This Storm Page 7

  Claire hooked a leg over him. They were this close.

  “Grant me a concession, darling. Merge our agendas just a little bit.”

  Dudley laughed. “Hitler is every bit as bad as Stalin. That’s as far as I’ll go tonight.”

  Claire laughed. “Quid pro quo, then. Stalin is every bit as bad as Hitler, and in case you’re wondering, it was Kay Lake who first got me to concede that.”

  “Then concede this. It’s our war.”

  “Yes, love. It is surely our war. And it’s Kay’s war, as much as I dislike her.”

  Rain drummed the terrace. Lightning flashed. Claire lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings.

  “I’m in the market for a new waif. I might go looking for that girl we saw.”

  * * *

  —

  The coast road, southbound. It’s a rain sieve and slalom course. There’s thunder. There’s wave smash. It’s eerie-beautiful in the dark.

  Captain Vasquez-Cruz drove. He proposed the excursion. Here’s his windup and pitch:

  “Captain Smith, I have something to show you. It is on the beach a fair way from here. I think it will amuse and confound you.”

  They drove due south. Vasquez-Cruz wheeled a Cadillac impound. He called it a “Jew canoe.” He expressed regard for Adolf Hitler and defamed nun-raping Reds. He knew El Dudster’s rep and toiled at rapport.

  He was snazzy. He was thirty-two or -three and ever bemused. He wore Statie blacks and spit-shined jackboots.

  They comported in a merry monsoon. Vasquez-Cruz sped through it. Dudley futzed with the radio.

  He tuned in XERB and Father Coughlin. The pulsing padre praised the Sinarquistas and Salvador Abascal. Static ditzed the broadcast. Dudley skimmed the dial. He caught more static and a coon jazz quartet.

  Vasquez-Cruz doused the sound. “I’m glad that you killed Carlos Madrano. It secured me his position.”

  Dudley said, “And how did you secure this information?”

  “I tortured his ichiban. Scorpions attacked his small dick. He revealed that you and your policeman colleagues attempted to steal Madrano’s heroin cache. You blew up Madrano with nitroglycerin you uncovered at the cache site, but failed to get the heroin.”

  “Because you got it?”

  “Yes. You killed Madrano, but I commandeered his soul. I assumed his State Police command and appropriated his dope racket. If he had a woman, I would have fucked her or killed her.”

  Dudley laughed. “You embody the beating heart of machismo.”

  Vasquez-Cruz went tee-hee. He embodied the vicious-bantamweight aesthetic. He tittered in the near-soprano range.

  “You and your policeman friends discovered a Jap sub at the Colonet Inlet. You interrogated members of the crew and determined their Fifth Column intent. They were going to pass themselves off as Chinese and perform sabotage in Los Angeles.”

  Dudley popped his holster flap. His raincoat featured fast-draw pockets.

  “Madrano’s ichiban told you that?”

  “Yes, just before I killed him.”

  Dudley smiled. Vasquez-Cruz swung a hard right and hit a beach-access road. The Jew canoe brodied on loose mud and sand. He skidded up to the shoreline. His headlights strafed ocean swells.

  He set the brake. “We are near the Colonet Inlet. This must seem familiar to you.”

  Dudley popped the glove box. He saw two flashlights, straight off.

  He grabbed one. Vasquez-Cruz grabbed one. He stepped out of the car and walked ahead. Dudley lagged five yards back. He unbuttoned his raincoat and unholstered his piece.

  Low cliffs deflected the rain. They kicked through wet sand and skirted the wave line. Dudley reholstered. Vasquez-Cruz turned on his flashlight. He aimed it at a rock cove. It was shallow—about eight feet deep.

  Dudley smelled it and saw it. Dudley noted the drag marks and counted the stiffs.

  Sixteen Jap sailors. Not yet decomposed. Close-range gunshot wounds. Shots to the head. Probable close-range ambush.

  Tangled bodies. Facial powder burns and jawline stippling. Exploded bridgework and shattered teeth.

  Vasquez-Cruz flashed his flashlight ten yards north. There’s the beached sub.

  Dudley said, “The Colonet Inlet Japs were a first wave of saboteurs. I would call this a second wave. They were killed by rival Fifth Columnists or rogue State Police. I’ll need to interrogate any and all men you might suspect.”

