by James Ellroy
I pried off the windowscreen and climbed into his room. I lifted Walter onto his bed and stuffed two fifties into his shirt pocket. As I shut off the T.V., Godzilla was getting blasted by some sort of atomic death-ray. “I love you, you crazy bastard, but you break my heart,” I said, turning off the lights, and going out the window. It was getting chilly. I drove home and fell asleep on the couch with my clothes on.
II
Loopers and Cellists
The moral imperative of my case hit me when I woke up the next morning. Was Fat Dog Baker dangerous? Was he a physical threat to Sol Kupferman and Jane Baker? Exhibitionists are the most docile of sex deviates, but Fat Dog had shown a volatile streak. If he were planning to harm either his sister or Kupferman, it was my duty to stop him. Investigating Fat Dog with his own money struck me as wildly ironic, absurdist theatre in L.A. I decided to start in Venice.
I drove down LaBrea and caught the Santa Monica Freeway westbound. It was ten o’clock and the smog was starting to roll in. Maybe soon the environmentalists would outlaw cars, and I would have to find work repossessing horses. Fortunately for me, Cal Myers would see it coming and corner the market on beasts of burden. I could see it now: Cal’s Casa De Caballo, Cal’s Imports (Arabian horses, naturally) and Cal’s Palomino. Cal would be cutting his T.V. commercials knee deep in horseshit.
When I arrived in Venice, I parked in the exact spot where Fat had got out last night. I had a simple plan: Check out every vacant house, lot, and garage for four blocks south, and question whomever I ran into. Fat Dog was hard to miss, and someone in the area might be able to give me a lead. I walked. It was getting hot, and the coat and tie I was wearing didn’t help. I was getting wary looks from people sitting on their porches, taking the air. I looked like a cop. In Venice, no one but the fuzz wears a coat and tie.
The first two blocks were fruitless. On the third block I saw a wino wandering down the street, drinking from a brown paper bag. He had a wily, lucid look about him, so I gave him a toss. Whipping out my phony badge, I committed a misdemeanor: “Police officer,” I said. “Maybe you can help me.”
The wino gave me a frightened nod. When I finished describing Fat Dog, he practically screamed at me: “I seen that shitbird! Does he wear a shirt with a little crocodile on it? And a baseball cap?”
“That’s the guy.”
“What are you after him for?”
I made it good: “Molesting little boys.”
“I knew it! Once I was sittin’ on this driveway and the shitbird tells me to move my ass. He said it was his property. He looked like a crazy, so I moved. Shitbird.”
“Do you remember where you were?” I asked.
“Sure. The place is around the corner.”
“Take me there. Now.” We turned the corner and the wino led me to a small wood frame house. There was a dirt driveway that ran back into a yard overrun with weeds and high grass. In the rear of the yard was a tar-papered shack with no windows, standing awry atop a weed patch. It was a perfect visual representation of Fat Dog’s paranoia. I thanked the wino and told him to take off. He trotted away, giving me a funny look over his shoulder.
I decided to do a little breaking and entering. I checked out the front house first, knocking at the front door, then the back. No one home. I walked into the back yard. Broken toys lay strewn among the weeds. Luckily, the door to the shack was hidden from the street, and the lock was a joke: a simple hinge with two screws bolted into the door jamb and a carry over metal strip attached to a cheap padlock. I found a curtain rod in the yard among the broken toys. It had bent edges that looked thin enough to use as a screwdriver. I tried it. No go. My impatience got the best of me, and I wedged the rod inside the metal strip and snapped the whole mechanism off. The wood splintered, leaving craters where the screws had gone in. There was no way to cover my tracks.
I opened the door and fumbled for a light switch. I flipped it on, and an overhead bulb on a cord illuminated the dark corners of a man’s mind. It took minutes for the full import of the room to hit me, the photographs that covered the four walls were too staggering: women, mostly Mexican, in every conceivable posture of debasement with donkeys, horses, dogs, and pigs. Interspersed with them were photos of Hitler and his henchmen in various stern poses. Goering, Goebbels, Eichmann, Himmler, the whole sick crew. There was a workbench running along the back wall and above it was a collage of concentration camp atrocity photos: mounds of corpses hanging out of ovens and piles of skeletons lying in a mass grave.
When I checked out the contents of the workbench, I started to tremble. There were a half-dozen gallon cans of gasoline, empty bottles, stacks of asbestos padding, and a pile of safety gloves, all neatly stacked. In a cardboard box underneath the bench were dozens of celluloid strips and cord fuses arranged according to size. It was an arsonist’s workshop, and when the full implication of that hit me I started to tremble even harder: Kupferman. The Utopia. Fat Dog’s insane hatred of Solly K. Jesus. My head was pounding, beginning to ache, so I ransacked the place. Expecting to find money, I found nothing but porno books, cans of white paint, and historical tomes on Nazi Germany. I banged all along the rough wood walls, looking for places to hide small objects. Nothing. I got down on my hands and knees and checked the flooring all around. Nothing. I checked the photos on the wall a second time. The horror pictures were ripped out of the history books stored under the bench. The porno pics I judged to be recent and shot in Mexico: the actresses were Latinas and were sporting 70’s style hairdos and the furnishings of the apartment used as a shooting stage were up to date. In over half of the photographs a black naugahyde couch was in evidence, and it was covered with cheap bordertown souvenirs: bull banks, piñatas, handbags, and blankets.
