Brown's Requiem

12

Back in L.A., ray first stop was the Hall of Records on North Broadway. I was armed with two dates of birth and was hunting for big game: birth certificates to prove a theory that was forming in a dark corner of my brain. I explained to the harried, underpaid black woman working the records counter that I was Frederick Baker, born in L.A. on 7–14–43 and I needed my birth certificate because all my I.D. had been ripped off. While I was here, I said, I wanted to get a copy of my sister’s birth certificate also. She was going to Europe soon and needed the copy to get a passport. Would it be possible? I asked. It would be.

I gave the girl Jane Baker’s D.O.B., 3–11–52, and sat down to wait. The expected results came fifteen minutes later. No Frederick Bakers or Jane Bakers were born in Los Angeles on the dates I had given. So far, my theory was bearing out. I trusted that the birthdates given to me by Jensen at L.A.P.D. R&I were accurate. If my next gambit didn’t pay off I would have to make a computer check of all births on those dates, which might prove difficult and futile; for if Jane and Fat Dog were born outside L.A. County, I was screwed.

I pulled off my next ploy. I found another busy clerk and told him the same story, this time substituting the name Kupferman for Baker. I hung out nervously for twenty minutes in the crowded waiting room until the clerk called out “Kupferman!” Though I was expecting it, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I paid the man his Xeroxing fee with shaking hands, then took the copies to a corner of the room and read them, suppressing shivers all the while.

Frederick Richard Kupferman was born in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on July 14, 1943. He. weighed nine pounds six ounces. A Fat Dog from the start. His parents were listed as Solomon Kupferman of Los Angeles and Louisa Jane Hall of Pasadena. Jane Elizabeth Kupferman was born in the same hospital, of the same parents, on March 11, 1952. Everything is connected. The anti-Semite is a Jew. The beloved cellist is a daughter. Which explained Kupferman’s interest from the start in the Baker siblings, which explained his overpowering fatherly love for Jane and his reluctance to deal with Fat Dog’s psychoses. And they were born out of wedlock, by the same woman, nine years apart. Unmarried parents were frowned upon in those days. Why no marriage? And the nine-year gap between births. Who did little Freddy live with during those years?

Marguerita Hansen had said that Sol Kupferman’s long-time paramour had committed suicide. Why? She had also told me the first foster parents were killed in a fire. Started by Freddy? Was he psychotic that young? Only Kupferman could answer those questions, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.

I found a pay phone down the corridor from the records storage room and called the Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions. Impersonating a police officer — again — I demanded information on Frederick and Jane Kupferman. It was going well until I told the clerk their dates of birth. “I’m sorry, officer,” I was told, “our records only go back to 1956.” I hung up, stuffed the two birth certificates into my pocket, retrieved my car from the lot on Temple and headed for the harbor freeway and the Hotel Westwood.

The Westwood was a solidly built, tan concrete building on Westwood Boulevard about a mile south of the Village. It was a one-story walk up, L-shaped, situated above a dry cleaner’s and photography shop.

There was a small parking lot in back of the building. I ditched the car and walked up the rickety back steps. Walking into the hotel was like walking into another era. The flat finished white stucco walls, ratty Persian carpets in the hallway and mahogany doors almost had me convinced it was 1938 and that my fictional predecessor Philip Marlowe was about to confront me with a wisecrack.

I found room 12 at the far end of the tail of the “L.” There was no one in the hallway, but from within the rooms I could hear T.V.’s and radios blaring. I unlocked the door and walked into golf ball heaven. There were crates of golf balls on the floor and shopping bags of golf balls on top of them, piled up to eye level.

There were no furnishings in the room except an old mahogany dresser with three boxes of golf balls on top, and when I opened the four drawers, they were, naturally, filled with golf balls. There was a sink next to a window looking out on the parking lot. It was filled with golf balls. There was a metal trash can below the sink. It, too, was filled with golf balls. Against one wall was a closet door that I could barely glimpse through the maze of golf ball crates. I looked at it with trepidation. There was probably a golf ball junkie sleeping inside who would kill me on the off-chance that my pockets might yield a few golf balls.

I risked it anyway, clearing away a half-dozen crates of the pebbled sporting eggs. They were heavy little fuckers. The closet contained jumbo plastic laundry bags full of golf balls, piled up to a top shelf. I couldn’t see anything on the shelf, but swept my hand across it impulsively and came away with a key ring. There were two keys on it and they were labeled, in the tiniest of print, with the names of country clubs in the L.A. area, followed by numbers: Wilshire 71 and Lakeside 16.

I stopped and thought. Fat Dog’s access to the country club milieu of Los Angeles was profound, but only on the level of caddy. Caddy shacks contained lockers that were probably numbered and these keys were locker size. I could tear this room up looking for the scrapbook and come up with nothing but golf ball jaundice, so I split, locking the door behind me.

Only one thing troubled me. Marguerita Hansen had given me three keys. Keys to what? Then I flashed. The community shower and toilet might require a key to enter. I tried them both and they fit. I felt like a third grade kid who had solved a difficult puzzle.

Wilshire Country Club, located midway between downtown and Hollywood, yielded nothing but hostile looks from a particularly motley group of loopers who watched suspiciously as I strode purposefully into their caddy shack, unlocked locker number 71, came up with nothing but more golf balls and promptly split, happy that my theory had been validated.

I drove out to Lakeside, taking the Cahuenga Pass past the Hollywood Bowl and over the hill. I parked my car on a side street leading up to the Lakeside Clubhouse entranceway. The clubhouse was old Spanish, with a low red-tiled roof that seemed to promise warm good times. It was 2:00 P.M., a Thursday, and the clubhouse was nearly deserted. I walked right through. Being reasonably Anglo-Saxon and tastefully dressed, no one stopped me. I could hear pieces of golf anecdotes as I walked through the dining room and out onto a patio with a great view of the flat golf course.

It didn’t take me long to spot the caddy shack; it was the only piece of run-down property on this otherwise splendid preserve, and the carelessly dressed men coming out of it were a dead giveaway. So I strolled over and entered Caddyland once again, my hands stuck in my trouser pockets, my fingers crossed for luck. This caddy shack was relatively clean and the card games that were going on were relatively sedate.

I extracted the key for locker number 16 from the key ring and walked into the locker room in back of the card room. Aside from two loopers asleep on wooden benches I had the dusty room to myself. I stuck the key into the lock, turned it, and stepped back, expecting an onslaught of golf balls that never came. The locker was empty except for one large, double-strength supermarket bag. When I looked inside I knew I was home. There was one large yellow plastic notebook binder and several dozen bankbooks and savings-and-loan passbooks. My heart made a brief, joyous “Ka-thud” and I slammed the locker door shut and walked into the caddy day room.

I couldn’t resist a parting salute to the assembled loopers, so I yelled, “Loop on, you heroic motherfuckers! You have achieved a place in my heart rivaled only by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra! Long live the fine amenities of a well-hit chip shot! Long live Stan The Man, Burger Hansen, and Bobby Marchion! Let the bummer roll! Looping U.S.A.!” I didn’t wait around for their response. I tore out of the caddy shack, my arms tightly encircling what I knew would be a priceless piece of L.A. history.

I couldn’t go home to read it. I couldn’t go home at all, not with Ralston and Cathcart knowing what they did about me, so I drove back over the Cahuenga Pass to the little park across Highland from the Bowl. I found a place on the grass in the shade, took a deep breath, and dug in. The notebook seemed to be in three orderly sections. I could tell even before I opened it: there were three colors of paper — white, yellow, and blue. The white section was in the style of a ledger and I immediately recognized the printing as Fat Dog’s; much neater than in his letter to Jane. The ledger obviously noted racetrack winnings: the first column contained dates going back to ’62, the second the names of the horses, the third the odds, and the fourth the amount of money won. It had to be money won, since each amount was followed by several happy-looking exclamation marks. I drew in a sharp breath as I riffled through the white pages: Fat Dog had won a fortune in the past seventeen years.

I dropped the notebook, reached in the bag, pulled out a handful of bankbooks and gasped: $11,000 in deposits in one bank, $9,600 in another, $8,000 in another, $12,300 in another, $6,000, $14,000, $8,000, $9,900, $13,000, $4,500, $17,000, $11,250 and on and on and on. There were thirty-four bankbooks in all, all to branches in the Greater L.A. area. I did some quick figuring and came up with a rough total of at least three hundred grand. Over a quarter of a million dollars. I checked the signature on each passbook: Frederick R. Baker. But the words were too well-formed to have been written by Fat Dog. Someone else had made the deposits. But who?

I wiped sweat from my face, rolled up my sleeves and went back to the notebook. I felt suddenly nauseated, but I clenched my teeth and started on the second section, which contained newspaper clippings of fires in the Los Angeles area followed by humorous comments in Fat Dog’s inimitable printing. It was the most ghastly reading I have ever done. The clippings were carefully taped to the yellow paper, which was encased in thin plastic to protect it from aging. It took me only a few minutes to conclude that Fat Dog was a lifelong arsonist and a mass murderer unparalleled in modern times:

From the Los Angeles Mirror, April 2, 1961:

From the Herald Express, September 10, 1963:

From the Times, January 29, 1964:

Below were Fat Dog’s comments: “The Fat Dog is everywhere! I can see everywhere!!! I roast ’em, toast ’em and make the most of ’em!!!!!”

On and on it went. The scrapbook contained clippings in chronological order of fires up until last year. Fires that took lives, fires that destroyed homes, cars, industrial property. All flawlessly executed. Sol Kupferman and Louisa Jane Hall had spawned a genius: malignant, clever beyond belief, and evil beyond comprehension.

I had reached the year 1972, and had counted 16 deaths, when I couldn’t go on. I was as still as a leaf, but inside I was screaming. Tears of anger and disbelief began to stain the yellow pages. The evil was staggering, the brilliance behind it unfathomable. Given enough time, Fat Dog Baker would have burned Los Angeles County to the ground. And he had chosen me, Fritz Brown, “detective in name only,” to help implement his plan of revenge, blackmail, and God knows what else, directed at Kupferman, Ralston, and God knows who else. God. That was funny. There was no God. But for the first time I found myself wishing there were. I took deep breaths for a minute or so. They actually helped; I felt slightly calmed as I went on to the blue pages.

The first several were devoted to newspaper clippings of the Club Utopia firebombing. I pored over them, looking for something I didn’t already know. There was nothing, just the initial accounts of the tragedy, the apprehension of the bombers, their “fourth man” story, their trial, appeals, and eventual execution. Lt. Haywood Cathcart was highly praised for “almost singlehandedly bringing the culprits to justice” — Mayor Sam Yorty. Cathcart called the “fourth man” story “pure hogwash. A cheap ploy to avoid the green room at San Quentin that isn’t going to work.”

Cathcart’s involvement in the Baker-Ralston-Kupferman mess had to date from the bombing; it was only logical. He had to be the lever, the buffer, the balance between Fat Dog and Solly K. I turned the page and found out just how monstrous his culpability was. Following the Utopia clippings were notes on Cathcart:

“Something bad happened, but it’s going to be okay. Cop — H.C., hassled me today. Says he thinks he can pin me to 4th man in Utopia torch. Says he remembers seeing me in area. Said I’m hard to forget. True — there is only one Fat Dog!!!! Says he don’t care — guys who threw bomb will fry. Asks me — You know about book at Utopia? All caddies bet the horses. I tell him I don’t book action with no Jews. Says he don’t like Jews, either. Why? Why, why, why, did you torch the joint? he says. So I figure it out. He wants something. He’s got something in mind. He hates Jews (big blond German-looking guy!!!) and he knows about Solly Kike being in mob. So I tell him about Solly Kike. I hate him!!!! He smiles. You going to be my watchdog, he says. We’ll do real good together. Then he says — you firebug? I try to say no, but he hits me. I can read your mind, he says. Don’t fuck with me and you’ll be able to do whatever you want in peace. Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll make money!!!! He scares me. He can read my mind. He knows. After I did toy store in Valley, he gives Hot Rod letter to give me: ‘You got a thing about toy stores, Fat Dog?’ it says. ‘Remember, I know you. Your buddy.’ He does know me.”

