Joan laughed. “I’ve read monographs by your Dr. Ashida. I greatly admire them.”
“Would you like to meet Dr. Ashida?”
Joan said, “When?”
Parker said, “Now.”
8
(Los Angeles, 7:45 A.M., 1/1/42)
The bash felt stale now. ’41 was old news. ’42 was au courant.
Nobody danced. Count Basie’s boys dozed in their chairs. A few cops and dates schmoozed. A buffet dispensed Bloody Marys and stale bagels.
Lee Blanchard was out cold. He topped out his bodyguard shift. The dead kids got to him. He hit the party and drank himself insensate.
The day-shift man was due. Elmer J. always ran late. Blanchard said he had late work with the Dudster.
Thad Brown circulated. He ran the Homicide Squad. Kay Lake circulated. She was the PD’s favored seductress. Brenda Allen table-hopped. She ran call girls with Elmer. Jack Horrall and Fletch Bowron dozed on a couch. The Count dozed with them. His head brushed the mayor’s shoulder.
The dead kids.
Ashida teethed on it. He teethed each and every split second. He sipped coffee and stayed alert.
Bill Parker issued a gag order. No reporters, no public exposure. Four male wetbacks, muerto. It stands at THAT. The Navy woman must not know.
Parker called Catholic Charities. He had oomph there. A private hearse hauled the kids off.
Parker admonished Blanchard and Ashida. I demand silence. Do not talk about this.
Ashida trawled the room. The Count was up and bleary-eyed. He chatted with Kay. La Grande Katherine looked up-all-night fetching.
Brenda Allen blew a kiss. Ashida waved back. Colored sax men fish-eyed him. Yeah — we ain’t white, but you’re a JAP.
Elmer walked over. He straddled a chair and drained Blanchard’s highball.
“Sorry I’m late. Dud had us hopping.”
Ashida sipped coffee. “You tend to be overextended.”
Elmer said, “It’ll get worse, starting tomorrow. The roundups’ll kick in again, and your few remaining countrymen on the loose’ll be headed for the pokey.”
“We’re backlogged on your confiscations. You’re bringing in more than we can process.”
Elmer relit a cigar. “You’re lucky we got thieves on the squad. Georgie Kapek and Wendell Rice got your swag appropriated.”
Ashida laughed. Elmer eyeballed the room. He said, “Kay looks swell, don’t she?”
“Are you in love with her?”
“I’m entranced. That’s worse. You acknowledge that you ain’t got a chance, so you act even dumber than you usually do.”
Ashida jumped topics. Romantic intrigue bored and vexed him.
“I read a Teletype from Fourth Interceptor. There’s allegedly hidden air bases out in Indio and Brawley. The command picked up coded pay-phone calls from here to Baja.”
Elmer shrugged. “Dud’s headed south. He’ll nip that grief in the bud. ‘Knock, knock, who’s there? Dudley Smith, so spies beware.’ ”
Ashida smiled. Elmer scoped the doorway. Ashida tracked his gaze.
Bill Parker walked in. He wore a fresh uniform and looked all spruced up. He brought a date.
A Navy lieutenant. Rumpled blues, red hair, quite tall and statuesque. Vehicular manslaughter/six counts/two counts unacknowledged.
Elmer waggled his eyebrows. Elmer wolf-growled.
Ashida deployed Man Camera. He framed Parker and the redhead. He panned to Kay Lake and caught her reaction. He zoomed in for a close-up. Kay and Parker shared This Big Freighted Look.
Parker and the redhead hit the buffet. They ignored the food and mixed high-test Bloody Marys.
They clicked glasses. Their hands brushed. Kay saw it all.
Thad Brown walked up. He ignored dozed-out Blanchard. He braced Ashida and Elmer.
“Let’s go. We’ve got mud slides in Griffith Park. They’ve dislodged a body by the golf course.”
9
(Los Angeles, 8:30 A.M., 1/1/42)
They ran Code Three/red lights and siren. It goosed squarejohn drivers curbside. Thad Brown hauled. Ashida rode shotgun. Elmer hogged the backseat.
First reports state this:
The stiff is a long-term decomp. That means all bones. It washed up on the par-3 golf course. Said course adjoined Mineral Canyon — i.e., the spot where Wayne Frank Jackson died.
Elmer agitated it. Elmer segued to more pressing shit. Eddie Leng’s deep-fried feet. Tommy Glennon’s address book.
He’d dropped the book on the day-watch Vice clerk. He’d slipped him a yard and told him to run a phone-number check. Chop, chop. I need results, pronto. And don’t blab on this.
Brown hauled up Vermont. Rainwater jammed the wheel wells. The car belly-flopped and drifted. Brown veered right and caught a flat surface. They shimmied down a golf course access road.
Elmer saw two black-and-whites and a prowl sled. Plus a snack hut. Plus green fairways and the dump site.
There’s two harness blues and two plainclothesmen. They’ve got arc lights and a rain tarp set up. They’ve got a steep hillside all lit.
Brown fishtailed over and yanked the brake. They all went whew. Elmer bundled into his hat and trench coat. They all got out and ran.
Elmer got there first. He saw Al Goossen and Colin Forbes — Hollywood Squad hard-ons.
Nods circulated. The tarp fluttered and dripped rain. Brown and Ashida caught up. The arc lights lit this:
Soaked grass up the fairway. The mud spill and all this loose soil. A big dirt hole. Exhumed mud sluicing down to this flat spot.
The spill dislodged a box. It tumbled down the hillside. It’s a pine box — six-six by two feet.
It’s charred black. They’re char marks, for sure. Intermittent marks — mud-and-root-matted.
The lid was warped and soil-eroded. The mud slide sprung it off, clean. It’s a jig-rigged casket. There’s green goo caked inside. There’s skeletal remains.
Ashida pointed to the goo. “That’s congealed quicklime. It serves to speed decomposition.”
Elmer relit his cigar. Forbes and Goossen lit cigarettes. Brown spit tobacco juice.
“That tags it Murder One.”
Ashida leaned in close. Elmer said, “Genius at work.”
Bluesuit #1 rolled his eyes. Bluesuit #2 said, “Like Charlie Chan.” Elmer said, “Charlie Chan’s a Chinaman, dipshit.”
Bluesuit #2 blanched. Ashida foot-tapped the box.
“Note the width of the pelvis and the overall length and breadth of the remains. The victim was male, tall, and heavyset.”
Brown said, “Talk to me, dead man.”
Forbes said, “Who killed you, boss?”
Ashida futzed with the stiff’s jawbones. They went creak. He pulled them loose.
“The killer knocked his teeth out. Note the mandible fractures. The uppers and lowers are unidentifiable stubs.”
Elmer studied the box. The fire aspect gouged him. October 3, ’33 — the Griffith Park blaze.
Ashida tapped a shattered rib bone. “It’s a knife-thrust homicide. The killer hit hard, went in deep, and twisted the knife.”
Brown leaned low. He studied the skull. He pointed out a hole and faint cracks adjacent.
“He was shot once. You’ll find a spent round embedded.”
Elmer looked up the hill. Lightning backlit the whole golf course.
“You remember that big fire, back in ’33? I’m thinking it could have whooshed over the box and caused all the charring.”
Ashida said, “I don’t think so. There’s too much mud for the fire to have gone that deep.”
Brown poked at some rags. They were quicklime-caked and bore singe marks.