The women in the photographs were uniformly ugly and pathetic looking, except one. She was an Anglo, about 17 or 18, with high firm breasts and a red natural. She was performing with men, not animals, indicating a higher status.
I tore half a dozen of the pictures from the walls and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. It was broiling in the room, and I suddenly realized I was drenched in sweat. Before I left I tried a con job. Since there was no way to cover my tracks, I tried to put the blame on some local punks. Maybe Fat Dog would fall for it. I pried open a can of paint, found a brush and painted “Death to honkys,” “Crips Rule,” and “Criplets Venice” on the outside wall near the door. Then I ripped more photos off the walls, threw them on the floor and dumped the can of paint on top of them. I left the door open and split for the car, hoping no one would see me. I had myself a real case now.
I went looking for a telephone. In Venice that takes some doing. Pay phones are easy prey for Venetian junkies and the first three I checked out had been gutted. I finally found one that worked and called Mark Swirkal’s office. Swirkal runs an attorney service, delivering writs and summonses and filing court papers. He knows the L.A. court system from every angle and can locate any official paper within a matter of hours. He had hired me a few times to serve summonses to hardcase types, and now I was shooting him some business in return.
I told him what I wanted. The Club Utopia firebombing case: the names of the victims, the name of the owner and his last known address, the names of the cops who made the arrests, the name of the insurance company and agent who serviced the claim, and, most importantly, notes on all testimony pertaining to the alleged “fourth man.” I promised him a C-note and told him I would call back in four hours. He hung up, chomping at the bit.
I walked across the street to a burrito joint, and scarfed up an enchilada plate and coffee. My head was reeling with the implications of what I had just learned. It gave me a headache, so I got some Excedrin out of the glove compartment and chased four of them with coffee. Somehow my mind quieted. My speculations would be futile until I talked to Mark Swirkal. But one theme emerged: I wanted it to be Fat Dog, for the sake of my own revenge. The L.A.P.D. with its overblown reputation blows a big time, highly publicized murder case onl
y to have it solved years later by a former flunky cop they forced to resign. Almost reflexively I sized myself up in the full-length mirror at the back of the restaurant. My appearance was inconclusive: an outsized thirty-three-year-old man, neither handsome nor ugly. Personal qualities and morality open to interpretation.
I had three-and-a-half hours to kill before calling Swirkal, so I got the car and went cruising. I drove by Kupferman’s fur showroom, and saw his car parked in front. Relieved, I drove by his big house north of Sunset. CELLO-1 was parked in the driveway and faint cello chords drifted toward me across the broad front lawn. I stopped my car to listen and threw Jane Baker my silent resolve: that as long as I was around, no one would hurt her or her benefactor. I decided to go see Mark Swirkal in person.
Mark’s office was in a dingy turn of the century building on 6th and Union, just outside downtown L.A. proper and close to all the midtown courts. The building had been ruled unsafe after the big ’71 earthquake, but never condemned. Mark loved to save a buck and the attorneys he worked for didn’t care where he hung his hat; he was the fastest process server and courthouse bulldog in L.A.
I took a rickety elevator to the third floor. His waiting room was open and sparsely furnished—two folding metal chairs with Harbor General Hospital stenciled on the back and a stack of Playboys and Good Housekeepings on the floor. I opted for a Playboy.
Swirkal showed a few minutes later and led me into his office, which was smaller and more cluttered than mine, and not air-conditioned. We shook hands, then he opened his window and his mouth. Mark talks very fast. “I got what you wanted, Fritz. More or less. The trial was short so the transcript was short, first off…” Mark waited while I got out my notepad and pen. “First off,” he continued, “the Club Utopia was insured. The agent who sold the policy also investigated it for the company, Prudential. His name is James McNamara. The victims’ names were Philip Crenshaw, Henry Hadwell, Jacqueline Gaffany, Anthony Gonza-fez, William Eastero, and Margot Jackson. You got that, Brownie?”
I caught up with him. “Keep going,” I said.
“Okay. The arresting officer was Detective Lieutenant Hay-wood Cathcart, 77th Street Division. Now regarding the so-called fourth man. He was described as ‘a short fat guy, kind of grubby … a red-faced man in his late twenties … fat and mean looking … but no wimp. He had on one of those little tennis shirts with the crocodile on the pocket.’” Fat Dog. Eureka. Salvation. Mark went on talking, but I didn’t hear a word he was saying. Finally, he stopped. “What’s the matter, Brownie? I got lots more testimony on the fourth man.”
“Skip it. I’ve got enough.”
“Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine. Tell me about the owner of the Utopia.”