I waded through twenty-five pages of anti-Semitic and racist drivel before there was more mention of Cathcart:

“The Big Man is everywhere. He knows my M.O.!!!! He sends me notes after my jobs, calls me his genius little boy. Good watchdog! He says! He’s everywhere. A tree on Bel-Air front nine. A big dog on L.A. South. An evil squirrel on Wilshire 8th. Won’t let me have Jane! Lots of money. But no Jane. Money don’t mean shit with no family. H.C. has X-ray eyes, like Superman. He can see at night, too. Like a cat. A big mean cat.”

The rest of the blue pages contained more anti-Semitism. I turned back to the yellow section to look for mention of a toy store fire. I found it. It occurred on October 14, 1973, in Sherman Oaks. Cause of blaze undetermined. The proprietor and his son were seriously burned. That was the final indicator.

I drove to my bank on Hollywood and LaBrea and withdrew $500 in twenties from my safety deposit box, then drove to a storage garage on Melrose and paid to have my Camaro stored for two weeks. I got my expensive reel-to-reel tape machine out of the trunk before I left, then took a cab to a car rental agency on Wilshire and Normandie, where I rented a two-year-old Ford L.T.D.

Next I went looking for interim housing. Feeling the need for an injection of beauty, I opted for the beach and found a quiet court-style motel on Pacific Coast Highway, north of Sunset. My room was clean and afforded a view of the ocean. I paid for a week in advance.

Then I dictated into my never-before-used tape deck for three hours, using up four reels of tape. I spoke of the case, starting at the beginning, running in chronological order, with frequent digressions. I covered everything, including my killing of Henry Cruz and Reyes Sandoval. When I finished I sat back and thought of Haywood Cathcart, and of myself. Both cops. Both cops gone bad, to different degrees. I wondered at his motives for joining the police department, then examined my own.

I had wanted a way to express my sense of fair play and my love of beauty. I had wanted to crack wise and kick ass on those who deserved it. I had wanted to express a cynical, world-weary ethos tempered with compassion that women would eat up. I wanted low-level, uncomplicated power over other people’s lives. To be 6'3‘, 200 pounds, with a blue uniform, a badge, and a gun seemed like a wonderful ego boost. The streets by day; Beethoven, booze, Walter, and women by night.

But I was a terrible policeman and an abuser of power. My dispensing of justice was arbitrary and dictated by mood. I ripped off dope dealers for their weed, smoked it myself, and congratulated myself on my enlightened stance in not busting them. I shook down prostitutes for quicky blow jobs in the back seats of squad cars. Whatever I touched in my search to assert, to be, turned bad.

But Cathcart, assuming he became a cop for similar reasons, went beyond me in his desire for power. Real power. Money power. He was obviously the Big Man in the Welfare ripoff, holding Sol Kupferman moral hostage in the process — first through Fat Dog, now through God knows what lever. And he remained anonymous, like a Republican fund raiser, savoring the real influence of power. No need to grandstand in a blue suit for Haywood Cathcart, he knew where the real goodies lay. And his complicity by silence was overpowering: he let Fat Dog burn and kill and sent him notes calling him my “genius little boy.” I thought my capacity for moral outrage was long dead, but it was attacking me now like a jungle carnivore. No, no, no, no, I said. Yes, yes, I said a dozen times in succession.

I walked down to a liquor store on Sunset and P.C.H., bought a fifth of Scotch and returned to my room. I put it up on the bookcase and stared at it. I said no a dozen more times. Then yes a dozen more. Then it rose up from the bottom of my soul with a screaming finality. Yes. Yes. I couldn’t run from it. I took the fifth of Scotch outside and smashed it to pieces on the pavement of Pacific Coast Highway. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was locked in a moral imperative: Cathcart had to die.

I rose the next morning from a troubled sleep populated by my old patrol partner Deverson, a mad collector of Fab 40 records and women’s pubic hair. The songs were all there in my dreams: “Runaway” by Del Shannon, “Chanson D’Amour” by Art and Doddie Todd, “Blue Moon” by the Marcells. I took three Exedrin to knock them out, and drove to a clothing store on Santa Monica Mall and bought four changes of clothing — short-sleeved shirts, pants and socks, and shaving gear. At a phone booth I dialed Information and got Richard Ralston’s address: 8173 Hildebrand Street, Encino.

Then I thought: brace him at his pad? Too risky. At Hillcrest? Too many people around. Surveillance — wait and pick my shot? Also too risky. Ralston was on edge and would spot me sooner or later. I needed an “in,” someone who knew Ralston and his modus operandi. After a moment I remembered the resentful old looper I had talked to at the Hillcrest caddy shack two days ago.

I placed another phone call, this time to Hillcrest, and learned that Ralston would not be in today, that Friday was his day off, and that his assistant, Rudy, would be acting as starter. Divine providence. I drove to Hillcrest, parking on a side street off Pico.

Pops was easy to find — he was the only caddy left in the shack, an indication of his low status. He saw me approach and grimaced. “Hi, Pops. Remember me?”

“I remember you,” he said, “I’m not senile. And don’t call me Pops or I’ll call you Sonny Boy.”

I laughed. “Fair enough. What should I call you?”

“Call me Alex.”

“Okay, Alex, call me Jack. What’s the matter? No loop today?”

“Fuck no. That punk Rudy puts all the duck loopers out before me. He wouldn’t know a good caddy from a rhinoceros. Dirty cocksucker.”

“You hurting for cash?”

“I’m always hurting for cash.”

“Want to make a quick loop with me? The fastest loop of your life? Maybe ten minutes for twenty-five scoots?”

“You’re talking my language, Jackie-Boy. What do I got to do?”

“Just talk to me. Let’s go out on the porch.” Alex followed me, licking his lips. “You hate Ralston, don’t you, Alex?” I said.

“I hate the cocksucker’s guts. Why?”

“I don’t like him myself. He ripped me off on a bet. I want to get even. I’ve got to get him alone to do this. I need to find out something about his routine, so I’ll know when to make my move.”

Alex looked at me fearfully, nodding his head slowly. “And you’ll pay me for providing you with this info?”

“Right.”

“And Hot Rod ain’t gonna find out about me tellin’ you this?”

“You have my word.”

“You got anything against trespassin’ late at night?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I know the time and I know the place. But I need thirty-five clams. My rent’s due.”

“You’ve got it. Talk to me.”

“Tonight’s the night, big fella. Hot Rod plays poker every Friday night, here in the shack with all his pet goats. The game usually lasts until about two in the morning. The loopers go home and Hot Rod stays here ’cause he lives way out in the Valley and he’s gotta be on the first tee at six-thirty Saturday morning for all the heavy play. So he sleeps in the maintenance shed off of the eighth hole. He’s got a little room there with a cot. There’s no one around. No one shows up until six in the morning. You can have him all to yourself.”

It sounded good, so Alex took me on a little tour. When we were about two hundred yards from what I assumed was our destination, Alex halted and grabbed my arm. “That’s it,” he said, “that’s the maintenance shed. Hot Rod’s gotta come this way. You see that first little door? That’s where he craps out. I don’t wanna go no further. I don’t want nobody to see me showing you around. Okay?”

“Okay.” I got out my wallet and handed Alex two twenties. “Thanks, you’ve been a big help. Take care.”

Alex grinned toothlessly. “You too, big fella, and if you’ve gotta get rough, kick him once in the balls for me, only don’t tell him where it came from.” He smiled again and took off running in the direction of the caddy shack.

I stayed behind and watched a twosome of women play the first hole. It seemed timeless, yet completely foreign to me. There was one caddy in the group, a tall blond kid in his early twenties. I wondered if he would wind up as a career looper. I hoped not. If looping was sadness, it was also the line of least resistance to many things — from income tax to the credit society. But the balance was unequal. In the end, looping was more what you ran from than the small freedoms it allowed you.

I drove to an electronics store in Century City and purchased three hours worth of blank tape, then drove to my motel. I dug through the shopping bag that contained Fat Dog’s horror journal and bankbooks, then burned the contents of the journal in the bathroom sink, watching a history of unsung malfeasance go up, appropriately, in flames. When the evil words were obliterated, I doused the pages with water and carried the sodden mess outside to a dumpster. I put two of the bankbooks in my pocket and stashed the rest under the mattress.

I called the manager and told him to buzz my room at ten that evening. Then I lay down and slept dreamlessly.

At eleven-thirty that night I was sitting on the cool grass of the first hole at Hillcrest Country Club, waiting for Hot Rod Ralston and armed for bear. The night was warm, but the wet grass brought the temperature down a good ten degrees. I felt solidly good, confident that my case was winding down, armed now with facts as well as weaponry. And my motives had changed. What had begun as self-aggrandizement would have to end as anonymous moral victory, for I had no intention of publicizing my involvement in the case, or paying for the killing of Cathcart.

I waited over three hours. At two-forty by the dial on my watch I heard a man coughing, coming toward me from the direction of the caddy shack. He was whistling and turning toward my resting place in the trees. It was obvious he couldn’t see or hear me, but I backed into the woods, giving him a wide berth, then swooped silently up on him as he entered the ninth fairway, jamming my gun into his back and reaching a containing arm across his chest. He bolted reflexively, but stopped when he realized it was hardware digging into his backside. He said “What the fu...” then stopped.

We stood still a moment, him bewildered, but catching on and me high on adrenalin. “That’s right, Ralston,” I said, “It’s a gun. It’s loaded, but I’m not. We’re going to do some walking and talking. Next stop the maintenance shack. Move.” I grabbed his belt with my left hand, keeping my gun in my right, pointed at spine level. We walked.

“I want you to know that I only have sixty-five dollars on me,” Ralston said. “I lost tonight. You would have done better to catch some of the other guys in the parking lot. I’m almost flat, buddy.”

I didn’t like the remark. It was condescending and indicated a lack of respect for my intelligence. I didn’t answer him until we were on the paved roadway leading to the shed. Then I yanked his belt back hard, sending him down to the concrete head first. While he was down, stunned and squirming to get up, I kicked him in the head, back, and ribs. He stifled his cries. He was trying very hard to maintain his composure. I squatted next to him, the barrel of my gun resting on his now bloody nose. “Resign yourself to two things, Ralston. One, that tonight you are going to pay for some past sins, and two, that you are going to tell me everything you know about Haywood Cathcart, Fat Dog Baker, Omar Gonzalez, Sol Kupferman, Welfare rip-offs, and arson. And Ralston — if you don’t talk, you die. Now let’s have a seat in your little room. Get up.”

He got to his feet. I grabbed his belt again and he moved forward, then fumbled in his pockets as we reached the door. As his key entered the lock and the door opened, I released his belt and kicked him full-force in the small of the back with the flat of my foot, thrusting him airborne into the dark room. He crashed into something wooden. This time he screamed. I found a light switch and flicked it on. I looked at Ralston’s handsome, bloodied face. He was scared, huddled on the floor next to an overturned nightstand.

The room was dank and sparsely furnished: a cot, a water cooler, the nightstand, and a deck chair. I told Ralston to get up and sit on the edge of the cot. He did, slowly. I shut the door behind me and drew a paper cup of water from the dispenser. I handed it to Ralston, who gulped it down. I removed my tape deck from where it was jammed into my pants, located an outlet next to the nightstand and plugged it in. I took a seat in the deck chair and eyed Ralston. I hardly knew where to begin. There was so much I needed to know.

Ralston broke the silence. “Look,” he said, his voice under control, “hurting me won’t help you. Fat Dog is dead. The men who killed him are dead. He was an arsonist. He started a lot of fires. He burned down Kupferman’s warehouse. I know that Fat Dog hired you, why I don’t know, but all this trouble began about that time. Sol Kupferman is a generous man. He’d be grateful to you. I could put in a word for you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. I dug brass knuckles out of my pocket as Ralston maintained eye contact with me and rambled on with his plea bargaining. “Solly K has been known to set people up in business, the whole shot,” he was saying as I leaped on top of him and slammed my iron clad fist twice into the fleshy part of his back. He started to scream, then thought better of it and began to whimper.

He was shivering, and I placed an arm on his shoulder and spoke softly: “Ralston, I know most of it. But you can put together some of the pieces. I need to see how it all works. If you don’t talk to me, now, I’m going to go internal. I’m going to bang your kidneys until it’s all over. If you don’t talk to me, I’ll maim you, then I’ll kill you. Tonight. Is it Cathcart that’s worrying you? Are you afraid he’ll get at you for talking to me? Nod if that’s true.” Ralston nodded, vigorously. “Good, that’s what I figured. I’ve got a handle on Cathcart. I know he’s cold, utterly ruthless, and a killer. But I’m worse. Cathcart might kill you for talking to me, but that’s an unknown factor. If you don’t talk to me, you die. That’s absolute. And Cathcart’s finished. I’ve got Fat Dog’s scrapbook, I’ve checked out Cathcart’s palace in Baja, I know he’s got to be the big man in this Welfare scam. He can’t do you any good now. But if you help me you’ll survive. You gonna talk?” Ralston nodded again.

