Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

Joan dodged gropes. She clutched her purse and made for the door. She was half-gassed. L.A. was three hours north. Army checkpoints would stall traffic. The shoreline blackout would drop shroudlike.

She dodged last-ditch gropes and escaped. She made the elevator and pushed 1. Mirrored walls hemmed her in. They were too good to pass up.

She winked. She whistled. She was too proud to falter and too tall and good-looking to lose.

Her red hair. Her green eyes. Her bold six-foot sway. Her trim winter uniform. Gold buttons and braid.

Lieutenant Junior Grade J. W. Conville, USNR. You shitbird Japs better watch out.

She enlisted in L.A. on Pearl Harbor day. It was pure impulse. She kicked out her one-night lover and drove downtown. The Fed building was deluged. She stood in line six hours straight.

Anchors aweigh.

She was a registered nurse and graduate biologist. Her jazzy CV got her a rank jump at the gate. Nurse Corps training camp loomed. She put in for battleship duty. Point Loma, here I come.

The elevator jarred and stopped. There’s the lobby. Joan pushed her way through swarms of rich stiffs.

The famous El Cortez Hotel. Dowagers and old guys in tuxedos. Walls festooned with tricolored bunting. THWAP THE JAP! signs. Fat Wallace Beery, signing autographs.

Joan ducked out to the parking lot. Short men google-eyed her. Holy moly — the rain.

She got soaked. She found her car and huddled in. She kicked the heater and ran the wipers. She lit a cigarette. She popped over to the coast road, northbound.

She observed blackout regs and rode her low beams, exclusive. They lit up this looooong rain sluice. Beach waves crashed off to her left.

She chain-smoked. She knew the sober-up drill, inside out. Fix on task and quash those dozen highballs.

She blew out of Dago proper. Traffic thinned. She hit a clear stretch and goosed up more speed.

Barrel through. It’s the Conville family code.

It was Earle Everett Conville’s code. It’s his elder daughter’s now. It’s not the kid sister’s. She married a papist and smeared Big Earle’s legacy.

That clear stretch telescoped. It formed one black hole, here to always. Joan floored the gas. Her low beams hit rain smashing down.

Wind slashed it horizontal. Just like Tomah, Wisconsin.

The wind played tricks. Snow flew horizontal. Uprooted trees flew likewise. Big Earle was the Monroe County game warden. He made Joan blast felled trees with a 10-gauge shotgun. Five trees supplied all-winter kindling.

Her hometown curriculum. Dead, like her parents. Absent, like her sister and inbred cousins in Bilgewater, Scotland. Usurped by nursing school and grad work at Northwestern. Gone, like her numerous men.

Holy moly — this rain.

She barreled through. It’s what Convilles do. She chain-smoked. It fought her booze load. She slowed for an Army checkpoint. Saboteur Alert. She slowed for a cop checkpoint. Wetback Alert. White thugs smuggled wets in car trunks and flatbed trucks.

The cops wore blue serge and fat gun belts. They brought back this L.A. police captain. He all but swooned for her.

Northwestern. Spring 1940. This skinny sad sack with glasses. He followed her everywhere. He watched her shoot skeet off Lake Michigan. He eyeballed her at sock hops. She almost asked him to dance.

Nobody knew his name. He was in for some traffic cops’ seminar. He peeped Joan Woodard Conville in his spare time.

The seminar ended. The captain vanished. Here’s the weird epilogue. She saw him in L.A., three nights back.

Hollywood Boulevard. A war-bond rally. The Ritz Brothers grovel for laughs. Poof — she sees him. Poof — he sees her. Poof — he’s gone again.

The checkpoint cops waved her through. One cop whistled. Joan blew him a kiss and floored the gas.

Rain came down vertical. Wind kicked it horizontal. Rain brought back Big Earle — a forest fire casualty.

Big Earle, firefighter. Big Earle, shitkicker and drunk. Big Earle, friend and foe of migrant Indians hooked on bathtub juice.

He hired them to fight forest fires. They blew their pay on hooch and started more fires for more wampum. A big blaze hits — April 9, ’38. Maybe it’s the Indians. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s premeditated arson.

E. E. Conville, dead at forty-nine. Her father, burned alive. The U.S. Forest Service investigates. Their call: “No evidence of arson extant.”

Joan disagreed. She switched grad-school majors. She dropped premed for biology. She studied forensic biology. She haunted the blaze site. She studied soil and tree-wood samples. She interviewed Indians and compiled a suspect list. A soused Indian fondled her. She blew his left foot off with her shotgun.

She shredded her suspect list. It wasn’t liquored-up redskins. The fire felt deliberate — not haphazard.

She discovered an airplane-fuel spill. It was near the fire’s flash point. She examined fuel-laced soil. She determined the molecular content and the fuel’s brand name. She traced the fuel to a charter-airplane service in Duluth, Minnesota. The service pointed her to Mitchell A. Kupp.

Kupp called himself an inventor. He lived off of family money. He was pals with Charles Lindbergh. Kupp chartered a small aircraft on 4/9/38 and flew it over Monroe County.

She learned all that. Her case fizzled, then. Her fuel-spill evidence was erratically collected and logged. She could not attribute motive. She could not connect E. E. Conville to Mitchell A. Kupp in any discernible way.

Barrel through. It’s what Convilles do. Big Earle expects it.

She held down night-nurse jobs. She crash-coursed her master’s degree. She read extensively. She devoured monographs by L.A. coroner Norton Layman and police chemist Hideo Ashida. She took her degree and moved to L.A. She got a lab job and applied to the doctorate program at Cal Tech.

Joan barreled through. It’s what Convilles do. She’ll return to Wisconsin and avenge Big Earle’s death. Vengeance is thine.

Banzai. Pearl Harbor preempts her. She’s a sucker for hot dates. It’s her hot date with History.

Rain battered her car. Visibility decreased. Pooled water doused her low beams and cut sight lines down to zero.

Thunder boomed. Joan sighted in off lightning flare. She hit close-to-L.A. traffic. She chained cigarettes. She downshifted, fishtailed, swerved. She saw a sign for Venice Boulevard.

She pulled right. She went woozy and white-knuckled the wheel. She got light-headed. It’s that booze-catching-up feel—

Lights hit the windshield. Big full-on head lights. They violated blackout reg—

Joan went glare-blind. She rubbed her eyes and lost the wheel. She smashed the lights and this great big something.

The Werewolf sleeps. He’s fetal-curled and looks pacified. Oblivion becomes him.

He has a one-man/vacant-tier cell. Jailers keep him penned up and sedated. Fujio Shudo/age thirty-eight/male Japanese. He’s bought and paid for. He’s down for four counts of Murder One.

A sanity hearing pends. It’s strictly rubber stamp. He allegedly killed the four Watanabes. It was a sex lust/pro-fascist caper. He’s green room — bound. He’ll be dead inside six months. Police chemist Hideo Ashida stands complicit.

Ashida watched the Werewolf sleep. Lee Blanchard watched and kibitzed. Big Lee. Kay Lake’s faux lover, ex — heavyweight contender.

“The Werewolf and the Wolfman. I don’t know the difference. Maybe it’s the actors who play them.”

They stood in the vacant-tier catwalk. Thunder echoed. Barred windowpanes shook.

Ashida said, “It’s one symbolic character, with differing narratives.”