Perfidia Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2014 by James Ellroy

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ellroy, James, [date].

  Perfidia : a novel / James Ellroy.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-307-95699-6 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-385-35321-2 (eBook) 1. Murder—investigation—Fiction. 2. Japanese Americans—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939–1945—California—

  Los Angeles—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3555.L6274P47 2014

  813’.54—dc23

  2014009939

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Jacket images: (top) © Whitehead Images/​Alamy;

  (bottom) © MIXA/​Alamy

  Jacket design by Chip Kidd

  v3.1

  The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy

  American Tabloid

  The Cold Six Thousand

  Blood’s A Rover

  The L.A. Quartet

  The Black Dahlia

  The Big Nowhere

  L.A. Confidential

  White Jazz

  Memoir

  My Dark Places

  The Hilliker Curse

  Short Stories

  Hollywood Nocturnes

  Journalism/​Short Fiction

  Crime Wave

  Destination: Morgue!

  Early Novels

  Brown’s Requiem

  Clandestine

  Blood on the Moon

  Because the Night

  Suicide Hill

  Killer on the Road

  To LISA STAFFORD

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by This Author

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: The Japs

  December 6, 1941

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  December 7, 1941

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  December 8, 1941

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  December 9, 1941

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  December 10, 1941

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  December 11, 1941

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Part Two: The Chinks

  Chapter 44

  December 12, 1941

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  December 13, 1941

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  December 14, 1941

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  December 15, 1941

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  December 16, 1941

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  December 17, 1941

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  December 18, 1941

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  December 19, 1941

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Part Three: The Fifth Column

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  December 20, 1941

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  December 21, 1941

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  December 22, 1941

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  December 23, 1941

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  December 24, 1941

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Part Four: The Huntress

  December 27, 1941

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  December 28, 1941

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  December 29, 1941

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Dramatis Personae

  A Note About the Author

  Envy thou not the oppressor,

  And choose none of his ways.

  —Proverbs 3:31

  Fifth Column: noun, and a popular colloquialism of 1941 America. The term derived from the recent Spanish Civil War. Four columns of soldiers were sent into battle. The Fifth Column stayed at home and performed industrial sabotage, the dissemination of propaganda, and numerous other forms of less detectable subversion. Fifth Columnists sought to remain anonymous; their ambiguous and/​or fully unidentified status made them seem as dangerous or more dangerous than the four columns engaged in day-to-day war.

  Reminiscenza.

  I wandered off in a prairie blizzard 85 years ago. The cold rendered me spellbound, then to now. I have outlived the decree and find myself afraid to die. I cannot will cloudbursts the way I once did. I must recollect with yet greater fury.

  It was a fever then. It remains a fever now. I will not die as long as I live this story. I run to Then to buy myself moments Now.

  Twenty-three days.

  Blood libel.

  A policeman knocks on a young woman’s door. Murderers’ flags, aswirl.

  Twenty-three days.

  This storm.

  Reminiscenza.

  THE THUNDERBOLT BROADCAST


  GERALD L. K. SMITH | K-L-A-N RADIO, LOS ANGELES | BOOTLEG TRANSMITTER/​TIJUANA, MEXICO | FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1941

  The Jew Control Apparatus mandated this war—and now it’s ours, whether we want it or not. It has been said that no news is good news, but that maxim predates the wondrous invention of radio, with its power to deliver all the news—good and bad—at rocket-ship speed. Regrettably, tonight’s news is all bad, for the Nazis and the Japs are on a ripsnorting rampage—and the war is rapidly heading our undeserved and unwanted way.

  Item: Adolf Hitler breached his deal with Red Boss Joseph Stalin in the summer and invaded the vast wasteland of repugnant Red Russia. Hammer-and-sickle armies are currently grinding der Führer’s stalwart soldiers to bratwurst outside Moscow—but the natty Nazis have already bombed Britain to smithereens and have placed half of central Europe under Nordic Nationalist rule. Hitler’s still got the pep to give American ground troops a fair fight—which will assuredly occur at some not-too-far-off point in our great nation’s future. Does it make you apoplectically ambivalent, my friends? We don’t want this war—but in for a penny, in for a pound.