I gave him a minute to compose himself, while I loaded the tape deck with a spool of blank tape. I attached the condenser mike and held it a foot or so from Ralston’s face. He flinched as he saw it, but cleared his throat as if preparing to speak. He was utterly demoralized and hurting. I took a voice reading, and played it back. The reception was good. Ralston fidgeted on the cot as I introduced myself to the machine and said that this was the companion interview to my previously recorded notes. I held the mike in my left hand and kept the brass knuckles coiled into my right fist, which I waved in front of Ralston. “The truth, Ralston,” I said. “Get ready. What is your name?” I said into the mike.

“Richard Ralston.”

“Your age?”

“Forty-seven.”

“Where are you employed?”

“At the Hillcrest Country Club.”

“In what capacity are you employed?”

“As the starter and caddy master.”

“How long have you had this job?”

“Since 1958.”

“How did you get the job?”

“Through Sol Kupferman.”

“How did you know Kupferman?”

“Through baseball. We got friendly at the old Gilmore Field games. I was a shortstop for the Hollywood Stars. Kupferman was a big fan.”

“Did you help Kupferman run his bookmaking operation at the Club Utopia?”

Ralston squirmed and ran a sleeve over his sweaty face. “Yes. I collected the bets, sent guys to the track to place them, that kind of thing. It was penny ante, but Solly paid me well.”

“Are you still involved in bookmaking?”

“Yes. Still small time.”

“When did you meet Frederick ‘Fat Dog’ Baker?”

Ralston started to open his mouth, then changed his mind. He seemed to be gathering his mental resources. I raised my right hand, metal encased, to within an inch of his face. “The truth, Ralston,” I said, “I know everything about Fat Dog and Solly.”

Ralston nodded, resigned. “Sol Kupferman told me to bring Fat Dog out to Hillcrest. This was when he was about fourteen or so. For some reason he wanted Fat Dog around. I got him started caddying. There was another caddy, George Hansen, that Solly felt sorry for, and fixed up with a job at Hillcrest. He used to be Fat Dog’s foster father. Solly fixed that up, too. Later I figured out that Fat Dog was really Solly’s son, born out of wedlock.”

“Who firebombed the Club Utopia in December 1968?” I asked.

Ralston shuddered, and trembled when he said it: “Well, Fat Dog Baker planned it, and used the three guys who were caught for it, I forget their names, to do the actual job.”

“Did Kupferman know his son did the bombing?”

“He found out later, Cathcart told him. That was Cathcart’s lever on Solly. He popped Fat Dog for the bombing, but let him slide, because he wanted to squeeze Solly. Cathcart came to me and made me talk. I knew him from 77th Street Vice. He rousted me a few times, when he was on the Vice Squad. I told him Fat Dog was really Solly’s son. He told me not to let Fat Dog know, ever. He told me he had big plans for Solly and that he could use me to help him out.”

“What kind of plans did he have for Kupferman?”

“The Welfare gig. He was planning it then. He needed a penman. Solly was the master penman of the West Coast. He made a fortune counterfeiting and signing stock certificates for the mob. Cathcart wanted him to sign the checks, to get payment.”

“Do you mean the Welfare checks that people receive fraudulently?”

“Yeah. The signatures all had to be different.”

This was puzzling. “But don’t these checks have to be signed in front of the person who pays out the money?”

“Yeah, but Solly’s got over two dozen liquor stores that he owns and partnerships in a couple dozen others. All the checks get cashed there.”

“How does this scam work, exactly?”

“Cathcart’s got eight or nine caseworkers working for him. Investigators, too. Solly forges the applications, the caseworkers submit them for approval, the investigators, who are really just pencil pushers, pass them, and supervisors working for Cathcart authorize payment. He’s even got a guy in Sacramento monitoring the computer checks. It’s foolproof.”

“Where do you get the names of the phony applicants? Are they documented?”

“All the way. Solly does the printing and all the signatures, phony Social Security cards, birth certificates, the whole shot. He’s a genius.”

I kicked this around in my head. “Does the ledger that Fat Dog stole from you contain notes on the documentation?”

“Yes. How did you know about that?”

“Never mind. You did the writing in that ledger, right?”

“Right.”

“Why in Spanish?”

“No real reason. Just a fail-safe.”

“How long has this scheme been in operation?”

“Eight years. Since ’72.”

“How much money does it bring in a month?”

“I don’t know. Thousands. Cathcart is filthy rich.”

“Who killed Fat Dog Baker?”

“Two Mexican guys. Cathcart ordered it.”

“Why?”

“Fat Dog was going insane. He was making insane demands on Cathcart. He told Carthcart to make Solly give up Jane. They live together, you know. She’s his daughter, only she doesn’t know it. He kept telling Cathcart he would blow the whole thing sky-high if he didn’t order Solly to cut Jane loose. When Fat Dog torched Solly’s warehouse, it was the last straw. Cathcart had him killed.”

“Exactly what ‘lever’ has Cathcart been holding over Kupferman?”

“Jane. He knows she’s Solly’s daughter. He’ll spill the whole sordid story to her, if Solly ever balks at cooperating. She knows a little about Solly’s past, the grand jury investigations, that he was a mob moneyman and all that. But it would kill her if she knew Solly was really her father. Also, Jane’s mother was a dope addict, a crazy woman. She committed suicide right after Jane was born. Solly worships the ground Jane walks on. He’d never blow it with Cathcart and risk Jane finding all those things out.”

Thoughts of Jane cut through me like a knife. “Cathcart’s a nice guy, isn’t he?”

“Cathcart is a fucking iceberg. He knows it, too. He told me once, ‘I’m like an iceberg — cold and seven-tenths below the surface.’”

“Have you ever heard of Omar Gonzalez?”

“Yeah.”

“He burglarized your pad. Someone tried to kill him here in L.A. Who was it?”

“Cathcart. I told him my house had been burglarized and my ledgers swiped. He dusted the place for prints and came up with Omar Gonzalez’s. He knew Omar from the Utopia investigation. He had some guy go after him with a shotgun, but the guy blew it.”

“How did Fat Dog steal your ledger in Spanish?”

“I don’t fucking know! Fat Dog could do things you wouldn’t believe!”

“Who killed the three caddies in Palm Springs?”’

“Cathcart had some professionals do it. He knew Fat Dog had the scrapbook. I was sure Fat Dog would never entrust it to Augie Dougall and I had had his cousin’s place in Cathedral City checked out. Cathcart figured Hansen or Marchion had it. I checked out Hansen’s trailer myself. It wasn’t there. His old lady wasn’t the type to get involved and Marchion was a transient. I told Cathcart all this, but he still ordered the hit.”

Warily, I asked my next question: “Who told you I was involved in this case?”

“Jane Baker. We’ve been friends for years. She’s not involved in any of this. She calls me up when she gets worried about things. She...”

I arced my right hand and slammed Ralston hard in the neck. The teeth of the brass knuckles made small puncture wounds that shot little streams of blood. Ralston screamed. I shut off the tape machine. “You never mention her to me, scumbag,” I said, “not ever. You understand?” Ralston nodded, cowering against another blow. “Now tell me this,” I demanded, “does Cathcart know me?”

“Yes,” he whimpered.

“Does he plan on having me hit?”

“Yes. He’s got a guy out looking for you. Staking out your place.”

“Has he checked out my record with the police department?”

“Yeah,” Ralston said, rubbing his bloody neck. “He thinks you’re holed up somewhere drunk. And afraid.”

“You and Cathcart are good buddies, aren’t you?”

“He trusts me. He knows I’m afraid of him.”

“Right now your survival depends on two things: doing what I tell you and maintaining Cathcart’s trust. This case is never going to go before the cops or the law. This is my case. Cathcart is mine. This tape is going somewhere safe. If I don’t check in at regular intervals at certain places, the media gets my whole file, which includes a complete report of your complicity in the Welfare scam, your accessory to murder, your knowledge of the Utopia fire and your bookmaking racket. If I stay healthy, you stay safe. I want you to call Cathcart and tell him that someone called you and told you I was seen asking questions in Palm Springs. Drunk.” Ralston nodded, almost eagerly.

“Now. I have a load of bankbooks with Fat Dog’s name on them,” I said, “but the signatures aren’t his. Do you know anything about them?” When he shook his head, I knew he was lying. “That’s a pity,” I said, “because there’s a fortune in cash waiting to be had. Just for the hell of it, why don’t you sign ‘Frederick R. Baker’ a few times for me.”

I dug a notepad and pen out of my pocket and handed them to Ralston. He wrote the name three times, then backed off, fearing a blow. I took out one of the bankbooks and compared the signature to Ralston’s; a perfect match. “Don’t worry, Hot Rod,” I said, “I won’t hit you again. You managed Fat Dog’s money for him, is that it?” He nodded. “Where did he get the money?” I asked.

“He played the horses. He was a good handicapper. He got money from Cathcart. He looped. He never spent a dime. He was a cheap, stingy fuck.”

“I believe it. On Monday we’re going to withdraw the bulk of the money. I’m going to keep most of it, but I’ll lay a substantial sum on you. I’ll be at your pad at ten Monday morning. Right now I’ll drive you to that little hospital down the street. They’ll fix you up real nice. You might have to call in sick, but what the hell, you’ve been on the job twenty-two years, you can afford to take a day off now and then.”

I found a towel on the nightstand and handed it to Ralston, who wiped his face. I gathered up my tape deck, turned off the light in the little room and we left, walking all the way to my car on Century Park East. I dropped Ralston at the L.A. New Hospital on Pico and Beverly Drive. He didn’t say a word the whole time. I didn’t blame him. He was in the deadliest of limbos.

As I pulled up at the emergency entrance, I said: “You call Cathcart tomorrow. Tell him what I told you to. Make it convincing. I’ll be by your place at ten Monday. Be ready.”

He just nodded as he got out of the car. He was very pale.

13

I spent the next morning engaged in some soul searching. I did it during a long walk on the beach, the ideal, most cinematic locale for soul searchers. The beast kept rearing its ugly head, but I fought it off. I was entirely justified in what I did to Ralston; he wouldn’t have broken otherwise and I needed him to get at Cathcart. Still, it was my most vicious episode of violence since breaking Blow Job Anderson’s legs, and unsettling because Richard Ralston would never be the same. The hard-voiced manipulator who had seemed so formidable during his interrogation of Augie Dougall had broken fast under physical duress. If he had a well-developed image of himself as a stoic pragmatist, it was now leaking water.

But these things were secondary to the crucial point: in order to survive, Richard Ralston was now going to be my ally, not Haywood Cathcart’s. He would help me bring down Cathcart’s well-constructed house of Welfare checks forgery, extortion, and murder, and that was all that mattered.

While on my journey of soul searching, I decided to quit working for Cal Myers. I bore him no rancor for his low opinion of me, which, expressed to Fat Dog, had set the incredible events of the past month into motion. In a strange sense, I was grateful: he had been the catalyst that put Jane Baker in my life and awakened in me a power to deal with horrendous happenings that I didn’t know I possessed. The knowledge of that power and the viability of the moral decisions I had recently been forced to make convinced me of one thing: I was too good to be a repo rip-off man. Besides, I would soon be rich from Fat Dog’s ill-gotten gains, which I deserved as a tribute to my good work that would regretfully have to remain anonymous.

So I dug the loaner out of the motel lot, found a pay phone on P.C.H. and gave old Cal a buzz. His secretary told me he was out on the lot and had him paged. He was very anxious and bluff-hearty when he picked up the phone. He always expected in the back of his mind a blackmail attempt by me, based on the events I witnessed in January of ’71. That was when I was working Hollywood Vice, drinking heavily, and taking uppers to cut the edge off the booze. A call came in to the desk one night from an outraged landlady who was convinced that an “evil man” was using an apartment he had recently rented, but didn’t live in, as a love nest to seduce little girls. She wanted us to check it out.

