THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by James Ellroy
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ellroy, James, [date].
Perfidia : a novel / James Ellroy.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-307-95699-6 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-385-35321-2 (eBook) 1. Murder—investigation—Fiction. 2. Japanese Americans—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939–1945—California—
Los Angeles—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.L6274P47 2014
813’.54—dc23
2014009939
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket images: (top) © Whitehead Images/Alamy;
(bottom) © MIXA/Alamy
Jacket design by Chip Kidd
v3.1
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy
American Tabloid
The Cold Six Thousand
Blood’s A Rover
The L.A. Quartet
The Black Dahlia
The Big Nowhere
L.A. Confidential
White Jazz
Memoir
My Dark Places
The Hilliker Curse
Short Stories
Hollywood Nocturnes
Journalism/Short Fiction
Crime Wave
Destination: Morgue!
Early Novels
Brown’s Requiem
Clandestine
Blood on the Moon
Because the Night
Suicide Hill
Killer on the Road
To LISA STAFFORD
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books by This Author
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Japs
December 6, 1941
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
December 7, 1941
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
December 8, 1941
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
December 9, 1941
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
December 10, 1941
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
December 11, 1941
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part Two: The Chinks
Chapter 44
December 12, 1941
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
December 13, 1941
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
December 14, 1941
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
December 15, 1941
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
December 16, 1941
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
December 17, 1941
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
December 18, 1941
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
December 19, 1941
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Part Three: The Fifth Column
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
December 20, 1941
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
December 21, 1941
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
December 22, 1941
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
December 23, 1941
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
December 24, 1941
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Part Four: The Huntress
December 27, 1941
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
December 28, 1941
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
December 29, 1941
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Dramatis Personae
A Note About the Author
Envy thou not the oppressor,
And choose none of his ways.
—Proverbs 3:31
Fifth Column: noun, and a popular colloquialism of 1941 America. The term derived from the recent Spanish Civil War. Four columns of soldiers were sent into battle. The Fifth Column stayed at home and performed industrial sabotage, the dissemination of propaganda, and numerous other forms of less detectable subversion. Fifth Columnists sought to remain anonymous; their ambiguous and/or fully unidentified status made them seem as dangerous or more dangerous than the four columns engaged in day-to-day war.
Reminiscenza.
I wandered off in a prairie blizzard 85 years ago. The cold rendered me spellbound, then to now. I have outlived the decree and find myself afraid to die. I cannot will cloudbursts the way I once did. I must recollect with yet greater fury.
It was a fever then. It remains a fever now. I will not die as long as I live this story. I run to Then to buy myself moments Now.
Twenty-three days.
Blood libel.
A policeman knocks on a young woman’s door. Murderers’ flags, aswirl.
Twenty-three days.
This storm.
Reminiscenza.
THE THUNDERBOLT BROADCAST
GERALD L. K. SMITH | K-L-A-N RADIO, LOS ANGELES | BOOTLEG TRANSMITTER/TIJUANA, MEXICO | FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1941
The Jew Control Apparatus mandated this war—and now it’s ours, whether we want it or not. It has been said that no news is good news, but that maxim predates the wondrous invention of radio, with its power to deliver all the news—good and bad—at rocket-ship speed. Regrettably, tonight’s news is all bad, for the Nazis and the Japs are on a ripsnorting rampage—and the war is rapidly heading our undeserved and unwanted way.
Item: Adolf Hitler breached his deal with Red Boss Joseph Stalin in the summer and invaded the vast wasteland of repugnant Red Russia. Hammer-and-sickle armies are currently grinding der Führer’s stalwart soldiers to bratwurst outside Moscow—but the natty Nazis have already bombed Britain to smithereens and have placed half of central Europe under Nordic Nationalist rule. Hitler’s still got the pep to give American ground troops a fair fight—which will assuredly occur at some not-too-far-off point in our great nation’s future. Does it make you apoplectically ambivalent, my friends? We don’t want this war—but in for a penny, in for a pound.
Item: the illustrious Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, is faring poorly in his North African campaign—but don’t count him out. Italians are lovers more than fighters, it has been said—grand opera is much more their style. That is certainly true—but those bel canto–belting bambinos still represent a strategic threat in the lower-European theater. Yes, storm clouds are forming in the east. Storm clouds are breaking to our west, I’m sad to say—in the form of our most presently poised alleged enemies: the Japs.
