Brown's Requiem

5

The moral imperative of my case hit me when I woke up the next morning. Was Fat Dog Baker dangerous? Was he a physical threat to Sol Kupferman and Jane Baker? Exhibitionists are the most docile of sex deviates, but Fat Dog had shown a volatile streak. If he were planning to harm either his sister or Kupferman, it was my duty to stop him. Investigating Fat Dog with his own money struck me as wildly ironic, absurdist theatre in L.A. I decided to start in Venice.

I drove down LaBrea and caught the Santa Monica Freeway westbound. It was ten o’clock and the smog was starting to roll in. Maybe soon the environmentalists would outlaw cars, and I would have to find work repossessing horses. Fortunately for me, Cal Myers would see it coming and corner the market on beasts of burden. I could see it now: Cal’s Casa De Caballo, Cal’s Imports (Arabian horses, naturally) and Cal’s Palomino. Cal would be cutting his T.V. commercials knee deep in horseshit.

When I arrived in Venice, I parked in the exact spot where Fat had got out last night. I had a simple plan: Check out every vacant house, lot, and garage for four blocks south, and question whomever I ran into. Fat Dog was hard to miss, and someone in the area might be able to give me a lead. I walked. It was getting hot, and the coat and tie I was wearing didn’t help. I was getting wary looks from people sitting on their porches, taking the air. I looked like a cop. In Venice, no one but the fuzz wears a coat and tie.

The first two blocks were fruitless. On the third block I saw a wino wandering down the street, drinking from a brown paper bag. He had a wily, lucid look about him, so I gave him a toss. Whipping out my phony badge, I committed a misdemeanor: “Police officer,” I said. “Maybe you can help me.”

The wino gave me a frightened nod. When I finished describing Fat Dog, he practically screamed at me: “I seen that shitbird! Does he wear a shirt with a little crocodile on it? And a baseball cap?”

“That’s the guy.”

“What are you after him for?”

I made it good: “Molesting little boys.”

“I knew it! Once I was sittin’ on this driveway and the shitbird tells me to move my ass. He said it was his property. He looked like a crazy, so I moved. Shitbird.”

“Do you remember where you were?” I asked.

“Sure. The place is around the corner.”

“Take me there. Now.” We turned the corner and the wino led me to a small wood frame house. There was a dirt driveway that ran back into a yard overrun with weeds and high grass. In the rear of the yard was a tar-papered shack with no windows, standing awry atop a weed patch. It was a perfect visual representation of Fat Dog’s paranoia. I thanked the wino and told him to take off. He trotted away, giving me a funny look over his shoulder.

I decided to do a little breaking and entering. I checked out the front house first, knocking at the front door, then the back. No one home. I walked into the back yard. Broken toys lay strewn among the weeds. Luckily, the door to the shack was hidden from the street, and the lock was a joke: a simple hinge with two screws bolted into the door jamb and a carry over metal strip attached to a cheap padlock. I found a curtain rod in the yard among the broken toys. It had bent edges that looked thin enough to use as a screwdriver. I tried it. No go. My impatience got the best of me, and I wedged the rod inside the metal strip and snapped the whole mechanism off. The wood splintered, leaving craters where the screws had gone in. There was no way to cover my tracks.

I opened the door and fumbled for a light switch. I flipped it on, and an overhead bulb on a cord illuminated the dark corners of a man’s mind. It took minutes for the full import of the room to hit me, the photographs that covered the four walls were too staggering: women, mostly Mexican, in every conceivable posture of debasement with donkeys, horses, dogs, and pigs. Interspersed with them were photos of Hitler and his henchmen in various stern poses. Goering, Goebbels, Eichmann, Himmler, the whole sick crew. There was a workbench running along the back wall and above it was a collage of concentration camp atrocity photos: mounds of corpses hanging out of ovens and piles of skeletons lying in a mass grave.

When I checked out the contents of the workbench, I started to tremble. There were a half-dozen gallon cans of gasoline, empty bottles, stacks of asbestos padding, and a pile of safety gloves, all neatly stacked. In a cardboard box underneath the bench were dozens of celluloid strips and cord fuses arranged according to size. It was an arsonist’s workshop, and when the full implication of that hit me I started to tremble even harder: Kupferman. The Utopia. Fat Dog’s insane hatred of Solly K. Jesus. My head was pounding, beginning to ache, so I ransacked the place. Expecting to find money, I found nothing but porno books, cans of white paint, and historical tomes on Nazi Germany. I banged all along the rough wood walls, looking for places to hide small objects. Nothing. I got down on my hands and knees and checked the flooring all around. Nothing. I checked the photos on the wall a second time. The horror pictures were ripped out of the history books stored under the bench. The porno pics I judged to be recent and shot in Mexico: the actresses were Latinas and were sporting 70’s style hairdos and the furnishings of the apartment used as a shooting stage were up to date. In over half of the photographs a black naugahyde couch was in evidence, and it was covered with cheap bordertown souvenirs: bull banks, piñatas, handbags, and blankets.

The women in the photographs were uniformly ugly and pathetic looking, except one. She was an Anglo, about 17 or 18, with high firm breasts and a red natural. She was performing with men, not animals, indicating a higher status.

I tore half a dozen of the pictures from the walls and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. It was broiling in the room, and I suddenly realized I was drenched in sweat. Before I left I tried a con job. Since there was no way to cover my tracks, I tried to put the blame on some local punks. Maybe Fat Dog would fall for it. I pried open a can of paint, found a brush and painted “Death to honkys,” “Crips Rule,” and “Criplets Venice” on the outside wall near the door. Then I ripped more photos off the walls, threw them on the floor and dumped the can of paint on top of them. I left the door open and split for the car, hoping no one would see me. I had myself a real case now.

I went looking for a telephone. In Venice that takes some doing. Pay phones are easy prey for Venetian junkies and the first three I checked out had been gutted. I finally found one that worked and called Mark Swirkal’s office. Swirkal runs an attorney service, delivering writs and summonses and filing court papers. He knows the L.A. court system from every angle and can locate any official paper within a matter of hours. He had hired me a few times to serve summonses to hardcase types, and now I was shooting him some business in return.

I told him what I wanted. The Club Utopia firebombing case: the names of the victims, the name of the owner and his last known address, the names of the cops who made the arrests, the name of the insurance company and agent who serviced the claim, and, most importantly, notes on all testimony pertaining to the alleged “fourth man.” I promised him a C-note and told him I would call back in four hours. He hung up, chomping at the bit.

I walked across the street to a burrito joint, and scarfed up an enchilada plate and coffee. My head was reeling with the implications of what I had just learned. It gave me a headache, so I got some Excedrin out of the glove compartment and chased four of them with coffee. Somehow my mind quieted. My speculations would be futile until I talked to Mark Swirkal. But one theme emerged: I wanted it to be Fat Dog, for the sake of my own revenge. The L.A.P.D. with its overblown reputation blows a big time, highly publicized murder case only to have it solved years later by a former flunky cop they forced to resign. Almost reflexively I sized myself up in the full-length mirror at the back of the restaurant. My appearance was inconclusive: an outsized thirty-three-year-old man, neither handsome nor ugly. Personal qualities and morality open to interpretation.

I had three-and-a-half hours to kill before calling Swirkal, so I got the car and went cruising. I drove by Kupferman’s fur showroom, and saw his car parked in front. Relieved, I drove by his big house north of Sunset. CELLO-1 was parked in the driveway and faint cello chords drifted toward me across the broad front lawn. I stopped my car to listen and threw Jane Baker my silent resolve: that as long as I was around, no one would hurt her or her benefactor. I decided to go see Mark Swirkal in person.

Mark’s office was in a dingy turn of the century building on 6th and Union, just outside downtown L.A. proper and close to all the midtown courts. The building had been ruled unsafe after the big ’71 earthquake, but never condemned. Mark loved to save a buck and the attorneys he worked for didn’t care where he hung his hat; he was the fastest process server and courthouse bulldog in L.A.

I took a rickety elevator to the third floor. His waiting room was open and sparsely furnished — two folding metal chairs with Harbor General Hospital stenciled on the back and a stack of Playboys and Good Housekeepings on the floor. I opted for a Playboy.

Swirkal showed a few minutes later and led me into his office, which was smaller and more cluttered than mine, and not air-conditioned. We shook hands, then he opened his window and his mouth. Mark talks very fast. “I got what you wanted, Fritz. More or less. The trial was short so the transcript was short, first off...” Mark waited while I got out my notepad and pen. “First off,” he continued, “the Club Utopia was insured. The agent who sold the policy also investigated it for the company, Prudential. His name is James McNamara. The victims’ names were Philip Crenshaw, Henry Hadwell, Jacqueline Gaffany, Anthony González, William Eastero, and Margot Jackson. You got that, Brownie?”

I caught up with him. “Keep going,” I said.

“Okay. The arresting officer was Detective Lieutenant Hay-wood Cathcart, 77th Street Division. Now regarding the so-called fourth man. He was described as ‘a short fat guy, kind of grubby... a red-faced man in his late twenties... fat and mean looking... but no wimp. He had on one of those little tennis shirts with the crocodile on the pocket.’” Fat Dog. Eureka. Salvation. Mark went on talking, but I didn’t hear a word he was saying. Finally, he stopped. “What’s the matter, Brownie? I got lots more testimony on the fourth man.”

“Skip it. I’ve got enough.”

“Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m fine. Tell me about the owner of the Utopia.”

“Okay. His name is Wilson Edwards. There was no mention of his address in the transcript.”

I gave Mark Swirkal a big nervous smile and handed him two of Fat Dog’s fifties. “Good work, Daddy-O,” I said.

Mark stuck the money into his pocket. “You want to tell me what this is about?” he asked. “The Utopia bombing is a dead issue.”

“I can’t now. Someday I will, though. Right now, I’d like to use your phone.”

“You go right ahead. I’ve got to split. Lock the door behind you.”

“I will.”

We shook hands again, then Mark thanked me and gave me a puzzled look as he headed out the door. When I heard him get into the elevator I let out a giant whoop of joy and reached for the telephone.

I called Prudential Insurance at their main office on Wilshire. Yes, James McNamara still worked for them. No, he was not in at the moment. I convinced his secretary to relinquish his home phone number. He answered on the second ring. I told him I was a writer doing a book on famous Los Angeles crimes. Would he consent to an interview on the Utopia case? He would indeed. He sounded almost eager. We agreed to meet at a restaurant near his home in Westchester at eight-thirty tonight. When I hung up I let out another whoop of joy, this one even louder.

I pulled into the parking lot of the steakhouse on Sepulveda at exactly eight twenty-five. I inquired after McNamara with the maitre d’, and he pointed out a large man drinking alone at the bar. I walked up and introduced myself. McNamara grasped my hand warmly. He had the lonely, desperate look of a brother juicehead hungry for company. I judged him to be in his late forties, and about a quarter of the way drunk. We adjourned to a table, where I laid out a spiel about the book I was writing. When our waitress came, he ordered a double martini and opened up.

“The Club Utopia firebombing was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” McNamara said. “I went all through Korea with the infantry company and saw nothing to compare to it. The fire itself was no big deal. It was out by the time I got there. It was the bodies that were so terrifying. They were roasted beyond recognition and swollen up like pork sausages. There was a liquor store that was still open down the street, and there was a big crowd of rubber-neckers hanging around, guzzling out of paper bags. When the stiffs got carted out and the smell hit, there was a regular epidemic of puking. Booze puke all over the street and the smell of those bodies. Jesus.”

“It was funny,” he said, “I was a claims investigator in those days, but I was selling policies on the side. I sold a full coverage policy to Edwards, the owner: damage, vandalism, fire, theft, comprehensive — strange for a cheapshit little bar like that, but what the hell? I was watching T.V. when the news bulletin came on. ‘Bar bombed! Six dead!’ Naturally, I hotfooted it down there fast since I knew it would be on my caseload.”

“And Edwards survived the bombing and collected a settlement, right?”

“Right. He wasn’t there that night. He got the thirty-five-thousand total coverage payment. Since it was an open and shut case, the cops nabbing the bombers so quick, we paid off fast.”

“What happened to Edwards?” I asked.

“Beats me,” McNamara said. “He took the money and ran. Wouldn’t you? He was a character, in and out of trouble all his life. When I sold him the policy, I attached a note to the file recommending thorough investigation of all claims he submitted. Of course, the bombing was the only claim he submitted, and it was legit.”

My steak arrived and I dug in. McNamara ordered another double martini. He was on his way.

“Can you give me a full description of Edwards?” I asked. “Full name, D.O.B., last known address?”

“Can do,” he said. “After you called, I stopped by the office and picked up the file. What I don’t remember, this baby does.” He rummaged through some papers on his lap. “Here it is. Wilson Edwards. Born Lincoln, Nebraska, 12–29–33. White male, brown and blue, 5'11‘, 180. A couple dozen arrests, through 1960. Minor stuff: trespassing, second degree burglary, possession of marijuana, shoplifting. When I sold him the policy in ’66 his address was 341 S. Bonnie Brae, Los Angeles.”

I wrote it all down. “Were you satisfied with the police investigation?” I asked. “What about the ‘fourth man?’”

“‘The fourth man’ was bullshit. The killers, Magruder, Smith and Sanchez, were buddies — painters. They were in the Utopia earlier that night. Drunk. They got fresh with some women and were bounced by the bartender. They came back just before midnight. Magruder opened the door and threw a three-gallon pail of gasoline into the bar. Sanchez followed it with a lighted book of matches. Six people fried to death. Smith was out in the car sleeping. Several survivors of the fire saw Magruder and Sanchez do it. Two men who survived had worked with Magruder and knew his address. He and Sanchez were arrested later that night in the driveway of his apartment building. They were both passed out from their drunk. They got Smith at his house later that morning. The ‘fourth man’ routine was just a dodge to beat the death penalty. It didn’t work. They all went to the gas chamber.”

I pressed on. “The arresting officer was named Cathcart, right?”

“Right. Haywood Cathcart. A choice asshole. When I got to the scene, right in the middle of the whole commotion, fire trucks, police cars, reporters, I saw a group of plainclothes cops talking. I tell them I represent Prudential as an investigator, and would they mind talking to me. Cathcart won’t even let me finish. He yells at me that this is police business, that he doesn’t want any insurance bimbo fucking things up. Then he has a harness bull escort me to my car. A choice shithead.”

“Let’s talk about the victims,” I said. “Did you pay out any money to their next of kin?” I was fishing now, hoping to luck onto something that would start my wheels turning. McNamara consulted his memory and his martini.

“Yeah, we did,” he said. “Ten thou apiece to the next of kin of four of the victims. The other two victims were elderly transients with no known next of kin.”