It was a typical, busy Hollywood Saturday night, so the desk officer routed the call to Vice, rather than to patrol, who indently would have handled it; and the Vice Sergeant, who thought the call was a waste of time, and who thought I was a shithead, handed it to his most expendable officer: Officer Brown. I thought it sounded like a fluke, too, so I checked out an unmarked car, drove to the apartment of an informant and got blown away on hash before driving to the address on Sycamore near Fountain.

The landlady was suspicious of me at first, since I wasn’t in uniform and was slightly tottering from the dope I had smoked, but the sight of my badge calmed her down. She told me the “evil man” was in apartment 12, with two young girls. I told her to go back to the Lawrence Welk Show, that I would take care of it.

As I approached the door of number 12, I heard the giggling of a young girl and a man’s sexual grunting. The door looked flimsy, so I drew my gun and kicked it in. I recognized him immediately: Cal Myers of Cal Myers Pontiac, Ford, etc. He was on the floor, nude, being fellated by a pre-pubescent chubby blonde girl, who promptly stopped blowing him and started to scream. There was another girl, about the same age, brunette, also nude, holding a camera. She started to scream, too. I started to get an erection and she dropped the camera while Cal Myers reached for his pants. After a few minutes I got them calmed down. The girls put on robes. My erection continued, unabated in the least by all the tension. I checked the apartment out and came up with dozens of snapshots of Myers and the two girls fucking and sucking. It was a heavy bust for Myers, but I didn’t want to do it. I couldn’t do it; it went against the aesthetics of my lifetime of horniness.

I took Myers into the kitchen and read him off. When he realized I wasn’t going to bust him he genuflected wildly before me. I told him never, ever, to fuck around on my beat again. I collected the snapshots and put them in my pocket. This scared him, but he was so relieved at being spared the law that anything short of castration would have seemed merciful. He asked me my name several times and I told him. Dimly, my reptile mind was beginning to perceive that he might want to show his gratitude for my mercy. So I told him: Officer Fritz Brown, L.A.P.D., Hollywood Division, Badge number 1193. He committed it to memory and rushed out the door.

I dropped the two girls off on the Boulevard, near The Gold Cup. The evening was young and they had plenty of time to look for other action.

I got a call at the station about a month later. An unidentified caller had left his number. I called it and it was Cal Myers. He suggested we get together. We did. He wanted to give me a car. I said forget it, I didn’t begrudge or condemn him for his interest in young girls. He insisted. I relented, but I told him I would rather have a good stereo system. I also told him that I had ripped up the photos and had no intention of ever blackmailing him, but if he wanted to lay some goodies on me out of gratitude, then, what the hell, I would be gracious and accept. He smiled, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.

A week later he called me at home and told me I had carte blanche at a prestigious stereo equipment store in the Valley. I went there with Walter and ordered my dream system, which arrived at my pad two days later, along with a technician to set it up.

I called Cal to thank him and assure him that his secret was safe with me. I could tell he still didn’t believe me. I desperately wanted him to, and thereafter I would call him up, drunk, and offer my assurances, which were never really accepted. Gradually, we became friends, although I knew he harbored a deep fear of me and we met every few weeks or so and got drunk together. Our relationship was a strange mixture of mutual respect and attributing qualities to each other that we didn’t possess: Cal thought I was cold, hard, intelligent, and impenetrable, which was horseshit. I convinced myself that he was deeply sensitive beneath his businessman’s exterior and a potential aesthete, which was also pure horseshit. All we both wanted to do was get by, which meant markedly different things to each of us.

When I got kicked off the police department in ’75, there was never any question what I would do for a living. As soon as I was out of work, Cal’s paranoia regarding me was given full rein. I went to work repossessing for him to assuage that fear, as well as for the money.

It had been a good relationship in some respects, but now it was dead. And Cal had been mistaken from the beginning. I had destroyed the snapshots, almost immediately.

When Cal came to the phone bluff-hearty, I knew he was upset. Augie Dougall and the thousand dollar kick-out, perhaps. “Well, well,” he said. “Man about town Fritz Brown. Where the hell have you been?”

“Around,” I said. “Has Augie Dougall been in touch with you?”

“He sure has. Fucking beanpole Abraham Lincoln. That was dirty pool, Fritz, mentioning that thing to him. Fucking unworthy of you.”

“I’m sorry, Cal, really. But all I told him was the date. Did you give him the money?”

“Reluctantly. I figured he had to know you. What was it all about?”

“I can’t tell you. But thanks. If it’s any consolation, you helped Augie out of a lot of trouble.”

“Some consolation. You know, I think I’ve seen him before. Is he a caddy? I think he packed my bag at Lakeside.”

“He’s a caddy. How’s business? How’s Irwin doing?”

“Business is dandy. Irwin is doing a good job. He’s a nice guy, for a Jew. That nephew of his is a natural repo-man. He don’t take shit from nobody. When are you coming back to work?”

“I’m not, Cal. Consider that grand you gave Augie as my severance pay.”

“You can’t do that, Fritz! You’re my man! We’ve been together for a long time. Look...”

I broke in on his sudden panic, trying to sound firm: “Yes, I can, Cal. I have to. The last time you saw me I had a different life. It’s changed now, and I’ve changed. I don’t want to do repos anymore. I’m going to get married. I’ve come into some money. I want a new life. I’ve got to cut our ties or my new life won’t work. Keep Irwin and his nephew. They’ll do you proud. And Cal? I’ve never told anyone about you and those two girls. I burned those photographs the night it happened. All your fears all these years have been groundless. I would never fuck you over, for anything. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been a good friend, but it’s time to move on, and ripping off used cars isn’t part of the kind of life I want to live. Can you accept that?”

“I don’t know, Fritz, I...” his voice was very soft.

“You’ll have to, Cal. Goodbye and thanks.” I hung up, closing a long chapter of my life.

When I walked out of the phone booth I realized for the first time that maybe Cal, in his own fashion, loved me and liked having me around for reasons totally unrelated to fear. When things change, everything changes. It’s a new game entirely and suddenly you know what you had all along.

I drove into downtown L.A., taking the Santa Monica Freeway, to Mark Swirkal’s office. I left him the master tape containing my complete verbal record of the Baker-Cathcart case and the tape with Richard Ralston’s confession and told him what I wanted: storage of the tapes in his safe deposit box at the bank, in perpetuity or until I told him otherwise. Should I fail to contact his answering service once during every twenty-four hour period with the message “Crazy, Daddy-O!” he should immediately re-tape three copies and have them delivered by hand to the office of the L.A. District Attorney, the Crime Desk of the L.A. Times, Internal Affairs Division of the L.A.P.D., and the news desk of KNXT T.V. His fee for this would be one hundred and fifty dollars a month, hopefully for life. He agreed readily, fascinated by the mystery. I told him under no condition was he to play the tapes. He nodded, gravely. I trusted him. He was a solid, good man.

I called Sol Kupferman from Mark’s office. His maid answered and told me she would get him. He answered a second later. He had a soft, New Yorkish voice. “Hello?” he said.

“Mr. Kupferman, this is Fritz Brown. Has Jane Baker told you about me?”

“Yes, she has.”

“Good. I need to see you. Today. It’s very important. Can you meet me this afternoon?”

“I think so. Where?” His voice sounded distant and worried.

“In Griffith Park, in the parking lot by the observatory at two o’clock.”

“Why there, Mr. Brown? Why not my home or your office?”

“Mr. Kupferman, to be frank, because Haywood Cathcart may be having you followed, and I can’t afford a run-in with old Haywood just yet.”

“I see you know quite a bit about my life, don’t you?”

“I know everything about what’s transpired in the past ten years. Will you meet me?”

“Yes. How will I know you?”

“I’ve seen you before. I’ll meet you at the observatory at two o’clock.”

“Yes. I’ll be there.”

“Good. Come alone.”

“I will. Goodbye, Mr. Brown.”

“Goodbye.” I hung up and checked my watch. Ten forty-five. I said goodbye to a mystified Mark Swirkal and drove to Griffith Park. I wanted to get there early to check out the scene. If Kupferman’s phone was tapped and there was some kind of relay to Cathcart, he would be sending someone after me. Also, I didn’t think it was too likely, but if Kupferman was so used to being under Cathcart’s thumb that he panicked at the prospect of my upsetting the applecart, he might tell Cathcart himself, dooming me.

The parking lot of the observatory was filling up when I got there: buses filled with kiddie groups, sight-seeing families with small children in tow, bored high school loafers looking for an afternoon’s diversion. But nothing suspicious-looking. Los Angeles looked otherworldly from my mountaintop vantage point: a hot, shimmering valley shrouded in smog.

I took a bench seat near a drinking fountain and waited. At exactly 2:03, Kupferman’s white Cadillac pulled into view. There were no cars following him. I watched him park, lock his car, and get out and walk around. While he was doing this, I surveyed the crowded parking lot for telltale signs of surveillance. Nothing. I got up and walked toward him. He was craning his neck in every direction. He nearly jumped out of his skin when I spoke softly to him. “Mr. Kupferman? I’m Fritz Brown.”

He recovered fast, looked up at me and gave me a firm handshake. “Mr. Brown,” was all he said. I searched his face for signs of familial resemblance to Jane and Fat Dog. There was nothing but the pale blue eyes, but it was enough. In that respect, the three Kupfermans were all of a kind.

“Let’s take a walk, Mr. Kupferman,” I said. “We need some privacy.”

He just nodded, gravely, and let me lead the way. We walked north toward a hiking trail leading up into the Griffith Park Hills. Kupferman was immaculately dressed in a pale olive gabardine suit, linen shirt, and wide tie. He was the very picture of stoic dignity. Even his two-hundred-dollar alligator shoes did nothing to detract from this image. His face, sunlamp-tanned and Semitic, was a history of patience in the face of adversity, and the brilliant blue eyes spoke of a refined intelligence. I knew I was going to like him. We walked uphill on the dirt path. Kupferman was starting to pant and strain a little, so I slowed my pace. When we reached a plateau about one hundred yards up from the parking lot, with a view in all directions, I stopped. By way of introduction, I said: “We’ve met before, Mr. Kupferman. At the Club Utopia, about two weeks before it was bombed. You were sitting at the bar and spilled a drink on me. I’ve got exceptional recall. If it weren’t for that recollection, I wouldn’t have become involved in this affair to the extent that I am.”

Kupferman nodded. He didn’t seem shocked by my reference to the Utopia. “I see,” he said. “That is extraordinary. Of course, I don’t recall it. Exactly what do you know about this ‘affair,’ as you call it, Mr. Brown?”

“Call me Fritz,” I said. “I know everything, except for a few gaps I hope you’ll fill in for me. I know everything about the Utopia bombing, the Welfare scam, Haywood, Ralston, and the fact that Freddy and Jane Baker are really your children.”

Sol Kupferman went pale and for a second started to reel. I put a firm restraining hand on his shoulder. Gradually he calmed himself, the sunlamp tan returning. “And what do you intend to do with this information?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “It dies with me. Jane will never know. You don’t have to worry about Freddy. He’s dead.”

“I know. Jane told me.”

“Cathcart had him murdered.”

“I figured as much.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Relieved, somehow. Freddy was my son, but he was an animal, and it was all my fault. I gave him up as a child. I’m the guilty one. Freddy just followed his instincts, which were insane.”

“Tell me about that, Mr. Kupferman. There’s one gap in my investigation: you said you gave Freddy up as a child. Why? Who were his first foster parents? There was almost a nine year gap between the birth of your two children. What happened during that time?”

“What will you do if I don’t tell you?”

“Nothing. You’ve been pushed, bled, and tortured enough. I just want to close this thing out in my mind so I can do what I have to do and get it over with.”

Sol sized me up with shrewd blue eyes.

“And Jane will never know?”

“Never.”