  Item: the illustrious Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, is faring poorly in his North African campaign—but don’t count him out. Italians are lovers more than fighters, it has been said—grand opera is much more their style. That is certainly true—but those bel canto–belting bambinos still represent a strategic threat in the lower-European theater. Yes, storm clouds are forming in the east. Storm clouds are breaking to our west, I’m sad to say—in the form of our most presently poised alleged enemies: the Japs.

  Are you that much more amply ambivalent, my friends? Like me, you’ve opened your ardent arms to America First. But, Hirohito’s heathen hornets are now heading across the high seas—and I don’t like it one bit.

  Item: the State Department just issued a bulletin. Jap convoys are currently headed for Siam, and an invasion is expected momentarily.

  Item: civilians are fleeing Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.

  Item: President Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld has sent a personal message to the Jap Emperor. That message is both entreaty and warning: Desist in your aggressions or run the risk of full-scale American intervention.

  Uncle Sam is getting hot. The Hawaiian Islands are our possession and the Pacific gateway to mainland America. The lush tropical atolls that beeline in our direction are now targets for Jap gun sights. This undeserved, unwarranted and unwanted war is heading our way—whether we want it or not.

  Item: President Rosenfeld wants to know why Hirohito’s hellions are massing in French Indochina.

  Item: Radio Bangkok has issued warnings of a possible Jap sneak attack on Thailand. Jap envoys are conferring with Secretary of State Cordell Hull at this very moment. The Japs are hissing with forked tongues—because they say they want peace, even as Jap Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo lambasts America for our refusal to understand Japanese “ideals” and our continued protests against alleged Japanese pogroms in East Asia and the Pacific.

  Yes, my friends—it’s becoming Jewniversally apparent. This Communist-concocted war is heading our way—whether we want it or not.

  No sane American desires our participation in a Fight-for-the-Kikes foreign war. No sane American wants to send American boys off to certain peril. No sane American denies that this war cannot be kept off our shores unless we circumvent and interdict it on foreign soil. I’m ripsnortingly right about this, my friends—I’m apple-cheeked with apostasy.

  We didn’t start this war. Adolf Hitler and hotsy-totsy Hirohito didn’t start this war, either. The Jew Control apparatchiks cooked up this Red borscht stew and turned friend upon friend, the world over. Are you apoplectically ambivalent, my good friends?

  Yes, the war is coming our way, even though we sure as shooting don’t want it. And America never runs from a fight.

  9:08 a.m.

  There—Whalen’s Drugstore, 6th and Spring streets. The site of four recent felonies. 211 PC—Armed Robbery.

  The store was jinxed. Four heists in one month predicted a fifth heist. It was probably the same bandit. The man worked solo. He covered his face with a bandanna and carried a long-barreled gat. He always stole narcotics and till cash.

  The Robbery Squad was shorthanded. A geek wearing a Hitler mask hit three taverns in Silver Lake. It was 211 plus mayhem. The geek pistol-whipped the bartenders and groped female customers. He was gun-happy. He shot up jukeboxes and shelves full of booze.

  Robbery was swamped. Ashida built the trip-wire gizmo and chose this test spot. He’d created the prototype in high school. His first test spot was the Belmont High showers. He used it to photograph Bucky after basketball prac—

  A car swerved northbound on Spring. The driver saw Ashida. Of course—he yelled, “Goddamn Jap!”

  Ray Pinker responded. Of course—he yelled, “Screw you!”

  Ashida stared at the ground. The feeder cord ran across the street and stopped at the curb in front of the drugstore. The geek bandit parked in the same spot all four times. The cord led to a trip-action camera encased in hard rubber. The wheel jolts of cars parking activated gears. A shutter and flashbulb clicked and snapped photos of rear license plates. Rolls of film were stashed in rubber-coated tubes. A single load would cover a full day’s worth of cars.

  Pinker lit a cigarette. “It’s a wild-goose chase. We’re civilian criminologists, not cops. We know the damn thing works, so why are we here? It’s not like we’ve been tipped to another job.”

  Ashida smiled. “You know the answer to that.”

  “If the answer is ‘We’ve got nothing better to do,’ or ‘We’re scientists with no personal lives worth a damn,’ then you’re right.”

  A bus passed southbound. A Mexican guy blew smoke rings out his window. He saw Ashida. He yelled, “Puto Jap!”

  Pinker flipped his cigarette. It fell short of the bus.