“Did any relative or friend of the victims sue? Either your company or Edwards? Or make any trouble?”

McNamara laughed. “No one sued, but one loco made a lot of trouble. Anthony Gonzalez’s kid brother, Omar. Tony Gonzalez was a Golden-Glover back in the 50’s. Omar worshipped him. He was about sixteen when his brother got French fried, and to say that he took it hard would be an understatement. He was probably the only one in L.A. who believed the fourth man existed, and Jesus Christ, did he make a stink about it. He pestered the cops, found out I was investigating the case for the insurance company, and then pestered me. He bugged the newspapers. It was insane. You remember the Joe Pyne Show? Every week he’d be in the audience. They had this thing called the Beef Box, where people from the audience could get up and air their gripes. Every fucking week Omar would be up there, running off at the mouth about the Utopia case and how the fuzz let the mastermind get away. He said the mastermind, that was what he called him, had a grudge against one of the victims and so he bombed the bar just to kill that one person. That way the cops wouldn’t check that one person’s enemies out. Kill six to get one. He said that Sanchez, Magruder, and Smith were just dupes. When they were executed, he took out a black-bordered ad in the L.A. Times. A full page. ‘When will the mastermind responsible for the death of my brother be brought to justice?’ etc. He used to hang out at 77th Street and buttonhole Cathcart, give him a hard time, expound on his latest theory. He bugged me a lot too, but I never resented it. Omar was a very bright kid, but his brother was strictly a punk. A barfly reliving his days of fistic glory. You remember a book — they made a movie out of it — Magnificent Obsession? That’s what it was for Omar.” McNamara’s eyes were clouding over with booze and nostalgia.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s still around. He liked me. I was patient with him. He used to come by my office and talk about his obsession and what he wanted to do with his life. He hated Cathcart and used to say he was going to join the L.A.P.D. so he could run all the assholes like Cathcart out. He sends me a card every Christmas. He’s had the same job, off and on, for years. Mechanic at a gas station in Hollywood. He’s also some kind of counselor at a drug recovery program in the Barrio. A great kid. Lotta heart.”

“Where’s the gas station where Omar works?” I asked.

“It’s a Texaco on Franklin and Argyle. If you talk to him, give him my best. Wish him good luck from me.”

I said I would and grabbed the check. I thanked McNamara and left him to his memories. I was glad to be sober.

Leaving the restaurant, I felt a strange surge of affection for Fat Dog Baker. He was growing in my eyes, from misanthropic buffoon to brilliant and daring killer. Stranger still, I felt that he had some secret knowledge that was important to me, some new epigram on urban wonder. I had beat up on a killer, and now it was time to make amends and win back his confidence before lowering the boom.

I checked my watch. Nine-thirty. Fat Dog should be asleep on the grounds at Bel-Air Country Club by now. But a golf course is a big place, and I might stumble around half the night looking for him, and scare him off in the process. It wouldn’t do to upset my gravy train, so I drove to the Tap & Cap to look for an escort.

The escort I had in mind was Augie Dougall, but he wasn’t there. The noise in the bar was deafening, country and western mawkishness coupled with loud voices. The Tap & Cap was bustling tonight, and the golf attire and sunburned faces told me it was packed with caddies. The same bartender I had talked to the previous night was on duty, so I went to him for a referral. He told me that every looper in the joint knew Fat Dog, and that no one could stand him. When I asked him who disliked him the least and might be willing to help me locate him, he pointed out a blond guy in his early forties named Stan The Man.

Stan The Man was the perpetrator of the country-western ear-splitting, standing by the jukebox, feeding it coins. Of all the caddies in the place, he looked like the only one capable of giving me a hard time. He had the wary eyes and angry mien of someone who had done time, so I decided on the phony badge ploy.

After ten minutes of cowboy laments, I got my chance. Stan The Man moved from his perch at the jukebox and walked back to the can. I waited a minute, then followed him. He was walking away from the urinal, zipping his fly, when I braced him. I whipped out my badge. “Police officer,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you.”

Stan The Man flinched, then said, “Okay.”

“We’ll go outside,” I said, “the bar’s too noisy.”

He muttered “Okay” again. I started to feel sorry for him. He obviously had a long history of being hassled by the fuzz in odd places.

I tried to quash his fears. “You’re in no trouble. I just want to talk to you about a caddy you know.” Stan The Man just nodded. We moved out onto the street. The night air was welcome after the smoky din of the bar. “Let’s take a walk,” I said, “my car’s just up the street.”

As we walked I learned that Stan The Man was one Stanley Gaither, late of Brentwood Country Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Bel-Air Country Club, and the L.A. County Jail system. His thing was auto theft. He said it was compulsive, that he was on probation, hoeing the straight and narrow and seeing a psychiatrist. This came out in a torrent of words, unsolicited. He was lonely and I started to like him. I introduced myself as Sergeant Brown. Once we were in the car, I said, “It’s like this, Stan. I’m interested in Fat Dog Baker, and I heard you got along with him as well as anyone. Is that true?”

“Kind of. We’ve known each other for years. Looped a lot of the same clubs. I don’t hate him like a lot of guys do. Is he in big trouble?”

“No, I just want to talk to him. Tonight.”

“Are you with vice?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. A crazy fucker like Fat Dog sleeps outside, never changes his clothes. I’ve always had this feeling Fat Dog was some kind of pervert. I mean, shit, he used to be the golf-ball king of L.A. He had three hotel rooms filled with nothing but golf balls, fifty thousand of ’em. He was keeping every driving range in the city supplied and keeping a fifty thousand ball reserve. Fifty thousand golf balls at ten cents a ball is five grand! Fat Dog paid rent on three hotel rooms to keep ’em safe, while he slept on the fifth tee at Wilshire. A guy who’d do something like that has got to be a pervert. Don’t you think so?”

“Maybe. What does Fat Dog do with his money? I heard he still carries a heavy roll.”

Stan considered this. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think he just likes to look at it. That, and go to Tijuana. He loves T.J. He goes down there all the time. He’s crazy about the dog races. He loves that scumbag town. The mule act, the Chicago Club, the whole scene. He’s always saying he’s gonna retire down there and race dogs. He hates Jews and niggers, but he loves Mexicans. He’s got to be a pervert.”

Stan The Man looked at me expectantly, hoping his information would be enough and that he could go. It wasn’t, and tonight I needed a tour guide. “You’ve caddied at most of the clubs in L.A., haven’t you, Stan?”

“All of ’em. I’m a loopin’ motherfucker.”

“Good. I need you to take me around tonight. I want to talk to Fat Dog. We’ll start with Bel-Air. Okay?”

Stan The Man’s “okay” was resigned and sorrowful, the lament of a man used to carrying freight and complying with orders. I started the car and we took off.

The Bel-Air course yielded nothing, but it was beautiful. Armed with flashlights, the reluctant Stan The Man and I searched for an hour and a half. We hopped the fence by the statue of Jesus and made our way north. Stan claimed that he knew all of Fat Dog’s campsites and that it wouldn’t be necessary to check out the whole golf course. He explained to me that Bel-Air was a tight urban course built in and around little canyons. That was why the big houses that loomed off to our right looked so close: they were close.

We walked up a steep hill that led to the first tee. It was pitch black, and the grass smelled wonderful. The view when we reached the top was so beautiful that for a minute I completely forgot the purpose of my mission. The golf course spread out before me, deep black hills that seemed to promise peace and friendship. It was very still and chilly — a good ten degrees cooler than the city proper — and clear, the lights of Los Angeles etched sharply in pastel shades. I was here to talk to a murderer, a psychotic whose lifestyle was incomprehensible to me, and yet for a split second I envied him the solitude of his urban hideaway. If he lived here he had superb taste and the very best of two worlds; nestled in the arms of a great city, yet free, during the night hours, from all her strife.

We crossed the “Swinging Bridge,” a suspension bridge over a deep canyon that carried golfers from the tenth tee to the tenth green. It was aptly named, for a night breeze and the weight of two men sent it swaying gently. Stan broke the silence and told me that on a clear day you could see all the way to downtown L.A. and the San Bernardino Mountains.

Shining our flashlights into sand traps, we walked up from the green into a tunnel. Stan said that this was the end of the line, that no way would Fat Dog camp out on the back nine. He hated it too much, calling it the toughest nine holes he had ever packed. I believed Stan. The still night beauty of this place seemed to have informed us with a wordless rapport. We made our way back the way we had come.

Once back in the car, Stan The Man sighed. “Well,” he said, “we got a choice to make. There’s four more country clubs on the West Side: Riviera, Brentwood, Hillcrest, and L.A. You can forget Riviera. They don’t have caddies, and Fat Dog sleeps out only on courses where he knows the caddy master. Brentwood and Hillcrest are Jewish clubs, and Fat Dog ain’t camped out on them courses in years. That leaves L.A. and it’s huge. Two courses, thirty-six holes. If Fat Dog’s in town, that’s probably where he’s at.”

“Let’s hit it, then,” I said. We drove south, along the periphery of the U.C.L.A. campus, to Wilshire, then east. It was shortly past midnight, and I was getting tired.

“Your best bet is the south course,” Stan was saying. “There’s a gate on Wilshire that’s open twenty-four hours. There’s a bunch of wetback maintenance guys who live there. They got their own barracks. We can park in their lot. There’s the gate coming up. Slow down.” I did. The gate led down to a woodsy nothingness. I could hardly see. Stan was giving explicit directions. “Real slow now, hang a right now and stop.”

I stopped and Mexican music hit me. Then I heard laughter. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see a large, one-story bunkhouse off to my left. There were men sitting on the doorway steps drinking beer. They stopped talking as they heard us approach. I grabbed my flashlight and thermos of coffee and beckoned to Stan The Man to follow me. We walked up to the beer drinkers. “Hola,” I said, “we’re looking for El Perro, Perro grande y blanco?”

It broke the ice. The five or six voices that answered my query were friendly. As best I could understand them, they all said the same thing: they hadn’t seen any big, white dog. I should have told them I was looking for a fat dog, but I didn’t know the Spanish word for fat. “Gracias, amigos,” I said.

“De nada,” they returned. As Stan and I moved into the darkness, they turned their mariachi music back on. Silently I wished them a good life in America.

The L.A. south course was flatter than Bel-Air, and more urbanbound. The lights of the Century City business monoliths about a half mile away cast an eerie glow on the trees and hills. Stan was directing me to the spot where he thought Fat Dog was most likely to be: the eleventh tee. Our flashlights played over the terrain, picking out scurrying rodents. In the distance I could hear the hiss of a sprinkler.

Fat Dog was not residing on the eleventh tee. Somehow I didn’t care. I was astounded that I had lived in Los Angeles for over thirty years, had prided myself on my knowledge of my city, and had missed out on all this. This was more than the play domain of the very rich, it was quite simply another world, and such diverse types as caddies, wetbacks, and burned-out ex-cops had access to it, on whatever level of reality they chose to seek. Golf courses: a whole solar system of alternate realities in the middle of a smogbound city.

I decided to explore all the city’s courses, with my cassette recorder, on future sleepless nights. After Fat Dog Baker was safely locked up in the pen or the loony bin, of course.

I trained my light on a pair of wooden benches next to the tee. “Let’s sit down,” I said. I opened the thermos of coffee and poured Stan a cup, drinking mine directly from the container.

“You like it here, don’t you?” Stan asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m surprised it took me this long to discover it.”

We sipped coffee and stared into the darkness. We were facing north. Wilshire was a narrow strip of light in the distance. Cars glided silently along it.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator. I shanghaied you out here illegally. You can take off, or I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”

I could feel Stan The Man staring at me in the dark. After a few moments, he laughed. “I knew there was something funny about you, I knew it, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. How come you’re looking for Fat Dog?”

“I’m working for him. He hired me to do a little work for him.”

“What kind of work?”

“It’s confidential. Do you want to split? I’ll drive you home.”

“Naw, I like it here too. What kind of cases do you handle?”

“Mostly I repossess cars.”

Stan laughed, wildly. “Now that’s really funny,” he said. “I used to steal cars and you repo them. That’s a fucking scream!”

“Tell me about looping,” I said.

“What about it?”

“Everything.”

Stan The Man thought for a minute. What he had to say surprised me: “It’s kind of sad. You show up and sign the list in the morning. If there’s play, you work. Basically you carry two bags, one on each shoulder. You usually get twenty bucks for eighteen holes. The ladies stiff you about half the time. Some of the men do, too. Some members pay real good, but the caddy master’s buddies get those loops. The way you make money in the looping racket is by getting regulars who take good care of you, and by pressing thirty-six holes, which is a lot of fucking work. Or you get foursomes, two on your back and two on a cart, and you make up to forty scoots. Or you get high-class putter jobs with gamblers and high rollers who know how to pay. But it’s the guys who suck ass with the caddy master who get that action. Me, I just push thirty-six four days a week and spend the rest of my time fucking off. That’s the great thing about looping. You can take off all the time you want, as long as you show up on weekends and for tournaments. It’s also why you get so many bums as caddies, there’s always cash on hand for booze or dope or the horses.

“We get some young college kids out at Bel-Air now. They got that young golfer image. The members eat it up and whip out heavy for those snotnose cocksuckers. None of ’em know shit about golf, they just know how to hand out a good snow job. They snort cocaine and blow weed out on the course. There’s also the horseplayer clique. The caddy master is a bookie, and the guys who bet with him get primo loops. But caddies never save their dough. They either blow it on booze or pussy or gambling or dope. They’re always broke. Always coming out to the club to make a measly twenty bucks to get drunk on. Loopers is always hobnobbing with big money, and they never have jack-shit themselves.

For instance, there’s this Brentwood goat named Whitey Haines. He’s an epileptic and a big boozehound. He used to loop Bel-Air, but he got fired ’cause he kept having seizures out on the course. It shook up the members. Anyway, the Bel-Air pro, he felt real guilty about eighty-sixing Whitey. Whitey ain’t doing too good over at Brentwood; them Hebes like their goats healthy.

“You see, Whitey is always going on two-week drunks. Them seizures scare the shit out of him, and the booze fixes him up, temporarily. Right before he goes on a drunk, he comes back to Bel-Air and cries the blues to the pro. Tells him he’s got to see his dying aunt, or go to the hospital for some tests, or have hemorrhoid surgery, some line of horseshit like that. He puts the bite on the pro for two and a half C’s and then splits. After he gets back from his drunk, he starts paying him back: ten here, fifteen there, twenty there. As soon as he gets his debt all paid off, Whitey comes back and pulls the same routine all over again: ‘I got cancer of the armpits, pro, lend me two-fifty so I can get it cured.’ The pro whips it out on him, and they’re off and running again.