I watched Sol weigh the pro’s and con’s of confession. Finally he sighed, and said: “All right. Freddy and Jane’s mother, Louisa Hall, was the love of my life. The most beautiful woman that God ever created. But very disturbed. Suicidal. She loved me, but was abindently attached to her father, who hated me because I was Jewish. He knew of our liaison and mentally tortured her for it. And Louisa took it, withstood it out of love. She couldn’t give up her father and she couldn’t give up me. But she wouldn’t marry me; she knew that it would drive her father away for good. When Freddy was born, something in her snapped. She wanted a baby, desperately; we planned it, I figured that marriage would have to follow, it being 1943. But when Freddy was born, she snapped. She hated him. He repulsed her. She wanted to be rid of him. She wouldn’t nurse him. I had to hire a wet nurse. She gave me an ultimatum: ‘Put him up for adoption or I will leave you forever.’ I couldn’t face that prospect, so I did it. But not through an agency, not formal adoption. I gave him to an old business associate and his wife. They lived near Monterey. They were Russian Jews, immigrants. They Americanized their name to Baker. They gave it to Freddy, even legally adopted him. I got regular reports from Baker, over the years. Freddy was a wild sadistic boy. He killed little animals. I felt guilty, but I put it out of my mind. I was making a lot of money, illegally. I won’t go into it. Things were going well with Louisa. She was getting better, less depressed. In 1951, she told me she wanted another child. After the birth she would marry me. I believed her. We had the baby. Jane was born in March of ’52. Things were good for about a month. We were making wedding plans. I was pulling out of the rackets. Then Louisa’s father committed suicide. Louisa went mad. One evening I caught her trying to strangle Jane in her crib. The look in her eyes, my God!!”

Sol hesitated, faltering, then mustered new resources of candor and went on: “I hired a male nurse to look after Jane. I sent Louisa to the best psychiatrist on the West Coast. He diagnosed her as schizophrenic. I put her into a private sanitarium. When she came out on a visit one day, when Jane was one and a half, we took a drive to the beach and went for a walk on the Palisades. A young couple came by, pushing a baby in a stroller. Louisa saw them and started to scream. She ran to the cliffs, climbed the barrier, and threw herself off. She fell all the way to the Pacific Coast Highway. She died instantly, of course. I was in grief, terrible grief. I blamed myself and I blamed little Jane. I couldn’t live with her. I took her up to the Bakers in Monterey to be with her brother. I told Stas Baker to somehow convince Freddy that Jane was his sister, even though Freddy was old enough to know that Baker’s wife wasn’t pregnant with her. Somehow he did convince Freddy. Maybe just psychically, Freddy knew Jane was his blood.

“The following year, 1954, I got a telegram from Baker’s brother. There had been a fire at the Baker house. Baker and his wife were dead, but Freddy and Jane had survived. I flew up there. I stayed away from the children, I was too ashamed to see them, but I bribed the child-care officers into placing Freddy and Jane with friends of mine in Los Angeles. I knew the woman, we had had an affair, and her husband was a decent sort, so I knew the children would have a good home. After I had arranged that, I asked around Monterey about Baker and his wife. Somehow I felt guilty about them, too. Then I found out the truth about Stas Baker: that he was a sadist, a bully who tortured his wife mentally and Freddy physically. When I knew him in the 30’s, he was just another mob stooge — a courier runner/sometime accountant. A quiet, decent sort. A man who seemed grieved by the fact that he and his wife couldn’t have children. But I was wrong. He was a monster and he begat another monster. My son.”

Kupferman’s voice during his monologue had taken on qualities of feeling and resonance I had never before heard. The deeper he reached into his past, the deeper his voice became, until it had subsided into a hoarse whisper that was more grieving than any amount of sobbing or wailing could ever be. I could tell that he didn’t want to continue his story. He sat down on the dirt path, depleted in every way, unmindful of his expensive suit. I sat down beside him. He stared at the ground, lost in his own guilty history.

“Let me finish for you,” I said, placing an arm around his shoulders. “Freddy and Jane went to live with the Hansens. Freddy grew up crazy, Jane grew up to be the Jane we both love. You wanted to be close to your children, without breaking your own anonymity, so you had Richard Ralston bring Freddy out to Hillcrest. Jane followed. Freddy was unreachable, but you became Jane’s mentor and dear friend. Freddy bombed the Club Utopia. Cathcart knew of your link to Freddy, through Ralston, and instigated an extortion scheme. He’s been sucking you dry ever since. Is that right?”

Sol Kupferman shrugged free of my protective arm. “Yes, you’ve got it all,” he said.

I decided to spare him the knowledge of his son’s extended career of arson and murder.

“Have you been sending money to the relatives of the Utopia victims?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered softly.

“Does Jane deliver the money?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have much personal contact with Cathcart?”

“Hardly any. Ralston is his liaison man.”

“How so?”

“How much do you know about the Welfare operation?”

“I know that you sign all the phony documents, including the checks themselves, and that they’re cashed at your liquor stores, and that Cathcart has the thing monitored from inside the Department of Public Social Services from every angle.”

“That’s about it. But Ralston is the liaison on every level involving me and the inside people. Cathcart just pulls the strings, holding the fear over everyone.”

“So Ralston would have all the records on the inside people?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That fits. Ralston and I recently became acquainted. I got a confession out of him. He’s more afraid of me than he is of Cathcart.”

Sol gave me a strange, inquisitive look, tinged with awe. “What exactly do you want out of this? I don’t understand your motives at all,” he said. “Jane told me Freddy hired you in the first place, but that doesn’t fit. What do you want?”

I stood up. Sol did, too, brushing dirt from his pants. I pointed south toward the smoggy L.A. Basin. “I want a little piece of that, a little piece of the mystery, the insanity, the life. I want revenge, for you. I want to see Cathcart fall. And I want your daughter. I want to marry her. I love her. I think she’s in the process of learning to love me. Has she told you how she feels about me?”

Sol smiled, for the first time in our brief acquaintance. “She told me she feels very drawn to you emotionally, but is slightly afraid of you. She called you ‘walking ambivalence.’”

I smiled back at Sol and laughed. “An astute remark. She’s a very intelligent woman. I understand this ambivalence she sees in me. She caught me at the tail end of my old life and the beginning of my new one. This case is the dividing point. But very shortly it’ll be over and we can court in earnest. Then she’ll see the more stable, beauty-loving side of me.”

“This case will never be over, Fritz.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cathcart has me. I have to serve him. If I don’t, Jane will learn everything, and I’ll be ruined. With Freddy dead, no one else will foul things up or get hurt. The violence is over, thank God. But Cathcart is too protected, too insulated. He’s beyond the law. He is the law.”

I looked out over my city. All I could see were the tops of buildings jutting out of a brown haze. I looked back at Sol. “I’m going to kill him,” I said.

I waited a long moment for his response. He was staring at the ground as if he were trying to dig a way out of his life with his eyes. “Don’t do it, Fritz,” he said. “Cathcart deserves it, but it’s wrong. I killed men, forty years ago, and I’ve had to live a terrible guilt-ridden life. If you kill Carthcart, even if you get away with it, you’ll never stop paying the price. Just let it go. If you care about Jane, don’t do it. She deserves better than a killer.” Sol’s eyes, face, and whole soul were imploring me with the force of his experience.

I believed what he said, absolutely, but he was morally wrong. Cathcart’s death was the only right denouement to this tragedy. “No, Sol,” I said finally, surveying the city again, “he dies. And a lot of people will live free as a result. That’s undeniable.”

Sol was shaking his head frantically, denying the truth. He looked like an Old Testament sage rebuking a young zealot. “No, no, no,” he said, “it’s wrong. Can’t you see that? How in the world do you expect to get away with it? Cathcart’s a shark and you’re a minnow. It won’t work.”

Suddenly I was angry. I grabbed both his trembling shoulders and pulled him toward me. “Don’t fuck with me, Sol! I can be just as bad as Cathcart. He dies. Maybe you’ve been on such a guilt trip for so long that you need Cathcart to punish you for your sins. That phony karma shit won’t wash. He dies, and if you try to warn him or fuck with me in any way, I’ll go public. I’ll blow the whole thing to the media, including the facts of your children’s births. I mean that, I’ve got a fail-safe operation going. If I don’t survive this case then it all goes public!” I released him, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze in the process. I felt guilty myself, now. Sol Kupferman was an almost saintly man, but he carried guilt around with him like a contagion. He was very pale again.

I tried to lighten things up. “A couple of years from now, we’ll be laughing about this. Jane will wonder at our secret rapport, but she’ll never know. I’ll be your unannounced goy son-in-law.”

Sol didn’t even hear me. “I have to go,” he said, moving toward the downhill path.

We walked down to the parking lot in silence. When we got there, I said, “Tell Jane I’ll call her after this is all over, which should be soon. Tell her we spoke on the phone. I don’t want anyone to know I’m in L.A. And of course don’t tell her what we discussed.” Sol nodded, funereally pale. “Cheer up,” I continued, “soon this thing will be nothing but a giant evil memory, like a cancer successfully removed. Try to think of it that way.”

Sol said, “I will” and forced the beginning of a weak smile, but I didn’t believe him. He got into his Cadillac and drove away, his whole spirit conveying centuries of Jewish pessimism.

I drove back to my seaside motel and checked out, taking my traveling roadshow — tape deck, bankbooks, clothes, and hardware — north to Ventura, where I found another beachfront hideaway, a slightly nicer, more modern motel room.

I called Ralston at his house in Encino and told him our plans had been changed: he was to meet me at the Bank of America branch on Van Nuys and Tujunga in North Hollywood at ten o’clock Monday morning, and was to bring a list of all his D.P.S.S. contacts. I asked him if Cathcart had been in touch with him, and he said yes, that he had told Cathcart I was spotted, drunk, asking questions in Palm Springs. Cathcart had seemed to like that. Ralston was being a good scout, so I threw him a bone of encouragement, saying that he’d be in for a nice financial surprise on Monday, then hung up.

I killed the rest of the weekend fantasizing myself as a rich man. A quarter of a million in cold cash, carefully invested, would keep me off the streets for the rest of my life. I thought of possible investments, creative ones, and came up with a great idea: a classical music store. Records and tapes from the most prosaic to the most esoteric. A music book store second to none: biographies of composers, pictorial histories and sheet music. A Hollywood Boulevard cultural oasis. Rock-and-roll morons would be politely but firmly sent away. I would manage the store and Walter would be my aide-de-camp. I would retain my P.I.’s license and the office as a tax dodge. I would search out moderately good string players to join Jane in playing chamber pieces. Jamming with musicians of similar ability would have a salutary effect on her...

I would buy a big rambling house in the hills and several friendly dogs. Jane and I would have our separate lives, each revolving around music — Jane’s cello lessons and constant practice, my taking care of the store. At night we would sit in our living room and listen to music, then go upstairs and make love. Eventually, we would have children, preferably daughters. It would be a good life. It was possible now.

I left Ventura at seven-thirty Monday morning. Nine forty-five found me stationed across the street from the B. of A. at Van Nuys and Tujunga in North Hollywood. I was nervous, but felt safe: there was nothing transpiring outside the bank that resembled a setup. Ralston was securely under my thumb.

He showed up a few minutes later. He pulled into the bank parking lot, got out, and stood nervously by his car. He was wearing sunglasses, presumably to hide his battered face. I walked across the street and joined him. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me through his dark glasses. “Good morning, Ralston,” I said.

He cocked his head. “Good morning,” he replied.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked. He nodded again. “Good,” I said. “Take off your glasses. We’re going to be making some heavy withdrawals and I don’t want you looking like a gangster about to split the country.”

He did it and I was amazed: his nose was hardly swollen, although it was purple-tinged, and his eyes were barely blackened.

“Let me outline my plan,” I said. “I want you to drive your car. We will hit every bank I have passbooks to. You will withdraw all but five hundred dollars from each account. In hundreds and fifties. Twenties are okay, too, if it’s all they have. Try to be inconspicuous. Tellers are required to report large deposits, but not withdrawals. You deposited the money, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. Then some of the tellers will remember you. I’ve got our itinerary all mapped out. We’ve got a long day ahead. Did you bring the information I asked for?”

“Yes.” Ralston fished in his coat pocket and handed me a neatly printed list of names. I winked at him and gave him a blue cardboard passbòok, pointing to the front door of the bank.

“Do your stuff, Daddy-O,” I said.

While he took care of business, I scanned the list of names, which were set up in columns, as in the manner of bookie ledgers I had seen. The names, all men’s, in one column followed by phone numbers in the other. Since several of the numbers were identical, I concluded they were office phones.

Ralston returned after a few minutes and motioned nervously for me to get into the car. Once inside, he reached into his pocket and handed me a roll of crisp new bills. I counted them, then broke out laughing: ninety-three C-notes. He started up the car. “Onward, Hot Rod,” I said.

We drove from one end of the Valley to the other, then over Coldwater Canyon to Beverly Hills and from there to the Miracle Mile, becoming richer and richer in the process. Before we left the Valley, I stopped at a supermarket and grabbed a large brown shopping bag. Soon it was jammed with cash.

