This Storm Page 3

  The clerk yawned. “That you, Elmer?”

  “It’s me, so grab your pencil.”

  “I got it here someplace.”

  Elmer said, “HO-4612. The subscriber’s got the initials J.S.”

  “Okay, I got—”

  “The number for St. Vibiana’s Church, and the subscriber name for RE-8761.”

  The clerk perked up. “I know that last number. It’s a hot-box pay phone, and them farkakte phone-probe Feds been looking at it. A lot of hinky City Hall guys make their hinky calls from there.”

  Elmer said, “Don’t stop now.”

  “Who’s stopping? I was just pausing.”

  “Come on. Don’t string this—”

  “It used to be a bookie’s hot-box, and the drift is it still is. It’s over on 11th and Broadway, by the Herald. That farkakte reporter Sid Hudgens stiffs his unkosher calls from it.”

  Sid the Yid. Scandal scribe, putz provocateur. St. Vib’s—the papist hot spot. Eddie Leng’s eatery.

  Tommy, what does this shit portend?

  2

  DUDLEY SMITH

  (LOS ANGELES, 11:30 P.M., 12/31/41)

  Surging brass. Soaring reeds. Driving rain in syncopation.

  The muster room jumped. The Count and his boys cranked it. “Annie Laurie” now. Up-tempo and grandly Gaelic.

  The room broiled. Steam heat fights cold L.A. winter. Dance-once-a-year cops danced tonight and overdid it. They quaffed table booze and tossed their dates, willy-nilly. The Count observed. White folks were circus clowns. This confirmed it.

  Dudley watched. He had a side table and a cracked-for-air window. He wore his Army dress uniform. Claire wore a kelly green frock.

  The Archbishop played to her. J. J. Cantwell liked women. He observed his vows and properly abstained. Monsignor Joe Hayes ignored Claire. She converted. It proved her inauthentic. He reluctantly served as her confessor.

  Women repulsed Monsignor Joe. He liked boys. He contravened his vows and indulged his bent.

  Father Coughlin liked raw discourse. His trinity was booze, slander, and foment. He loathed the Reds and the kikes. He played to the nuns at St. Vib’s and sundered them with hate tracts. He lived to sway souls and spawn discontent.

  A waiter restocked the table. He bowed and laid out scotch, gin, and ice. The waiters were county jail trusties. This lad was a weenie waver. He habituated schoolyards and slammed his ham.

  Claire freshened drinks. The clerics lit cigarettes and imbibed. The Archbishop ogled Claire. Monsignor Joe ogled the waiter. Father Charles doodled up a napkin. He drew swastikas dripping blood.

  Dudley adjusted his sling. His left arm had sustained multiple shiv wounds. A pesky Chink, surely. Tong intrigue, most likely. He was allied with Uncle Ace Kwan and Hop Sing. Said alliance might have spawned rival-tong enmity. Said shiv man would soon be sternly rebuked.

  Claire shared her morphine. It facilitated his rapid recovery. Her love for him outweighed her habit. The drug salved pain and rendered the world elegiac. It granted noblesse oblige.

  It deadened his recent failures. Pearl Harbor and the Jap roundups as one big botched business deal.

  He hatched war-profit schemes. Ace Kwan assisted him. They all went blooey. He chased a heroin stash in Baja. Mike Breuning, Dick Carlisle, and Hideo Ashida assisted. That went blooey. It was Captain Carlos Madrano’s stash. Madrano and the Mex Staties interdicted the Smith cartel. A Jap sub fiasco played in. He planted nitro in Madrano’s car and blew up El Capitán. It was small recompense.

  Father Coughlin knew Madrano’s replacement. José Vasquez-Cruz was anti-Red and anti-Jew, but less overtly Fascista. Baja bodes again now. Police Sergeant Smith as Army Captain Smith. He’ll meet Vasquez-Cruz and perhaps seek to suborn him. Baja bodes as opportunity reborn.

  Count Basie kicked off a Latin-tinged ballad. Claire squeezed his good arm. Let’s dance, mi corazon.

  The sling curtailed movement. Dudley let Claire help him up and lead him. She cradled his bad arm. They danced close. Claire laid her head on his shoulder.

  She said, “We’ll be there in two weeks. We’ll get tired of this music.”

  “Major Melnick has secured us a grand hotel suite. We’ll have our own terrace, with a lovely ocean view.”

  Claire nuzzled up. “We’ll go to Mass and observe all the saints’ days. We’ll be taller and better-looking than everyone else, and they won’t believe how well we speak Spanish.”

  Dudley laughed. “The hoi polloi will adore you. They’ll call you ‘La Gringa’ behind your back, and wonder how this mick thug got so lucky.”

  “Don’t deride yourself, dear. Never forget that I’ve civilized you more than you’ve corrupted me.”

  “It’s a toss-up, isn’t it? It’s a determination that time and fate will reveal.”

  Claire said, “Yes, darling. It is all of that.”

  The dance floor was packed. Revelers bumped and tangled up their feet. Dudley swapped grins with his fellow policemen.