“Now the pro knows that Whitey is lying, and Whitey knows that he knows, but they play that charade over and over, ’cause the pro is a caddy who made good, who was good at playing golf and sucking up to money, and guys like Whitey Haines eat him up. He thinks, ‘Jesus, if I didn’t have such a sweet smile and a sweet swing, I might have ended up like this asshole, packing duck loops and on the dole.’ So what’s two hundred and fifty scoots on permanent vacation from your pocket if it makes you feel like a humanitarian?

“Looping continues to fucking amaze me. If you think Whitey Haines is a sad case, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Take Bicycle Pete. He’s dead now. He got fired from Wilshire for never taking a bath. He stunk like a skunk. Rode a girl’s bicycle all over town and wore a Dodger cap with a propeller on top. Lived on Skid Row. Everybody thought he was retarded. He kicked off of a heart attack in his room. When the ambulance guys came to take his stiff away, they found over two hundred grand in diamonds in his closet.

“Then there’s Dirt Road Dave. The ugliest guy I ever seen. Got this lantern jaw that sticks out about two feet. Used to hit all the invitationals. No caddy master would let him loop regular. He couldn’t even work Wilshire, and that’s the bottom of the line. So he’d loop invitationals to supplement his welfare check. He had a regular routine: at the end of the day, when all the loopers were hanging around the caddy shack, he’d chug-a-lug a half pint of bourbon, get up on a card table and suck his own dick. We used to throw quarters at him while he did it. He was one of the most famous caddies on the West Coast. Then he made his big mistake. He started doing it in public. The public didn’t understand. Only caddies and perverts could dig his act. Old Dave’s in Camarillo now.

“It’s the loneliness, that’s what gets me about looping. All these sad motherfuckers with no families, no responsibility, don’t pay no income tax, nothing to look forward to but the World Series pool at the Tap and Cap, the Christmas party in the caddy shack, the next drunk, or the big horse that never hits. We got this college kid, a real smart kid, who loops weekends, and he says that caddies is ‘the last vestige of the Colonial South. Golf course cotton pickers lapping at the fringes of a strained noblesse oblige.’ He said that we were a holdover from another era, that we were a status symbol, and it was worth it for clubs to keep us around, to uphold their image.

“Caddies on the pro tour is absolutely necessary, of course, but that’s another story. The club caddy is on his way out. Carts is coming in. Riviera went cart three years ago. Caddies is gonna blow it. They’re too unreliable. Never showing up, or showing up drunk. I’m lucky. If worst comes to worst, I can always do reupholstering. That’s my trade, but I hate it. I like looping for the freedom. I’m my own boss, except for the time I’m picking cotton. Besides, it ain’t too late for me to change my life. I’m only thirty-nine, like Jack Benny. My probation officer and my shrink have been helping me out a lot. I ain’t stolen no cars in over a year. Group therapy’s been helping me. My shrink tells me I don’t have to be a caddy if I don’t want to. That I can be what I want.

“It ain’t that way for Fat Dog, though. He’s locked into it. He don’t want to do nothing else. He hates niggers and he hates Jews, and that’s all he’s got. The shrink told me that people who hate other people real bad usually hate themselves. Maybe that’s how it is with Fat Dog. He’s got no friends, except Augie Dougall, who’s the only one in the world lame enough to put up with his shit. Fat Dog is always talking about this rich and powerful guy he knows, that he’s gonna team up with someday, but that’s bullshit. Fantasyland. If he wasn’t such a cheap, nasty prick, I’d feel sorry for him.

“Looping wouldn’t be such a bummer if it wasn’t for the guys who loop. Golf’s a great game, and golf courses is beautiful. It’s just the poor sad fuckers who pack the bags for a bunch of poor sad fuckers who can’t hit the ball that makes the whole thing so sad.”

Stan The Man finished his soliloquy, and I sighed in the darkness. I said, “I feel for you. I know how it is to be trapped, watching your life hotfoot it away. If your upholstering gig falls through, I can help you get started in the repossession racket. I know a lot of people. You could get paid for ripping-off cars. You’d have lots of free time to pursue whatever you wanted. Consider repo-ing, you might like it.” I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and handed it to him. “You can reach me at one of these numbers. I’ll do all I can to get you started.”

Stan put the card into his pocket and stared at me for a long moment. “Thanks,” he said. “I mean it. This has been one crazy night. I always figured that if someone offered me a break it would be some rich member at the club who liked the way I called putts, not some private eye repo-man. Let me think about it, okay? This is all happening real fast.”

“Think it over. Kick it around with your shrink. He might think it’s a bad extension of your disease, like me drinking all this fucking coffee to get a little wired. Let’s get out of here. I’ll look for Fat Dog later. Right now I’m cold and tired.”

We walked back to the car. A heavy fog was rolling in, clinging to the greenery and creating deep oceans of mist. There was a silence in the maintenance shack as we passed it. I drove Stan to his hotel in Culver City. We shook hands. He thanked me effusively, and promised to consider my offer. As I drove back to my pad all I could think of was one phrase: “Looping is sadness.”

6

The following day it seemed like a good idea to let sleeping Fat Dogs lie, at least for the moment. There were other angles to check out. My case was turning into a splendid example of inductive logic: searching for evidence a decade old to convict a killer whose identity I already knew. Since I was seeking to link Sol Kupferman to the Club Utopia, it seemed logical to start with the owner, Wilson Edwards.

Remembering that McNamara told me Edwards had a criminal record, I called Jensen at R&I for an address. He came through: Edwards had been busted the year before for possession of heroin. His address at that time was the Hotel Rector on Western Avenue just south of Hollywood Boulevard. I put on my intimidation outfit; a checked cotton sportcoat, tie, and contrasting slacks, and drove there.

The Hotel Rector was a thousand years old, and bespoke a despair that was uniquely Hollywood: the lobby was crowded with elderly pensioners awaiting their monthly stipends, black prostitutes, and low riders drinking beer. It smelled of urine and liniment. The loneliness there was almost tangible.

The old man at the desk told me that Wilson Edwards was still at the Rector and staying in room 311. I took the stairs. The hallways didn’t smell any better than the lobby and hadn’t been swept recently.

I knocked on 311. No answer. I knocked again. This time I heard the rumbling of a voice aroused from sleep. I knocked again, louder. Footsteps approached the door. “Eddie?” a voice called tentatively. “Is that you?”

Not wanting to disappoint anyone, I answered, “Yeah, it’s me. Open up.”

The man who opened the door was truly horrific. He looked like one of the concentration camp victims on the walls of Fat Dog’s shack: his gray skin hung slackly from prominent cheekbones, his eyes were sunken and filmy and the T-shirt and boxer shorts he was wearing encased his shrunken torso like a tent. He was shaking, and it took him several moments to realize I wasn’t Eddie. “You’re not Eddie,” he said finally.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not. Are you Wilson Edwards?”

“Yeah, are you fuzz?”

“No, I’m a private investigator. May I come in? I’d like to talk to you.”

His eyes turned shrewd, and as he sized me up he grabbed the door jambs with both hands for support. The veins in both arms were nearly obliterated. He was a long time junkie. I grabbed his left wrist. He tried to pull away, but I held on. Some of the tracks were recent.

“Is Eddie your connection?” I asked. “Are you sick now? You can tell me.” I tried to soothe him. “I won’t hurt you, I just want to ask you a few questions. It won’t take long.”

Seeing that he had no choice, Edwards motioned me inside. “I’m not sick yet, but I will be soon,” he said as I shut the door behind us. Then he started to laugh. “Man, that’s funny. I’m dying of cancer but I’m not sick yet. That’s funny.” He pointed to a beat-up armchair. “You have a seat. I’m gonna geez. I can’t talk to you till I get over these shakes.”

I sat down and Edwards went into the bathroom and shut the door. I checked out the room: it reeked of body odors, but was clean. Edwards was evidently something of a jazz buff. There were dozens of albums arranged neatly on a wall shelf, mostly be-bop and modern jazz. There was no phonograph in sight. Edwards returned to the room. He looked relieved, but no healthier. His eyes were dilated and his shakes had stopped.

His voice was somewhat calmer. “Dilaudid used to be delightful, but now I’ve got to be smacked-back for all the pain to go. Let’s make this fast. I don’t want you here when Eddie shows up.”

“How long have you got?” I asked.

“Maybe four, five months.”

“You should be in the hospital.”

“No way, José. That chemotherapy shit is a bum trip. I want to go out walking with my Lucy.” He made a gesture with his hand, indicating shooting up.

“Who supplies your stuff? It doesn’t look like you’ve got much money.”

“You didn’t come here to ask me that, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. I came here to talk to you about the Club Utopia.”

For an instant, surprise flashed into Edwards’s eyes, then he recovered and gave me a death’s head smile. “The Club Utopia burned down on December 10, 1968. The guys who did the job shuffled off this mortal coil two years later. The whole scene is a long-gone dead duck.”

“Perhaps. You owned the place, didn’t you?”

“Right.”

“Where did you get the money to buy it?”

“I saved it.”

“Where did you get the money for the liquor license?”

“I saved that, too.”

“You need juice to get a liquor license. Who did you know at the licensing bureau?”

“I knew a guy. I forget his name. It was a long time ago.”

“I don’t buy it, Edwards. I’ve got you pegged. A smack addict jazz fiend, circa 1950. All those records and you don’t even have a record player. A record player has got to be good for five or six spoons. You’ve never had a pot to piss in, except maybe while you were fronting for the real owner of the Utopia. Those tracks on your arms tell your whole life story.”

“Things were different then. I had my shit together.”

“Don’t shit a shitter,” I said, raising my voice. “I want the truth. It’s important to me. We can do this either of two ways. One, we can wait until Eddie shows up, and I bust both of you for possession. That way you die in the jail ward of the County Hospital. Or, two, you can tell me what I want to know, and make a few bucks for your trouble. The choice is yours.”

Edwards gave it some thought. Fear quashed his hipster act. “If I talk to you and it gets back to certain people, it would be bad for me. I just want to die in peace. You can dig that, can’t you?”

“Sure. I’m a good liar. I can think fast. Wherever your information takes me, you can count on my not revealing my source. I live by the old code.” The old code: never give up your informant unless it can give you access to more and better information.

It didn’t take Edwards long. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Who really owned the Utopia, for starters,” I said.

“It was a guy named Sol Kupferman. A rich guy. A furrier.”

“Why was the joint in your name?”

“For tax purposes. Strictly a tax dodge. Kupferman owned half-a-dozen bars and liquor stores under phony names. He used to be in the rackets in the old days, and he couldn’t get any liquor licenses.”

“I heard that Kupferman was a big time bookie, back in the 50’s. Was he running a book at the Utopia?”

“Nothing big. He had a wire going to help defray tax costs and overhead. He was running steady in the black because the wire took care of all that.”

“Did Kupferman run the book himself?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“He had this guy Ralston, used to be a ballplayer, take care of his action at all his spots. Ralston worked at this country club where he was a member. Kupferman paid him good.”

“How did he work it? Ralston, I mean.”

“He used to come by at odd times to pick up his bets. The bettors would leave their bread with the bartender. Ralston sent a big spade around to pay off. Ralston used to send the bets out to the track with caddies from the club.”

“What else do you know about the operation?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what you’re looking for, or why you’re even interested in all this ancient history. That’s all I know, but I can tell you this: it was just a small potatoes setup.”

Edwards was getting nervous. He was remarkably lucid for a man so close to death, but now the strain was starting to show.

“I can tell you’re starting to hurt. This might take a little longer. Why don’t you go into the can and get straight?”

He took my advice. When he closed the bathroom door, I hopped up from my chair and gave the room a quick toss. I opened drawers and cupboards and checked the contents of shelves. Nothing. Behind his record collection I found a County Disability check and a small prescription bottle of barbiturates. I let them lie. When Edwards came back, he looked no better. A corpse is a corpse. His voice was a little steadier though. He might have been able to handle himself twenty years ago.

“Shake it, daddy, what else do you want to know?” he said. Besides suffering from terminal cancer, he was suffering from terminal hipsterism.

“How did you know Kupferman? Why did he offer you this job?”

“Solly K knew my brother from his racket days. My brother was a punk, but he got around. My brother approached me, told me Solly needed someone to front a bar for him. I’d draw myself a cut each week, keep the books, and show up a couple nights a week to make it look good. For a C-note a week. I took the job, it’s that simple.”

“What kind of man was Kupferman?”

“Solly K is a sweetheart, a truly gentle person. I know for a fact that he’s been helping out a couple of old people whose kids got burned up in the torch. He felt real bad about the bombing. Like he was guilty himself.”

“He’s still taking care of you, isn’t he?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dilaudid is not cheap and heroin is twenty-five dollars a spoon, and you get it delivered. Someone is keeping you from really hurting. You haven’t got any money. Is Kupferman supplying you?”

Edwards began to tremble, and his voice rose to some otherworldly pitch of junkie indignation. “Solly K never hurt anyone! He keeps a lot of people from hurting! You never had a friend like that! Guys like you just know how to hurt people! That’s how you get your rocks off. Guys...” His angry voice trailed off into a coughing attack. I had learned all I was going to. It was enough. I had Fat Dog’s motive for the bombing down pat. I was anxious to be free of Edwards’s death stench. I remembered the money I promised him, but decided against it. Edwards was still coughing as I went out the door. As I looked back at him, he feebly flipped me the finger.

The hot, smoggy air that hit me as I walked out onto the street was a relief. Even the hookers and black pimps lounging in front of the Ail-American Burger looked good.

I walked back to the car, turned on the radio news and went into shock. A wail rose up in my throat as I listened: “A fire last night caused an estimated four million dollars’ damage to the Solly K Fur Salon and warehouse in Beverly Hills. The fire broke out at one-thirty A.M., sweeping through the handsome structure on Santa Monica Boulevard and Bedford Drive. Beverly Hills firemen quelled the blaze before it could spread to other buildings, but not before the fashionable fur showplace burned to the ground. There were no injuries and the cause of the blaze is now being investigated. Meanwhile, on a happier note...”

I switched it off. My head was banging like cymbals gone mad, with guilt and fear racing for control of my mind. I fought them off, taking deep breaths and telling myself it was all to the good: Fat Dog’s insanity was peaking and I was the only one who could stop him. I started the car and headed south on side streets, cutting corners and running stop signs.

I caught the Santa Monica Freeway westbound near Washington. There was a midmorning lull in traffic and I made good time. I got off the freeway at Lincoln and headed for the arson shack. The back yard looked the same: forgotten playthings and high grass. The door of the shack was open, and the place had been completely cleaned out: no arson supplies, tools, or pornography. The pseudo-gang graffiti I had painted on the walls had been crossed out with large brush strokes of the same color. Freshly painted obscenities covered the back wall near the workbench: “fuck,” “cocksuck,” “kill fuck,” and “cocksuck bastard.” I got down on my knees and looked around. Nothing.