  Vasquez-Cruz bowed. Sí, mi capitán.

  Dudley said, “The contact man for the Colonet saboteurs was a Chinese plastic surgeon named Lin Chung. He lives in Los Angeles. The rest of the cabal are wealthy white men, too powerful to touch. Please permit me to work the Los Angeles end of this. I have thoughts already.”

  Vasquez-Cruz bowed. ¿Qué, mi capitán?

  Dudley lit a cigarette. It smothered the death stink.

  “A Chink restauranteur was murdered in Los Angeles last night. He was a tong affiliate, and I’m sure he knew Lin Chung. They were both Jap-haters and committed rightists. This war of ours is breeding some rare birds.”

  Vasquez-Cruz said, “Yes. You and I among them.”

  Dudley bowed. Sí, mi hermano.

  “Do you have access to a capable crime lab? I would like all of this assessed.”

  Vasquez-Cruz shook his head. Dudley said, “I know a man in L.A. It may amuse you to know that he’s Japanese.”

  11

  (LOS ANGELES, 8:30 P.M., 1/1/42)

  Captain Parker was late. Joan nursed a highball and killed time. She felt bushwacked and adrenalized.

  She wore a clean uniform. Last night’s blues were a mess. She’d go back to civvies tomorrow. Navy commission, adieu. She’d unpack her lab smock and white shoes.

  Pinch me.

  The party in Dago. The smash-up and dead men. “Cholos” and “wetbacks” in cop parlance. The City Hall party. All those politicos and policemen.

  She meets ex-Chief “Two-Gun” Davis. She meets the L.A. mayor and the current chief, “Call-Me-Jack” Horrall. Count Basie says, “Hi there, Red.”

  Now she’s here. Mike Lyman’s Grill, 8th and Hill streets. A long oak bar and red leather booths.

  Parker chose the spot. The PD had its own private room. Parker laid out the gist.

  You had couches, chairs, and a Murphy bed. A police Teletype and phone line were laid in. Mike Lyman supplied free cold cuts and liquor. Married cops “poked” their girlfriends there. “Famous madam” Brenda Allen supplied high-class prostitutes.

  Pinch me.

  Joan lit a cigarette. Her booth faced the bar and the front door. Lyman’s was packed. War chat bubbled.

  Jap atrocities. FDR’s draft quota. I heard Hitler’s really Jewish. The Jews started this boondoggle, if you ask me.

  Joan sipped scotch and bitters. The Navy bash faded out, the cop bash faded in.

  She almost met Hideo Ashida. He went out on a dead-body call as she arrived. She talked to a cop named Lee Blanchard. His girlfriend Kay something hovered. Blanchard ran down the Captain Parker gestalt.

  He was “Whiskey Bill” and “The Man Who Would Be Chief.” He was a hotshot lawyer, juicehound, and devout Catholic. He was impervious, tough, and commanding. He was somewhat slovenly.

  He’s married. He hides out from his wife and sleeps in his prowl car. The capper: “You’re too tall for him, Red.”

  Men always called her “Red.” They thought it was hep. Said men were dinks and buffoons.

  I ain’t jiving you, cousin. Hitler’s a lox jockey from way back. My wife’s cousin’s a full-blood Kraut. He knows whereof he speaks.

  Parker walked in. He wore a fresh uniform. He’d trimmed his hair. He primped and slid into the booth.

  He wore piss-poor lime cologne. He sucked a hide-the-hooch lozenge.

  He tossed his cigare
ttes on the table. A waiter materialized. Parker pointed to Joan’s glass and held up two fingers.

  Joan slid the ashtray over. “Am I officially employed by the Los Angeles Police Department?”

  Parker lit a cigarette. “Forty-two hundred dollars a year. You’ll work Central Station, under Ray Pinker and beside Hideo Ashida. Learn what you can, while you can. Pinker’s looking at an indictment in this Fed-probe megillah, and Ashida will probably be interned next month. You’ll be logging property, as well as processing evidence.”

  Joan snapped her fingers. “Just like that?”

  Parker snapped his fingers. “I called in a favor. We don’t have to discuss it. You’re in means you’re in.”

  “Yes, but you’ve got me at a disadvantage. You’ve placed me in your debt, and you know a great deal about me, while I know virtually nothing about you.”

  Their drinks arrived. Joan let hers sit. Parker bolted his.