Are you that much more amply ambivalent, my friends? Like me, you’ve opened your ardent arms to America First. But, Hirohito’s heathen hornets are now heading across the high seas—and I don’t like it one bit.
Item: the State Department just issued a bulletin. Jap convoys are currently headed for Siam, and an invasion is expected momentarily.
Item: civilians are fleeing Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.
Item: President Franklin “Double-Cross” Rosenfeld has sent a personal message to the Jap Emperor. That message is both entreaty and warning: Desist in your aggressions or run the risk of full-scale American intervention.
Uncle Sam is getting hot. The Hawaiian Islands are our possession and the Pacific gateway to mainland America. The lush tropical atolls that beeline in our direction are now targets for Jap gun sights. This undeserved, unwarranted and unwanted war is heading our way—whether we want it or not.
Item: President Rosenfeld wants to know why Hirohito’s hellions are massing in French Indochina.
Item: Radio Bangkok has issued warnings of a possible Jap sneak attack on Thailand. Jap envoys are conferring with Secretary of State Cordell Hull at this very moment. The Japs are hissing with forked tongues—because they say they want peace, even as Jap Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo lambasts America for our refusal to understand Japanese “ideals” and our continued protests against alleged Japanese pogroms in East Asia and the Pacific.
Yes, my friends—it’s becoming Jewniversally apparent. This Communist-concocted war is heading our way—whether we want it or not.
No sane American desires our participation in a Fight-for-the-Kikes foreign war. No sane American wants to send American boys off to certain peril. No sane American denies that this war cannot be kept off our shores unless we circumvent and interdict it on foreign soil. I’m ripsnortingly right about this, my friends—I’m apple-cheeked with apostasy.
We didn’t start this war. Adolf Hitler and hotsy-totsy Hirohito didn’t start this war, either. The Jew Control apparatchiks cooked up this Red borscht stew and turned friend upon friend, the world over. Are you apoplectically ambivalent, my good friends?
Yes, the war is coming our way, even though we sure as shooting don’t want it. And America never runs from a fight.
9:08 a.m.
There—Whalen’s Drugstore, 6th and Spring streets. The site of four recent felonies. 211 PC—Armed Robbery.
The store was jinxed. Four heists in one month predicted a fifth heist. It was probably the same bandit. The man worked solo. He covered his face with a bandanna and carried a long-barreled gat. He always stole narcotics and till cash.
The Robbery Squad was shorthanded. A geek wearing a Hitler mask hit three taverns in Silver Lake. It was 211 plus mayhem. The geek pistol-whipped the bartenders and groped female customers. He was gun-happy. He shot up jukeboxes and shelves full of booze.
Robbery was swamped. Ashida built the trip-wire gizmo and chose this test spot. He’d created the prototype in high school. His first test spot was the Belmont High showers. He used it to photograph Bucky after basketball prac—
A car swerved northbound on Spring. The driver saw Ashida. Of course—he yelled, “Goddamn Jap!”
Ray Pinker responded. Of course—he yelled, “Screw you!”
Ashida stared at the ground. The feeder cord ran across the street and stopped at the curb in front of the drugstore. The geek bandit parked in the same spot all four times. The cord led to a trip-action camera encased in hard rubber. The wheel jolts of cars parking activated gears. A shutter and flashbulb clicked and snapped photos of rear license plates. Rolls of film were stashed in rubber-coated tubes. A single load would cover a full day’s worth of cars.
Pinker lit a cigarette. “It’s a wild-goose chase. We’re civilian criminologists, not cops. We know the damn thing works, so why are we here? It’s not like we’ve been tipped to another job.”
Ashida smiled. “You know the answer to that.”
“If the answer is ‘We’ve got nothing better to do,’ or ‘We’re scientists with no personal lives worth a damn,’ then you’re right.”
A bus passed southbound. A Mexican guy blew smoke rings out his window. He saw Ashida. He yelled, “Puto Jap!”
Pinker flipped his cigarette. It fell short of the bus.
“Which one of you was born here? Which one of you did not swim the Rio Grande illegally?”