Leaving the door ajar, I walked up to the front house and knocked on the door. A fat black woman in a muu-muu answered. “Yes?” she said suspiciously.

I sized her up quickly as a T.V. watcher and took my act from there: “My name is Savage,” I said, “I’m with the F.B.I. We have reason to believe that the man renting your back house is an escaped convict. We...” I never got the chance to finish. The woman threw open the screen door and almost threw herself on me, slamming her huge arms against her sides in frustration.

“You arrests that no good bum, officer!” she screamed. “That no good bum took off owing me two months’ rent, and threw all kind of filthy pictures on the grounds for all the little childrens to see. You arrests him! He called me a nigger bitch!”

I placed an arm on her quaking shoulder. “Hold on, ma’am,” I said. “Just let me ask a few questions, all right?”

“All right, Mr. Savage.”

“First of all, is this man who rents from you about forty years old, short, fat, with dirty golf clothes?”

“That’s the no-good bum!”

“Good. How long has he rented from you?”

“Goin’ on four years. He don’t live there, he just keep his Tijuana sin things there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dirty books! Dirty pictures! He tells me he the king of Tijuana. He tells me he gonna race dogs down there. He...”

I interrupted. “When did you see him last?”

“I sees him last night. He knocks on my door and says: ‘Bye-bye, nigger bitch. I’m goin’ to T.J. to claim my kingdom, but I’ll be back to throw you in the gas chamber.’ Then he points to the yard and says ‘I left plenty of reading material for the kiddies.’ Then he makes the devil’s sign at me and runs down the street! You arrests him, officer!”

I didn’t wait to find out what “the devil sign” was. I ran back to my car, leaving the woman standing on her porch, slamming her arms and demanding justice.

I took surface streets to Beverly Hills, to give me time to think. I put on KUSC. They were playing a symphonic piece that sounded like Haydn. I was exhilarated, so high that a cup of coffee might blow the top of my head off. I wondered what my elation stemmed from. My case had blown sky high, the two people I had vowed to protect were in grave danger, and Fat Dog Baker was almost certainly in Mexico.

Then it hit me. I was home. For the first time in my life I was on to something important, something vast and complex, and I was the sole arbiter of it. Before this, September 2,1967, had been the pivotal date of my life. I was twenty-one. On that date I had heard, really heard, music for the first time. It was Beethoven’s Third Symphony. Walter had been trying to get me to listen to classical music for years, to no avail. The First Movement of the Eroica went through me like a transfusion of hope and fortitude. I was off with German romanticism, listening to Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, and Bruckner six, eight, ten hours a day. I had found truth, or so I thought, and a strange metamorphosis took place: infused with the romance of giants, I gave up my vague academic dream and became a cop. An uneasy, malcontented one at first, until the booze came along and made the low-level administration of power exciting beyond my wildest fantasies.

It worked for a while, but gradually I began fucking up. My performance on the streets deteriorated as my dependence on alcohol grew. I finally committed an irrevocable act, and my career was over. Fortunately I had done Cal Myers a big one during my days with the Vice Squad, and now I was the repo-prince of the new car king of the Valley.

I remembered what Stan The Man had said last night: that he didn’t have to be a caddy. My feeling three days ago as I was waiting for Irwin had been prophetic: my life was changing, my vistas were endless in this charisma fixated society — if I didn’t blow this case.

I parked and walked several blocks to the ruins of Solly K’s fur empire. From a block away I could see a crowd of spectators looking interestedly into a roped-off area. Two patrolmen were watching the crowd. There was one patrol car and two red fire-marshals’ cars parked on the sidewalk.

When I got to the site of the leveled building I saw men in business suits poking in the rubble, carrying evidence kits and talking guardedly among themselves. I waited for them to finish. The site was one of total devastation: mountains of charred wood and insulation, piles of ashes, soot everywhere. It had settled on adjoining buildings and some storeowners had set workmen out to scrub down their walls.

I had no idea how large Kupferman’s warehouse had been. The facade was deceiving — the structure itself had extended back a quarter of a city block. From what I could see, no other buildings had been even singed by the fire. Fat Dog’s arson skills had improved since his Molotov Cocktail days. I was impressed.

One of the detectives was walking out of the rubble, brushing soot from his pants and looking worried. He was a burly cop, about fifty. I watched him move away from the crowd of onlookers toward an unmarked police car. I intercepted him as he unlocked the door. “Excuse me,” I said, “my name is Brown. I’m a private investigator.”

I handed him my photostat to prove it. He checked it out carefully and handed it back. “What is it, Mr. Brown? I’m very busy.”

I ran off my hastily prepared cover story: “I won’t keep you long. Sol Kupferman has hired me to look into the fire. He trusts the police and firemarshals to do a thorough investigation, but he wants this thing covered from all angles. Right now I only want to know one thing. Was it arson?”

The cop looked me over from head to toe. “You should know that police officers at crime scenes do not give out confidential information to civilians. We will be in touch with Mr. Kupferman. Good day.”

I watched him get into his car and drive off. He had the drawn, abstracted look of a veteran cop just handed a tough one. His worried expression was more than enough confirmation. I walked back to my car, then headed for the gas station at Franklin and Argyle to see Omar Gonzalez, conspiracy buff.

Franklin and Argyle was a blast from my past; one of the big ones. In June of 1972, on information supplied by Jack Skolnick, I led a raid on the notorious Castle Argyle, methedrine capitol of the West Coast. An eight-story Moorish apartment house built in the 20’s, the Castle Argyle was a hotbed of hippie intrigue in the early 70’s. Skolnick had told me he had been approached by one “Cosmo,” a UCLA chemistry major and resident of the castle, with an offer to sell him three gallons of liquid meth amphetamine for $5,000. The street value was close to half a million. I was hot for adventure and began staking the castle out, along with an obnoxious rookie patrolman named Snyder. We never told our superiors or the guys in Narcotics what we were doing. We were rogue cops, out for the big kill.

Cosmo lived on the sixth floor and had dozens of visitors nightly. Hiding behind some towering hibiscus plants, Snyder and I heard Cosmo’s departing guests remark on the great quality of his stuff. After three nights of this, we decided we had enough to act on and scheduled our raid for the following evening. We could have pulled it off low-key, dressing in hippie disguises of beard, moustache, and love beads from Bert Wheeler’s Magic Store on the Boulevard, and making a discreet buy before lowering the boom; but fueled by large quantities of Old Grand Dad, we decided to break the door down and go in with shotguns.

We did and it worked. Until Snyder got disappointed. Cosmo and his girlfriend submitted quietly, scared shitless by the two oversized short-hairs with badges pinned to their chests and wielding heavy firepower. They led us to their stash, let us handcuff them, and waited meekly as we phoned for a patrol car and a matron for the girl. But Snyder wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to shoot off his shotgun. He was heartbroken that he had missed his opportunity. He said the bust was like getting laid without getting your dick sucked first.

He rumbled through the apartment opening drawers and knocking over chairs. Then he saw the Che Guevara poster, life-size, taped to a gilt-covered bedroom mirror. “Brownie,” he called, “look at this.” I came into the bedroom, leaving my handcuffed prisoners unguarded. Snyder, late of the U.S. Marine Corps was aghast with indignation. “I’m gonna kill him, I’m gonna kill that Commie cocksucker!” he cried, and blasted Che Guevara, the mirror, and a good part of the bedroom wall to kingdom come with his Remington pump. Before I could stop him, he blasted the other wall, sending Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix to hell. When the dust cleared, Snyder was grinning like a sated lover, our prisoners were screaming “Police brutality” and I quite literally shit in my pants.

A few minutes later we heard the sirens. I looked out the window and saw eight black-and-whites jamming up the streets. Knowing my trigger-happy colleagues craved excitement as much as my lunatic partner and I and might open fire at any moment, I ran down six flights of stairs, through the lobby and out the door of the building. When I hit the long walkway that led down to the street, I threw my hands above my head and yelled, “Police officer, don’t shoot!”

Some of the cops standing by their patrol cars with hardware at the ready recognized me and motioned me to join them. My mind racing with stories to explain the shooting, I ran toward them. Just as I was about to reach the street my half-empty pint of Old Grand Dad slipped out of my waistband and broke on the sidewalk in front of me. At that moment a merciful death was all I wished for. Liquid feces were running down my legs and my career was ruined. I would have to get a job as a security guard for a buck fifty an hour and drink Gallo muscatel. It was all over. Until a tough-looking old patrol sergeant started to laugh. Others joined him as I stood there, mute, lest I increase my culpability. The laughter was getting louder as the old sergeant pulled me aside and whispered “Is there anyone hurt up there, son? Is your partner okay?”

I told him everything was okay, except for some property damage.

“We can handle that,” he said. A group of officers went upstairs to rescue Cosmo and his girlfriend from Snyder, and Snyder from himself.

I was driven back to the station where I took a shower and changed clothes. In the report that was filed, no mention was made of the shotgun blasts (the suspects having been coerced into silence), my bottle, or the shit in my pants. Snyder and I received a commendation and by the perverse logic of the macho mentality my floundering police career was back in full stride.

The Mobil Station where Omar Gonzalez worked was catty-corner from the scene of my past triumph. The place was deserted when I pulled in, so I pulled up to the ethyl pump and served myself. I looked in vain for a Chicano in his late twenties. When my tank was full, I went searching for the attendant and found him under the lube rack working on a car. He turned around to face me, a stocky, affable-looking kid of about twenty. “I’ve got the exact change,” I said, “I know you guys appreciate it.” The kid gave me a pleasant smile as I handed him the money. “By the way,” I said, “is Omar around? I’m a buddy of his.”

The kid looked at me strangely. “Omar ain’t been around for two weeks. He ain’t at the recovery house, either. I don’t know where the hell he is. He gets away with murder ’cause the customers like him. The boss would give me the axe quick if I pulled the shit Omar does.”

“What kind of shit does Omar pull? I asked. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

He screwed up his face into a parody of concentration. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Omar. Everybody does. But he’s always talking this Chicano Activist shit and taking off to hang out at the drug recovery crashpad, leaving me holding the fucking bag and leaving his goddamn car blocking up the station.” The kid pointed to a ten-year-old yellow Plymouth. I was about to throw some more questions at him when a customer pulled in, a good-looking woman in a convertible. He forgot all about me and strode over to the pumps, his face contorted into a wolf grin.

I walked over to check out Omar’s car. I wrote down the license number on my notepad, then looked in the front window. The seats were upholstered in white naugahyde and the brownish matter that was caked in splotches on the driver’s side looked like dried blood. The back seat was covered with a green tarpaulin and underneath it were shapes resembling boxes. I didn’t have to think twice. The doors of the car were locked and my master keys were back at my pad. I ran to my car and opened the trunk, digging out a blank repo order and my bumper jack.

The kid was finishing up with the woman in the convertible as I ran by him. I stopped and shoved the repo order in his face. “I’m a private investigator,” I yelled, “This is a repossession order for that car. I’m taking it.”

His jaw dropped and he just stood there while I went to work. I gave a quick look around for cops, then slammed the bumper jack full force into the front window of the Plymouth. The safety glass shattered inward and I reached through the hole and opened the door.

I scraped off some of the dried matter on the seat cover and smelled it. It was definitely blood. I swung the front seat forward, dug under the tarpaulin and pulled out two cardboard boxes. They were light and I slung them easily onto the trunk of the car to open.

The attendant was at my side now, looking nervous. “Hey man, are you sure this is legal?” he said, his voice breaking.

“Yeah, punk, this is legal. Now get the fuck out of my way,” I said, almost screaming.

I watched him retreat toward the lube rack, then dug into the boxes. When I saw what I had I almost fainted. The first box contained bookies’ ledgers, eight or nine of them, bound in brown leather. My Vice Squad experience was paying off: the bettors’ names were in numbered code in one column, and in the succeeding columns were amounts of money, dates, and check marks probably indicating collections. I flipped through all the ledgers quickly. They were identical in their layout. The same margining, but with different codings, dates, and amounts of money. The dates went back twelve years. Wedged into the back of the bottom ledger were eight or ten blank Los Angeles County checks, the kind used for paying employees and disbursing Welfare money. I looked through all the ledgers for envelopes or something else to tie into the blank checks, but found nothing.

I ripped open the second carton and almost died on the spot. The box was filled with pornographic photos, identical in theme and backdrop to the ones I had seen on the walls of Fat Dog’s arson shack: the same women, the same sleazy rooms, the same cheap bordertown souvenirs. Oh Omar, you crazy motherfucker, I kept thinking, what have you wrought! But I wasn’t prepared for what came next: all the blood in my body jammed to my head and my lungs expanded and contracted like an accordion gone mad. I was looking at glossy color photos of Jane Baker, cellist, nude with her legs wide open, her mouth and eyes set in an attitude of sexual challenge: “Take me if you can. If you perform, I’ll make it well worth your while.” She had a beautiful, lithe body and her lust seemed genuine: her pubis was wet and her nipples were swollen.

My mind raced in a thousand different directions, and every variation of the Baker-Kupferman case that I came up with went haywire in the light of this new evidence. All I knew for certain was that I had two cases now.

I ran back to my car, got a crowbar out of my back seat and returned to the Plymouth and pried open the trunk. It was empty. I hauled the two boxes over to my car and locked them in my trunk.

The attendant was sitting in the office drinking a Coke, sullen and dejected. He looked up when I walked in, backing off like I was going to hit him. I controlled my excitement and spoke to him gently: “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but this is very important stuff I’m involved in. I’ve got to get in touch with Omar Gonzalez. It’s urgent. I need his home address and the phone number of that drug rehab place where he hangs out.”

He waited a moment, then flipped through a Rolodex next to the telephone. He called out a number and I grabbed the phone and dialed it. A woman answered on the third ring. I told her it was urgent that I speak to Omar Gonzalez. She said that Omar hadn’t been at the center in over three weeks. She told me that he was an unpaid drug counselor who conducted group therapy sessions with Chicano youngsters, and that he came and went as he pleased. In a condescending voice she said that Omar was a passionate and mercurial young man, given to disappearing for weeks at a time, but a gifted counselor who had real rapport with young people. The woman started to embark on a discourse about the drug problem, but I cut her short and hung up.

The attendant was staring at me, slack-jawed and awe-inspired.

“What’s Omar’s address?” I asked.

He consulted the Rolodex again. “It’s 1983 Vendome. That’s in Silverlake. Tacoland.”

I gave the kid one of my business cards. It had my home number as well as the office one on it. “If Omar shows up, you tell him to call me. Tell him it’s very important. Tell him I know who killed his brother.” I patted him on the shoulder and winked at him. He gave me a smile that tried hard to be conspiratorial. I got in my car and jammed for Silverlake.

