Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

They were naked. Ellen’s mattress sagged. Her baby boy dozed one room over.

Elmer said, “It’s too warm in here. You get that with these big buildings. They don’t leave you no choice with the heat.”

Ellen lit a cigarette. She sat up crossways and blew smoke rings. Their sweat was all mingled up.

“That’s not a real answer. I could turn down the heat if I wanted to, but I keep it warm for the baby.”

Elmer said, “We’ve got this rule, remember? We’re not supposed to talk about him.”

“You’re broody. Give me a hint. There’s the war, the draft, and you blew that stakeout, so maybe Dudley Smith’s peeved at you. You don’t like harassing these so-called innocent Japs, and you wish you could go back to Vice. Give me a little clue.”

Elmer relit his cigar. Smoke fumes fumed the room up good.

“One little clue. I’ll hold you captive here until you tell me.”

Elmer said, “That’s a swell inducement not to talk.”

Ellen said, “And that’s a swell compliment. But tell me something, or I’ll start brooding on adultery and kick you out.”

Elmer touched her hair and kissed her. Ellen nuzzled his hand.

“My life’s too easy. I got the world by the dick, but it don’t sit right with me.”

Loose ends. The New Year’s blahs. Elmer hit the road.

He drove to City Hall and prowled corridors. The Hall was holiday dead. The PD ran a light crew. The Air Patrol guys stuck to the basement. The mayor’s office and City Council chambers were dark.

Elmer had keys and a briefcase. He hit Call-Me-Jack’s office and unlocked his desk drawers. Jack left four envelopes. They were marked with initials. They were probably five-yard payoffs.

The mayor’s office ran swank. Walnut panels and a Mussolini-size desk. Elmer unlocked Fletch Bowron’s drawers. He grabbed four more envelopes. He saw that familiar green binder.

His binder. Brenda’s. Their merchandise book. Nude pix of their girls.

He leafed through it. He got titillated and broody, simultaneous.

He replaced the binder. He hit the Council chambers and divvied up the gelt. The 4th District guy kept a desk jug. Elmer helped himself. He sat in the guy’s green leather chair and put his feet up.

Loose ends. The New Year’s blahs. Elmer hit the road.

The hard rain subsided. A drizzle held in. Central Station was close. Elmer walked over.

The crime lab was locked. The main squadroom was locked. The Alien Squad pen was lit bright. Elmer poked his head in. He saw Wendell Rice and George Kapek. They were in their skivvies. They were tossing dice and snarfing pizza pie.

Elmer said, “Happy New Year.”

Rice said, “You up and took off last night. Dud wondered what happened to you.”

“You and George started lifting wallets. I got a burr in my tail.”

Kapek said, “You’re pious, Jackson. That, and you don’t need the money. You got your girl racket, and you’re Jack Horrall’s favorite Okie.”

Elmer waved his cigar. “I’m a cracker, not an Okie. There’s a distinction.”

Rice raised his hands. “Peace, brother. We’re all white men, and we’re going back to rousting Japs first thing tomorrow.”

Elmer made the jack-off sign. Kapek said, “Last night was a bust. We got no good drift on who sliced Dud, and nothing ripe on Tommy Glennon.”

Rice said, “Dud’s hipped on Tommy. Something’s going on there that I don’t comprehend.”

Kapek said, “Dud’s right hand don’t know what his left hand is doing.”

Elmer gauged the chitchat. Nothing gored him. Fucking Eddie Leng gored him. There was no dead-body call. These humps would have heard. There was no Herald headline: DEEP-FRIED CHINAMAN FOUND! COPS SIFT CLUES!

Kapek rolled snake eyes. He crapped out and moaned. Rice snatched the dice. His undershirt hiked and exposed his left arm. Note the thunderbolt armband.

Still life. Geek cops at play. Exiled from home and hearth. Jap hunters in repose.

Elmer fought off the New Year’s blues. Elmer hit the road.

The hard rain revived. He drove through swamped intersections and sewer floods. Who snuffed Eddie Leng? Who’s the dead man in the box?

Elmer drove to the Gordon Hotel. Tommy’s “SQ” tattoo stencil tweaked him. He braced the desk clerk. Let me retoss Tommy’s room. Tommy’s a fugitive rape-o.

The clerk went Nyet, sahib. He said two cops just tore through here. They tossed Tommy’s room. I’m not repeating that grief with you.

The clerk described Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle. They re tossed his first toss. That scotched toss #3.

Elmer drove back downtown. He hit 11th and Broadway and parked. He recharged with bennies and Old Crow. He got electricized.

He eyeballed that hot-box phone for no damn good reason. It stood outside the Herald. It was just some coin booth.

But:

Tommy called it. Maybe mucho times. Tommy’s address book. Think fast, now. Tommy called fourteen Baja pay phones.

Elmer glanced across the street. He spotted a Fed sedan. Ed Satterlee was tucked in. He was eyeballing the booth.

Cop life. Circle jerk. Who you know, who you blow. Satterlee bossed the Fed probe. Satterlee tricked with the Brenda-Elmer service. Satterlee was tonged up.

Elmer stared at the hot-box. Baja calls. That’s a head-scratcher. Ain’t the Dudster Baja-bound now?

Border cops saluted and waved them through. Bienvenidos, señor y señora.

They were Falangista thugs. They were Francoesque in dress and demeanor. They saw the staff car and Army jefe. They noted the comely mujer. They fawned and clicked their heels.

Mexico. Our grand, if raucous, neighbor. A properly subservient hello.

Dudley and Claire breezed into T.J. Claire drove. Dudley’s arm sling precluded. A late sun lit rain clouds.

They cut inland and south. The coast road detoured through T.J. proper. It’s muy feo. Let’s see how Claire reacts.

The child-beggar swarms. The cat-meat taco vendors. The women-fuck-donkey clubs. The open-air farmacias. Voodoo health cures and sub-rosa dope.

Liquor stores. Niteklubs. Prowling sailors and Marines. Strolling putas. He-she’s in bullfighter garb.

The cops wore mismatched uniforms and drove mismatched cars. Jackboots, jodhpurs, tunics — all Nazi black. Der Führer — style purveyor to the world’s great unwashed.

Chevy prowl cars, Ford prowl cars. U.S. confiscations. Wait, there’s a Packard. Note the coyote-pelt seats.

Claire said, “I left Beverly Hills for this. It must mean that I love you.”

Dudley laughed and squeezed her knee. His bad arm ached. Claire caught a lane back to the coast road. To the east: scrub hills and abandoned-car encampments. To the west: cliffside coves and sea swells.

Claire hit the gas. Dudley read her. She wanted to get there and dose herself. She wanted to craft her rich-leftist-among-the-peons persona.

She brooded her way down from L.A. He brooded in inimical sync. He concentrated on Tommy Glennon.

Mike and Dick tossed Tommy’s room. A clerk told them that another cop had already tossed it. The clerk described the doltish Elmer Jackson.

He caught a noon radio broadcast. It stressed “Chinese restauranteur slain.” There was no “victim Leng tong affiliate.” There was no “close pal of Thomas Malcolm Glennon.” Both facts should have been stressed.

Tommy’s missing now. Mike and Dick saw a Spanish-language text in his room.

Dudley scoped the terrain. Eyes left: hills and Jap fishing towns. He’d raid them. He’d roust Fifth Column Japs and plain old Japs set for internment. Eyes right: the cliffs, the coves, the sea.