While Hot Rod was making a withdrawal on Wilshire in Beverly Hills, I stashed the bag under my suitcoat and walked across the street to the Mark Cross Leather Goods Shop and bought a huge leather suitcase, paying for it with four crisp, brand-new C-notes. Back in the car, I lovingly transferred the bills from paper bag to suitcase. I felt very high, much like I did the first few times I got drunk.

Hot Rod returned, dumped $7,400 in centuries and fifties in my lap and gave me a pained look. We had been conversing very little. He had confirmed what I thought about the phone numbers — miracle of brevity, they were the actual at work phone numbers of the Welfare contacts — but all my other attempts at conversation went sullenly ignored. I had emasculated this man and he would not kiss my ass or give me the satisfaction of compounding his capitulation.

It gave me pause. I would need him to get at Cathcart. If he fingered me to old Haywood, it would be ink on my death warrant.

I checked my watch and counted the remaining bankbooks. It was 2:10 P.M. and there were nine remaining, containing a total of over $70,000. I estimated we had at least $265,000 in my suitcase. I looked at Ralston and slapped his shoulder, then tossed the passbooks into his lap. “For you, Hot Rod,” I said. “Over seventy thou. Spend it in good health.”

Ralston smiled briefly, then shook his head. “You’re out of your fucking mind to think you can get away with this,” he said. “You don’t know Cathcart. He’s out of his mind, too, but in a different way. You better blow the country now, while you’ve got a chance, because sooner or later he’ll find you. Then it’s all over.”

“No, you’ve got that wrong. Let’s reverse it. Sooner or later I’ll find him. Then it’ll be all over.”

“You’re crazy, Brown.”

“Not really. Tell me about Cathcart. I know he’s brilliant and I know he’s an iceberg. Big fucking deal. But I’m curious about one thing: with all his money, why does he continue to be a cop?”

Ralston didn’t even have to ponder this question. “Because he loves it. All the good guys versus the bad guys shit. He eats it up. He hates niggers. He’s always talking about keeping the niggers under control so they won’t revolt. He says he loves doing his part to keep the Welfare State solvent, that it’s a counterrevolutionary broadside. He says sooner or later the niggers will breed to the point that they’ll have to be dealt with violently, but in the meantime they provide a scapegoat for the poor white moron to hate, and it’s important to keep them strung out on dope, in jail, and on Welfare. It’s spooky. I don’t particularly like niggers, but I don’t want to hurt them. Cathcart’s cuckoo on the subject.”

“Did he supply Henry Cruz and Reyes Sandoval with heroin as payment for killing Fat Dog?”

“How did you know about that? They’re dead.”

“I know. I killed them.”

Ralston reacted with a contorting of his whole face. “Are you going to hit Cathcart?” he asked incredulously.

“Hit Cathcart? Hit?” I answered, equally incredulous. “Who do you think I am? Marlon Brando in The Godfather? I don’t want to hit Cathcart, I want to become his buddy. I’m a nigger trainee with aspirations. All I want is a million-dollar Welfare check and a lifetime supply of soul food. Then I’ll convert to Judaism and join Hillcrest. You can fix me up with a good caddy when I learn to play golf.”

“You are crazy.”

“Shut up. Tell me more about Cathcart. What does he do for kicks?”

“He goes marlin fishing in Baja. He listens to this really serious music. He talks about the cops being the front line of containment against the niggers. That’s about it. He’s got no family. He doesn’t go for women, so far as I know.”

“Where does he live?”

“He’s got an apartment in Van Nuys. He tries to live cheap so that it looks like all he’s got is his cop’s salary.”

“How often does he go down to Baja?”

“Every few weeks, I think.”

“How does he get down there?”

“He drives. he’s got kind of a cover-up going. He owns a little house outside of Del Mar. He tells the people he works with he’s going there. He says it’s part of the picture he’s painting: he makes good dough as a Captain and he can afford a small place down there.”

“Does he spend any time at the place in Del Mar?”

“I think he stops overnight, to make it look good. Then he drives to Baja. The guys he works with know he’s a fishing fanatic. He’s got it all figured out.”

“He sure talks a lot, for a careful man.”

“He trusts me. He knows I’m scared shitless of him.”

I let the remark hang in the air, dead weight between us. Then I harpooned Ralston with my coldest hardest look. When he started to avert my gaze, I said: “Stay scared of me and you’ll survive. You’ll have your hotel, your bar, your job, your health, seventy grand plus whatever else you’ve got going. Now drive me back to my car.”

We drove silently back over Coldwater to the Valley, a fortune wedged between us on the front seat. When we pulled up to the bank in North Hollywood, I said: “Stay loose, Hot Rod. I’m blowing town for a while. I’ll call you when I get back.”

He stuck out his hand, which surprised me, and we shook. “I still think you’re crazy,” he said.

I laughed. “Sometimes I wonder myself.”

I disengaged my hand, grabbed my suitcase and Ralston took off.

I left that night, leaving my loaner car in the lot at L.A.X. and catching the 8:00 P.S.A. flight to San Francisco. I insisted on taking my Mark Cross suitcase on the plane with me. The baggage people and the stewardess on board told me they understood. It was a work of art and too beautiful to be buffeted around in the plane’s luggage compartment. If only they knew.

The coffee the stewardess brought me was good and strong, but I felt vaguely uneasy. I was unarmed for the first time in years. I had had to check my gun into a locker in the terminal, since pre-flight metal detectors would have given its presence away. But the uneasiness left as I sipped the coffee and enjoyed the lights of Los Angeles from my window seat.

When the plane landed at San Francisco International some ninety minutes later, I was on pins and needles of anticipation. It never failed: the San Francisco Rush. Just approaching my favorite adopted city was cutting through all the trauma arid fatigue of the past month. Frisco! Only this time the Frisco of my new life: sober, rich, and possessed of a mission.

Getting into a cab outside the airport felt like four martinis kicking in while listening to Beethoven’s Fifth, only this time it was Brown’s Fifth. The Fifth “B” — Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Brown — all Germanic, all possessed of a mission, theirs musical, mine the destruction of evil. Suddenly I wanted a woman, and voiced this almost immediately to the cabbie. A last fling before a life of blissful fidelity. He understood. I even described what I wanted. Three hundred and fifty scoots for an all-nighter, I volunteered, plus a C-note for the person who set it up.

The cabbie, who was old and probably Greek or Italian, turned around to face me in the back seat, practically salivating. Where are you staying? he asked. I told him the Mark Hopkins. I told him to send the girl to Mr. Bruckner’s suite. He knew just the one. She would be knocking on my door within the hour. The cabbie almost fainted when I handed him a crisp C-note upon leaving.

I booked a suite for one week, at ninety-seven dollars a night, paying cash, of course. A bellboy appeared out of nowhere to grab my suitcase. I kept a close eye on him as we took the elevator up to my suite on the eleventh floor, a spacious, old-fashioned, two-room job with expensive pseudo-antique furniture and large French windows opening on an incredible view of Nob Hill.

I whipped a fifty on the bellboy and he almost fainted. I told him to let the bummer roll and buy himself a bag of good shit, that for the next few days I could afford to be generous. I also told him to send up champagne for one and a pot of coffee. After thanking me effusively, he ran out the door, still scrutinizing the bill to see if it was real.

The hooker was a disappointment. Not tall, not particularly large breasted, with rather muscular legs and sort of a cheap face. We talked for the better part of a half hour as I savored the prelude to sex. With me, part of the thrill with prostitutes is the certainty of fucking, followed by the anticipation, followed by the ultimate thrill: watching them undress. So when Danielle (obviously a business alias) did a slow, seductive strip, I was more than ready. But it was a quick, violent, disappointing coupling, tinged with guilt and a rambling mind: I thought of Jane and Cathcart throughout. When I finished, I paid her and told her to take off. She was thrilled with a three-hundred-dollar quickie and kissed me and skipped out the door.

After she left I couldn’t sleep, so I buzzed Walter in L.A. He answered on the first ring, dead drunk. I could hear the blasting away of a T.V. crime program through his slurred voice. I tried for twenty minutes to engage him in conversation, but it was no use, he wanted to talk about Jimmy Carter and the anti-matter credit card. Finally I despaired, told him I loved him, and gently hung up.

Next I called Mark Swirkal’s exchange and gave the password, then laid down on the bed and passed out.

During my sleep that night, a strange dream sequence began. It was Fat Dog and me, in a complete reversal of roles: Fat Dog, wearing a blue uniform and a gun stopping jaywalkers on Hollywood Boulevard, and me carrying golf bags that seemed to tear at my muscles through my sleep. Just before I awoke, a poem, or fragment of one, ripped through my dream:

My dream world went up in an inferno of fire and screaming: a 1957 Chevy had just exploded on the freeway. The tall spire of the Los Angeles City Hall collapsed in a heap of rubble and severed limbs flew toward me. I woke up drenched in sweat, straining to remember the words of the poem. I found a pen and some hotel stationery in the nightstand. Gradually the words came back and I wrote them down. Obviously, they were a resurgence of some long-buried, long-forgotten poem discovered during my high school poetry reading days. But who was the author? A memory as fine as mine should be able to recall that, too.

I stared at the words on the paper: storms, muses, and moral stands. The very history of my thirty-third summer.

I showered, put on clean clothes, and went looking for a safe place to put my new fortune. I selected a somber, formidable old B. of A. on Market and Kearney, walked in and inquired about safe deposit boxes. The branch manager was most helpful, took my payment for a five-year rental fee on three boxes, handed me my keys and left me in privacy to stuff the square metal boxes full of money. I retained ten thousand dollars for operating expenses, which left me with an incredibly stuffed wallet and billfold.

Next I went looking for the U.S. Passport Office. I found it on Montgomery Street, within walking distance. The clerk took my application and told me that indently a birth certificate was required as I.D., but since I was a licensed private investigator he could overlook it. He kept glancing furtively at my left armpit, no doubt trying to determine whether or not I was carrying a heater. He referred me to a photographer down the street and told me to bring a photograph back later today. My passport should be ready in ten days.

I made a fast circuit: photographer’s shop, quick photo session, back to the Passport office with the photo, all within one hour. Which left me at a strange juncture: alone in San Francisco with ten thousand dollars in my pocket, an empty Mark Cross suitcase, no desire to get drunk or laid and suddenly bored with my beloved city.

Not knowing what to do, I walked northwest. When I passed the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library on Larkin and McAllister, I knew I had found my destination. I headed straight for the poetry section on the second floor. For the next six hours I pored through hundreds of volumes, looking for my dream poem. It was nowhere, either as a complete poem or as a fragment of one. I gave up when nervous hunger and eyestrain combined to give me a colossal headache.

A gourmet meal in Chinatown and a walk back to the hotel in the brisk night air put me in better spirits. But with sleep came more nightmares — without poetry this time, but just as vividly violent: monsters wielding golf clubs rising out of sand traps to attack me. On waking the next morning I hoped for a failure of memory, for if the dreams continued after the killing of Cathcart, I would surely go insane.

I had three things left to accomplish in San Francisco: scoring some dope, preferably heroin, acquiring a handgun, illegally, and formulating a plan for eliminating Cathcart. I started by buying some used counter-culture garb at a second-hand store in the Haight-Ashbury. Bell-bottom pants, sandals, a tank top bearing the likeness of a rock-and-roller named Neil Young, and an Army fatigue jacket. When I changed into my outfit back at the hotel, I knew it would never work. It was impossible. I had that outsized, moustached, arrogant-elitist look indigenous only to cops. Nobody on the street would sell me a firecracker, let alone a large quantity of heroin.

I approached the bellboy I had tipped so generously. The best he could come up with was cocaine or quaaludes. I decided to forego second-class drugs and to try instead to cop some smack in L.A., where I knew the territory and could probably shake down some connections.

Late in the afternoon I called Ralston at Hillcrest. The switchboard girl put me through to him at the first tee. When he said, “First tee, may I help you?” his voice sounded strained.

“This is Brown,” I said. “Are you busy?”

“Not really,” he replied.

“Good. How’s our buddy? Have you talked to him?”

“Yeah, today in fact. He thinks you’re in Mexico. He got word somehow that Cruz and Sandoval are dead. He thinks you did the job. He’s pissed and maybe even scared. He’s going down there himself this weekend to look for you.” It was almost too good to be true, but I believed him. My mind ran around in circles for long moments. Finally, Ralston broke in: “Brown? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Look, when do you think he’ll split for Baja?”

