Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

Miss Conville oversupplied paper. He didn’t need the dead-and-identified lists. He read through them anyway. He saw a morgue pic. It displayed Wayne Frank Jackson’s charred corpse.

Ashida scanned lists. He looked for matched names and compatible descriptions. He sifted reports. He eyeball-clicked. He got zero, zero, zero, and this:

A CCC living survivor. Karl Frederick Tullock/6'4"/235. Born 6/14/93. Forty in October ’33. A Santa Barbara County missing person.

An ex-cop. On the S.B. County Sheriff’s Department. Wife reports Tullock missing — 1/12/34.

It fits circumstantially. It’s a hot one. It’s a possible match.

Zealous Miss Conville. She oversupplies paper and supplies a possible match. And — she’s stuffed a box under his desk.

Ashida went through it. He saw off-the-corpse clothing patches. He studied them. He noted quicklime saturation and seed husks.

He saw a white cotton swatch. He identified collar points. The swatch tweaked him. It was hand-stitched Egyptian cotton. He placed the swatch under his fluoroscope and brought up a blurred laundry mark.

He got goose bumps. Box Man’s a CCC wage slave. Wage slaves don’t wear high-quality shirts. They don’t send them out to be laundered.

Ashida went through the box. He sifted cloth fragments. He pulled pieces. He grabbed a folded-over trouser cuff. It felt weighted down.

He dug into the fold. He pulled this out:

A small piece of gold. One-inch by one-inch. Small but hefty. Irregular-shaped.

It felt substantial. It felt pure-gold dense. It was mid-range nugget-sized.

It was bored through. A metal chain and key were attached. The key was stamped “648.” It looked like a locker stamp.

Ashida got goose bumps and flushed hot and cold. He rigged a microscope. He hook-clamped the gold chunk and dialed his lens close. He saw faint markings. “U.S.” and “023” stood out.

Mint marks. They had to be that. He was locked-in, dialed-in sure.

Oooga-booga. Vile voodoo ascends. Eddie Leng goes out in style.

Pit dogs pulled Eddie’s casket. They wore tong kerchiefs and spiked breastplates. The casket was tiger-striped and rolled on tricycle wheels.

Spectators lined North Broadway. Car traffic was verboten. Boocoo Chinks trailed the casket. They waved REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! and KILL THE JAPS! signs.

Elmer stood at Alpine and Broadway. Street vendors hawked ptomaine tacos and egg foo young. Elmer reeled. It was all of it — plus this shit:

Deep-fried Eddie Leng. These suffocation dreams. It’s really Wayne Frank and him in that charred box.

All that shit. Plus his fool stunt with Ace Kwan.

Said stunt got him cogitating. Ace blathered that night. He said Lin Chung and Don Matsura crossed hate lines and hobknobbed. They sold pharmacy dope. Matsura was tonged up. He peddled terp to winos and dope fiends. He knew Tommy Glennon. Lin Chung knew Tommy, likewise.

Cut to the Matsura roust. It’s him, Rice, and Kapek. There’s the terp still in Matsura’s dump. There’s the Leng’s Kowloon menu.

It got him cogitating. So, he did this:

He read Chinktown intel files at the Bureau. Thus, he learned this:

Lin Chung peddled opiate compounds. He supplied “O” dens in the San Gabriel Valley. He pushed pharmacy hop to herb quacks.

And, he saw this:

Fed routing stamps on Chung’s file. That was provocative. That meant this:

The Feds had Chung pegged as hinky and suspect. Thus, he did this:

He staked out Chung’s house. He saw Ed Satterlee staked likewise. He tailed Ed the Fed to the phone-probe stake spot by the Herald. The hot-box phone outside: listed in Tommy G.’s address book.

The hot-box was a bookie-call phone. Sid Hudgens purportedly used it. Sid scribed at the Herald. It all felt popcorn-fart tight.

Elmer watched the parade. He pondered a ptomaine-taco lunch. The casket rolled out of sight.

He felt something behind him. Some lurking beast. His fellow spectators veered, lurched, and scrammed.

Something/someone grabbed him. He got all smothered up. It was an octopus snatch. Six arms clamped him tight.

He squirmed and orbed the octopus. Tentacles became arms. It was Jim Davis and two Hop Sing shits. Our ex — police chief and two heathen slants.

They snatched him and scissor-walked him. Sidewalk geeks gawked. Yellow folks went White men claaaaazy! They gassed on the show. Jim Davis tossed them Chink bon mots.

They scissor-walked down Broadway. They hit Kwan’s and scissored through the dining room. Shit — it’s packed.

White stiffs quaffed mai tais and slurped pork fried rice. Shit — there’s Fletch Bowron, there’s Wallace Jamie, there’s fucked-up Father Coughlin.

They scissor-walked downstairs. They hit the basement. They pushed through the “O” den and Chinks reposed on Cloud 9. They hit a small office. Bam! — the tong shits depart.

Davis unwrapped him and plopped him down in a chair. The fat cocksucker was red-faced and all sweated up.

Elmer dredged savoir faire. “You don’t look too good, Chief. You look like a man in need of medical care.”

Davis caught his breath. “You’re still a pup to me. You’re still this lance corporal I befriended.”

Elmer said, “That was ’35, and this here’s ’42. And I’m recalling that I shot this loopy beaner trying to kill you.”

The office was smother-cramped. Desk, chairs, claaaazy wall art. Velour-flocked pictures. Fire-spitting dragons roasting Jap dragoons.

Elmer stood up. He smoothed out his coat and tie and redredged savoir faire. Davis said, “You’re still a pup. And pups require a rap on the snout when they misbehave.”

“It’s starting to dawn on me, Chief.”

“Okay, then you listen close. Jack Horrall’s pissed because the Dudster’s pissed, because you muscled Ace. You’ve got to desist on whatever it is that’s goring you and got you acting dumb. That means the Leng snuff, Tommy Glennon, and Donald Matsura — who just happened to hang himself in his cell last night. ¿Tú comprende, muchacho? The Chinks police the Chinks, and that’s straight from Jack H. Ace makes Matsura for the Leng job, and that’s the way it stands. Tommy G.’s long gone, and nobody cares.”

Uncle Ace walked in. He wore that steam-pops-out-the-ears look. He resembled the aggrieved Donald Duck.

Elmer said, “Hey, pappy.”

Davis said, “Jack Horrall wants you to apologize.”

Elmer said, “I apologize, Ace.”

Uncle Ace shrieked curses. Elmer feigned deep remorse. Ace whipped out his dick and pissed on his shoes.

Stakeout.

11th and Broadway. Upside the Herald building. Upside that hot-box phone.

Elmer sprawled in his prowl sled. He felt revivified. He went by the Biltmore first. He got a double-fine shoe shine and quaffed two Rob Roys. He lunched on salted peanuts and bought a one-dollar cigar.

Stakeout.

Elmer lit the cigar and eyeballed due south. Ed Satterlee sat in a Fed sled and eyeballed the hot-box. Elmer scratched his balls and kicked the seat back.

He eyeball-clicked. Click to the phone booth. Click to the Fed sled. Click to the Herald ’s front door.

Stiffs fed the phone nickels. Nobody aroused suspicion. They made brief phone calls and scrammed.

Elmer savored the cigar. It was El Supremo Cuban. He watched the booth, the Fed car, the door.

He stuck at it two hours. Sid Hudgens walked out at 3:32.

He strolled to the hot-box. He waved to Ed Satterlee. He consulted a racing form and fed the coin slot. A four-minute confab ensued.