Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

I looked in her eyes. One was blue, one was gray. Her eugenicist daddy. I suspected experiments gone awry. She sat on her hands so she wouldn’t gnash or pull her hair out. What would Hideo Ashida do? It came down to that. I said, “I wish you safety,” and walked away.

Union Station. The Welcome Wagon awaits. They’re packing brass knucks and belt saps. Bienvenidos, señor.

Jack Horrall dispatched them. His orders ran succinct. Beat the fuck half dead. Tell him no sabotage. Return to Mexico. Come back, we kill your spic ass.

Elmer and Buzz lurked outside the station. Cars clogged the front lot. The breezeway hopped. Porters schlepped suitcases. Tourists hailed taxicabs. The Baja train was past due.

Elmer and Buzz lurked. They got their orders. They got their reward. They were acknowledged whizbang detectives. Jack H. shot them two Homicide slots.

El Salvy walked outside. He scanned the front lot. Cars zigzagged through. Elmer and Buzz swooped.

They grabbed him and hustled him. They pinned his arms. He went along, peaceful. They worked the two-man accordion press.

Salvy complied. They waltzed him off to the side of the building. Elmer grabbed his hair and elbowed him in the windpipe. Salvy gasped and squeaked. Buzz pinned him against the wall. Elmer stuffed a sock in his mouth. They unhooked their knucks and saps and let fly.

Octopus job. They worked him, four-fisted. Elmer smashed his ribs. Bones crunched and snapped. Buzz squatted low and ripped uppercuts at his balls. Elmer punched his teeth out. The sock trapped loose choppers and sopped up blood.

Buzz hurled sap shots. They sliced Salvy’s ears half off. Buzz intoned the edict. Elmer hummed the “Marine’s Hymn.” He checked the parking lot. He saw this man upside a Cadillac. He thought, Maybe, maybe not.

He dropped his hurt kit and walked over. Well now — and amen. It was good old good-looking Wayne Frank.

He sported some gray hair. He wore wingtip shoes and a swell chalk-stripe suit.

He said, “Try not to kill Salvy. Him and me share a history.”

Elmer said, “I like your car. Life’s been good to you.”

Wayne Frank spit tobacco juice. “I’ve got a wife and two kids in New Orleans, and a wife and three kids in Atlanta. If I can avoid this here futile war, I’ll have it made in the shade.”

Elmer smiled. “You always believed in the Resurrection. It was your favorite Bible story. You always said you might die young, but you’d just as likely return.”

Wayne Frank smiled. “I visited Wisharts last year. Sue Bailey asked about you. She’s with the TVA now. She had herself a damn fine job with the Willkie campaign.”

Sue B. was a six-foot blonde. She justified the climb. Him and Wayne Frank fought over her. He kicked Wayne Frank’s ass good.

“Those New Year’s rainstorms stirred up some grief, didn’t they?”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“New Year’s is New Year’s. Remember? We always listened to Cliffie Stone’s Hometown Jamboree. ”

Wayne Frank spritzed tobacco juice. “You look pretty good, for a man who’s just seen a ghost.”

“I’ve learned a few things since New Year’s. I’ve had a good spell to prepare.”

Wayne Frank said, “I always told you I’d make something of myself.”

Ghosts. Apparitions. Warlocks, poltergeists, ghouls. Wayne Frank’s alive. Hideo Ashida’s dead.

Elmer drove out to Santa Monica. He hadn’t seen Ruth in a coon’s age. He should put her at ease. You never know. She might throw him some woof-woof.

Wilshire was bright and breezy. The beach air felt sweet. He parked outside Ruth’s courtyard. Longhair music wafted over. Ruthie sat on her porch. She played her radio full blast.

Elmer got out and walked over. Ruthie saw him. She primped and turned off the radio. She looked grim — per always, these days.

“I’ve been reading about you. The widow Big Daddy Gordean asserts that you are trigger-happy.”

Elmer dittoed Wayne Frank. “Let’s not talk about that.”

“Shall we discuss Brahms? That was the Double Concerto I was enjoying.”

Elmer relit a cigar. “Let’s discuss what’s eating you. Maybe I can help you out.”

Ruth said, “You have not the cachet. A deportation order has been issued against me. I am held to be a seditious alien, and I have no means of redress.”

She had green panther eyes. He had beady eyes. They discussed it their first night. Elmer slalomed in and dialed their eyes tight.

“You can’t deport the wife of a U.S. citizen. Husbands can’t fink out their wives for Murder One.”

Ruth turned on the radio. A violin and cello tangled chords and fought. She kept the volume low.

“Might we have a Jewish wedding?”

Elmer said, “Don’t press your luck.”

Early-wartime L.A. The blackouts, the attendant car wrecks, the impromptu race riots spurred by enveloping dark. The grinding shame of the Japanese internment. The revelry of fearful folks disinclined to step outside. The unexpected pregnancies and great volume of kids expected in the fall of ’42.

The muzzle flash of Pearl Harbor burned bright through the spring, as the phenomenon of the war was subsumed by the war as our refuge and justification. Early-wartime L.A. was a time of great crimes and witheringly ambiguous solutions. It was a time to celebrate the shit-kicking American spirit and our mass resolve to see this thing through. Early-wartime L.A. The booze and the muzzle-flash love affairs. There was no better time to howl and throw parties.

Jack Horrall hosted an acquittal bash at Kwan’s Chinese Pagoda. It celebrated Bill Parker’s and Elmer Jackson’s bold move to squelch the Fed probe. The PD and City Hall crowd showed up in force. The acquittals formally justified the soirée. I held it to be a wrap party for the span of events preannounced by a New Year’s Eve rainstorm. The gang was there. We were there. Comrades and adversaries crammed into Ace Kwan’s back room. Bill, Elmer, Buzz, Brenda. Thad Brown and Nort Layman. Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle. Ray Pinker, Fletch Bowron, my beleaguered Lee Blanchard. DA Bill McPherson, with Loretta McKee in tow. Reconciliation overwhelmed rancor. Something big had ended as the war progressed. I chatted with Mike Breuning. He said, “ Whew, Kay.” I said, “ Whew, Mike” right back. Our conversation fizzled then. There was no need to say anything else.

We were there. Provocateurs and profiteers. Bill Parker danced and drank with Claire De Haven. They argued the Baltimore catechism and defamed my most revered Martin Luther. Then something extraordinary happened.

Jack Horrall gave a speech. He blew raspberries at the Feds and crowed over the mass acquittals. He praised the diligent detectives who solved the klub haus job and notably omitted Dudley Smith. He broke down and wept as he lionized the “late and surely great” Hideo Ashida.

Elmer married Ruth Szigeti two weeks later. There had to be a hidden story there — but Elmer refused to divulge it. The Protestant service dismayed Ruth. The wedding party vacated the church and reconvened in Mike Lyman’s front room. Fake gold bars served as dinner-table settings. The Reverend M. L. Mimms supplied them.

Buzz brought his pet scorpion. He slid steak tidbits into his cage and dared people to stick a finger in and pet him. The acquittal-bash crowd celebrated the Jackson-Szigeti nuptials. Otto Klemperer and Joan Klein joined us, along with the Koenigs and Sandor Abromowitz. Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor dropped by and heckled Ruth. We’ve lost you to a cop bumpkin. Say it ain’t so. You’ve lost nothing, Liebchens. My husband understands me as I understand him.