10:19 a.m.
Occupied territory.
Miss Lake would know the term. It dovetailed with “blood libel” and made dialectic sense. Cops and Japs ran equal here. The cops had increased. The Japs had decreased.
It vibrated in plain view. Door-to-door rousts. Street frisks. Gun confiscation.
Parker pulled to the curb. The warehouse was off 1st and San Pedro. That Coast Guard lieutenant supplied the address. He called from City Hall and got no answer. He opted for a 459 then.
The canning plant. The shrimp boats dumped their catches here. This three-story warehouse. This bolted-padlock door.
He had a tire iron and flashlight. He had one full day sober. He slept in the Bureau cot room last night and woke up tremor-free. He smashed his glasses in Kwan’s Pagoda. He lost them in Pershing Square. It was 459 with a squint.
He walked over and snapped the lock. It was his first solo 459. Hideo Ashida partnered him on the Larkin-bungalow raids. Ashida vanished from Pershing Square. He’s beaten-on one moment, gone the next.
Parker stepped inside and slid the door shut. He ran his flashlight over the floor and walls. One floor/four walls—all smooth cement. It was dead empty. Call it dead certain. The place had been cleaned out.
It was damp. It was musty. He caught a subscent. He couldn’t place it.
He walked along the walls. He held his flashlight close. He saw floor-to-ceiling streaks and made the source.
Washcloth marks. The walls had been wiped. The practice erased fingerprints.
Parker touched a streak mark. He felt slight condensation.
The place was print-wiped yesterday. After that botched harbor raid. Word got back to the owners or renters.
He walked to the second-floor landing. He saw floor-to-ceiling wipe marks. He caught that subscent again.
He nailed it. It was shrimp oil.
He saw charred paper on the floor. It was charred like the tracts and money on the shrimp boat. See that? Japanese characters.
Now extrapolate.
The warehouse was pre-1900. The buying and selling went Jap-to-Jap. That wartime paper backlog. His rogue police status. It impeded records checks.
He walked to the third-floor landing. He saw more wipe marks and caught more subscent. He saw an empty can on the floor. It was unlabeled. Note the shrimp oil and glass specks.
Now extrapolate.
Last Saturday. His talk with Nort Layman. The glass in the canned shrimp up in Lancaster. Sheriff Gene investigates. He thinks it’s Fifth Column work.
Nort eschews that conclusion. Nort extrapolates.
Four dead Watanabes. Glass particles flecked with shrimp oil on all their feet.
Heavily callused feet—“Japs tend to walk around barefoot.”
“What did surprise me was the even distribution of the particles. It was as if they were walking on the glass deliberately.”
Parker walked back to his prowl car. He left the warehouse door ajar. It was a fuck-you/I’m-a-rogue-cop-now move.
He unhooked his two-way and roused the morgue, direct. Nort picked up.
“Dr. Layman. Who’s this?”
“Bill Parker, Nort.”
Nort said, “I’m not surprised, and I bet you’ve got questions.”
“I do, and it’s a parlay. Glass particles and shrimp oil. Is there efficacy here? What would that combination do?”
Nort cleared his throat. “I’d been wondering about that myself, so I did some research. I came up with one thing, which hits me as a non sequitur. The oxide componentry of the glass, in concert with shrimp oil, would create a level of toxicity that would prove deleterious to urban topsoil and many forms of foliage and grass.”
Huh?
“That’s it, Bill. I know it’s a head scratcher, but so’s the goddamn case. It’s a head scratcher and a dead-ender, and I’m running out of tests I can run.”
Parker said, “Thanks, Nort.”
Nort said, “You know where to find me.”
The connection fritzed and died. Parker hooked up the radio and notched his seat back.
Shitwork bodes. There’s Call-Me-Jack’s report stack. “Assess this shit, Bill. You know it’s not my style.”
He thumbed the top folder. It detailed Preston Exley’s Jap-housing plan.
Predictive statistics. Potential internee-employment sites. A Mirror piece on Exley Construction and the Arroyo Seco Parkway. Notes on proposed Highland Park on-ramps. Hoo-ha on Preston’s cop career.
Boring shitwork. Assess what?
Parker lit a cigarette. He thought about the shrimp-boat slaughter. Mass suicide, scorched paper. Links, links, links. Dead Japs and one maybe-Chinaman.
He thought about Pershing Square. He fought beside Scotty Bennett. They rescued a fickle Jap.
He prayed off a jolt of The Thirst. He thought of Miss Lake.
Her lovely dress. Garbage-spattered and trashed. He should buy her a new dress just like it.