This Storm by James Ellroy

Author:James Ellroy [Ellroy, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9780307957009
Google: wovvugEACAAJ
Amazon: B07GN52N53
Barnesnoble: B07GN52N53
Goodreads: 41444248
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2019-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

68

(TIJUANA AND ENSENADA, 2/12–2/25/42)

He jumped rank. Major Melnick passed the word. He’s now First Lieutenant Hideo Ashida.

Silver outranks gold in the U.S. Army. He traded gold bars for silver. The bookie-front fiasco secured his promotion. Juan Pimentel moved up to captain. He replaced the late José Vasquez-Cruz. Vasquez-Cruz está muerto. La Juan is the new Baja Statie boss.

Who killed Vasquez-Cruz? His first thought was rival wetback and/or dope runners. The Mexican papers set him straight. Vasquez-Cruz was really Jorge Villareal-Caiz.

The ex-Communist. Once installed in Meyer Gelb’s cell. Linked to the Griffith Park fire. Linked to Dr. Saul Lesnick. Linked to Jean Staley. Linked to Tommy Glennon’s address book.

Consider this:

It’s January 8. Victor Trejo Caiz misbehaves. He’s Jorge’s brother. He foolishly draws down on Dudley Smith. Salvy Abascal slays him right there.

Dudley Liam Smith—ever present. Dudley Liam Smith—por vida.

Dudley instigates his promotion. Dudley recommends and vets Juan Pimentel. Note the design. Pimentel is fearsome and most competent. He’ll serve as Dudley’s enforcer. Wetbacks/heroin/the Jap-prisoner dodge. Dudley has plans for La Juan.

Dudley—por vida. All circuits terminate there. Dudley rules his thoughts. La Juan flits in counterpoint. All alliances reign under Dudley Smith’s command. Dudley indebts his underlings. Dudley corrupts and/or seduces. Ask Joan Conville. Ask Lieutenant Ashida himself.

They’ve been seduced and corrupted. They’ve become inexplicable friends. Comrades says it best. They’re rogue scientists held spellbound by one man.

Phone calls sustain their new kinship. There’s long stints of forensic and investigatory surmise. They interpret evidence across three case lines. They fondle gold objects as they talk.

They’ve reached conclusions. They agree. It’s not a single conspiracy. It feels like three conspiracies and random events interlocked. The conspiracies are imperfectly contrived and erratically enjoined. The klubhaus murders do not mark termination. All of it continues. The acquisition of the gold and the explication of all things past is the only permissible end.

He thinks that. Joan thinks that. They move from gold heist to fire to klubhaus to now—ceaselessly. They never-endingly probe evidence and indulge supposition. As per Tommy Glennon’s address book. As per the Baja pay phones listed. They indicate a new and revised Tommy G.

He’s more than Dudley’s snitch and a pro-Axis blowhard. He’s more than a rapist and wetback runner for Carlos Madrano. He’s more sinister than that. Consider this fact. Kyoho Hanamaka touched Tommy’s address book. He left a burn-scarred fingerprint.

The fourteen pay phones. Plus the coded slug calls. The bookie-front inferno blitzed that line of inquiry. No more code calls will be received. No more messages will pass through the front. They can’t trace Hanamaka and Tommy G. that way.

Where are they? Hanamaka’s a long-gone fugitive. Japs on the hoof draw heat. Tommy’s a disordered psychopath. Such fiends leave traces. No one has visited Hanamaka’s hideaway. Juan Pimentel continues to surveil it. No cars have tripped the photo-device wires. No license plates have been glimpsed. All this dizzies and confounds him.

He feels overmatched. Joan feels overmatched. The Jap and The Skirt. Sid Hudgens wrote them up that way.

He secured permission to visit L.

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