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.
Blanchard said, “Talk to me, Wolf. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Ashida ventriloquized the creature. He kept the spiel internal. He mimicked the Werewolf’s pidgin-English/Japanese stew.
Dudley Smith framed me. Sensei Ashida assisted. Dudley Smith coerced him. Dudley Smith applied pressure and made the frame stand. Sensei Ashida fawns for Sergeant Smith.
Blanchard nipped off his flask. “Here’s to you, Werewolf. You want my opinion? You deserve the loony bin more than the gas chamber.”
Ashida grabbed the flask. “We should go upstairs. I’m on call to Traffic. Captain Parker might call in.”
“He was at the City Hall bash. Him and Kay were making with the big eyes.”
Ashida sipped brandy. He rarely drank. This small dose induced a small glow.
“I’m sure she makes you uncomfortable. She must be difficult to live with.”
Blanchard grinned. “My shack job’s ‘difficult,’ but my shack job’s Kay Lake, which has its compensations. She’s always off to something new. You want the latest? She’s fallen in with these classical-music types, out in Brentwood. Mostly Reds and Jews, on the run from der Führer. I don’t know how much time she’s got for Bill Parker.”
Ashida passed the flask. His eyes burned. The cold jail went warm. Ashida felt antsy. He was backlogged. Pearl Harbor put the lab in arrears. The Japanese roundups spawned massive confiscations. Evidence log-ins stood un-logged, back to mid-December.
He stood un-jailed. His family stood free. The roundups would resume, tomorrow. Dudley Smith’s patronage vouched his freedom. He lived in a Biltmore Hotel suite. His mother and brother had their own rooms. Dudley’s patronage carried a price. Call the Werewolf frame part and parcel.
Blanchard said, “You’re in a trance, Hideo. Maybe it’s all that caustic shit you been sniffing.”
Ashida smiled. They walked out to the jailside hallway. Ashida heard snores.
Blanchard went sssshh. He pointed to the Alien Squad cot room. They walked over and peeked in.
Confiscated swag covered the floor. Radios, flags, Nazi Lugers. Kanji script and English-language hate tracts. Hate the Chinks, hate the Jews, hate all Americans.
Plus three plainclothesmen, sprawled out on cots. They were stripped to their skivvies. Their sidearms and belt gear were piled adjacent. Brass knucks, leather truncheons, beavertail saps.
Three big guys. Cop heavies. On-call strikebreaker types.
Blanchard said, “Lunceford, Rice, and Kapek. You’ve got the Silver Shirts and the Thunderbolt Legion represented here. These dinks chasing down Fifth Column Japs? Don’t tell me I don’t know what’s ironic.”
A bluesuit walked up. He was blitzed. He wore a dumb party hat and a WELCOME 1942 button.
“Captain Parker called, Ashida. He needs you in Venice. It’s a vehicular homicide. There’s four dead wetbacks and some Navy woman in custody.”
Pole-mounted tarps held the rain back. A sawhorse barricade held off the looky-loos. It’s a Car-Crash Inferno and Car-Crash Holocaust.
Head-on collision: ’36 Dodge coupe hits jalopy. No visible skidmarks. Eastbound Dodge, westbound heap. Two front ends accordion-pressed.
The Dodge: minus the driver’s-side door. The heap: compressed to the rear seats and trunk ledge.
Flares marked the crash site. Prowl cars stood close. Two morgue sleds were parked snout-to-snout. There’s four sheet-draped stretchers, out in the wet.
Blanchard pulled up to the flare line. Ashida got out and eyeballed the site. He deployed Man Camera. Click, click — a wide-lens shot.
Click — no skid marks. Click — the rain erased them. Click — the blown door saved the Navy woman’s life. Click — there’s more damage to the heap. Click — the Navy woman was speeding. Click — the jalopy driver was slowing down.
Ashida walked up to the stretchers. Wind tugged at his hat. Rain stung his eyes.
All four sheets were blood-soaked. Ashida pulled them halfway down. Four clicks clicked. Let’s extrapolate.
Four male Mexicans. All dead. Two men in the front seat, two men in the back.
Head-on impact. The frontseat men sustain massive chest wounds. Their hearts explode. The backseat men sustain downward-thrust trauma and are thus disemboweled.
Ashida looked up. Bill Parker stepped out of his prowl car. An empty pint jug fell from his lap.
It clattered and rolled. Ashida looked away. He heard a muffled shriek.
He tracked it. He walked up to the jalopy. He flashed his Man Camera, in tight. The trunk lid’s ajar. Something’s in there.
He jammed up the lid. He saw a little boy. The boy was crushed dead under a spare tire. A little girl murmured and coughed blood.
She tried to say something. Ashida picked her up and held her close. She clawed at his face and died in his arms.
5
(Los Angeles, 3:15 A.M., 1/1/42)
Kwan’s Chinese Pagoda. It’s open-all-nite. It’s a cop haunt. It’s Hop Sing Tong HQ and the Chinatown hot spot.
Here’s Uncle Ace Kwan. He’s a PD puppet. He’s your warlord-restauranteur.
The rain killed business. Local Chinks and night owls stayed home. The boys hogged a prime table.
The Dudster held court. Ace laid on pupu platters and mai tais. He was sixty-six years old and too thin. He switchblade-skewered fried dumplings and snarfed them.
Oooga-booga. All-cop summit. It’s that botched stakeout. There’s this fugitive rape-o at large.
The boys noshed and boozed. Elmer chased two bennies with Bromo Seltzer and went aaahh! Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle sulked. Also present: Catbox Cal Lunceford, Wendell Rice, and George Kapek. Tag them shithead goons roused from sleep.
All eyes on Dudley. Elmer’s the most. This mick fuck sends him out to kill a man. That don’t sit right.
The Dudster played off-key. His voice fluttered. His arm sling seeped. His Army threads fit slack. Elmer eyed him surreptitious and tried to look contrite.