  There’s Lieutenant Thad Brown. He’s jawing with a high-yellow songstress. There’s ex-Chief Davis, spiking the punchbowl. There’s Captain Bill Parker and Kay Lake. They comprise a dashed romance. There’s a full room between them. They shoot sparks across it, nonetheless. Parker’s a persistent burr in his tail. Miss Lake’s comely, if fatuous.

  Parker’s in uniform. Note his soggy blues and drooping gunbelt. He’s been clocking traffic grief in the rain. He’s hiding out from his wife. He’s here to ogle comely Kay Lake.

  Many men find La Lake brilliant and alluring. Parker surely does. He himself does not. She’s a dilettante and a round-heeled police buff. She’s nonconjugally shacked with surly Officer Lee Blanchard. Parker is pious and dangerous. He may ascend to Chief one day.

  Bill Parker. The Watanabe case. Roadblocks on his sprint, post–Pearl Harbor.

  Fujio Shudo. The Werewolf psychopath. He was Sergeant D. L. Smith’s proffered slayer. Bill Parker worked for a true solve. Bill Parker failed. Hideo Ashida assisted Sergeant Smith. It cinched the whole deal.

  Claire swayed close. Dudley felt her tremors. She’d excuse herself soon. She’d retrieve her hypodermic.

  He steadied her. She steadied him. It was a new love affair and a most tender pact.

  His arm ached. He’d lost weight. The attack climaxed his post–Pearl Harbor sprint.

  He vowed vengeance. Mike and Dick were meeting him later. They recruited some Alien Squad muscle. A grand tong sweep loomed.

  The Count segued to “Adios.” Soft reeds with low-brass punctuation. A Mexican motif.

  Claire said, “Good-byes are never that beautiful.”

  Dudley kissed her neck. She was damp there. He knew her body and her dope habit already.

  “It’s our song, for the war’s duration. It prohibits all farewells.”

  Claire shuddered. He eased her back to their table. Father Charles launched a raw joke. “Have you heard it, Your Eminence? It’s the swell tale of Come-San-Chin, the Chinese cocksucker.”

  J. J. Cantwell roared. Joe Hayes glowered. Claire snatched her clutch and made for the loo.

  She cuts a swath. Drunken cops step aside. She betrays no haste and smiles at each one.

  Dudley checked his watch. It’s 11:51. Where’s Mike and Dick? Where’s dim bulb Elmer Jackson?

  Quo vadis, Tommy Glennon?

  Tommy self-decreed his extinction. A three-count indictment levied charges. Count One: Tommy raped women and thus annulled the civil contract. Count Two: Tommy was Sergeant D. L. Smith’s ex-snitch and pal of current-snitch Huey Cressmeyer. Count Three: Tommy ran wetbacks for ex–Baja kingpin Carlos Madrano.

  Count Three, subordinate clause:

  He visited Tommy at Quentin, mid-November. Tommy pumped him per Madrano and his own Mexican plans. He has grand Mexican plans. He will expl
oit his Army SIS status to implement them. He will push heroin and run wetbacks. He will sell jailed Japs into slavery. Tommy could fuck it all up. Thus, Tommy must die.

  Dudley chased pills with club soda. Two for knife-wound pain. Three bennies for late-night woo-woo.

  Cantwell, Hayes, and Coughlin were shit-faced. They defamed the coons and Red scourge Joe Stalin. The English prottys concocted this war and brought in the Jew bankers. They fixed the ’36 Olympics. That shine Jesse Owens? He runs slow as me old Irish granny.

  Ten seconds to midnight. Count Basie rolled the trumpets—9, 8, 7, 6—

  Dudley stood up. Cops waved table flags. Dudley waved the Stars and Stripes and Irish Republican green.

  —5, 4, 3, 2—

  Mike and Dick walked in. Dudley saw them. Such grand goons they were. They saw Dudley and cringed.

  Dudley waved and went Tommy? Mike and Dick shook their heads no.

  —1, zero, HAPPY NEW YEAR—

  Shouts, back slaps, popped corks galore. Noisemaker blare and flags on sticks—

  The Count kicked off “Auld Lang Syne.” Dudley reeled. The mock ballroom went hothouse hot and spun topsy-turvy.

  His arm throbbed. He thought he’d faint. Claire sailed up to him.

  She steadied him and kissed him.

  She said, “It’s our time, love.”

  3

  JOAN CONVILLE

  (SAN DIEGO, 12:15 A.M., 1/1/42)

  Should auld acquaintance be—

  Yells and hoots. Noisemaker shriek. Shouted toasts and Remember Pearl Harbor!!!

  Revelers crammed up the Sky Room. You’ve got Navy brass on a toot. There’s grabbing and groping. There’s full-length necking on the dance floor.

  Stan Kenton presents “Artistry in Rhythm.” The Misty June Christy purrs select vocals. The Sky Room was glass-walled and umpteen floors high. You got wide views of battle-dressed beachfront. You got storm clouds and the world’s darkest sky.

  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. Sh
e’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 headlights. 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.

  4

  HIDEO ASHIDA

  (LOS ANGELES, 2:30 A.M., 1/1/42)

  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.”

  Blanchard yawned. “I don’t mind bodyguarding you, Hideo. But the Central Station jail ain’t my idea of New Year’s Eve kicks.”

  The Werewolf snored. The Werewolf twitched and sucked his thumb.