Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

There’s Two-Gun Davis. He’s tonged up. He speaks Chinese and drills underage slash. There’s Lee Blanchard — shacked with PD siren Kay Lake.

Big Lee did not drill Kay. His abstinence stemmed from old grief. La Kay scorched for Bill Parker. Whiskey Bill scorched back. He refused to pounce. His abstinence stemmed from his dead-dog marriage and prim Catholic guilt.

Rumors. Barroom scuttlebutt. The skinny, the dish, the drift.

Lyman’s back room. The PD’s haven and redoubt. Here’s how it commenced:

A beaner exposed himself to Mike Lyman’s niece. Sensitive Mike was distraught. Sergeant Buzz Meeks shot Whipout Juan dead. Grateful Mike bestowed the back room.

She joked with Buzz at Lyman’s. They had a running shtick. “I’m too tall for you, sweetie.” “Yeah, but I know how to climb.”

Joan hit 8th Street and breezed into Lyman’s. She clocked tableside traffic and breezed to the back room.

There’s Oooh-La-La Bill. He’s Two-Fisted Bill now. He’s wolfing a highball and a club sandwich. His uniform’s a mess.

Joan said, “Don’t spoil your dinner.”

“That can’t be an invitation.”

“I’m rich tonight. You should take advantage.”

Parker tossed his sandwich and brushed off stray crumbs. The wastebasket thunked.

“You’ve got me thinking there’s a catch.”

“ ‘Catch’? Me? As catches go, you’re the master.”

“Well...”

“Come on. I owe you dinner, at least. ”

Parker blushed. It was almost endearing. Joan almost swooned.

They ate at the Biltmore. It was swank meets plush de-luxe. Joan had roast sirloin. Parker had apricot duck. Their table overlooked Pershing Square.

Soapbox pundits declaimed. Partisan crowds egged them on. Fistfights ensued. White winos shrieked at colored winos and vice versa.

A bar waiter brought cognacs. Parker lit their cigarettes. Joan said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Parker warmed his snifter. “That I should be fighting this war.”

“I’ve heard the stories. Chief Horrall won’t let you enlist, despite your stated intention to steal his job and enact reforms that might well land him in jail, if the Fed probe fails to do so first.”

Parker smiled. “You’re a quick study.”

“I am, yes.”

“What else have you heard?”

“Tales of your feud with Dudley Smith. Intimations that then-Sergeant Smith clashed with you on the Watanabe case, and perhaps rigged a convenient solution, abetted by Dr. Hideo Ashida.”

Parker sipped cognac. “Policemen run their goddamn mouths, with no sense of consequence.”

Joan crushed her cigarette. “I clashed with Dr. Ashida today.”

“He’s uncomfortable with women. I’ve observed it with...”

“With Kay Lake ? The PD’s favorite round heels and all-around provocatress?”

Parker slugged cognac. “Can it, will you? I realize that you’ve had a heady few days, but you’re being quite indiscreet.”

Joan scanned the dining room. It was dinner-rush packed. She read faces. She sensed outrage and furious intent.

“It’s America’s moment, isn’t it?”

Parker said, “Yes, it is.”

“We’re going to win, aren’t we?”

Parker said, “Yes, we are.”

“We’re going to lay out the Japs and the Nazis, and woe be to the Russians if they try to crowd us then.”

Parker said, “Yes, you’re right.”

Joan got goose bumps. She felt all torn up. A cloudburst hit. Rain banged the picture window right beside her.

“This war is the shit, isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to get lost, make love, and go crazy?”

Parker said, “Miss Conville, you go from zero to sixty faster than any—”

Joan grabbed his face and kissed him. Water glasses capsized. Parker kissed her back. He leaned in and pinned her arms to the table.

He trembled. She felt it. It went all the way through her.

The rain let up. The sky gleamed. The Central Station roof supplied views.

Ashida took advantage. He brought binoculars and trained them due east. He caught a roust at 1st and San Pedro.

He zoomed his lens and played Man Camera. The roust’s Alien Squad. There’s Wendell Rice and George Kapek. Catbox Cal Lunceford’s running backup. They’ve got four Japanese men, shackle-chained.

Rice waved a red-sun flag. Ashida supplied a thought balloon. “Say! This would make a swell crap-game blanket!”

Ashida swiveled south and scanned upward. Sun framed the Biltmore Hotel. He caught his mother’s bedroom window. He saw Mariko looking out.

Their elegant suite. Dudley Smith bestows gifts. His pending Army commission. Lieutenant Hideo Ashida.

Shakespeare, revised. I owe this bad man more tears than you shall see me pay.

Joan Conville was a briefly tenured Navy lieutenant. Bill Parker bestows gifts. He entraps comely women. The silly girl works with him now.

Parker bestows gifts and abrogates justice. Do you see the children in your dreams, sir? The reckless girl killed them. I see them every night.

Ashida turned northeast. He saw a foot procession. It was all male and mostly Chinese.

Tong thugs. Jap-haters astroll. They waved casket pix of Eddie Leng. The bigwigs marched up front. Uncle Ace Kwan, Two-Gun Davis, Dr. Lin Chung.

Ashida dialed a close-up. He caught Chung gesticulating. He knew Chung, secondhand. He’s the butcher plastic surgeon. He’s the mad eugenicist. He’s the bagman for last month’s sub approach.

This new approach feels somewhat different. It’s like the first approach, refined and revised. The first approach was oddball inclusive. The new approach could be much more or much less of that.

Right is Left and Left is Right. Dr. Chung is tight with a leftist eugenicist named Saul Lesnick. Dr. Lesnick is a psychiatrist and FBI informant. He is Claire De Haven’s analyst. Kay Lake knows Dr. Lesnick. He figured in Bill Parker’s anti-Red crusade.

Inclusion. Confluence. Wartime folly. The Fifth Column is everyone.

Ashida walked back down to the lab. Two chemists logged evidence. Ray Pinker and Joan Conville were out.

He caught something.

His photo device. He’d been oiling the parts. It was placed just so on his desk. He left the lab for twenty minutes. The device was set off-kilter now.

Mr. Pinker. He handled it. The device confounded and thrilled him. Japanese inventors can’t secure patents. Mr. Pinker wants to front the device. He wants half the money. This war spawns opportunities. Fair-minded men turn unfair.

A ruckus bubbled up, streetside. Ashida heard shouts and shrieks. He checked the window. Two cops wrestled Fujio Shudo into a van.

The Werewolf wore a straitjacket and jail khakis. A sanity hearing beckons. His gas-chamber trek begins. He’s a ready-made Jap. He’s been handpicked for prosecution. Dudley Smith, inquisitor. Hideo Ashida, forged-document man.

The chemists walked out. Ashida locked himself in. Gossip spritzed through a wall vent. The lab shared vents with the Alien Squad. Lee Blanchard and Cal Lunceford groused. The fucking phone-tap probe. What a crock of shit.

Ashida walked to his desk. Joan Conville had compiled reports. She supplied study stacks. They were squared off and pencil-marked.

Missing-persons bulletins. A tight geographic spread. Southern California, all police agencies. L.A. County, Orange County, San Diego County. Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. San Bernardino, Riverside.

A tight date spread. Late summer ’33 to early winter ’34. Tall men only. Heavyset men only. A tight age spread. Mid-thirties to mid-forties.

Plus CCC survivor lists. Grist for their thesis. Box Man died concurrent with the Griffith Park fire.