  “You’re being disingenuous, Lieutenant. You read men like you read chemical tables. You met Lee Blanchard and Jim Davis at the party and solicited information. You gauged their bias and arrived at conclusions. You’re as up to speed on me as I am on you. I’ll concede my crush on the lithe Northwestern coed, if you won’t labor the point.”

  “I’ll concede the scope of my debt, then, and refrain from judging your motives.”

  Parker said, “Let’s go see Nort Layman and Dr. Ashida. They’re working late at the morgue.”

  * * *

  —

  Dr. Nort lived at the morgue. Dr. Nort lived for his work.

  Corpse gurneys flanked clothes racks. Formaldehyde bottles lined bookshelves. A cot and booze cabinet covered one wall. A charred box lolled on an autopsy table. A skeleton was jammed within.

  Parker played emcee. The drift was meet your new colleague. She’s credentialed. She’s qualified. She swapped her Navy commission for a crime-lab gig.

  Dr. Nort blushed. Dr. Ashida bowed Oriental. They stood by the table. The box deterred small talk.

  Dr. Nort said, “These damn mud slides dislodged this box on the Griffith Park golf course. Our late friend here was stabbed, shot, and put to rest. We’re trying to determine the source of the fire and when it occurred.”

  Joan studied a dirt clod jammed under the rib cage. She saw desiccated roots and granular ash.

  “The box has been suspended in dirt for a very long time. I would posit that the killer or killers dumped the man in the box with that dirt mound stuck to his upper posterior, while he was still clothed. Those rags rotted off the cadaver, and the passage of time was accelerated by the application of the quicklime that remains visible on those cloth fragments. I think the box has been covered by heavily rooted soil for close to ten years.”

  Ashida said, “A fatal brush fire in ’33 most likely caused that charring.”

  Joan examined the box. “Look at the flame pattern. The box was surely buried on a hillside, and the flames leapt irregularly and scorched through to dry, freshly excavated dirt, at some point in time before the seeding that produced grass on that hillside. I would conclude that the box was buried immediately before the 1933 fire that Dr. Ashida mentioned, or at the time of the fire itself.”

  Dr. Nort gawked. Ashida half-grinned. Joan tickled the dead man’s chin.

  “Run molecular-compound tests on the charred wood, and check the grain markings against the photographic records kept at local lumberyards. You might be able to match the grain to a presold lot.”

  Parker weaved a tad. Joan caught his booze breath. She reached in his pants pocket and tossed him a lozenge. Ashida slack-jawed the move.

  12

  (LOS ANGELES, 6:00 A.M., 1/2/42)

  Man Camera. Attach your reverse lens. Become the object you observe. Deploy this Hans Maslick technique.

  Maslick the Mystic. At one with nature and the material world. Organic specimens and objects live. You must assume their perspective.

  Ashida rigged a microscope and dialed it in tight. He examined old dirt particles. He saw Miss Conville’s stripped roots.

  He one-upped Miss Conville then. He added ionized water and bonded the particles. He dialed down and caught petrified ash. It theoretically confirmed the nine-year-old-fire assessment.

  Maslick propounded time-travel theories. Place yourself in immediate context. You were there and you saw it. You observed and/or committed the crime.

  He was alone. He beat the day-shift chemists in. He savored early-morning work. Juxtaposition. Bright lab lights and a black sky outside.

  He time-traveled. He buckled into his time machine. It’s 10/3/33 now. It’s that very hot day.

  He was at Belmont High. He was watching Bucky Bleichert toss a football. He indulged daydreams. Bucky needs a postpractice shower. You can kibitz and throw him a towel.

  He watched Bucky dry off. A radio blared: BIG GRIFFITH PARK BLAZE!!! They got in Bucky’s car and drove over. Fire trucks stopped them short at Riverside Drive.

  Ashida shut his eyes. It shuttered his Man Camera. He placed himself in Griffith Park. It’s still that very hot day.

  Mineral Canyon. Dry dirt and scrub. It’s undeveloped. There’s no par-3 golf course yet.

  The dead man. The killer or killers. The pine box, stashed. A hillside hole, at least partially dug.

  Spontaneous blaze or covert arson. One gunshot. One stab wound. A hasty burial as the flames spread.

  Thirty-four dead. The killer or killers might have survived. The killer or killers might have perished.