“I don’t know. He usually leaves Friday nights, after he gets off duty. But maybe it’s different this time, because the trip is strictly business. Why?”

“Do you know his address in Del Mar?”

“No, I’ve never been down there. And I won’t ask him, in case you’re thinking of asking me to. I’m not fucking with you, I just don’t want to do anything suspicious. I’ve been staying away from him. When he called me today he said he wanted to see me, but I begged off. If he sees I’ve been beat up, he’ll know something’s wrong.”

“Listen, Daddy-O, don’t mess with the big fella. Are you afraid for your ass, Hot Rod?”

“Yeah. I am. Because I’m sane. Are you?”

“Yeah, but it’s almost over. I’ll call you when it is.”

Before he hung up, Ralston told me to be careful at least half a dozen times. In a cursory way I took each admonition to heart, but the wheels in my brain were already grinding out a plan.

I enlisted my bellboy buddy and we made a little recording on tape. My plan was starting to jell. I took a 7:15 flight from San Francisco International to San Diego Airport and rented a car from the Hertz office at the terminal.

The rest was simple. I called Del Mar Information and asked for the address and phone number of Haywood Cathcart. It took all of three seconds for them to give it to me: 8169 Camino De La Costa, 651–8291. Cathcart’s policeman-criminal mentality and sense of indentcy had dictated a phone listing (“I’m a police officer of high rank, and a solid American citizen. What have I got to hide?”).

I drove up the Coast Highway to Del Mar. Del Mar is a rich town, built upwards on rolling hills from the sea, but it does have a middle-class beachfront enclave and that’s where I found 8169 Camino De La Costa. It was so perfect that I almost collapsed in gratitude. Maybe there was a God.

A twisting road led me down to a giant parking lot. I parked and walked along the sand, checking out the house numbers. The houses, large bungalows really, were identical: white wood frame, obviously built as part of a development fifty or sixty years ago, and were spaced a solid fifty yards apart, separated by sand drifts. I found 8169. It was the most immaculately kept place on the beach front. I walked around the back. There was a chain-linked barbed-wire fence around a small back yard of some kind of synthetic grass. Old Haywood. Keep the property value up, and the niggers out. Through the fence I could see that the back door entered into some kind of service porch. It was a good setup and my mind clicked methodically with embellishments on my plan.

I drove back to San Diego and spent the night in a Hyatt motel. The next morning, Thursday, I returned the car to the airport and flew to L.A., where my other loaner was waiting in the parking lot.

It took me all day to accomplish what I had to, but I was satisfied with the results. A shakedown at gunpoint of Larry Willis and two black drag queens had provided me with three ounces of heroin, a small bag of coke, and some assorted uppers and downers. A seven-hundred-fifty-dollar payoff to an old informant from my Wilshire Patrol days had got me a cold Iver-Johnson .38 revolver with a silencer.

After I had everything I needed, I started to get scared: there was nothing left to do but the act itself.

I dropped off the overdue loan car at the agency. They were pissed and about to call the fuzz. I gladly paid the extra money they wanted, took a cab to L.A.X. and hopped a plane for San Diego.

Once ensconced in a motel in nearby Escondido, I started to get scared for real. I wanted to drink, but didn’t dare. If I did I would die. Throughout the night I tried to sleep and comforted myself with the poem I seemed to have composed myself:

It helped. I slept. But the nightmares came again, all run together: Fat Dog in his patrolman’s uniform, exploding Chevys, golf course monsters. I woke up finally at two in the afternoon of the Big Day. I had been asleep for nine hours.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to calm the screaming in my mind. The poem helped some more. Gradually, tenuously, a semblance of electric calm emerged, and I ran with it.

14

The practicalities of my prelude to assassination came first, and taking care of them intensified my calm. I ditched the loaner car, bought a pair of surgical-thin rubber gloves at a hardware store, and changed into a T.V. repair jumpsuit I had bought on impulse at the thrift store in San Francisco. I took a commuter bus into Del Mar, where I killed time walking along the streets trying not to think. But at this I failed. I thought, frantically searching out my plan for hidden flaws and pumping myself up with logic. I was in danger of losing my electric calm.

Besides the basic assumption that Cathcart would spend the night at his house, I was counting on one other thing: that his intelligence, monomania and justified paranoia would preclude the keeping of any records detailing his malfeasance over the last ten years. Ralston and Kupferman were his executives, bonded to him by extortion and fear. Solly signed the documents, Hot Rod took care of his books. But now they were walking a duplicitous tightrope of “which Cathcart knew nothing. They were my allies, victims of my own benign extortion.

Around dark I got rid of my jumpsuit, which made me feel better. It had been good cover — I looked the part of an outsized T.V. repairman — but the clothes I was wearing underneath were better for night work: Levi cords, desert boots, and a cotton sportshirt with the tail out. My .38 was well hidden. The battery operated tape machine I was carrying looked indent. I was white and all right.

I found a pay phone near the beach and delivered the password to Mark Swirkal’s service. At eight o’clock precisely, heart thumping, skidding, and lurching, I walked to my destiny. There was a cool breeze and a very dark sky that outlined the stars brilliantly. I made my way down to the beachfront parking lot. There was a Landcruiser parked there, identical to the one I had seen outside Cathcart’s pad in Baja. I squatted down, lit a match, and examined the license plate. It was Cathcart’s.

I walked along the sand, carefully counting the number of houses from the parking lot. Cathcart’s was the sixth, and his lights were on. I hunkered down and walked around to his back yard, then hopped the fence. I tore my shirt and cut my hands on the barbed-wire, but my tension overrode the pain.

There was absolute silence in the little yard. I got out my gun and switched off the safety. I counted to one hundred, then placed the tape deck on the ground in the middle of the yard and pushed the “play” button. During the six second pause before the action started I ducked up against the wall next to the back door. Then it started. First the loud noise of glass breaking, then the bellboy’s voice screaming, “I told you to have my dinner ready, you stupid bitch! How many times have I told you that?!” More breaking glass — my falsetto screams — more breaking glass — the bellboy again — “Cook my dinner now, you fucking bitch! Or I’ll kill you.”

The back door slammed open. Cathcart was there, peering out into the night. I crouched and fired into his chest. The gun jammed with a loud click. Cathcart swiveled toward me and pointed his arm in my direction. I tried to move, but it was too late. There was a burst of noise, a flash of red and a slamming into my upper chest. I fell over and began to roll, still clutching my gun. Cathcart stood on his porch, turning his head, trying to adjust his eyes to the dark. I aimed and fired. This time it worked. Cathcart ducked, but not in time. I caught him somewhere in the torso, for he grabbed his chest as he flew backward into the service porch.

I got up and ran toward him, heedless of the possible consequences. As I got to him, he was lying on the floor. I was a perfect target framed in the doorway. Cathcart raised his arm to fire, but I threw myself on top of him before he could squeeze the trigger. I pinned his arm down with both my hands and brought my right knee into his groin, full force. Once. Then twice. Then again. Finally, he went limp and relinquished the grip on his weapon.

Panting, sweating, bleeding, and hysterical, I flung his gun back into the darkness of the house. Outside it was quiet. The tape had run out. In the darkness I started to babble. It was all over. I had blown it. I had won, and lost. There was just too much noise. The fuzz would come. So I waited, on the bloody floor, my body strewn across Cathcart’s.

I listened to his breathing through the overflow of my own. I tried to recite my poem, but I couldn’t remember the words. Once I thought I heard Cathcart stirring, so I clubbed him in the head with my gun butt. I started to shiver, drenched in sweat. Suddenly, I remembered my wound. It wasn’t sweat I was bathed in, it was blood. I felt for the wound. It was next to my shoulder blade, above my heart. Above my heart. Something dim resounded in my mind. I tore open my shirt and ran a hand over my back. When I found it I started to laugh. It was funnier than Walter at his best or the roasted dog. It was an exit wound and the blood that covered it was starting to congeal. I laughed until I passed out from shock.

When I awoke I checked the luminous dial on my watch. It was ten-fourteen. I flashed and did a double-take, then started to blubber. I had entered Cathcart’s driveway at nine-twenty. It was almost an hour later and no cops were on the scene. I listened to Cathcart’s uneven breathing for a second, recited jumbled fragments of my poem to myself, then gathered my strength and stood up. I staggered, my head reeled but I remained upright. I took a deep breath and it gave me confidence. I was certain none of my vital organs had been hit.

With a gigantic effort, I grabbed Cathcart’s arms and pulled him back into his house. It was slow going; he was a large man. I dragged him through the kitchen into a large carpeted area. I risked switching on a light. A modest living room, couch, coffee table and chairs were illuminated. I walked back and collected both our guns. Cathcart’s was a snub-nosed detective’s special.

I sat in a chair and stared at his inert body. He was a formidable-looking man. Iron gray-blond hair, sharp features. The body of an athlete at fifty-five. I knelt over him and opened his shirt. I had hit him in the left side of the chest. Almost as if in answer to my probings, Cathcart awakened and spat out a stream of blood. He looked at me. I looked back. I discerned immediately that he knew who I was. That was good. I wanted him to be lucid when I killed him. “Hi, Haywood,” I said in a hoarse voice, “you want some water?”

He stared some more, then finally nodded. I brought him two glasses of sink water. The first I threw in his face. It served its purpose. He yelled, spit out some more blood, and raised himself to his elbows, gritting his teeth against the pain. Crouching beside him, I placed a hand in back of his head and raised the glass to his lips. He took a tentative sip, then spit the water out, with a blood chaser, and gulped the rest of it down, regaining a degree of what I took to be his former malevolence. When he spoke the voice was rich, cold, and almost stentorian: “You realize that you are in way above your head, don’t you, Brown?”

“No, Captain, I don’t. I’d say you are.”

“I checked your personnel file, Brown. You were the worst scumbag ever to con his way into the department.”

“I’d say that’s relative, Captain. I’d say I was a bush league pinch hitter compared to you.”

“Comparing low-life scumbags doesn’t concern me. What exactly do you want?”

“You mean as the price for my silence?”

“Yes.”

“A million-dollar Welfare check. To be presented to me by you on national T.V. After the ceremony, you can make a little speech on your theory of nigger containment. You can retire from the department and begin a new career in politics.”

“Brown, literal-minded people like you often make good policemen, but you weren’t even that. How does it feel to know that what you’ve done with me will ultimately be judged as the biggest fuck-up of your fucked-up life?”

“I’d say that’s relative too, Captain, I’d say what I’ve done with you is the one saving grace of my fucked-up life. I’d say I’ve fucked over a lot of people in my life. Hurt a lot of people. Caused a lot of pain. But compared to you? Unleashing Fat Dog Baker on the world? That you can even compare the two of us is beyond comprehension. Can’t you see what you are?”

Cathcart smiled and spit out some more blood. “We all have saving graces, Fritz,” he said, “even you. I was struck by one of your fitness reports. One of your superiors wrote: ‘This officer seems to be interested in only two things: getting drunk and listening to classical music.’ I felt a strange affection for you when I read that. I love great music, too.”

“So did Hitler,” I said.

Cathcart nodded. “What exactly do you want, Brown? Revenge for your life?”

“I want to wipe you off the face of the earth.”

“I see. Will you take me into my den? There’s something I want to show you.”

I considered it for a second, then decided to do it. One final act of mercy. I helped him to his feet, my gun in his side. He reeled, but managed to limp the twenty feet or so to the den. I went in first, keeping him covered, and flicked on the light. It was a wood-paneled room, with an ornate walnut desk and two overstuffed leather chairs. I shoved Cathcart into one of them. He winced. I looked around the room. The walls were covered with framed photographs of police groups: groups of smiling patrolmen in uniform standing next to early 50’s vintage black-and-whites, groups of stern-looking plain-clothesmen in front of station houses, candid shots of cops at their desks writing reports. A wave of nostalgia hit me. This had been my life once. I pointed to the walls. “Is this what you wanted to show me?” I asked.

“No,” Cathcart said.

“That’s good,” I said, “because I’ve been there. Although there is one photograph I’d love to see.”

“What’s that?”

“You and Fat Dog with your arms around each other outside of a burning house. You and your ‘genius little boy.’ Tell me one thing: how did you nail him for the Utopia torch?”

“Very easy. I am a good police officer, unlike you. I had been seeing Freddy in the neighborhood for weeks. From his garb I knew he had to be a caddy. When the three men I caught described the ‘fourth man,’ I knew immediately who it had to be. I hung out at the various country clubs in L.A. until I found him. Then I extricated a confession, and that got me to thinking.”