Ashida squared off his necktie. “Say it again. You were exasperated the first time you said it, so I know it was a candid response.”
Pinker grinned. “You’re my protégé, so you’re my Jap, which gives me a vested interest in you. You’re the only Jap employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, which makes you that much more unique and gives me that much more cachet.”
Ashida laughed. A ’38 DeSoto pulled up in front of the drugstore. The wheels hit the wire, the lens clicked, the flashbulb popped. A tall man got out. He had Bucky Bleichert’s dark hair and small brown eyes. Ashida watched him enter the drugstore.
Pinker ducked across the street and futzed with the bulb slot. Ashida window-peeped the drugstore and tracked the man. The glass distorted his features. Ashida made him Bucky. He shut his eyes, he blinked, he opened his eyes and transformed him. The man evinced Bucky’s grace now. He glided. He smiled and displayed big buck teeth.
The man walked out. Pinker ran back across the street and blocked Ashida’s view. The car drove off. Ashida blinked. The world lost its one-minute Bucky Bleichert glow.
They settled back in. Pinker leaned on a lamppost and chain-smoked. Ashida stood still and felt the downtown L.A. whir.
The war was coming. The whir was all about it. He was a native-born Nisei and second son. His father was a gandy dancer. Pops guzzled terpin hydrate and worked himself to death laying railroad track. His mother had an apartment in Little Tokyo. She was pro-Emperor and spoke Japanese just to torque him. The family owned a truck farm in the San Fernando Valley. His brother Akira ran it. It was mostly Nisei acreage out there. Mexican illegals picked their crops. It was a common Nisei practice. It was shameful, it was prudent, it was labor at low cost. The practice bordered on indentured servitude. The practice assured solvency for the Nisei farmer class.
The practice entailed collusion. The family paid bribes to a Mexican State Police captain. The payments saved the wetbacks from deportation. A
kira accepted the practice and implemented it sans moral probe. It permitted second son Hideo to ignore the family trade and pursue his criminological passion.
He had advanced degrees in chemistry and biology. He was a Stanford Ph.D. at twenty-two. He knew serology, fingerprinting, ballistics. He went on the Los Angeles Police Department a year ago. He wanted to work with its legendary head chemist. He was a protégé looking for a mentor. Ray Pinker was a pedagogue looking for a pupil. The bond was formed in that manner. The assigned roles blurred very fast.
They became colleagues. Pinker was admirably blind per racial matters. He compared Ashida to Charlie Chan’s number-one son. Ashida told Pinker that Charlie Chan was Chinese. Pinker said, “It’s all Greek to me.”
Spring Street was lined with mock-snow Christmas trees. They were coated with bird dung and soot. A kid hawked Heralds outside the drugstore. He shouted the headline: “FDR in Last-Ditch Talks with Japs!”
Pinker said, “The damn gizmo works.”
“I know.”
“You’re a goddamn genius.”
“I know.”
“That rape-o’s still operating. The Central Vice guys make him for an MP. He dicked another lady two nights ago.”
Ashida nodded. “The first victim resisted and tore off a strip of his armband. He wore his uniform shirt under his civilian coat. I’ve got fiber samples at my lab in my mother’s apartment.”
Pinker ogled a big blonde draped around a sailor. The sailor fish-eyed Ashida.
“Bucky Bleichert’s fighting at the Olympic tomorrow night. The skinny is he’ll fight a few more times and come on the Department.”
Ashida flushed. “I knew Bucky in high school.”
“I know. That’s why I said it.”
“Who’s he fighting?”
“A stumblebum named Junior Wilkins. Elmer Jackson collared him for flimflam. He was running a back-to-Africa con with some shine preacher.”
A ’37 Ford coupe parked upside the drugstore. There—the wheels hit the wire, the lens clicks, the flashbulb pops on cue.
Pinker coughed and turned away from Ashida. A man got out of the car. He wore a fedora and an overcoat with the collar up. Ashida prickled. It was no-overcoat warm.
Pinker hacked and coughed. He was almost doubled up. The man pulled a handkerchief over his face.
Ashida tingled.
It was perfect. It was ideal. Pinker didn’t see the man. They had the plate number. He could let the crime occur. He could run his forensic study from inception.