Джеймс Эллрой - This Storm

“We’re backlogged on your confiscations. You’re bringing in more than we can process.”

Elmer relit a cigar. “You’re lucky we got thieves on the squad. Georgie Kapek and Wendell Rice got your swag appropriated.”

Ashida laughed. Elmer eyeballed the room. He said, “Kay looks swell, don’t she?”

“Are you in love with her?”

“I’m entranced. That’s worse. You acknowledge that you ain’t got a chance, so you act even dumber than you usually do.”

Ashida jumped topics. Romantic intrigue bored and vexed him.

“I read a Teletype from Fourth Interceptor. There’s allegedly hidden air bases out in Indio and Brawley. The command picked up coded pay-phone calls from here to Baja.”

Elmer shrugged. “Dud’s headed south. He’ll nip that grief in the bud. ‘Knock, knock, who’s there? Dudley Smith, so spies beware.’ ”

Ashida smiled. Elmer scoped the doorway. Ashida tracked his gaze.

Bill Parker walked in. He wore a fresh uniform and looked all spruced up. He brought a date.

A Navy lieutenant. Rumpled blues, red hair, quite tall and statuesque. Vehicular manslaughter/six counts/two counts unacknowledged.

Elmer waggled his eyebrows. Elmer wolf-growled.

Ashida deployed Man Camera. He framed Parker and the redhead. He panned to Kay Lake and caught her reaction. He zoomed in for a close-up. Kay and Parker shared This Big Freighted Look.

Parker and the redhead hit the buffet. They ignored the food and mixed high-test Bloody Marys.

They clicked glasses. Their hands brushed. Kay saw it all.

Thad Brown walked up. He ignored dozed-out Blanchard. He braced Ashida and Elmer.

“Let’s go. We’ve got mud slides in Griffith Park. They’ve dislodged a body by the golf course.”

They ran Code Three/red lights and siren. It goosed squarejohn drivers curbside. Thad Brown hauled. Ashida rode shotgun. Elmer hogged the backseat.

First reports state this:

The stiff is a long-term decomp. That means all bones. It washed up on the par-3 golf course. Said course adjoined Mineral Canyon — i.e., the spot where Wayne Frank Jackson died.

Elmer agitated it. Elmer segued to more pressing shit. Eddie Leng’s deep-fried feet. Tommy Glennon’s address book.

He’d dropped the book on the day-watch Vice clerk. He’d slipped him a yard and told him to run a phone-number check. Chop, chop. I need results, pronto. And don’t blab on this.

Brown hauled up Vermont. Rainwater jammed the wheel wells. The car belly-flopped and drifted. Brown veered right and caught a flat surface. They shimmied down a golf course access road.

Elmer saw two black-and-whites and a prowl sled. Plus a snack hut. Plus green fairways and the dump site.

There’s two harness blues and two plainclothesmen. They’ve got arc lights and a rain tarp set up. They’ve got a steep hillside all lit.

Brown fishtailed over and yanked the brake. They all went whew. Elmer bundled into his hat and trench coat. They all got out and ran.

Elmer got there first. He saw Al Goossen and Colin Forbes — Hollywood Squad hard-ons.

Nods circulated. The tarp fluttered and dripped rain. Brown and Ashida caught up. The arc lights lit this:

Soaked grass up the fairway. The mud spill and all this loose soil. A big dirt hole. Exhumed mud sluicing down to this flat spot.

The spill dislodged a box. It tumbled down the hillside. It’s a pine box — six-six by two feet.

It’s charred black. They’re char marks, for sure. Intermittent marks — mud-and-root-matted.

The lid was warped and soil-eroded. The mud slide sprung it off, clean. It’s a jig-rigged casket. There’s green goo caked inside. There’s skeletal remains.

Ashida pointed to the goo. “That’s congealed quicklime. It serves to speed decomposition.”

Elmer relit his cigar. Forbes and Goossen lit cigarettes. Brown spit tobacco juice.

“That tags it Murder One.”

Ashida leaned in close. Elmer said, “Genius at work.”

Bluesuit #1 rolled his eyes. Bluesuit #2 said, “Like Charlie Chan.” Elmer said, “Charlie Chan’s a Chinaman, dipshit.”

Bluesuit #2 blanched. Ashida foot-tapped the box.

“Note the width of the pelvis and the overall length and breadth of the remains. The victim was male, tall, and heavyset.”

Brown said, “Talk to me, dead man.”

Forbes said, “Who killed you, boss?”

Ashida futzed with the stiff’s jawbones. They went creak. He pulled them loose.

“The killer knocked his teeth out. Note the mandible fractures. The uppers and lowers are unidentifiable stubs.”

Elmer studied the box. The fire aspect gouged him. October 3, ’33 — the Griffith Park blaze.

Ashida tapped a shattered rib bone. “It’s a knife-thrust homicide. The killer hit hard, went in deep, and twisted the knife.”

Brown leaned low. He studied the skull. He pointed out a hole and faint cracks adjacent.

“He was shot once. You’ll find a spent round embedded.”

Elmer looked up the hill. Lightning backlit the whole golf course.

“You remember that big fire, back in ’33? I’m thinking it could have whooshed over the box and caused all the charring.”

Ashida said, “I don’t think so. There’s too much mud for the fire to have gone that deep.”

Brown poked at some rags. They were quicklime-caked and bore singe marks.

“That green shit dissolved the clothes off the body.”

Forbes said, “Who killed you, dead man?”

Goossen said, “It’s a missing-person job. That stuff puts me to sleep. Give me a nigger homicide any day.”

Brown said, “You’re out of luck there. Get the box and the stiff to Doc Layman at the morgue.”

Forbes and Goossen sulked. Elmer chewed his cigar. He recollected Wayne Frank. He felt all razzle-dazzle.

“Here’s what gets me. Some of the box is burned, but some ain’t. I don’t see no special flame pattern on the wood.”

Forbes said, “Elmer’s brother died in that fire. He’s got fires on the noggin.”

Goossen said, “I remember that day. Fire trucks were backed up all the way down Los Feliz.”

Forbes said, “It was the Reds. They never proved arson, but some Red cell was supposed to be good for it.”

Ashida studied the box. Genius at work. All eyes on Ashida now.

He said, “Elmer could be right. I think the box was burned concurrent with an aboveground fire. 1933 might be a good guess.”

The rain let up. Black clouds hovered. Thad B. drove Elmer and Ashida back downtown. L.A. was hungover. Shops closed, nil traffic, local yokels sleeping it off.

Ashida hopped out at the Biltmore. Elmer snagged his civilian sled at City Hall. That Vice clerk delivered. He’d stuck the phone-call list under the wiper blades.

Elmer had a bachelor flop at 1st and Saint Andrews. He drove by and fed his tropical fish. Brenda had a house up Laurel Canyon. He part-time shacked there. Brenda might be home. She might toss him some New Year’s woof-woof.

He drove over and let himself in. The place was done up Spanish Hacienda. Brenda scrounged used sets from The Sword of Zorro. Some homo art director went nuts.

Elmer built a highball and buzzed the call-service switchboard. The dispatch girl delivered the dish. She knew Elmer was het up and voyeurizized.

Dig tonight’s roster:

Fletch Bowron booked a threesky. DA Bill McPherson booked a colored cooze. Sheriff Gene Biscailuz booked a tall blonde.

The service featured house calls, plus three fuck flops. Apartment-building tryst spots. Replete with hidden wall peeks and cameras. Folks paid to peep bedroom action. The camera shit doubled as potential shakedown gear.