“You filthy cocksucker,” I said.

Cathcart smiled. “Open the top drawer of my desk, will you, Brown?”

I opened it gingerly and found a velveteen book-style photo holder, the kind that wedding pictures are kept in. I opened it and gasped. Inside were two lovingly mounted likenesses of Anton Bruckner. “Do you know who that man is?” Cathcart asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“And of mine. But he’s more than that. Do you like his music?”

“I love it.”

“Good. You love Bruckner. But you don’t understand him. What his music meant. It’s about containment. Refined emotions. Sacrifice. Purity. Control. Duty. The muted melancholy throughout his symphonies! A call to arms. A policeman who loves Bruckner and you can’t feel his essence. He never wed, Brown. He never fucked women. He wouldn’t expend one ounce of his creative energy on anything but his vision. I have been Anton Bruckner, Brown. You can be, too. You come from good stock, you’re a big strong man. You can be of service, it’s just a question of reeducation. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll...”

I had had enough. The blood was pounding in my head so hard that I felt about to explode. I aimed my gun at Cathcart and shot him four times in the face.

I went into the living room and lay down on the couch. I fell asleep. I woke up four hours later, feeling hallucinogenic. A shower helped. I put on a pair of Cathcart’s pants and one of his shirts. I combed my hair. I collected my tape deck from the back yard and put it in a paper bag I found in the kitchen, along with my silencer fitted .38. I dumped the dope I had ripped off of Larry Willis all over Cathcart’s living room. I found the keys to the Landcruiser on the coffee table. I put them in my pocket. My hands were going numb from hours of wearing rubber gloves, but I kept them on.

I gave Cathcart one last look before I left. His face was obliterated, a gaping hole on top of his neck. Skull and brain fragments were stuck to the wall. His body and the chair he was sprawled in were a mass of drying blood. Rigor mortis was setting in and his arms were stuck in their last pose of reaching out to me.

I took the pictures of lonely Anton and put them in my paper bag, too. I left the death house, locking the door behind me, then drove to the motel and got my suitcase.

It was dawn when I got back to L.A. I was woozy from shock and lack of blood. I left Cathcart’s car on a side street in Santa Monica, then took a bus all the way out Wilshire to the Ambassador Hotel, which was within walking distance of Walter’s. My shoulder was numb, but aside from that and shock-induced fatigue, I felt all right.

After I ditched the rubber gloves, circulation slowly returned to my hands. It was a symbolic, life-enhancing feeling. Five seconds after croaking “Crazy, Daddy-O” to the girl at Mark Swirkal’s service I passed out on my freshly made-up hotel bed.

The next several days run together in my mind. I know that when I woke up at the Ambassador, I was in great pain from my shoulder wound and knew I had to do something about it. I remember taking a taxi to Irwin’s apartment off Melrose and Fairfax. He had a doctor brother I had been hearing about for years and now was the time to summon him. I remember that he came, along with Irwin’s nephew Uri, and that he immediately gave me a shot of something that sent me into the Twilight Zone. I remember Uri embracing me, delighted with his new position as Cal Myers’s repo man, waving his master keys in front of my face and calling me the “only good German in history.”

“I’m an American, you stupid fuck,” I retorted. “Brown is an American name.”

Irwin’s brother poked around and cleansed my wound, bandaged it and gave me some pain pills. They had a subtle effect. I thought my continued disorientation was due to shock and the trauma of murder, but I was wrong. It was due to a system full of codeine. I discontinued their use after two days. I couldn’t afford to be zoned out. I still had things to do before I could officially say “it’s over.”

Feeling returned to my shoulder. By Monday I could move it without too much pain. That morning I started to sweat out news of Cathcart’s death, buying all the local papers and hanging out in front of Walter’s newly-purchased T.V. set. There was nothing, just the usual rebop — Jimmy Carter had announced that he planned to campaign on “his record,” Reagan announced that he would run on “the issues,” and Walter offered a running commentary that kept me laughing until my shoulder ached.

I called Ralston Tuesday morning and gave him the good news.

“Cathcart’s dead,” I said into the phone, “it’s over.”

Ralston just said, “Thank God.” And let the line go dead.

On Tuesday night I dumped all the evidence of the killing into the Pacific Ocean: the gun, my bloody clothes, Cathcart’s clothes I had stolen, the tape deck, and the portraits of Anton Bruckner. I felt an impulse to keep the likenesses of lonely Anton, to give them a good, sane home, but they had become ghastly objects. I tore them into small pieces and fed them to the sea.

The next day, armed with a pocketful of dimes, I called the Welfare contacts on the list Ralston had given me. At the first sound of a voice on the other end of the line, I said “Cathcart is dead. The scam is dead. I have evidence linking you to fraud and extortion. Stop all payments now.” Before the listener could respond, I hung up. I connected with all but three of the people on the list. It was good enough. Ralston would take the brunt of their fear and grief, as well he should. He had gotten off easy.

News of Cathcart’s death hit the media Wednesday night. It was attributed to suicide. I was watching T.V. with Walter when I got the word: Haywood Cathcart, 56, Captain, Los Angeles Police Department, had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound sometime over the weekend at his “fishing retreat” in Del Mar. He had been a twenty-eight-year veteran of the L.A.P.D., was considered an exemplary officer, and was famous for “single-handedly cracking the famous Club Utopia firebombing case in 1968 that sent the slayers of six bar patrons to the gas chamber.” His superiors said that he had left no suicide note, but had been distraught recently over family matters.

As the somber-voiced newsman concluded his report, I started to weep. The fix was in. The L.A.P.D. had some inkling of what was up and had stonewalled it. If Cathcart had left no records. I was free.

Walter was dumbfounded at my tears. He had never seen me cry and had no idea of their origin. But he did his best to comfort me, embracing me and clumsily pawing my head. “What is it, Fritz?” he asked. “Did you know that cop who shot himself? Was he your buddy?”

I didn’t answer him, I just let myself be comforted. It was over. That night I went home to my pad, expecting to find it ransacked. It wasn’t. It was intact, waiting for me like an old friend. I looked at the calendar above my desk. On the space for June 30, I had marked, “Fred Baker — one week at one hundred twenty-five dollars per day.” It was now August 1. I had been in limbo for five weeks, had killed three men, had learned truths that few would know. I had been correct on the morning it all started. My life had been about to change, irrevocably.

The next morning I took a cab to the storage garage and got my old Camaro. I was reunited with another old friend, who had been washed and polished during my absence.

I called the Kupferman residence. It was time for the only reunion that mattered. The maid answered, distraught. “Mr. Kupferman had a heart attack last night. He’s in the hospital. He be real sick maybe gonna die.”

She started to ramble, but I cut her off: “What hospital?” I yelled.

“Cedars Sinai,” she said.

I hung up and tore out. The hospital was in West Hollywood, on Beverly near La Cienega, and by running lights and taking side streets I was there in fifteen minutes. I parked illegally and ran inside, flashing some absurd piece of fake I.D. at the reception lady and demanding to know where Sol Kupferman was. Cowed, she told me room 583, West Wing.

I jammed for an elevator and ran wildly down the corridors until I saw Jane sitting on a chair outside the room that had to be Sol’s. “Darling,” I called as I ran toward her, “is Sol all right?!”

Jane rushed toward me, screaming “Killer, killer, rapist, dissension center! Murderer, killer!”

We collided and she flung her fists and arms out at me with hysterical fury, scratching, clawing at my face, her eyes full of tears. I tried to control her, but it was no use. I had no will to be assertive, so I just let myself be pummelled. But she didn’t stop, and her screaming “killer, killer, killer!” was drawing a crowd of hospital people.

“I hate you, I hate the day I let you fuck me!” she screamed, then lunged inside my sportcoat and grabbed my gun out of its holster and leveled it at me. We both froze, and for long seconds there was silence in the corridor. Then she screamed “Murderer!” one last time, threw my gun against the corridor wall and ran away from me.

I retrieved the gun and made for the elevator, thinking— Oh God, oh God, oh God, was it all for nothing? Was Sol dead?

A large young doctor caught up with me outside the elevator. He was scared, but he wanted to know what was going on. I showed him my P.I.’s photostat and told him I was on a case and was licensed to carry a gun. He seemed satisfied. Then I asked him, “Is Sol Kupferman dead?”

“No,” he said, “he’s going to make it.”

I don’t remember what I felt as I left the hospital, except that there was nothing left for me in Los Angeles. Even though Sol was going to live, Jane’s hatred of me held a brutal finality. Our last moments together had been so ugly that I could never surmount them. I got in my car and drove to San Francisco.

15

I spent a week in San Francisco, waiting for my passport to come through, getting immunized and buying clothes and other provisions for a trip to Europe. I left the night of August 10, flying to New York with two suitcases and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and traveler’s checks. Before I left, I sent Mark Swirkal five thousand dollars in traveler’s checks and told him to destroy the tapes.

I got moderately drunk on the plane and full-out drunk in my hotel room near Kennedy International.

The following day I caught a Lufthansa flight to Munich. I was in Germany for two months, drunk and sober. I took a steamer up the Rhine. I caught the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan. They were magnificent, but only part of me was there for the performance. I visited Beethoven House in Bonn and Beethoven’s grave. I didn’t feel what I thought I would. I made love to a lot of very beautiful, high-priced German prostitutes. At the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth I got drunk and beat up two British students who seemed to be bothering a young Fraulein. In Stuttgart I broke down sobbing in a beer garden and was hospitalized with incipient d.t.’s.

At the end of October I flew back to America and settled in San Francisco. I rented an apartment in Pacific Heights and looked around for investments, something creative. I couldn’t find anything, and Frisco began to pall. It was too beautiful, too ethnic, too counter-culture. The people I passed on the street seemed to be congratulating themselves on their good taste in living there.

In May of the following year I returned to L.A. Repatriated to my smogbound hometown, I started to get on with the business of my life. I bought a house in the Hollywood Hills, near the Yamashiro Skyroom. I invested badly. First I set myself up as a sandwich entrepreneur with a small restaurant near the Music Center. It was a lunch and after-concert place that featured jumbo sandwiches named after composers. I was hoping the place would turn into a hangout for musicians from the Philharmonic, but it never happened. Finally, after an investment of eleven months and eighty grand, the joint folded. My next investment was safer and turned into a resounding success: I bought a liquor store on 3rd and Western in the heart of the old neighborhood. I’ve got a smart black guy who runs it for a grand a month and ten percent of the action, and a smart tax lawyer to help me hold onto my money. All I do is sit back and rake it in. As of this writing, I am worth seven hundred fifty-six thousand.

Shortly after returning to Los Angeles, I got a letter, postmarked New York from Jane Baker:

I do try to love. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes I’m drunk, sometimes I’m sober. Sometimes I think of Fat Dog and his “plan” for me and wake up shaking. Sometimes I forget completely about his malevolent genius. Why me? Since that summer I have interviewed at least a hundred people who knew Fat Dog, and I still have no inkling.

Walter died last year of cirrhosis of the liver. He was thirty-four. His mother had him buried with a Christian Science service. I got drunk and disrupted it. The fuzz came and busted me, but all it cost me was a hundred dollar fine. I miss him terribly. Some night I’m going to steal his coffin and transport it to the beach, where a big raft will be waiting. I’ll put Walter on the raft, ignite it, and send it out to sea. I’ll have speakers hooked up all along the beach to blast out Wagner as my beloved comrade floats to a fiery Valhalla.

I get restless sometimes at night and go for long walks on golf courses. While walking the fairways I feel very much in touch with some kind of transient spirit world, a world in constant ellipsis.

When I think of what happened that summer I think not of myself, but of the other people involved. Nothing that went before or will happen after can touch that summer when I was part of the insane, tragic music of so many people’s lives. That summer was my concerto for orchestra — each instrument in the orchestra having a voice equal, yet distinct from all the others.

So I go on, heeding Jane’s advice. I have not performed violence on a human being since hurting the two boys in Bayreuth. I try to appreciate beauty. Most of the time I’m equal to the task, but sometimes my mind turns to wild flights of fantasy, envisioning other electric calms and moral stands that might bring me permanent salvation. When I think of these things, my reason and love of beauty desert me and I hang suspended like a bizarre hovercraft in a holding pattern over Los Angeles. But I hold.

I listen to a lot of music.