  Ashida opened his eyes. His time machine lurched. His recollection lurched in sync.

  He read Maslick in high school. He invented his own Man Camera. It was a trip-wire photo device. He shamefully deployed it. He snapped pictures of Bucky in the Belmont High locker room.

  He updated the device. He deployed it at a robbery scene late last year. The forensic application backfired.

  Dudley coveted the device. Dudley broke into his apartment and covertly studied it. He found the picture stash. Dudley ran the Watanabe job. Dudley blackmailed him and co-opted him to the Werewolf frame.

  Ashida rubbed his eyes and cracked a window. Cold air rushed in. He felt wind-deflected rain.

  Thad Brown put two detectives on the boxed-dead-man job. It was perfunctory. Here’s a postscript: Elmer Jackson’s brother died in that fire.

  A radio blared down the hallway. Sid Hudgens blared his a.m. Herald piece.

  Chinatown torture snuff. Jap-hater Eddie Leng. Fifth Column Japs on Chinatown rampage?

  Ashida shut the door and muzzled the Sidster. Miss Conville was due. She seemed competent. Dr. Nort and Captain Parker were dazzled. Parker quashed Manslaughter Two and got Miss Conville a job. She knew she killed four Mexicans. Parker quashed her knowledge of the dead kids in the trunk. Lustful men and corrupt women. It was ghastly business.

  The phone rang. The noise startled him. Ashida snatched the call.

  “Crime lab. Dr. Ashida speaking.”

  Dudley said, “Good morning, lad. It has been entirely too long.”

  13

  (LOS ANGELES, 8:45 A.M., 1/2/42)

  Today’s B-Squad roust sheet. It’s all J-town and nearby. There’s three likely Tojoites.

  The squad pen was drafty. The day-watch guys honked their snouts and skimmed their roust summaries. Elmer unwrapped a cigar and crib-noted his sheet.

  Yanigahara, Willy J. Age 47/tavern employee. Rat-off by: Agent Ed Satterlee. Noted Chink-hater. Spotted at bund rallies. Has white girlfriend.

  Yamazaki, Robert/AKA “Bad Bobby.” Age 34/railroad employee. On Federal rat list. Deutsches Haus habitué. Has Negro girlfriend. Frequents jazz clubs and tokes maryjane.

  Matsura, Donald L. Age 41/metallurgist/gold broker/imports samurai swords. Rat-off by: Agent Ed Satterlee. Has Jap Navy KAs. Wears zoot suits. Has Mexican girlfriend.<
br />
  Per above suspects:

  No wants/no warrants/no parole holds. Inventory domiciles and transport to Lincoln Heights Jail. Today’s B-Squad pair off: Kapek, Jackson, Rice.

  Elmer lit his cigar. He got unlucky today. Kapek and Rice gored his gourd. Lee Blanchard got A-Squad/Lunceford and Moss. He notched the relative luck.

  The boss took the lectern. Noted nosebleed Lew Collier. The squad humps straddled chairs and snapped to.

  Collier said, “Go easy on your confiscations. The lab’s overloaded. Inventory the flops and tape-seal them. This squadroom is not a pawnshop. Don’t bring stuff in, thinking you can hock it later on.”

  Lunceford said, “No tickee, no washee.”

  Kapek said, “That’s what you call a mixed metaphor. The Chinks say that, not the Japs.”

  Blanchard pulled his cheeks taut. He did the squint-eyed Chinaman—always good for laughs.

  Ha-has rose and subsided. Elmer said, “What about plain old stealing, boss? You might direct your answer to Kapek and Rice.”

  Kapek sput-sputtered. Spit bubbles popped.

  Rice said, “Jackson’s a Bolshevik.”

  Lunceford said, “He’s a Jap-lover, you mean.”

  Blanchard said, “How come we’re not rousting the dagos and the Krauts?”

  Moss said, “They’re in this here war, the last time I heard.”

  Collier rolled his eyes and held up the Herald. “You all know this, right? Eddie Leng bought it New Year’s Eve. Safe to say you also know the Japs hate the Chinks. The Chief wants you guys to keep your ears down in J-town.”

  Blanchard said, “Who’s working it for the Bureau?”

  Collier said, “Nobody. The Chief’s kicked it over to Ace Kwan. Let the Chinks police the Chinks, he always says.”