Spectators lined North Broadway. Car traffic was verboten. Boocoo Chinks trailed the casket. They waved REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! and KILL THE JAPS! signs.
Elmer stood at Alpine and Broadway. Street vendors hawked ptomaine tacos and egg foo young. Elmer reeled. It was all of it — plus this shit:
Deep-fried Eddie Leng. These suffocation dreams. It’s really Wayne Frank and him in that charred box.
All that shit. Plus his fool stunt with Ace Kwan.
Said stunt got him cogitating. Ace blathered that night. He said Lin Chung and Don Matsura crossed hate lines and hobknobbed. They sold pharmacy dope. Matsura was tonged up. He peddled terp to winos and dope fiends. He knew Tommy Glennon. Lin Chung knew Tommy, likewise.
Cut to the Matsura roust. It’s him, Rice, and Kapek. There’s the terp still in Matsura’s dump. There’s the Leng’s Kowloon menu.
It got him cogitating. So, he did this:
He read Chinktown intel files at the Bureau. Thus, he learned this:
Lin Chung peddled opiate compounds. He supplied “O” dens in the San Gabriel Valley. He pushed pharmacy hop to herb quacks.
And, he saw this:
Fed routing stamps on Chung’s file. That was provocative. That meant this:
The Feds had Chung pegged as hinky and suspect. Thus, he did this:
He staked out Chung’s house. He saw Ed Satterlee staked likewise. He tailed Ed the Fed to the phone-probe stake spot by the Herald. The hot-box phone outside: listed in Tommy G.’s address book.
The hot-box was a bookie-call phone. Sid Hudgens purportedly used it. Sid scribed at the Herald. It all felt popcorn-fart tight.
Elmer watched the parade. He pondered a ptomaine-taco lunch. The casket rolled out of sight.
He felt something behind him. Some lurking beast. His fellow spectators veered, lurched, and scrammed.
Something/someone grabbed him. He got all smothered up. It was an octopus snatch. Six arms clamped him tight.
He squirmed and orbed the octopus. Tentacles became arms. It was Jim Davis and two Hop Sing shits. Our ex — police chief and two heathen slants.
They snatched him and scissor-walked him. Sidewalk geeks gawked. Yellow folks went White men claaaaazy! They gassed on the show. Jim Davis tossed them Chink bon mots.
They scissor-walked down Broadway. They hit Kwan’s and scissored through the dining room. Shit — it’s packed.
White stiffs quaffed mai tais and slurped pork fried rice. Shit — there’s Fletch Bowron, there’s Wallace Jamie, there’s fucked-up Father Coughlin.
They scissor-walked downstairs. They hit the basement. They pushed through the “O” den and Chinks reposed on Cloud 9. They hit a small office. Bam! — the tong shits depart.
Davis unwrapped him and plopped him down in a chair. The fat cocksucker was red-faced and all sweated up.
Elmer dredged savoir faire. “You don’t look too good, Chief. You look like a man in need of medical care.”
Davis caught his breath. “You’re still a pup to me. You’re still this lance corporal I befriended.”
Elmer said, “That was ’35, and this here’s ’42. And I’m recalling that I shot this loopy beaner trying to kill you.”
The office was smother-cramped. Desk, chairs, claaaazy wall art. Velour-flocked pictures. Fire-spitting dragons roasting Jap dragoons.
Elmer stood up. He smoothed out his coat and tie and redredged savoir faire. Davis said, “You’re still a pup. And pups require a rap on the snout when they misbehave.”
“It’s starting to dawn on me, Chief.”
“Okay, then you listen close. Jack Horrall’s pissed because the Dudster’s pissed, because you muscled Ace. You’ve got to desist on whatever it is that’s goring you and got you acting dumb. That means the Leng snuff, Tommy Glennon, and Donald Matsura — who just happened to hang himself in his cell last night. ¿Tú comprende, muchacho? The Chinks police the Chinks, and that’s straight from Jack H. Ace makes Matsura for the Leng job, and that’s the way it stands. Tommy G.’s long gone, and nobody cares.”
Uncle Ace walked in. He wore that steam-pops-out-the-ears look. He resembled the aggrieved Donald Duck.
Elmer said, “Hey, pappy.”
Davis said, “Jack Horrall wants you to apologize.”
Elmer said, “I apologize, Ace.”
Uncle Ace shrieked curses. Elmer feigned deep remorse. Ace whipped out his dick and pissed on his shoes.
Stakeout.
11th and Broadway. Upside the Herald building. Upside that hot-box phone.
Elmer sprawled in his prowl sled. He felt revivified. He went by the Biltmore first. He got a double-fine shoe shine and quaffed two Rob Roys. He lunched on salted peanuts and bought a one-dollar cigar.
Stakeout.
Elmer lit the cigar and eyeballed due south. Ed Satterlee sat in a Fed sled and eyeballed the hot-box. Elmer scratched his balls and kicked the seat back.
He eyeball-clicked. Click to the phone booth. Click to the Fed sled. Click to the Herald’s front door.
Stiffs fed the phone nickels. Nobody aroused suspicion. They made brief phone calls and scrammed.
Elmer savored the cigar. It was El Supremo Cuban. He watched the booth, the Fed car, the door.
He stuck at it two hours. Sid Hudgens walked out at 3:32.
He strolled to the hot-box. He waved to Ed Satterlee. He consulted a racing form and fed the coin slot. A four-minute confab ensued.
Sid hung up and waltzed. Elmer vacated his sled and hoofed back around to the alley. He popped a storm door and hit the lobby. He caught Sid at the elevator. They indulged some unfunny shtick.
Sid went I surrender. Elmer went Kid, you’re a sketch. Sid went ¿Qué pasa? Elmer flashed his hip flask and fed him two twenties. Sid walked to a mop closet and went After you.
Elmer stepped in. Sid joined him. The fit was tight. Sid cracked the door for air.
“Elmer the J. It’s been too long, bubi.”
Elmer passed the flask. “Let’s start with Eddie Leng. I’ve been reading your columns.”
Sid yodeled Old Crow. “All right, and here’s what’s unfit to print. Mike Breuning braced me, and said the Dudster would appreciate it if I killed the Leng series, which I summarily did.”
Elmer took a pop. “Don’t stop there.”
“Dud’s up to something, which don’t surprise me, and shouldn’t surprise you — but I don’t know what it is.”
Elmer went Give — don’t dick-tease me here.
Sid said, “About a week back, Mike and Dick Carlisle told me that Dud wanted his ex-snitch Tommy Glennon clipped, allegedly because he’s a rape-o, which don’t sit right with Dud and Jack Horrall. You were supposed to be part of that — but you, Mike, and Dick blew that stakeout New Year’s Eve. So, Eddie Leng gets clipped that same night, and Eddie was tight with Tommy. Conventional wisdom would have it that Tommy clipped Eddie for some farkakte reason, after he escaped your dubious clutches — but I heard that Eddie was low-rent Fifth Column, and tangled up with some unholy mélange of right-wing Chinks and Japs. I also heard that Ace the K. clipped this Jap fucker Donald Matsura, who allegedly killed himself at Lincoln Heights. And that’s as far as I can think it through.”
Elmer sucked on the flask. “Leng was a Jap-hater. It feels like a race job to me.”