Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

Raid Me rays? — shit. Here’s what they got:

Mail-Drop Holocaust. Mail-Drop Inferno. Mail-Drop Mud Slide. All the mail slots were spread wide. There was no mail stuffed inside.

Elmer orbed the walls. Whiskey Bill, ditto. They saw open file drawers and no files visible. Plus open desk drawers in plain sight.

Plus Blow Job Bev and Wallace Jamie, perched in deck chairs. Looking smug. You can’t seize vapors. You can’t raid stale air.

Parker said, “You were tipped.”

Jamie said, “People talk. Word travels. Fellow travelers travel, too.” Bev giggled and flipped them the bird.

Parker went for Jamie. He kicked his chair over and smashed his head on the floor. Jamie bitch-yelped. Parker kicked him in the balls and cuffed his hands behind his back. Bev jumped up and whore-yelped. Her deck chair capsized.

Elmer scoped the room. He saw juncture cracks behind the file banks. He dropped his pump gun and ran to the east wall. He jammed his pry bar behind the A to D bank and pulled.

Metal screeched against linoleum. The file bank slid out. No paper scraps or mail debris got revealed. Elmer yanked out the E to J bank. Lice eggs got revealed. Elmer yanked out the K to R bank. A mousetrap and stale cheese got revealed.

Metal screeched against linoleum. Jamie and Bev screeched Fascist Assault! Elmer pulled out the S to Z bank. He saw boocoo mail debris.

Glossy stuff. Spilled catalogues. Jammed upside the walls. In there with mouse turds and soot.

Elmer knelt down and pored through it. S to Z skank got revealed.

Sally’s Sexy Lingerie. Crotchless Panties Our Specialty. Fat models with full beavers exposed. Silver Shirt closeout. Lo prices on bullwhips and nigger knockers. The Best in the West. Tasty Tessie. Hairpie deluxe. Pubic locks 4-sale. Your choice of blond, brunette, or red bush. Write to Tasty Tessie 2-day!!!

Vivid Violet. Certified nympho. Frat parties welcome. Special college-boy rates. Call Sharon, 24 hours. Your place or mine? No Negroes, Mexicans, or sailors. Call for introductory rate. Boys, Boys, Boys!!! Wicked Willie’s got ’em!!! See fotos in May ’41 issue of Hung Magazine !!!

Parker stomped the premises. Blow Job Bev pitched a fit. Jamie yelped for Uncle Eliot Ness. Elmer snagged a crumpled catalogue.

Johnny Shinura Curios. Exotic & Erotic Items. The Mysterious Orient Lives! 482 East 2nd Street, Los Angeles.

Oooooh, what’s—

East 2nd Street. J-town. The Jap sword man. He’s a curio dealer. 482’s not a storefront. The Crash Squad would have nailed it already. It’s some warehouse stash hole. It has to be that. The sword man, the blood licker, the queer white boy’s—

Elmer thumbed the catalogue. Check this out. You’ve got iron maidens and swastika branding irons. There’s SS tunics for your dog. You’ve got a Jap soldier suit of arms. It features sharp spikes inside. It’s now available in four sizes!!! It’s guaranteed to cause EXCRUTIATING DEATH!!!

The watch sergeant called in sick. It was SOP. He was an all-time goldbrick. He habituated the Blue Fox and White Dog Klub. His work went undone.

Dudley filled in. Major D. L. Smith, among the squadroom pogues. He worked at the sergeant’s desk. He filled out the duty roster and sorted the mail.

The squadroom buzzed. SIS ran full Saturday shifts. Dudley buzzed. He had Benzedrine for breakfast and lunch. The Wolf was down in La Paz. Constanza doted on him.

Dudley slit envelopes. The mail was SOP-plus. Fourth Interceptor demands Jap head counts. The Staties demand liaison meets. There’s Jap sub alerts. There’s Redshirt rallies east of Piedra Rojas. Please infiltrate.

Plus a plain envelope. Addressed direct to him. An L.A. postmark and no return address.

Dudley slit the envelope. Three mimeo sheets were stuffed in. The cheap ink bled. The cheap paper wilted. Say what? It’s Sid Hudgens’ private rag.

The El Lay Lowdown. Sid’s standard fare, free of restraints. 461 subscribers. William Randolph Hearst, take note.

Dudley skimmed through it. He skimmed through Holly weird tattle, couched in Sid’s standard style. Men’s room hijinks and gang bangs. Sid’s standard fare. He skimmed to “big southside murder case.” He hit “pustulant policeman M.B.” He quick-skimmed to “D.S. himself.” He went hot/cold/hot and skimmed the full text.

He made this noise. Code clerks glanced over. He threw an arm across the desk and dumped a file box. He made a worse noise. It just seeped out. More clerks looked over. He dumped his coffee cup and smashed a typewriter into the floor.

He made a worse noise. It was screechy effete. The whole squadroom watched.

Opium.

The tar, the match, the pipe.

Stopover, Dublin. He views James Conroy Smith’s resurrection. A brotherly reunion turns sanguine. They go on the hunt together. Protty militiamen fall. The Wolf hunts with them. Bloodthirsty beast. He slays and eats his prey.

Stopover, Rome. Salvy’s confession and papal audience. I did not betray Dudley Smith, Your Holiness. He is my Führer as thou art God’s sole worldly lord.

Stopover, L.A. Meyer Gelb assumes a supplicant’s pose. He bows. He bestows the gold. He explains everything.

Stopover, New York. Maestro Klemperer conducts at Carnegie Hall. It’s the Shostakovich symphony. He’s proud of Young Joan. She did her part. Uncanny child. Gray hair at fifteen. She’s surely the spawn of the Wolf.

The bedroom door slid open. The Wolf followed Constanza in. He called her, or thinks he did. The night’s been a blur. He thinks he described the letter. She must have sensed his duress.

The Wolf jumped on the bed. Constanza sat on the edge. She took his hands. Her voice was soft.

I journeyed up to love you and assuage your fear. It is all hearsay. It’s a smear tactic employed by my brother, allied with Meyer Gelb. They are creating dissension among the Kameraden, because they fear you so. They possess the gold or know where it is. They fear that we will take it from them. We ourselves will live in fear as long as my brother remains alive.

I cannot believe that Salvy would betray me. You were his lover. Please refute the assertion and tell me that it isn’t true.

You collect acolytes and younger brothers. It is not a trait I admire in you.

Harsh you. Your stern words wound me.

You have never been wounded as I have. Consider the horror my brother inflicted, as you permit him to draw breath.

You were approached and offered the minutes for the Baja conference. Has a sum been mentioned? Was the approach credible?

The approach was tendered through my mail drop in Los Angeles. The note was block-printed with a ruler, which bespeaks spycraft to me. The sender failed to explain himself further. The sum mentioned was ten thousand dollars.

Chez Lux. Health retreat, dry-out farm, divorce hideaway. Sid Hudgens has dubbed it the “Nose Job Notre Dame.” Jack Horrall and Gene Biscailuz boil the booze out under Terry’s supervision. Fritz Eckelkamp was cut into Meyer Gelb here. The guest bungalows are enclosed by high hedgerows and pepper trees. The medical buildings resemble a Bauhaus college campus. There are tennis courts, putting greens, a first-run movie house. Noted comrades skulk in residence. Saul Lesnick, Two-Gun Davis. Lin Chung concocts eugenics potions in Terry’s lab. Orson Welles will soon engage Terry’s weight-loss regime. Steam baths and cocaine do the trick.