Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

Indeed. Brenda Allen, Ellen Drew, and Annie Staples had served as Ruth’s maids of honor. Ellen hawked her new Paramount oater; Annie told Elmer not to lose her phone number. Bob Taylor took Brenda aside. He slid her a roll of bills and told her to set Babs up with “Ten-Inch” Tony Mangano.

I sat with Elmer and Ruth at the head table and overheard their conversation. Ruth thanked Elmer for his great generosity. Elmer said, “Hush, now. It’s not like I’m suffering, and it’s not like I don’t like you.”

Early-wartime L.A. Profiteers and privateers. My most valued Kameraden.

Otto debuted Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony the following week. The performance was not billed as such. The five-hundred-dollar-a-pop tickets were sold via hushed word of mouth. Otto was preempting Maestro Toscanini’s formal premiere of the work. He had put together an orchestra of relocated exiles and film-studio musicians. Ruth Szigeti was the first-chair violin; the Koenigs and Sandor Abromowitz played alongside her. The occasion was strictly black-tie. The Wilshire Ebell Theatre held roughly one thousand seats. The proceeds were earmarked for European war relief. Every woo-woo movie star and local hotshot of the day was there. I squeezed Bill Parker’s hands as Otto raised his baton and went Now.

The symphony was brutal, at the expense of majestic and elegiac. It was an hourlong disruption of my most dear hopes and my most conceited dreams. I rode with the shock of it. Foreshortened crescendos dashed my sense of savagery as beauty and the beauty of art itself. Human love will not sustain us in this time of horror. Comrade Dimitri mocked the assumption. He sought only to instill a brutalized survivors’ resolve.

So be it, then.

The antithesis of resolve is relinquishment. It’s wartime L.A., and I am a brilliant and passionate young woman with stories to tell. Circumstance is destiny. I may never live as boldly and adroitly as I live now. This is my war and my country. Do not mock the love that I hold for both. I willed thunderstorms as a child in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I must do that here and now. Reminiscenza, this storm, this savaging disaster. My options are do everything or do nothing. My hot date with History continues. It is now May 8, 1942. These final strains of the Leningrad Symphony mark my refusal to die.

This Storm is the second volume of the Second L.A. Quartet. The first volume, Perfidia, covers December 6 through December 29, 1941. The L.A. Quartet — The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz — covers the years 1946 to 1958 in Los Angeles. The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy — American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s A Rover — covers 1958 to 1972, on a national scale.

The Second L.A. Quartet places real-life and fictional characters from the first two bodies of work in Los Angeles, during World War II, as significantly younger people. These three series span thirty-one years and will stand as one novelistic history. The following list notes the previous appearances of characters in This Storm.

SALVADOR ABASCAL.A real-life Mexican fascist.

SANDOR ABROMOWITZ.An exiled Hungarian musician.

BRENDA ALLEN.The real-life Allen appears in The Big Nowhere and Perfidia.

ARCHIE ARCHULETA.This character is a dope fiend and rowdy Fifth Columnist.

AKIRA ASHIDA.The brother of police/U.S. Army chemist Hideo Ashida. Mr. Ashida appears in Perfidia.

HIDEO ASHIDA,Los Angeles Police Department/Army SIS. Ashida appears in Perfidia.

MARIKO ASHIDA.The mother of police/U.S. Army chemist Hideo Ashida. Mrs. Ashida appears in Perfidia.

EUGENE BISCAILUZ.The real-life Sheriff of Los Angeles County. Biscailuz appears in Perfidia.

OFFICER LEE BLANCHARD,Los Angeles Police Department. Blanchard appears in The Black Dahlia and Perfidia.

FLETCH BOWRON.Mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Mayor Bowron appears in Perfidia.

“BIG BOB” BOYD.Captain, Kern County Sheriff’s Department.

SERGEANT MIKE BREUNING,Los Angeles Police Department. Breuning appears in The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz, and Perfidia.

LIEUTENANT THAD BROWN,Los Angeles Police Department. The real-life Brown appears in Perfidia.

VICTOR TREJO CAIZ.Fifth Column assassin.

ARCHBISHOP J. J. CANTWELL.The real-life boss of the L.A. Archdiocese. Archbishop Cantwell appears in Perfidia.

FRANKIE “EL CABRÓN” CARBAJAL.Hoodlum and raucous Fifth Columnist.

SERGEANT DICK CARLISLE,Los Angeles Police Department. Carlisle appears in The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz, and Perfidia.

DR. LIN CHUNG.A plastic surgeon and proponent of eugenics. Dr. Chung appears in Perfidia.

LIEUTENANT LEW COLLIER,Los Angeles Police Department. Collier heads up the PD’s Alien Squad.

JOAN CONVILLE,Los Angeles Police Department. Miss Conville appears in Perfidia.

FATHER CHARLES COUGHLIN.The real-life radio priest and nativist blowhard.

HUEY CRESSMEYER.Glue sniffer, psychopathic killer, and Fifth Column traitor. Mr. Cressmeyer appears in American Tabloid and Perfidia.

DR. RUTH MILDRED CRESSMEYER.Dr. Cressmeyer is Huey’s mom, and a film-studio abortionist. She appears in American Tabloid and Perfidia.

EX–CHIEF JAMES EDGAR “TWO-GUN” DAVIS.The real-life Davis appears in Perfidia.

CLAIRE DE HAVEN.Dope addict and shrill left-winger. Miss De Haven appears in The Big Nowhere and Perfidia.

ELLEN DREW.The real-life film actress. Miss Drew appears in Perfidia.

MONDO “EL TIGRE” DÍAZ.Hoodlum and raucous Fifth Columnist.

CHUCKIE DUQUESNE.Jazz musician and psycho killer.

FRITZ ECKELKAMP.Armed robber and Marxist-fascist extortionist.

BILLY ECKSTINE.Real-life singer and bandleader.

SERGEANT COLIN FORBES,Los Angeles Police Department. The real-life Forbes works out of the PD’s Hollywood Station.

LEANDER FRECHETTE.Labor goon and heist man.

MEYER GELB.Armed robber and Marxist-fascist extortionist.

TOMMY GLENNON.Hot-prowl rapist and Nazi shitheel.

SERGEANT AL GOOSSEN,Los Angeles Police Department. The real-life Goossen works out of the PD’s Hollywood Station.

WILLIS “BIG DADDY” GORDEAN.A bouncer at the Taj Mahal Klub.

KYOHO HANAMAKA.Japanese naval attaché and Fifth Column mastermind.

MONSIGNOR JOE HAYES.Morally dubious priest with the L.A. Archdiocese.

CHIEF C. B. “CALL-ME-JACK” HORRALL,Los Angeles Police Department. The real-life Horrall appears in Perfidia.

SID HUDGENS.Newspaper scribe and scandalmonger. Hudgens appears in L.A. Confidential and Perfidia.

SERGEANT ELMER JACKSON,Los Angeles Police Department. The real-life Jackson appears in Perfidia.

WAYNE FRANK JACKSON.Drifter, armed robber, Fifth Columnist. Brother of Sergeant Elmer Jackson.