The PD bounced for the service. A twelve-car cortege traveled out the Arroyo Seco to this hillside memorial park. The service commemorated Joan’s brief transit in Los Angeles, to the exclusion of her Wisconsin years and her nursing school and university stints in Chicago. The mourning corps was all PD, with two exceptions. Joan loved official garb and regalia; I first saw her in her Navy lieutenant’s blues. She would have loved this mourners’ conclave, because she loved a certain breed of man.
Captain Bill Parker wore dress blues; Captain Dudley Smith and Lieutenant Hideo Ashida wore Army olive drab. Jack Horrall, Elmer Jackson, and Buzz Meeks wore dress blues, along with Thad Brown and my cohabiting friend, Lee Blanchard. Nort Layman and Ray Pinker wore black suits; Brenda Allen wore a charcoal gray ensemble. I wore a black cashmere dress, because I look good in it, and because I pander to men as shamelessly as Joan did.
Two men stood apart from the graveside gang. Sid Hudgens eulogized Joan in the Herald. The piece was entitled, “Adios, Big Red,” and bore Sid’s trademark low wit and leer. The subhead read “Girl Forensic Whiz a Suicide. Worked Baffling Cop-Killing Case.”
Adios, Big Red failed to address Joan’s crowded love life and the New Year’s Eve misadventure that brought her to us and to here. Orson Welles stood behind Sid. Joan met him briefly at Otto Klemperer’s. She told me that Dudley savagely beat him and turned him out as an informant. Dudley was Joan’s other lover. I never told her that I knew.
“ ‘Eyes the shady night has shut/Cannot see the record cut,/And silence sounds no worse than cheers/After earth has stopped the ears.’ ”
The pastor droned on. His delivery stank. Spoken poetry requires snap and verve. Elegies should inform rather than soliloquize. Big Red packed a wallop. She was a brilliant forensic biologist and consort of brilliant rogue cops. All men wanted to sleep with her. Don’t mess with Big Red. A drunken Indian groped her. She blew his left foot off with a 10-gauge shotgun. Lee was there for Joan’s New Year’s Eve mishap, and told me the full story last night. Joan’s sodden drive up from San Diego claimed six lives, rather than four. Two of them were children. Bill Parker withheld that fact from her.
The burial crew placed Joan in the ground. I recalled a song I heard at a colored dive in Sioux Falls. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, stormy weather cause your pump to rust.” I laughed as Joan’s casket went thunk. The pastor glared at me. I’m a cutup, as Joan was. We’re both prairie Protestant girls, and we both believe.
That was it. Adios, Big Red. The wake’s on the PD. Scrambled eggs and booze at Kwan’s await.
I stuck my hand in Bill’s pants pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. Don’t look so shocked, Captain — I loved her just as much as you did.
The wake was boozy and predictably weepy. I sat with Elmer and heard his account of the Negro riot and Catbox Cal Lunceford’s death. Elmer said he’d been scanning mug books, in an attempt to ID the Jap gunman. He was nervous about something but refused to tell me what.
Uncle Ace Kwan served Ming Dynasty Eggs and his world-famous mai tais. He is a remorseless psychopath, known crime partner of Dudley Smith, and Jack Horrall’s Chinatown enforcer. I sipped a single mai tai and chain-smoked my way through the wake. The liquored-up testimonies bored me; I indulged my sport of imputing motive as I watched people interact. Only two mourner-celebrants held my interest today. Of course: Bill Parker and Dudley Smith.
They are both devoutly Catholic and bound by faith and enmity; I share a recent history with both men. Pearl Harbor storm-tossed our lives and revealed startling opportunities. Joan succumbed to them in the romantic form of Dudley and Bill. I was more circumspect and possessed the presence of mind to avoid Dudley at all costs. Our one clash was brief and remains unacknowledged by the police world and by Dudley himself. I very simply love Bill and want him for my own. Joan gave herself to both men; it was a stunning act of idiot courage and self-abnegation.
Both men stood at the bar; they eyed each other sidelong and retained a decorous distance. They were brusquely civil in all their dealings and only met to negotiate. Bill respected and despised Dudley. Dudley respected Bill and glibly concealed his hatred. Each was astonishingly aware of the other’s presence. I saw it now. I watched them drink, smoke, and talk to others as they remained in psychic sync. Ace Kwan walked up and whispered to Dudley; Bill caught every nuance of the approach.
Elmer drifted off to talk to Buzz Meeks. I threw a bold stare at Dudley Smith. I knew he’d turn around and see me at some point. Ever bemused and bent on seduction, he’d smile and wink.
Brilliant girl. It took some fifteen minutes, but the evil bastard did just that.
I went home and practiced. Otto has been teaching me Medtner’s “Sonata Reminiscenza,” and the shifts in tempo continue to perplex me. This was my moment to play the entire piece through, in honor of Joan. I was determined to do it, regardless of gaffes and flubbed notes. The piece depicts the passage of time as both temporal and eternal. I arranged the sheet music on the stand and commenced.
I possess the ability to play and actively daydream in concurrence, and it laid waste my interpretation here. I thought of Otto and his part in smuggling the Shostakovich symphony out of Russia, a convoluted journey with numerous stops scheduled along the way. My impromptu performance was meant to honor Joan, but snapshots of my late friend undercut my concentration. I flubbed a great many notes and scotched my narrative momentum. Otto had received a V-mail letter from Maestro Shostakovich. It contained note sketches meant to portray German tanks approaching Leningrad. I started hitting those notes, and begged Joan’s forgiveness. I played those notes to the point of exhaustion.
The doorbell rang. I got up and walked out to the porch. The postman had left a good-sized package.
It was addressed to me. I noted Joan’s handwriting and return address.
77
(Los Angeles, 4:00 P.M., 2/28/42)
The wake protracted. Joan, we hardly knew ye.
She left him her microscope and gold cuff links. It was symbolic. It meant Follow my lead and carry the torch.
The PD owned Kwan’s today. Jack Horrall deposed Uncle Ace and reigned as potentate. The main dining room was all PD. Cops juiced and table-hopped.
Ashida watched. He sipped tea, cold sober. Cops deferred to him now. He held Army rank and carried a gun. He soared at the riot. Close-range dumdums inflicted brutal damage. He felt no remorse. That could change. Kill now, pay later. Hold for probable nightmares.
Jack H. worked the bar. He rolled dice with Thad Brown and chomped rumaki sticks. Breuning and Carlisle snoozed in their booth. Lee Blanchard arm-wrestled Lew Collier. Buzz Meeks showed off his pet scorpion. Elmer Jackson fed the beast chop suey tidbits.
Ashida eye-tracked Elmer. Cal Lunceford’s death stank. Elmer’s part felt schizy and all wrong. Jack Horrall dumped the Lunceford snuff. Catbox Cal knew Rice and Kapek and veered hard right. Screw Cal, over and out. Thad Brown debriefed Elmer and took a threadbare statement. Thad bought the “unknown” Jap suspect. Sayonara — that’s it.
Elmer caught his eye and table-hopped over. He maneuvered a highball and a plate of egg rolls. He plopped down and stroked his broken heart.
“I’m grieving for Red. I should have stolen her away from them shitheels Parker and Smith. She was too much woman for them. I would have tamed her rangy ass with my warm redneck love. We would have bred some good-looking kids.”