Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

Claire and I sipped coffee on her terrace. Our own comrades were otherwise deployed. Buzz was chasing Meyer Gelb; Elmer was chasing J-town leads in the wake of the Bev’s Switchboard raid. Bill assigned my own Lee Blanchard to bodyguard Sid Hudgens. The mock scandal sheet had been widely received; the Sidster feared Dudster reprisals.

The setting was lovely. Claire and I sat side by side; Claire kept a hand on my knee. It was companionable, more than seductive. Ten years separated us; the war enthused us equally; my enthusiasm was girlish and ghoulish when compared to hers. Claire saw the war as the culmination of her long leftist immersion. The current worldwide horror was the horror of her failed attempts to spark revolution. She failed to grasp the horror of her own profligacy and could not acknowledge its self-perpetuation. She viewed her personal life and the war as one inextricable struggle. I viewed my personal life and the war as an opportunity. I put my hand on Claire’s hand on my knee. I thought of Edna St. Vincent Millay as I did this. “Through my mother’s hand. / I saw the web grow, / And the pattern expand.”

Claire said, “I’m not going to issue a false confession to Monsignor Hayes. I’ve read your script a dozen times, and I’ve decided that I cannot and will not do it. I called Captain Parker this morning. We discussed the matter, and he told me that he has arrived at the same resolve. He said the monsignor has consented to a formal police interview. Your scandal mock-up must have frightened him, dear.”

I squeezed Claire’s hand. “You called Bill Parker. I must say I’ve heard everything now.”

“God despises half-assed apostates. I can’t justify that scripturally, but I know it to be true.”

We lit cigarettes and blew smoke at the sky. The retreat caught sea breezes; cloud patterns expanded and swirled. I released my enclosing hand and let it fall free; Claire laced up our fingers.

“I did something you should know about.”

“Yes?”

“It began back in Ensenada. It was shortly after I realized that Dudley had become involved with the Lazaro-Schmidt woman. I heard them talking on the phone, and eavesdropped. He was discussing a Nazi-Soviet conference with this creature, and I picked up quite a few details. The conference occurred in Ensenada, in the fall of ’40. Dudley said he’d pay dearly to acquire any typed minutes that might exist.”

I squeezed Claire’s hand. “I know about that conference,” I said. “It was all over Joan’s diary.”

Claire placed my hand on her knee. Mature woman, young woman. Edna St. Vincent Millay and early-wartime flirtation. Pinch me — I’m a South Dakota farm girl.

“I did something precipitous, Katherine. I recalled what you told me about Bev’s Switchboard and mail drops, and I ruler-printed a note to the Lazaro-Schmidt woman. I told her I had the minutes, and I’d be willing to sell them to her for ten thousand dollars.”

Claire, the bold apostate. Claire, the vengeful lover. Precipitous, indeed.

“Did you tell her where to contact you?”

“No. I wrote that I’d contact her again.”

I said, “We can’t overdo it here. We sent your letter to Dudley, as well as the scandal sheet. I was going to send notes from Beth Short and Joan Klein, but it may be altogether too much, and alert him.”

Claire smiled. “I should mention that Joan has moved into Otto’s guesthouse. She’s become a yet-younger version of your still-young version of Mata Hari. If the Shostakovich symphony ever arrives in this country, it will be due to that rather outré child’s efforts.”

Jean Staley vacates the guesthouse; Young Joan Klein moves in. Otto Klemperer’s Home for Wayward Women.

“Otto told me a horrible story, Claire. It goes back to the time of his blackouts, and it has the feel of a blackout itself. A man was making ‘vile comments’ to him, and he beat the man to death. He told Saul Lesnick about it. Lesnick and Ed Satterlee exploited the situation and hushed it up. Otto paid them a good deal of money, of course.”

Claire said, “Otto killed no one, dear. Saul was drunk one night, and explained it all to me. The man was Japanese. He sold rather horrific curios, and he rented a few items to Orson Welles, to use as props in a smut film he was making — one that I appeared in, as a lark. The film was debuted at what I’ve been told was a rather decadent party at Otto’s house, while Otto was here at Terry’s place, taking a rest cure. Otto met the Japanese man at some point after that party. He beat the man, but not badly. He was insensate from the pain medicine that Saul had prescribed, and convinced himself that he’d committed murder. Saul and Ed Satterlee were more than willing to exploit this addled belief.”

The drive to Manzanar consumed eight full hours. I journeyed from springtime Los Angeles to a bleak outpost of the California Sierras. Bill secured me a visitor’s pass and warned me that an MP lieutenant named Al Wilhite was a Dudley Smith toady and had likely been assigned to watchdog Hideo Ashida.

Hideo was expecting me. Bill called him on his scrambler phone and arranged the rendezvous. Dudley might well learn of it; I didn’t care; my visit was contrived to place Hideo in a state of moral jeopardy from which he could not run.

I drove into snow country; the temperature dropped at dusk; mountain winds slammed my car as icy blacktop skewed the traction. I concentrated on driving and nothing else. I learned to drive on winter prairie roads; this was more of that; I hit a flat plane right before Manzanar and slalomed just as I did in rural South Dakota.

Road signs announced the camp; I saw perimeter lights a half mile ahead and slid the last hundred yards up to the gate. I saw cabin rows, bisecting paths, barbed wire, and pivoting floodlights. The gate guard issued me a parking pass and gave me directions to the canteen. Visiting hours were over, he said. But they made exceptions for Dr. Ashida — he was a star boarder here.

I could have visited Hideo in the plush suite that Dudley had secured for him — but Hideo nixed that idea. He knew I was coming to further recruit and suborn him. He wanted me to feel ill at ease within a public context of his own people.

I parked and began my trek uphill. Mountain gusts pushed me forward, back, from side to side. The canteen was three paths up and three paths over. I trudged a good mile and a half; the family huts stretched just that far and wide. They were dimly lit and shuttered; no faces peered out at anomalous me.

I found the canteen. It was dim bulb — lit and hung with frayed Japanese lanterns. The interior walls were rough pine-planked and joined at severe right angles. One small room, rough wood furniture, wall photographs of majestic Mount Fuji.

Hideo sat off by himself. Four older men sat in a group. The canteen was a Japanese bachelors’ club, prison camp — style.

I sat down across from Hideo. He said, “No outrage, please. It’s spartan, but it’s not the Warsaw Ghetto or the Lubyanka.”

He’d lost weight. He wore gray flannels and a brown anorak. He warmed his hands on a thermos and poured me a cup of hot tea.

I took off my gloves and sipped at it. I played cutup and waved to the old men; they looked down and made me feel like a farceur and wretch. Hideo said, “At least you tried. I’d have thought you’d become someone else if you hadn’t.”

I smiled. “I subjected you to that wiretap,” I said. “You’re subjecting me to your fellow bachelors and this spartan accommodation.”

“You didn’t subject me to anything I didn’t already know about Dudley. You tend to overplay your hand, Kay. Your subtext was ‘he’s finished,’ but I’m not sure I agree with that.”

Touché, Hideo. We’re here to bargain, and I know you’ll set boundaries. You fear implacable women. I know that about you.