Silverlake is a beautiful hilly enclave of middle and lower middle-class dwellings east of Hollywood. The hills are steep and the roads circuitous. Houses and apartment buildings are set back from the street and often hung with heavy shrubbery, so it’s easy to get lost.

I turned off Sunset onto Silverlake Boulevard and went under the bridge that marks the informal border of the area. I expected it to take a while to find Vendome, but I blundered onto it, about half-a-mile north of Sunset. 1983 was a court of small bungalows separated by knee-high white picket fences. I parked half a block away and walked breezily into the courtyard. There was a bank of locked metal mailboxes next to the first bungalow on the left, where I learned that Omar Gonzalez lived in number 12. His box was crammed full of mail, so it was fair to assume Omar hadn’t been around for awhile.

Bungalow 12 was at the back end of the court, on the right. Like all the others, it was white clapboard, weather-beaten and musty. I rang the bell and got no answer, then tried the flimsy wooden door. It was locked. I walked around to the side of the bungalow and tried the windows. They were locked, and dust-covered Venetian blinds kept me from peering in.

I went looking for the manager. The mailbox directed me to number 3. I rang the bell and an aging slattern in a housecoat opened the door suspiciously, keeping the screen door shut. When I told her I had a telegram for Omar Gonzalez in number 12, she jumped back as if buzzed by a swarm of bees. “Is something wrong, ma’am?” I asked.

“Omar ain’t been around for weeks,” she said, opening the door a crack and reaching for the nonexistent piece of paper with one hand.

“I can’t do that, I have to give it to the addressee himself. Thank you, ma’am.”

She gave me a frightened look and slammed the door. Something was wrong.

I walked to a liquor store at the end of the block and bought a ginger ale. Drinking it and eyeballing the pretty Chicanas passing by consumed twenty minutes. That seemed like a safe interval.

I walked back to the court. No one was around and the manager’s door was closed and all the shutters drawn. On the porch of number 12, I gave a quick look in both directions, drew my gun and kicked the door open. Crouching in the combat stance, I went into the dark apartment, gently closing the door behind me.

It was dead quiet and I stood there a long moment until my eyes became accustomed to the dark. Gradually the outlines of a turned-over sofa, an upended bookshelf, and mound of books became visible. Several potted plants had been knocked off a windowsill, spreading broken plaster and dirt on the floor, and a large carpet had been pulled up and wadded ceiling-high into a corner. I moved cautiously, gun first, into the other rooms. The small kitchen off to the right was similarly devastated: the cupboards had been ransacked, dishes lay in heaps on the floor, and the refrigerator had been knocked over, its rancid contents fouling the air. The bathroom was a shambles, but the bedroom had been hit the worst: broken glass from wall mirrors was everywhere, the bed had been torn apart and the mattress ripped to shreds, clothes had been torn out of the closet and lay strewn on top of the other rubble. An old gas heater had been ripped out of the wall and now lay among the pile of mattress stuffing.

The trashers had done a good job: there was nothing personal to be found belonging to Omar Gonzalez. No papers, journals, or memorabilia of any sort, just the detritus of a young man’s life. I poked about in the rubble some more, this time with the lights on. I was looking for bloodstains. There was none. I put my gun back in its holster, went into the bathroom, found a large towel and wiped every plane and surface I could have possibly touched.

The sunlight and hot summer air were jarring as I walked outside. I was troubled. For the first time since the onset of my case, I didn’t know what to do.

Still troubled, I drove to the bank and withdrew two thousand in twenties for operating expenses, then went home and spent a long evening listening to Bruckner. Before I went to bed I laid out my light blue seersucker suit, yellow buttondown shirt, and navy blue print tie. I wanted to look good for Jane Baker.

At 7:45 A.M., I was stationed across the street from Kup-ferman’s house. At eight-thirty Jane Baker walked out the front door, carrying her cello in a black leather case to her car and driving off down Elevado. I was close behind. She led me to the large park across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she parked and lugged her cello to a bench and set it up on its collapsible pod. I parked down the street. As I approached she was assembling her sheet music on its stand, and the first movement main theme of the Dvôrák “Concerto” followed. I stepped into Jane Baker’s life: “That concerto was Dvôrák’s best shot,” I said. “Nothing else he did came close to it. Have you been playing long?”

Jane Baker gave me a long, slow look and a slow smile, tinged with the slightest bit of resentment. “I’ve been playing for ten years,” she said.

I sat down on a bench facing her and she resumed her playing. I was uncertain as to whether to continue with small talk or drop my bomb. She took the decision out of my hands: “You were right about Dvorak,” she said. “The cello concerto is his masterpiece. I wish I were equal to it.”

“Maybe you will be someday.”

“Maybe. You never know.”

“Am I distracting you from your practice?”

“Not really, yet. Are you a musician? You don’t look like one.”

“I’m not. But I love great music more than anything in the world. I think it’s the closest we’ll ever get to pure truth.”

Jane Baker was measuring my words with a hard-edged light in her eyes. “I agree, more or less,” she said, “but I think maybe you are distracting me. This whole thing has the air of being rehearsed, on your part. I’m not afraid of you, but you’re trying to manipulate me, and I don’t like being manipulated through my music.”

“Shall I cut the rebop, and get to the point?”

“Please do. I’ll give you five minutes, then I have to practice.”

“Fair enough. My name is Brown. I’m a private investigator. Your name is Jane Baker, cellist and nonconjugal roommate of Sol Kupferman, late of the fur business. Earlier this week I was hired to investigate you and Kupferman. I did. I didn’t discover anything damaging or incriminating. About you two, that is. However, in the course of my investigation, I gathered a great deal of evidence that indicates that your brother Frederick, AKA Fat Dog, is a psychotic arsonist and is determined to wrest you away from Sol Kupferman, even if it means killing him. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you — you’re his obsessive love object — but yesterday he burned Kupferman’s warehouse to the ground. Tomorrow he might torch Kupferman’s house and you may end up reduced to a pile of French-fried guacamole in the process. I don’t want that to happen. I want to find your brother and get him put away before he hurts anyone else. You can help me by getting Kupferman to talk to me, and by telling me everything you can about your brother.”

During the course of my monologue Jane Baker had gone white. She put her cello and bow on the bench beside her and wrenched her hands. There was a vein in her forehead pulsing with tension. I stared at the ground to make it easier for her to regain her composure. When I looked up she was staring at me. “Freddy,” she said, her voice quavering, “Jesus Christ. I always knew he was sick. But this. Oh, God! Can you prove what you’ve told me?”

“No.”

“But you’re certain?”

“Yes, I’m positive.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You said someone hired you to investigate Sol and me. Who was it?”

“I can’t tell you that, either. I’m sorry.”

“Why can’t you?! You make all kinds of accusations against my brother, say that my best friend and I are in danger, and you won’t tell me a goddamn thing!”

I resisted the impulse to move to her bench and put my arm around her. “Do you believe what I’ve told you, Miss Baker?”

“Yes. Somehow I do.”

“Good. Will you help me then?”

She hesitated a moment. “I think so. How?”

“Tell me about your brother.”

“What about him?”

“A moment ago you said you always knew he was sick. You could start by elaborating on that.”

Jane Baker was silent for a long moment. When she finally spoke her voice was steady. “Freddy and I were orphans. Our parents died when we were children. An auto wreck. I was four, which would have made Freddy twelve. There were no relatives to take us in, so we were shuffled around to various foster homes, always together. I was too young to really remember my parents, but Freddy remembered them and was convinced they had been killed by some sort of monster. He had terrible nightmares about this monster. We used to share the same bedroom in most of the foster homes, and Freddy was always waking up screaming about the monster. Once I asked him what it looked like, and he showed me a giant octopus in a horror comic book. Another time he showed me a photograph of a wolf and said it looked like that.

“He was a frightened and hateful boy, from the beginning. A sadist. We lived together for six years, until Freddy turned eighteen. I saw him torture animals many times, and it frightened me, but I shrugged it off. Burning ants with a magnifying glass, things like that. He was a very sullen boy and very fat, with terrible oily skin and acne. None of the foster parents we had could get close to him. His ugliness and meanness alienated the nicest of them, until they wanted to get rid of him. The childcare people wanted to keep us together, so I had to go where Freddy did. When he turned eighteen, he went off and lived by himself. He got worse. He used to come and visit me and tell me ugly stories about killing dogs and cats. Once he told me he shoved a whole litter of live kittens down a garbage disposal. It was true, too; I found out later from someone who saw it.

“When I was about fifteen, I went through a wild period and ended up in a Catholic orphanage. As I got older, Freddy started acting strange, sexually. Asking me all sorts of intimate questions. He was caddying at Hillcrest then and he would pester me to come out and look around, telling me how beautiful it was. So I did. Freddy was right. It was beautiful, especially after St. Vibiana’s. So I started hanging out there. Hiding out with a book in the trees while the people played golf and taking long walks around the course at sunset. I was kind of a crazy, lonely, searching young girl and I felt at peace there. I hated to have to go back to the orphanage. I loved the golf course and the dreams I dreamed there too much.

“So I ran away. Freddy got me a sleazy room in Culver City and I spent all my spare time at Hillcrest, working in the caddy shack and roaming the course. There I met Sol, who is the kindest, most decent and compassionate person I’ve ever met. Genuinely altruistic. He took an interest in me. I had recently become interested in music — I would take my little portable radio with me out on the course for long concerts at night. I told Sol that I was an orphan, that I lived in a crummy room and picked up a few dollars cooking and cleaning out the caddy shack. I told him I wanted to learn to play the cello more than anything in the world. I remember his exact reply when I told him that. He said, ‘So be it.’ So I went to live with Sol. He had a big house and no family. I had my own room, my own tutor to help me with my education, and the best cello lessons money could buy. That was eleven years ago. I’m still there. Sol has never asked anything of me except that I seek beauty. This cello is a Stradivarius and almost priceless. Sol bought it for me. In no way am I equal to it, but Sol thinks I will be someday. That’s an example of how unqualified his love and respect for me is.

“But Freddy has hated Sol from the beginning, and it compounded the sickness that was already festering in him. While I was living in that crummy room in Culver City he used to come over and expose himself to me. Erect. It was sickening. I was frightened, but afraid to tell anyone for fear I’d get sent back to the orphanage. He was obsessed with me sexually then and I’m sure he still is. He writes me letters about how I’m his family and we should live together in Mexico and raise greyhounds, and about how Sol is an Israeli-Communist agent. I always read the letters out of hope that he’s changed, somehow developed some degree of humanity; but there’s no change, just hate and ugliness. I haven’t seen my brother in four or five years. I want nothing to do with him, now or ever. And now you tell me he’s an arsonist and he wants to kill Sol! Oh God, oh Christ.”

I moved to Jane’s bench and placed an arm around her shoulder. She didn’t resist, just stared at the ground, her body clenched against an onslaught of tears. “Look,” I said gently, “I understand. You’ve got a good life going for you, then this crazy non sequitur comes along. I’m a stranger, but I’m all right, really. You can check me out. I was a police officer for six years. I got involved in this thing against my will, but now that I’m involved I’m going to see it through. But I need your help. Will you help me?” I relinquished my arm from her shoulders.

Jane looked up at me and smiled, then fumbled in her purse for cigarettes and matches. Her hands were shaking, so I lit her cigarette for her. She inhaled deeply and her whole body seemed to crash in acceptance as she exhaled. “I take it that smile implied consent,” I said. “Right?”

Jane stared at the ground and blew out another lungful of smoke. “Right,” she replied.

“Good.”

“Oh God, this is so fucking crazy! Look, I know you told me, but I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Fritz Brown.”

“Look, Mr. Brown—”

“Call me Fritz.”

“Okay. Look, Fritz, I haven’t seen my brother in five years or so. Apparently this hatred for Sol that he’s been harboring all these years has come to a head. Why now, I don’t know — you can’t expect a crazy man to act logically. The police were over at the house last night, talking to Sol. They told him the cause of the fire was arson. They asked him if he had any enemies, in business or otherwise. Sol said he didn’t know of any. Sol told me the police always suspect the owner of the business when the place of business burns down. You know, setting fire to the place for the insurance money, which is ridiculous in Sol’s case, because business was booming. But if you need help on this case and if you have circumstantial evidence pointing to Freddy, why don’t you just go to the police and tell them? Get them to handle it.”

“It won’t work. All my evidence is related to another case that was solved incorrectly over a decade ago. My evidence would be disregarded because it makes too many police agencies look bad. I know the cop mentality. If I persisted in trying to convince them, I might jeopardize my license and I can’t afford that. The only way to end this thing is for me to find your brother, arrest him, and secure a confession.”

“I believe you. I hate bureaucrats, for good reason.” Jane paused reflectively. “You said that you’ve investigated Sol. Then you probably know that a long, long time ago he was involved in the crime world. Big fucking deal. He told me about it. He never hurt anyone, but the cops and the district attorney hounded him, brought him up before the grand jury for nothing. Pure harassment. He almost got kicked out of Hillcrest because of it. So how can I help you?”

“First, some questions. Have there been any strange occurrences lately around your house? Strange phone calls? Someone calling, then hanging up when you answer? Any prowlers?”

“Nothing like that, but there has been something evil going on in the neighborhood, though I never connected it with Freddy. About a month ago there was a rash of animal poisonings. Someone was tossing poisoned hamburger into back yards. Four or five dogs and cats ate it and died. Our gardener’s dog ate some and got very sick, but lived. We called the police but nothing came of it. Do you think it could have been Freddy?”

“Maybe. Did your brother ever mention specifically where in Mexico he wanted to settle down?”

“Yes. Somewhere near Tijuana or Ensenada. Baja California. Not the real Mexico.”

“Did he ever mention a rich and powerful man that he was going to team up with? Maybe work for?”

“Yes. In his letters he was always mentioning a rich man who shared his anti-Semitic views. He was going to be this man’s partner. I put if off as pure fantasy.”

“Have you saved any of these letters?”

“I might be able to dig a few of them out of my wastebasket, if it hasn’t been emptied.”

“Will you try to find them for me?”

Jane put out her cigarette on the ground. “Yes,” she said.

“Good. I have to see Kupferman as soon as possible. Will you arrange a meeting?”

Jane was already shaking her head “no” vehemently. “That’s impossible, absolutely impossible, I can’t have him worried about what you’ve told me, at least not yet. The loss of the warehouse has worried him terribly. He’s not a young man, and he had a heart attack once. I’m afraid all of this will only...”

“It’s for his own safety. I just want to see if he can tie a few things together for me.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t allow it. Please back off on this for now. Sol has a bodyguard with him now, keeping watch on him and the house. I’m sure we’ll both be safe.”

