grand object on the desk. Hideo Ashida’s photo device. A contraption suffused with true dash. “You’ve succeeded in delighting me, Lieutenant. Dr. Ashida’s invention has served to revolutionize policework in Los Angeles.” Pimentel reclicked