  “Which one of you was born here? Which one of you did not swim the Rio Grande illegally?”

  Ashida squared off his necktie. “Say it again. You were exasperated the first time you said it, so I know it was a candid response.”

  Pinker grinned. “You’re my protégé, so you’re my Jap, which gives me a vested interest in you. You’re the only Jap employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, which makes you that much more unique and gives me that much more cachet.”

  Ashida laughed. A ’38 DeSoto pulled up in front of the drugstore. The wheels hit the wire, the lens clicked, the flashbulb popped. A tall man got out. He had Bucky Bleichert’s dark hair and small brown eyes. Ashida watched him enter the drugstore.

  Pinker ducked across the street and futzed with the bulb slot. Ashida window-peeped the drugstore and tracked the man. The glass distorted his features. Ashida made him Bucky. He shut his eyes, he blinked, he opened his eyes and transformed him. The man evinced Bucky’s grace now. He glided. He smiled and displayed big buck teeth.

  The man walked out. Pinker ran back across the street and blocked Ashida’s view. The car drove off. Ashida blinked. The world lost its one-minute Bucky Bleichert glow.

  They settled back in. Pinker leaned on a lamppost and chain-smoked. Ashida stood still and felt the downtown L.A. whir.

  The war was coming. The whir was all about it. He was a native-born Nisei and second son. His father was a gandy dancer. Pops guzzled terpin hydrate and worked himself to death laying railroad track. His mother had an apartment in Little Tokyo. She was pro-Emperor and spoke Japanese just to torque him. The family owned a truck farm in the San Fernando Valley. His brother Akira ran it. It was mostly Nisei acreage out there. Mexican illegals picked their crops. It was a common Nisei practice. It was shameful, it was prudent, it was labor at low cost. The practice bordered on indentured servitude. The practice assured solvency for the Nisei farmer class.

  The practice entailed collusion. The family paid bribes to a Mexican State Police captain. The payments saved the wetbacks from deportation. A
kira accepted the practice and implemented it sans moral probe. It permitted second son Hideo to ignore the family trade and pursue his criminological passion.

  He had advanced degrees in chemistry and biology. He was a Stanford Ph.D. at twenty-two. He knew serology, fingerprinting, ballistics. He went on the Los Angeles Police Department a year ago. He wanted to work with its legendary head chemist. He was a protégé looking for a mentor. Ray Pinker was a pedagogue looking for a pupil. The bond was formed in that manner. The assigned roles blurred very fast.

  They became colleagues. Pinker was admirably blind per racial matters. He compared Ashida to Charlie Chan’s number-one son. Ashida told Pinker that Charlie Chan was Chinese. Pinker said, “It’s all Greek to me.”

  Spring Street was lined with mock-snow Christmas trees. They were coated with bird dung and soot. A kid hawked Heralds outside the drugstore. He shouted the headline: “FDR in Last-Ditch Talks with Japs!”

  Pinker said, “The damn gizmo works.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re a goddamn genius.”

  “I know.”

  “That rape-o’s still operating. The Central Vice guys make him for an MP. He dicked another lady two nights ago.”

  Ashida nodded. “The first victim resisted and tore off a strip of his armband. He wore his uniform shirt under his civilian coat. I’ve got fiber samples at my lab in my mother’s apartment.”

  Pinker ogled a big blonde draped around a sailor. The sailor fish-eyed Ashida.

  “Bucky Bleichert’s fighting at the Olympic tomorrow night. The skinny is he’ll fight a few more times and come on the Department.”

  Ashida flushed. “I knew Bucky in high school.”

  “I know. That’s why I said it.”

  “Who’s he fighting?”

  “A stumblebum named Junior Wilkins. Elmer Jackson collared him for flimflam. He was running a back-to-Africa con with some shine preacher.”

  A ’37 Ford coupe parked upside the drugstore. There—the wheels hit the wire, the lens clicks, the flashbulb pops on cue.

  Pinker coughed and turned away from Ashida. A man got out of the car. He wore a fedora and an overcoat with the collar up. Ashida prickled. It was no-overcoat warm.

  Pinker hacked and coughed. He was almost doubled up. The man pulled a handkerchief over his face.

  Ashida tingled.

  It was perfect. It was ideal. Pinker didn’t see the man. They had the plate number. He could let the crime occur. He could run his forensic study from inception.