It was a big setback, but I decided not to press the issue. I changed the subject slightly. “Has the fire hurt Sol financially?”

“Not terribly. His insurance covered everything. He’s still a very wealthy man. He has lots of other holdings, stocks and real estate. But the fire has hurt him emotionally. He loved his business and his customers and the people who worked for him. It will take a year to get it set up again. Sol is such a conscientious man. He cares so deeply. What a mess!”

We were silent for a few moments. Jane fingered the rich wood of her cello. “How do you feel, Jane?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I believe what you’ve told me, but another part of me is standing outside of it all, saying it can’t be happening. Do you think Freddy is in Los Angeles?”

“No, I think he’s run to Mexico. I’m going down there in a day or so to bring him back.”

“Be careful.”

“I will be. Look, what are your plans for the next few days?”

“I don’t know. Practice, of course. Keep an eye on Sol, see that he doesn’t fret too much about the insurance negotiations. I know he’ll be spending lots of time with the claims people. Why?”

“I don’t know, I was just thinking aloud. Would you like to go to the Hollywood Bowl tonight? I’ve got a box of four seats, practically right on stage. It might help keep your mind off this. It’s the Brahms First Symphony and Violin Concerto with Perlman. What do you think?”

“Are you asking me for a date?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

I fished the photostat of my P.I.’s license out of my billfold and handed it to Jane. “See,” I said, “the State Department of Vocational Standards says I’m a good guy, and if you want to check me out for a reference you can call Lieutenant Arthur Holland of the L.A.P.D. at the Wilshire Station. He’ll tell you I’m a sterling character. What do you say?”

Jane Baker sighed and smiled. “All right, Fritz. You’ve convinced me.”

“Great. We can get dinner, too. I know a great place. Shall I pick you up at seven?”

“That sounds fine.”

“In the meantime, please be careful and try not to worry okay?”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Good. Try to find those letters for me, will you? They might be important. I have to go now, I have errands to run. I know it sounds stupid, but everything is going to be all right. You can trust me.” Jane looked at me, unsmiling. I stuck my hand out to her and we shook gently. “Tonight at seven,” I said as I got up to leave.

Jane smiled. “I take it you already know the address,” she said.

“Of course. I’m a big-time detective.”

When I got home I did some telephoning: I called the starters’ desks at Bel-Air, Wilshire, Brentwood, Los Angeles, and Lakeside Country Clubs and inquired after Fat Dog Baker. I told the caddy masters that I was an insurance adjuster who had a juicy check for Fat Dog from a rich old man he had caddied for years ago. The old man had croaked and left Fat Dog a bundle for improving his putting stroke. Amazingly, they all believed me. Not amazingly, none of them had seen Fat Dog recently. That was good. I had my heart set on pursuit south of the border.

After my sojourn on the telephone, I ran my errands. At an electronics store in Hollywood I bought a high quality reel-to-reel tape recorder, a supply of blank tape, and a state-of-the-art condenser microphone. From Hollywood I drove to the Pico and Robertson area and leaned on Larry Willis. Larry Willis is a small-time black shoplifter, dope dealer, pimp, and food stamp recipient. He used to hang out at the Gold Cup on the Boulevard in the early ’70s when I was working Hollywood Vice and I rousted him regularly. Once he called me a pig and I kicked his ass soundly. He fears me, for good reason, and thinks I still carry a badge. Fearing the worst when I came in his front door unannounced, he was only too happy to furnish me with what I needed: a dozen one-and-a-half-grain Seconal capsules.

My last stop was at a gun shop on La Brea, where I purchased a Browning 12-gauge pump shotgun and a box of shells. I had everything I needed for Mexico.

On the way to pick up Jane I reviewed the women in my life. There weren’t many. There was Susan, a hard line San Francisco leftist eight years my senior, who I shacked up with when I was twenty-three. We met when I ticketed her for an illegal left-hand turn on Melrose and Wilton. I ran a warrant check on her and she came up dirty: a slew of unpaid traffic citations. But I couldn’t bring myself to arrest her. She was too handsome and intelligent-looking. So I cited her and showed up at her apartment two days later with a bottle of Scotch, flowers, and a smile. She ditched the flowers in the toilet bowl and we killed the Scotch and became lovers. She could drink me under the table.

Our relationship lasted a hectic eight months. I met a lot of interesting people — old time San Francisco unionists, superannuated beatniks, and dopers of all stripes. I was Susan’s live-in curio: an outsized, crewcut cop who got drunk all the time and listened to Beethoven. Gradually, our cultural differences came to the fore and it was no go. Susan’s idea of a lover’s endearment was to call me her “sociopath with a gun.”

Christine was my next inamorata: a car hop at Stan’s Drive-in, catty-corner from Hollywood High. Christine wrote incomprehensible poetry and talked in riddles and metaphors. She was insane, a profound piece of passion pie one moment, a willful shrew the next. What a body! The last I heard she was a topless showgirl in Vegas.

It was a beautiful L.A. summer evening, ideal for the Bowl. Cruising west on Sunset with the top down my mind took flight with bits and fragments of the passing scene: the Strip gearing up for another go at nightlife, the giant lighted signs proclaiming rock groups and other coming attractions, the callow idolators of electric music cliquing up in front of the Whisky A Go Go. And punk rock was out in force, well represented by skinny teenagers in ’50s garb sporting green and blue hair and wrap-around sunglasses. One distaff punk rocker led another by a leash attached to a spiked dog collar. It was very naive, and I was feeling too good to be offended.

Stopped at the light at Sunset and Doheny, I checked my watch, then hitched myself up in my seat and gulped in the moment: 6:42 P.M., Friday, July 2. I committed the night air, the cloud formations, and the faces of the passersby to memory. It was my moment, spawned by my covenant, and it would never be again. The light changed and I drove into Beverly Hills.

I parked my old Camaro in the long circular driveway behind Jane’s Cadillac. Sol Kupferman’s newer, darker one was gone. I rang the doorbell and first notes of the choral part of Beethoven’s Ninth sounded off in chimes. A nice touch, no doubt added by Jane.

She threw open the door a moment later and bid me enter. I did. The living room was huge and lavishly appointed. Jane swept an arm toward the vast room, as though encouraging me to take it all in, but all I could look at was her. Her hair was down to her shoulders and she wore only the slightest touch of makeup. She looked demure yet sophisticated, a study in feminine charisma.

“Hi,” I said. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“Is Sol around? I want to sell him some fire insurance.”

“Very amusing. No, Sol is not around. Run into any firebugs lately?”

“No, but I have run into a few caddies who might serve in that capacity. I prowl golf courses at night, hunting for golf balls and sleeping in sand traps. Take me to your wisest golfer.”

Jane cracked up, doubled over in laughter and grabbed my arm for support. “Laughter in the face of adversity,” she said, “what a scream. It’s kind of decadent, but it feels good. Look, I’ve found two of those letters you wanted. But don’t read them tonight, okay? I don’t want to talk about the whole bum trip.”

“Okay, I was going to suggest the same thing.”

Jane squeezed my arm. “Good,” she said. “Wait here and I’ll get them. Then we can leave.” She scurried off upstairs and I eyeballed the room. Interior decoration doesn’t send me, but I can recognize superb design when I see it. The room had high ceilings; the walls were a rich mustard color. They were hung with oil paintings of sailing ships and landscapes from the last century. Large, tufted floral couches and easy chairs were arranged concentrically. Rich, dark wood was in abundance. The wide bay windows that fronted the street would provide gently reflected sunlight on bright days and a great muted view on darker ones. It seemed like a good place to live.

Jane returned with the letters and I stuck them into my back pocket without examining them. “Nice pad,” I said, “out of the low-rent district.”

Jane smiled. “I feel comfortable here,”

“I’m glad. You deserve it. Now let’s get out of here.”

We drove east. Darkness had fallen and the stars shining in the clear sky competed with garish neon for primacy and won. They didn’t usually, but the completeness of this night altered my perceptions of everything, including my city.

Jane and I talked comfortably.

“Why the cello, Jane?” I asked. “It seems an odd choice for a fledgling music lover. The piano or the violin seem more likely. Their virtuosity is overwhelming to a person just starting to appreciate music.”

“Very true. I’ve asked myself the same question a million times. With me the cello was love at first hearing. It reflected all my deep, inchoate feelings. You know, the sadness, the weltshmerz that sensitive young girls feel. And it seemed so stable, so steeped in tradition! Anyway, I just flipped for it. And I started listening selectively, too. When I came to live with Sol, he bought me a stereo and hundreds of records. And I fell in love with string quartets. Someday I’ll play with a good quartet, and that will be home.”

“You’re home now. Savor these years of practice and study. I know that when, years from now, you reflect on your life, you’ll consider them among your finest.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Fritz. How did you become interested in music?”

I laughed. “It was sort of funny and totally unexpected. I was twenty-one and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. My parents had died recently and I was totally up in the air. They had wanted me to attend college and enter one of the professions. I went to Cal State for a year, to placate them, but I hated it. Their death let me off the hook. I was working for a gardener part time and living off the money from their insurance policy. One afternoon we were trimming shrubs in Pasadena and I heard thunderous, powerful music coming from the house of the people we were working for. It was the Eroica. It knocked me flat on my ass. I felt that I had come home, too.”

“And you decided to become a musician? And it didn’t work out?”

“Wrong. I decided to become a cop.”

It was Jane’s turn to laugh and she did, heartily. “That’s so funny! What a non sequitur! Why did you quit the police force?”

“That’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you later tonight, if the music moves me to confession. I love Brahms and the L.A. Philharmonic isn’t half bad, but I can’t stand Mehta.”

She could tell that I didn’t want to talk about my police experiences, so she let it pass.

I turned north onto Highland. The Bowl traffic was already heavy. By the time we reached Franklin, we were crawling at a snail’s pace. As we arrived at the vast expanse of parking area, I looked out with affection at the throngs of music lovers, nightlife lovers and just plain lovers all hurrying toward a summer rendezvous with Brahms.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jane dig into her purse for cigarettes and matches. She lit a cigarette nervously, inhaled, and threw it out the window. I pulled to the curb, my spirits sinking.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Reality, I guess. I just know I can’t take the goddamned Hollywood Bowl.” I felt my spirits hit bottom.

“Shall I take you home?”

“No. I just don’t want to be around people.”

“A drive, then?”

Jane smiled. “All right.”

We ended up in Ferndell Park, with its eucalyptus-shaded walkways and fish ponds. I was at a loss for small talk, so I impulsively took Jane’s hand as we walked uphill toward the picnic grounds. Jane squeezed mine, and when I turned to look at her she gave a warm smile. “I love this place,” she said. “You know L.A., don’t you, Fritz?”

“I’ve lived here all my life. I think I know it. But it’s changing. Every time I look around another landmark from my childhood is gone. Are you from L.A., Jane?”

“More or less. I was born here. My parents moved to Monterey when I was one. They died there, and the foster homes I lived in were here. Do you have a family?”

“No, my parents died within six months of each other when I was twenty. You know, it’s funny. Most of the people I know are orphans or come from fragmented families — you and I, my friend Walter, the man I do a lot of work for. All strays awash in a sea of neon, all trying to survive and find a little more than survival.”

Jane smiled at my half-hearted attempt at poetry. “You said earlier that you’d tell me why you quit the police force,” she said.

“It’s an ugly story, Jane. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

She squeezed my hand briefly. “Yes,” she said. “I called Lieutenant Holland this afternoon, to check you out. I didn’t tell him why I needed the information, just that we had met and you offered him as a reference. He said that you were a good man, but when I asked him if you were a good police officer, he was ambiguous. You can tell me, Fritz.”

“All right. I was a shitty cop. I was drunk a good deal of the time, so I got shunted off to Hollywood Vice. A sympathetic sergeant told me I’d fit right in with the kind of people the Vice Squad dealt with: drunks, dopers, hookers, bookies, pimps, homosexuals, and perverts. The cream of Hollywood society. I did fit in and I enjoyed the job for a while. But gradually the despair of hassling people who should have been left alone got to me. I was depressed so I drank and popped uppers to kill the depression. Which brings us to Blow Job Anderson. He was a character out of my youth, from the old neighborhood, a legendary pervert who was seducing twelve-year-old boys when Walter and I were that age. He was six or seven years older than us. He was still living in the neighborhood and Walter told me he was seducing a new generation of kids. After I’d been working Hollywood Vice for eight or nine months, I found out that Blow Job Anderson was a big time informer to Narcotics Division. I went to the Commander of Narco and told him that Blow Job was a known pervert who had been seducing young boys since I was a kid. He told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. He didn’t do a goddamned thing. I went to the guys in Narco themselves, and told them. They didn’t care, either. They told me to cool it, that I had no proof, and that Anderson was a good snitch they couldn’t afford to lose. Finally, word came down from the commander of Hollywood Station: ‘Shut your mouth about Blow Job Anderson.’ I knew what I had to do. I got drunk one night and went looking for Anderson. I found him and broke both his legs with a lead filled baseball bat. I told him if I ever heard he was still bothering kids, I would kill him. While he was lying on the ground screaming, I poured a five pound bag of sugar into the gas tank of his Corvette. When I went to work the next day I was summoned to the Captain’s office. He handed me a resignation form. ‘I strongly suggest that you sign this,’ he said. I did. Farewell, police career.”

I had begun my story seeking absolution and had ended it on a note of intransigent pride. I wondered if Jane had noticed it. We stared at each other.

Finally, she spoke. “I don’t care. I don’t think any more or less of you for what you’ve told me. You just saw corruption that you couldn’t take. You—”

“That wasn’t it,” I interrupted. “I wasn’t an outraged moralist like most cops. I let plenty of perverts slide. I came down hard on others. It was arbitrary, dictated by mood. What I couldn’t take was that Blow Job Anderson was more valuable to the L.A.P.D. than Fritz Brown. That was what ate me up.”

“Did you abuse your power often when you were a policeman?”

“Yes, and terribly.”

“I understand. You were a Dissension Center. You were drinking, but now you’re sober. I was a Dissension Center, too. I loved power. Sexual power. I laid half the boys at St. Vibiana’s. I loved having them want me, knowing that I could say ‘no’ and castrate them. Knowing that I could get what I wanted by offering my body in barter. But that was then. Now I have my cello. There’s a good chance I’ll be accepted at Juilliard in January. Now I’m a Unity Center. You are, too. You don’t hurt people anymore, do you?”

“No,” I lied.

“And you’re not drinking. Do you have plans for the future?”

“Not really. I’m going to Europe this fall, though. A musical holiday. Germany and Austria.”

“So am I! Sol has been pushing me toward a vacation for years. I’ll probably leave in October.”

