12:19 a.m.
Mold work. Tire-tread casting.
Difficult in the lab. Add this outdoor setting. Add the cold night and arc light. Add the kibitzers.
Lee Blanchard and Jack Webb. With a jug scrounged at the El Sombrero.
Ashida plastered up a tread trough. Arc light beams singed his neck. He had exemplar pix of the Watanabes’ car. They owned a ’36 Dodge.
He was two hours in. Bill Parker called and ordered the work. He called from Lyman’s. Sid Hudgens was with him. Parker said, “Nobody can sleep, so we might as well be working. I’ve talked Sid into writing a piece on the case. I’m working—so you should be, too.”
He didn’t say “And you’re drinking.” He didn’t say “And you’re buying off a corrupt newsman.”
Ashida worked. Dirt-and-gravel driveways made for good lifts. He’d confirmed the Dodge with six molds.
It was elimination work. He was looking for suspect car moldings. The odds: ten thousand to one against.
It was half-ass quiet now. The Chinatown ruckus had lulled. They heard shotgun blasts a mile southeast. Jack checked his police-band radio.
The Dudster ordered twenty cops out on a riot sweep. The fracas extended. It featured fireworks and high-flying debris.
Ashida daubed plaster. Lee Blanchard and Jack Webb were liquored up. Blanchard was scratched up from Kay Lake.
Jack said, “Scotty Bennett’s on the PD now. You know, that big fullback from Hollywood High.”
Blanchard said, “I think he’s messing around with Kay, not that I give a shit. I saw him going into Lyman’s after that scene she pulled with me.”
Jack said, “I don’t get it. You’re shacked up with Kay.”
Blanchard said, “You’re too young to get it. You ain’t figured out that the world is a strange and fucked-up place.”
Ashida daubed plaster. Yes—strange and fucked-up.
Submarines. The Goleta Inlet shed. He drove back to L.A. and developed the photos. He succumbed to fear. He destroyed the Watanabes’ radio with a ball-peen hammer. He burned the ledger. He mixed a sedative and slept for ten hours. He woke up, terrified. It was everything.
The roundups. His thefts. His lies. Crazy Kay and her crazy-girl agenda. Dudley Smith versus Bill Parker.
He studied the shed pix. Physiognomy, eugenics. Three dead men looked Chink. Two dead men looked Jap. They might all be mixed-race. He thought in racial slurs now. The world was this fucked-up place.
Blanchard said, “Hideo’s pals with Kay. They made quite the pair at Lyman’s. Thad Brown damn near shit a brick.”
Jack said, “Quit needling Hideo.”
Blanchard said, “Hideo’s okay. It’s Kay who ain’t—but I love her, anyway.”
Jack said, “Let it go, brother.”
Blanchard tipped the jug. “Scotty Bennett. Another cop. And now your old pal Bucky’s coming on the PD. Kay’ll have her hands full.”
It was cold. They wore their high school jackets. Belmont and Manual Arts. Track meets, the showers, Bucky.
Jack said, “I screwed up at the briefing. I shouldn’t have mentioned the purple-sweater guy. I think Dudley’s peeved at me.”
Ashida said, “You did the right thing. It’s a good lead.”
Blanchard tipped the jug. “It’s a shit lead. Nobody wants a white killer. That’s straight from Horrall.”
Jack snatched the jug. “I heard Mike Breuning and Sid Hudgens talking. I think they’re cooking up something with the DA.”
Blanchard unsnatched the jug. “McPherson’s a mud shark. He used to bring colored girls to my fights and cause a big stink.”
Jack resnatched the jug. “I did an errand for Mike, but he told me it was shitwork at the gate. I called PC Bell and checked those pay-phone calls that the Watanabes made. The clerk gave me the locations. The booths were out by those aircraft plants. You know—Lockheed, Douglas, Boeing.”
Blanchard said, “You’re right, shitwork. You follow these leads, and all you get is shit.”
Ashida braced a new tread set. It was a grass-gravel imprint. He adjusted the arc light. He laid down his calipers and tape.
He squatted low. He got naked-eye bingo: Something’s different here.
It was diamond tread. The Watanabes’ Dodge had sawtooth tread. This was separate-car tread. He was naked-eye sure.
Something’s familiar. He’d seen it before. He knew that tread.
Ashida ran out to his car. He dug in the glove box and skimmed his bulletin stack. He knew it was recent. The diamond-tread Goodyear—
December 11, 10, 9, 8—
There:
Sunday, December 7, 5:45 a.m. A Sheriff’s car-on-bicycle job. 4600 Valley Boulevard. Four-person hit-and-run.
It’s dark out. They’re clipped from behind. Three teenaged boys survive. The group’s leader expires.
Jim Larkin. Dead at Queen of Angels. The bulletin photo matches the driveway tracks. The same tread. The same wear pattern. The same impression depth.
December 7. Pearl Harbor morning. 5:45 a.m. The morning after the Watanabe snuffs.
That car, in this driveway. The driveway was roped off from Sunday a.m. on. That car, those tires, this driveway—sometime before that.
Ashida read the whole bulletin. His hands shook and jumbled the words. An eyeball witness said this:
The suspect’s car hit-and-ran. It almost looked deliberate. The car was black. That’s it for vehicle ID.
But:
A white man’s arm dangled out the window. The man wore a purple sweater. End of description—that’s all of it.