“Maybe we can travel together,” I blurted out.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane said, almost mockingly, “but right now what I’d like to do is listen to some good chamber music on a good stereo.”

“I know just the place. I live there. Shall we go?”

“Yes, please.”

So we went to my apartment, a few minutes’ drive away. But we didn’t listen to chamber music, we made our own. It was an urgent coupling, freighted with knowledge that tomorrow reality would come down hard. Afterward, I hooked up the bedroom speaker and put some Vivaldi on the turntable, with the volume down low. We lay in bed holding hands and not talking until I couldn’t stand it any longer and burst out laughing. “Jane, Jane, Jane,” I said. “Jane, a very traditional name. I like that.”

She laughed along. “Fritz is a good ethnic name,” she said, “I like that. You’re scowling, dear. What is it?”

“I never know how I stand in situations like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, will there be a next time?”

“Anytime. Including now.”

I reached across the bed and pulled her toward me. We held each other tightly for several minutes, then made love again, this time more for reassurance than passion. Then we fell asleep.

I awoke at eight o’clock. I heard water running in the bathroom, and Jane came out a moment later, fully dressed. I knew from the look on her face that reality had hit. “Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning. I have to go. I have my lesson at nine-thirty.”

“What is it?”

“What the hell do you think it is?”

“Do you want to know?”

“Yes!”

I told her, omitting nothing. From Fat Dog’s visit to my office, to the Utopia firebombing, to Sol Kupferman’s past, to my assessment of her brother’s psychoses, to the Omar Gonzalez angle. Jane’s reactions ranged from head-shaking denials, to trembling, to sobbing. When she started to cry, I let her, making no move to provide comfort. I wanted her to be afraid. Finally, surprisingly, anger took over. Her wet face went red. I handed her a handkerchief and she wiped away tears. When she spoke, it was with heart-stopping resolution: “Get him, Fritz.”

“I will.”

“Do whatever you have to do. I don’t want him hurting Sol or anyone else.”

“I will.”

“Would you take me home now, please?”

“Yes.”

Jane rounded up her things while I pulled out the car. We drove to Beverly Hills in tense silence. A dozen funny, cheery remarks came into my mind, but I rejected them as fatuous. Finally, I spoke. “We have to talk about a few things, Jane.”

“All right.”

“I want you to tell Kupferman what I’ve told you. Tell him to be careful, to keep his bodyguard around at all times. Tell him that I want to talk to him when I get back from Mexico. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him also that I don’t give a damn about any of his past dealings. That includes the bookie operations at the Utopia. Tell him all I’m interested in is seeing Fat Dog put away.”

A flash of anger came into Jane’s eyes. “You’re sure of what you’ve told me?” she said, her voice rising. “That Sol was book-making in the late ’60s? Fifteen years after the grand jury? I won’t have him slandered by anyone, including you!”

I looked over at her. “Easy, sweetheart. I’m sure. And it’s hardly slander. Bookmaking should be legal.”

Jane shook her head. Her whole manner was like a stifled scream. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I know I’m strong enough to stand all this, but I’m not sure about Sol.” I put my free hand on her knee and squeezed. She didn’t respond. I pulled up across the street from the Kupferman mansion. Jane and I looked at each other. I didn’t want a protracted goodbye and I sensed she didn’t either. “Be careful in Mexico,” she said.

“You be careful here. Practice well. You can give me a recital when I get back.” We kissed hard and in an instant Jane was out of the car and running across the street toward the large house.

Driving away, I did a fairly good job of putting Jane out of my mind and concentrating on what I had to do next: find a quiet spot to read Fat Dog’s letters. I pulled into the large parking lot at Hancock Park, and found a bench in the shade, surrounded by elderly Jews killing a summer midmorning, and a slew of plaster dinosaurs killing eternity. The letters were undated and barely legible. The postage stamps had been ripped off all three when they were opened. Jane had said they were recent, though, within the past month. I plunged in:

It was about what I had expected, grammatically and thematically, yet none of Fat Dog’s surprising intelligence and cunning shone through. I quickly read the other two letters. They were simply repetitions of the first, but they reinforced my hunch that Fat Dog was now in Mexico, and that his rich friend might not be a figment of his imagination and might be a possible lead. I was itching to get started. But I had to see Walter first to check on his well-being and say au revoir. There was a fear on the back burner of my mind that I might never see him again. I quashed it and stuck Fat Dog’s letters in my pocket and hotfooted it to the old neighborhood.

Walter didn’t answer my ring and there was no response when I knocked loudly on the window of his room. This was surprising; maybe he was making the run to the liquor store. I walked back to the front steps to wait.

After five minutes his mother pulled up in her senile Mustang. She hates to spend money, unless it’s on spiritual artifacts of the Christian Science Church, like her Wedgwood bone china plates inlaid with drawings of the Mother Church. Over the years Walter has sailed a number of them off the twelfth floor of the Franklin Life Building at Wilshire and Western, but she keeps replacing them. She’ll withstand the greatest indignities with a stoic resolve to keep him under her thumb. Once Walter boiled her eighty-five dollar morocco-bound copy of “Science and Health — A Key To The Scriptures” in a pot that was equal parts water and Thunder-bird. He presented it to her on a silver chafing dish embossed with the likeness of Mary Baker Eddy — in front of her Wednesday night Bible Study class.

She saw me as she was locking her car and dredged up a smile from the dark recesses of the cold city that she lives in. “Well, Officer Brown, how nice to see you,” she said.

“I quit the police department a long time ago, Mrs. Curran,” I said, “you know that.”

“Yes, and such a pity, too. You were so handsome in your uniform.”

“No doubt. Where’s Walter?”

“Chief Davis is such a fine man. I was hoping you would follow in his footsteps and make the police force your career.”

“You would dig Davis. He’s as crazy as you are. Where’s Walter?”

“Walter? I think he’s on hiatus somewhere. He left last night. He’d gone to one of those terrible A.A. meetings where everyone smokes cigarettes and takes the Lord’s name in vain. You know how those meetings upset him. I’ll give you your due, Officer Brown, you are not a nice man and you have an evil tongue, but you do know my boy. Although not as well as I do.”

“Yeah, I do know old Walt pretty well. Do you know what I like most about him? His restraint.”

“His restraint?”

“Yeah, his restraint at not having strangled you in your fucking bed a long time ago. Good day, Mrs. Curran.”

I walked back to my car leaving Walter’s madre to catalogue my indignity for future use against him. I was worried now. I had been unavailable to my friend for several days and he was in one of his periodic descents into reality, with all the terror that brings. When Walter takes off on what he terms his “periodicals,” anything can happen. Once he bought two hundred tennis balls and hurled them at passing cars from the bus stop at Beverly and Van Ness. Another time he barricaded himself in a motel in Hollywood with a bag of weed and a supply of dexedrine and porno books, convinced he could kick booze that way. Both times I was able to effect some sort of reconciliation between Walter and the world before he was locked up.

But those were extreme examples of the “periodical.” His standard operating procedure was simply to walk west on Wilshire until he hit the beach, with beer stops on the way to detox himself and prepare for what he considered the long but necessary nightmare of sober life. So I drove west on Wilshire myself, as slowly as possible in the middle lane. I got all the way to Brentwood before I spotted him sitting on a bus bench at Wilshire and Bar-rington, drinking out of a paper bag with a straw. I pulled up, opened the passenger door and called to my friend. He got in.

“You had me worried,” I said. “I came by your place a few nights ago and you were passed out on the hard stuff.” I turned around the corner and parked in the lot of a small market. I checked Walter out: the pudgy frame and brilliant light blue eyes looked indent, but the face had the gauntness and fear that sets in when he has been sober a few days. “What are you drinking?” I asked.

Walter pulled the brown bag off of his libation. To my surprise it was Vernor’s Ginger Ale. “If you can do it, I can do it, you fascist motherfucker,” he said, punching me in the arm jokingly. “Cold turkey, unless I get the shakes. Then it’s the old tried-and-true twenty-four-hour beer detox.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. Dope or A.A. There are advantages to both. The dope advantages are obvious: you fly. The disadvantages are the resultant paranoia of prolonged use and the illegality. I’m not cut out for jail. No science fiction, no T.V., and they make you work. The A.A. advantages are that you get healthy physically through abstinence, you meet people who might be potentially valuable business contacts, and you probably get laid.” It was perhaps the fiftieth time I had heard this routine, but I didn’t tell Walter that. He was close to the edge.

“There’s another alternative,” I said, “You can come and stay with me. We can fly up to San Francisco, go to the opera, hike in Golden Gate Park. I’ll see that you eat and make fucking-A sure you don’t drink.”

“I’ll consider it, but it probably won’t work. Aesthetically, we are polar opposites. You cannot see the profundity of television, while I am mentally evaluating it and its effect for a magnum opus that will shake the conscience of the free world. I will be spoken of in the same breath as Kant and Nietzsche, guys who, of course, you have never read. You are the man of action and limited thought, the pragmatic diamond-in-the-rough intellect who rips off dumb niggers for their Cadillacs, sold to them by the fascist vampire. The karmic consequences will one day become obvious: you are going to get royally fucked in the ass. I, on the other hand, am the man of pure thought. A thinking machine. But I run on fuel, like any good machine. And that fuel is alcohol. It’s Catch-22, my good friend. So what are we to do?”

“I don’t know, in the long run. Right now, though, we can make the Topanga run. Do you want to?”

“Let’s do it. It’s been a long time.”

The Topanga run had been a mainstay of our relationship since the time I got my first car. It consists of Wilshire west to Pacific Coast Highway, P.C.H. north to the Topanga Canyon turn-in, Topanga Canyon Road through to the Valley, and the Ventura and Hollywood freeways back to L.A. It takes about an hour and a half, and during these rides Walter and I have enjoyed some of our finest conversations and closest rapport. So I pulled a U-turn on Barrington and turned right on Wilshire, headed for the beach. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Walter sip his ginger ale and peruse the passing scene.

When we were a few blocks from the ocean, he started to shout in frustration. “Shit fuck, rat’s ass, motherfucker!! Shit fuck!!”

I looked over and his hands were shaking, tremors that seemed to start in his fingertips and work all the way up to his shoulders, where he braced his back to contain them. “Five minutes, Walter,” I said. “Hold on. Beer?”

“Fuck beer. Vodka. Kiddielands. I’m dehydrated.”

Kiddielands meant a 7–11 Store. I remembered one on 15th and Santa Monica and jammed a left hand turn and punched the accelerator. I bought two large cherry Slurpees, gooey concoctions of sugar, red dye number 7, and ice. In the parking lot I dumped out half of each one and trotted down the street to a liquor store, where I bought two half pints of Smirnoff 100.1 mixed the vodka and Slurpees — half pint to each container of red goo — while Walter watched hungrily, sitting on his hands to control his shaking. I handed him one of the large cups through the window. He held it between his knees and greedily sucked the dual poison into his system through a large straw.

I got into the car and waited. Walter sipped in silence for about ten minutes. When he spoke I knew he had been freshly restored to his old insanity. “Where have you been?” he said. “I’ve been calling you for days. I needed the dubious pleasure of your company.” He held up his hands and placed them a few inches from the windshield. They were perfectly still.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. “Do you still want to make the run?”

“Of course.”

We rolled up the windows and I hit the air conditioning. Cold air flooded the car and we took off, awash in hazy sunshine that seemed to permeate everything from blacktop to billboards. As we drove north on P.C.H. the sun reflecting off the ocean was blinding.

“How did it start this time?” I asked Walter.

“It all happened at once,” he said, throwing his straw and plastic lid out the window and drinking directly from the cup. “Dear is definitely going to marry the wop. It’s all set. She’s got him by the balls. She even got him to renounce his Catholicism, at least temporarily. A Christian Science Practitioner is going to perform the service. With his emphysema and Dear’s claws into him, he probably won’t last six months. He’s been making friendly overtures toward me, no doubt to curry favor with Dear. He even offered to set me up in my own fruit stand. He looks like a gila monster and he smells like garlic. Dear treats him like shit. It’s depressing beyond belief. And I’ve been without T-bird. Dear ripped off that C-note you put in my pocket. It was you, wasn’t it? Who else could it have been? She told me that I was in a blackout and offered her the money to pay for some of the damage I’ve done around the house. The usual threats ensued, on both sides, until she popped her final ace — ‘Walter, if you persist with this behavior, I shall have to call Judge Gray and have you committed.’ You know the bitch will do it if I push her far enough, and Judge Gray has had it in for me ever since I poured winter-green down his ugly daughter’s bra in the eighth grade. He’s Republican, Christian Science, and law-and-order militant: the trinity. So without funds, I have been ripping off Scotch from Thrifty’s. And it hasn’t been working. I drink and I drink and I’m not drunk, and then wham, I’m out like a light. And the music doesn’t help either. I heard the Bruckner Third the other night on KUSC. Haitink and the Concertgebouw. Lonely Anton at his peak, and I didn’t give a shit. Nothing’s working anymore, everything’s changing and it’s driving me fucking batshit.”

We entered Topanga Canyon with its green hills that resembled the Fjords. Knots of youthful hikers walked along a stream that runs parallel to the twisting blacktop, several of the women carrying babies papoose-style in specially rigged backpacks. Friendly dogs followed them, stopping frequently to explore interesting scents. Walter was staring out his window, where the edge of the roadside led to nothing but a steep drop.

“You want some advice, wino?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Don’t lose the momentum you’ve got going. I know exactly how you feel. It’s exactly how I felt ten months ago. The fear, the loss, the sense of slipping, the whole shot. Go with it. Don’t let the old illusions take hold of you again.”

“I think I’m really scared this time, Fritz.”

“Good. Look, I have to go down to Mexico for a few days. I’m on a case, a real one. Try not to drink until I get back. Hit some A.A. meetings. It works for some people. Read. Stay away from Dear. Try to eat. When I get back you can move in with me. My life is just as up in the air as yours is, but for different reasons. I don’t want to talk about it now. Things are looking up, for both of us. I’ve got a new friend that I’ll introduce you to. She’ll be your friend, too.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah, a woman.”

“Are you fucking her?”

“Shut up, Walter. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Silence implies consent. You are lucking her. Big tits?”

I had to laugh. Walter is totally guileless and adoring when it comes to women.”

“Average size. But beautiful. She’s a cellist.”

“No shit? Congratulations, Kraut. It’s about time. You deserve a good woman.”

“Thanks, wino. So do you. When was the last time you got laid?”

“The last time I dipped my wick was April 13, 1972. That cop groupie you fixed me up with. Small tits and pimples.”

“Eight years is a long time. No wonder you’re fucked up. If you want to get laid today, I can arrange it. In fact, it might be a good idea, help you keep your mind off the booze. I know a terrific-looking hooker, an ultra fox. She’s got an apartment up from the Strip.”

“Big tits?”

“Real melons. She loves intellectuals. I know you’ll hit it off with her. Do you want to do it?”

Walter drained off the last of his first Kiddieland and threw the cup out the window. He pulled the lid off the second one and began sipping tentatively. “Fix me up when you get back,” he said, “for the next few days I want to detox and rest.” He gave me a smile that was equal parts love and fear of the unknown. Walter was in deep shit without a depth gauge.

When I dropped him off at his house an hour later, that smile still haunted me. But as I drove away, I wasn’t thinking of my beloved friend. I was thinking of what might lie ahead in Mexico.

7

I could tell something was wrong from a half a block away. As I pulled onto Bowlcrest, I could see that the French windows leading to my balcony were pushed open and the living room lamp was on, casting an orange glow into the twilight.

I parked cross ways in my driveway, blocking it, and grabbed my gun and handcuffs from the glove compartment. As I made for the stairway that led to my front door, I heard it slam and heard footsteps scurrying down to street level. Flattening myself against the stairwell, I counted the number of steps the intruder had taken and when he was five from the bottom I spun out from my hiding place and turned around to face him, my gun leveled at his head. He was a handsome Chicano in his late twenties, slender and athletic-looking. His black hair was fashionably long and styled. He didn’t look like a Hollywood burglar. He looked more like a rock musician or a high-priced fruit hustler; sensitive in an arrogant way. He was wearing a yellow tank top and bellbottom cords. When he zeroed in on my gun barrel, he froze.

“Hold it right there, motherfucker,” I said, “and give those eyes to me. Now put your hands on top of your head and lace your fingers.” He complied. “Now walk toward me and when you get to the bottom of the stairs, turn around, bend forward and touch your elbows to the wall.”

I patted him down thoroughly while keeping my gun aimed at his spine. Finishing my frisk, I pulled him into an upright position and had him place his hands behind his back, where I cuffed them. “Let’s take a walk up to my pad,” I said. I nudged him with my gun barrel and he moved up the stairs. I looked around for neighbors who might have viewed our confrontation; luckily, there were no telltale heads peeking out of windows.

I unlocked my front door and pushed him inside and over to an easy chair where I sat him down. I stuck my gun into my waistband and surveyed my living room. It was almost intact. Only my desk drawers had been gone through. Keeping an eye on my prisoner, I rummaged through my personal papers, work records, bank books, and memorabilia. Nothing seemed to be missing. I ducked a head into my bedroom and saw nothing amiss except a few open dresser drawers. Back in the living room I sat down on the couch directly across from the handsome young Chicano. He eyed me warily, stoically. He was no burglar. He didn’t walk the part, talk it, or act it in any way. He had shown remarkable consideration in his search of my apartment. Burglars do not hit second-story apartments at dusk in the less affluent part of the Hollywood Hills.

“Hello, Omar,” I said, “I was looking for you yesterday.” There was no response, so I tried again. “You are Omar Gonzalez, aren’t you? If you’re not, it’s the fuzz and the slammer. And maybe an ass-kicking, by me. I don’t like the idea of people fucking around with my pad. You probably feel the same way, if you’re Omar Gonzalez, that is. Somebody righteously trashed old Omar’s pad the other day. Really ripped it up. Looking for something. Bookie ledgers, maybe. Somebody righteously fried Omar’s brother back in ’68, too. I know who did it. Maybe you heard about the case, the Club Utopia firebombing? Three of the bombers were caught and executed, but the ‘Mastermind’ got away. You seen old Omar lately? I sure would like to talk to him.” I gave the Chicano my widest, most innocent smile, the kind that won me First Place in a Beautiful Baby Contest in 1948.

“I’m Omar Gonzalez, motherfucker,” he said.

“Good. I’m Fritz Brown. Don’t call me ‘motherfucker’ again. It’s not nice. Well, Omar, I think we need to exchange some information. What do you say?”

“I say you broke into my car and ripped me off for two boxes of stuff, that’s what I say. The lock on my trunk is all fucked up. I had to tie it shut.

“Tough shit. You broke into my pad. I’d say we’re even. Besides, we were both looking for the same thing, right?”

“You tell me.”

“I know who instigated the Utopia torch. How I got involved isn’t important. James McNamara told me about you, and how you’ve been obsessed with the ‘fourth man’ for years. I have my own reasons for wanting the bastard. I’m a licensed private investigator. I can arrest him and make it stick. You need me, for that reason. You’ve been messing with this case for years, in an amateur fashion, and you’ve obviously discovered something. The ledgers, the porno photos. Our investigations have been running along parallel lines. We need to compare notes. Together we may be able to find this scumbag.” I watched Omar’s macho-stoic reserve crumble. I went to him and unlocked his handcuffs.

He rubbed his wrists and smiled. “Okay, repo-man, let’s do it.” He reached over and we shook on it.

“Tell me about this investigation of yours,” I said, “from the top.”

“From the top, I just knew something was wrong with the way the cops handled the case. They caught the guys wham, blam, thank you ma’am. It made the cops look good. The three guys confessed, but when they said that a fourth guy was the ringleader, the cops thought it was a plea to beat the death penalty. I talked to Cathcart, the cop who headed the investigation, about it. ‘What if it’s true?’ I asked. ‘Do you honestly think these three drunks were crazy enough to knock off six people just because they got kicked out of a fucking bar?’ I was a youngster then and Cathcart shined me on. I admit I was an imaginative kid. But at the trial I knew I was right. I mean, man, I knew. Those guys were telling the truth when they testified about the fourth man. The way they described him, it was just too real. The guy they described was just too fucking bizarre to be made up.

“I got a lot of publicity out of my crusade, even though everyone thought I was a crank. I was almost a regular on the old Joe Pyne Show. I developed a theory — that the mastermind was only after one of the victims — and that he torched the bar to hide his motive. I checked out the backgrounds of all the victims — except for my brother Tony, they were dull. Working stiffs, juiceheads, that type. The Gaffany dame was a semipro b-girl. I checked out Edwards, the owner of the joint — a dope fiend. I checked him out real good. Nothing on any of them.

“For a while I hung out with a guy who wrote for True Detective magazine. He found out that the Utopia had a bookie wire going — small-time. So I checked out some bookies who operated in the Normandie-Slauson area. They told me, yeah, there was a wire going, but it was amateur. They said Edwards ran it. So I checked out Edwards again. Nothing but a smacked-back junkie, all fucked-up on stuff. I got a lead on a big spade who used to make collections and payoffs — and he turned out to be doing five to life in Quentin for armed robbery with violence. Another dead end.

“Anyway, gradually I got into some other gigs — heavy-weight scenes, the Chicano Movement, and this drug recovery program I work at — and I put my investigation on the back burner. I mean my hermano, Tony, was a righteous dude; I never loved anybody the way I loved him and I wanted to kill the puto who masterminded the torch, but I got my own life to think about, right? I’m twenty-seven years old. No fucking spring chicken. So anyway, I got involved in some other scenes and didn’t think about revenging Tony so much.

“Then I got this phone call. What’s the word? Anonymous. This dude asks me if I’m the Omar Gonzalez who used to be on the Joe Pyne Show. I say yes. Then he asks me if I’m still interested in the Utopia case. I say yes. Then he said ‘I got some information.’ And he tells me to get a pencil. So I do. He said: ‘Richard Ralston, 8173 Hildebrand Street, in Encino. He was one of the bookies at the Utopia around the time of the bombing. Check out his house, maybe you’ll find something to lead you to the fourth man.’ Then he hangs up. Man, did that call shake me up!

“So I burglarize this guy Ralston’s pad. At first, I find absolutely nothing suspicious. A bunch of old baseball souvenirs, photographs, T.V. set, records. A bag of weed. Nothing hot. Then I find this phone wall. I push it open and find these two boxes. I figure they got to be hot, so I rip them off. When I get home I check them out. Only the bookie ledgers make sense. The blank checks and the fuck pictures don’t mean nothing. So I lock the boxes up in my trunk. Then I start checking this guy Ralston out — I tail him to work one day. He works at this fancy golf club. I start thinking, holy shit, one of the bombers described the fourth man as wearing one of those golf shirts with the alligator on it! Maybe he plays golf at this club.

“I was about to check it out when I got shot. I was in Echo Park one night and I had this feeling I was being followed. I was driving to a friend’s place. All of a sudden this car pulls up. Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Three of the shots missed, but one grazed my shoulder. Somehow I knew it was coming, so I ducked and punched the gas. I lost them. I hid out at a friend’s place. He drove my car to the station. I figured it would be safe there. But he forgot to take the boxes out of the trunk, like I told him to. Pinchey puto! The puto wouldn’t go back for them! So I laid up at another friend’s crib. My shoulder healed up good. I figured it was some punks I kicked out of the recovery house who shot at me, and that it was safe to come out of hiding, that they were probably fucked up on stuff somewhere.

“Then I went back to my apartment. It was destroyed. I went to get my car and the attendant tells me about this crazy repo-man who broke into my trunk. Then he gave me your card. I thought it was a trap. Somebody wants me dead. Maybe this cabron Ralston found out I’m onto him. That’s why I broke into your place, to check you out. Now you talk, repo-man.”

My mind was racing, divided between trying to place Ralston in the context of this new offshoot of the case and developing a cover story to keep Omar Gonzalez at bay while I nabbed Fat Dog. I gave Omar my most sincere look and lied big. Fuck him. He could read about the capture of his brother’s killer in the papers.

“You were getting close, Omar,” I said. “The fourth man is a member at Hillcrest. He had it in for Wilson Edwards, the owner of the Utopia. His wife ran away with Edwards. He masterminded the killing of six people for nothing. Edwards wasn’t even at the bar that night. Ralston is blackmailing this guy. I’ve got an informant up near Santa Barbara who’s got some evidence for me. Some tapes. I’m going there tonight to pick them up. Want to come along?”

Omar thought about it. He was eyeing me suspiciously. “How did you get into this thing, anyway?” he asked.

“Good question. A car dealer I worked for hired me to repo a car off a woman named Sanders. She’s the fourth man’s ex-wife. When I came around to get the car, she invited me into the house to talk. She asked me if I had heard of the Club Utopia firebombing. I said yes. Then she told me how her ex-husband planned the whole thing. I believed her. This guy I’m going to see tonight was in on the blackmail scheme with Ralston.” I could tell that he believed me. It was typical: members of minorities consider repossessors to be the scum of the earth — motivated by the basest of desires. The repo angle had convinced Gonzalez that I was telling the truth. He was no dummy, but he was easily manipulated through his prejudices.

“All right,” he said, “it’s crazy, but I believe you. All the fucking work I’ve done looking for this guy and you stumble onto him accidentally. Where do we go? Santa Barbara?”

“Right. South of there. Near Carpenteria, on the beach. There’s a deserted motel where we’re going to make the trade. He wants a thousand dollars, but he’s not getting it. I’m ripping him off. You can come along as back up. We leave now. What do you say?”

“I say you’re a nice guy. Repo ripoff in the night. You do much work in the Barrio?”

“Yeah. Taco wagons are my specialty. Also foxy Chicanas. Every time I do a repo in Hollenbeck, I stop for a jumbo burrito and a piece of Mexican tail. It’s charming talking to you, Omar, you’re a lovely conversationalist, but our rapport is getting a little strained. So let’s take care of business.”

I tucked my .38 into my waistband and got my newly purchased shotgun and tape recorder from the bedroom and threw four days worth of clean shirts and pants into a suitcase. I handed it to Omar. He didn’t say anything about it, his eyes were riveted to the shotgun. He was impressed. I was speaking his language now. As we walked out the door, he didn’t notice me jam a blackjack and a length of nylon cord into my windbreaker.

We drove north on 101. The suitcase, shotgun, and tape machine were nestled in the trunk, the other goodies on my person. Omar was quiet. I had been expecting a lot of militant jive talk and needling, but he was too sensitive for that; he was lost in contemplation, thinking he was approaching the culmination of a ten-year crusade. He was, but I would be the reaper of all glories to be had.

The Fourth of July weekend get-out-of-town traffic was heavy and we slowed to a crawl nearing Oxnard and Ventura. After that, it was smooth sailing and twenty minutes later I pulled off the highway near the Casitas Reservoir and took surface streets down to the long stretch of beach just south of Carpinteria. I was sure the Beach View Motel would still be there and would still be deserted. Walter and I had discovered the Beach View about five years ago. We were driving back from San Francisco, drunk, when a torrential rainstorm hit. Walter wanted to press on and catch The War of the Worlds on the Late Show, but I insisted we park on the beach and sleep it off. We found a beach access road, expecting to find a parking lot at the end of it, but we were wrong; what we found was the Beach View Motel, a squat, ugly, lime-green structure on a particularly barren stretch of oceanfront sand obscured from the highway. We spent the night there drinking and bullshitting. The dump had been born to lose and born for losers; but it would serve my purpose tonight.

The night was pitch black and it took me a while to find the sandy blacktop that led down to our destination. When I did locate it, Omar came out of his trance and started jabbering: “Are we here, man? Is this it?”

“This is it,” I said, “we’re a little early. The guy said ten-thirty. It’s just after ten now. But that’s good. I want to make sure we see him coming, in case he brought friends.” Omar nodded staunchly. He was a courageous vato, but out of his league. To my chagrin, I was beginning to like him.

As we pulled up in front of the motel, my headlights caught litter-covered pavement, open doors, broken windows, and a profusion of empty beer cans, I killed the engine and said, “Take this flashlight and look around. I’ve got to get something out of the trunk.”

I handed Omar the large five-cell, got out of the car, and walked around to open the trunk. Omar left the car and began flashing his light into the broken windows and battered doors. I counted to twenty, then walked over to him, and sapped him from behind with a blackjack. He crumpled in a heap, dropping the flashlight. I checked his pulse, which was steady, then bound his wrists and ankles with the nylon cord.

I dragged him into the room farthest from the access road and laid him down on a smelly sand-covered mattress. I wrapped my hand in my windbreaker and punched out the side and front windows. Omar would have plenty of air. Next I located half a dozen good-sized rocks and laid them outside of Omar’s room. I went inside and checked his pulse again. It was still steady. I closed the door on Omar and barricaded it with my rock collection. Pleasant dreams, Omar. In the morning, I would call the Carpinteria fuzz and clue them into the overnight guest at the Beach View.

I pulled the car around, almost getting stuck in the sand, and drove away, the sea making eerie noises in the background. I took 101 southbound to its juncture with Interstate 5 near Nixon’s pad at San Clemente. When I pulled into San Diego just after midnight I heard firecrackers going off all over the city. Happy birthday, America.