“Okay. His name is Wilson Edwards. There was no mention of his address in the transcript.”
I gave Mark Swirkal a big nervous smile and handed him two of Fat Dog’s fifties. “Good work, Daddy-O,” I said.
Mark stuck the money into his pocket. “You want to tell me what this is about?” he asked. “The Utopia bombing is a dead issue.”
“I can’t now. Someday I will, though. Right now, I’d like to use your phone.”
“You go right ahead. I’ve got to split. Lock the door behind you.”
“I will.”
We shook hands again, then Mark thanked me and gave me a puzzled look as he headed out the door. When I heard him get into the elevator I let out a giant whoop of joy and reached for the telephone.
I called Prudential Insurance at their main office on Wilshire. Yes, James McNamara still worked for them. No, he was not in at the moment. I convinced his secretary to relinquish his home phone number. He answered on the second ring. I told him I was a writer doing a book on famous Los Angeles crimes. Would he consent to an interview on the Utopia case? He would indeed. He sounded almost eager. We agreed to meet at a restaurant near his home in Westchester at eight-thirty tonight. When I hung up I let out another whoop of joy, this one even louder.
I pulled into the parking lot of the steakhouse on Sepulveda at exactly eight twenty-five. I inquired after McNamara with the maitre d’, and he pointed out a large man drinking alone at the bar. I walked up and introduced myself. McNamara grasped my hand warmly. He had the lonely, desperate look of a brother juicehead hungry for company. I judged him to be in his late forties, and about a quarter of the way drunk. We adjourned to a table, where I laid out a spiel about the book I was writing. When our waitress came, he ordered a double martini and opened up.
“The Club Utopia firebombing was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” McNamara said. “I went all through Korea with the infantry company and saw nothing to compare to it. The fire itself was no big deal. It was out by the time I got there. It was the bodies that were so terrifying. They were roasted beyond recognition and swollen up like pork sausages. There was a liquor store that was still open down the street, and there was a big crowd of rubber-neckers hanging around, guzzling out of paper bags. When the stiffs got carted out and the smell hit, there was a regular epidemic of puking. Booze puke all over the street and the smell of those bodies. Jesus.”
“It was funny,” he said, “I was a claims investigator in those days, but I was selling policies on the side. I sold a full coverage policy to Edwards, the owner: damage, vandalism, fire, theft, comprehensive—strange for a cheapshit little bar like that, but what the hell? I was watching T.V. when the news bulletin came on. ‘Bar bombed! Six dead!’ Naturally, I hotfooted it down there fast since I knew it would be on my caseload.”
“And Edwards survived the bombing and collected a settlement, right?”
“Right. He wasn’t there that night. He got the thirty-five-thousand total coverage payment. Since it was an open and shut case, the cops nabbing the bombers so quick, we paid off fast.”
“What happened to Edwards?” I asked.
“Beats me,” McNamara said. “He took the money and ran. Wouldn’t you? He was a character, in and out of trouble all his life. When I sold him the policy, I attached a note to the file recommending thorough investigation of all claims he submitted. Of course, the bombing was the only claim he submitted, and it was legit.”
My steak arrived and I dug in. McNamara ordered another double martini. He was on his way.
“Can you give me a full description of Edwards?” I asked. “Full name, D.O.B., last known address?”
“Can do,” he said. “After you called, I stopped by the office and picked up the file. What I don’t remember, this baby does.” He rummaged through some papers on his lap. “Here it is. Wilson Edwards. Born Lincoln, Nebraska, 12–29–33. White male, brown and blue, 5'11", 180. A couple dozen arrests, through 1960. Minor stuff: trespassing, second degree burglary, possession of marijuana, shoplifting. When I sold him the policy in ’66 his address was 341 S. Bonnie Brae, Los Angeles.”
I wrote it all down. “Were you satisfied with the police investigation?” I asked. “What about the ‘fourth man?’”
“‘The fourth man’ was bullshit. The killers, Magruder, Smith and Sanchez, were buddies—painters. They were in the Utopia earlier that night. Drunk. They got fresh with some women and were bounced by the bartender. They came back just before midnight. Magruder opened the door and threw a three-gallon pail of gasoline into the bar. Sanchez followed it with a lighted book of matches. Six people fried to death. Smith was out in the car sleeping. Several survivors of the fire saw Magruder and Sanchez do it. Two men who survived had worked with Magruder and knew his address. He and Sanchez were arrested later that night in the driveway of his apartment building. They were both passed out from their drunk. They got Smith at his house later that morning. The ‘fourth man’ routine was just a dodge to beat the death penalty. It didn’t work. They all went to the gas chamber.”
I pressed on. “The arresting officer was named Cathcart, right?”
“Right. Haywood Cathcart. A choice asshole. When I got to the scene, right in the middle of the who
le commotion, fire trucks, police cars, reporters, I saw a group of plainclothes cops talking. I tell them I represent Prudential as an investigator, and would they mind talking to me. Cathcart won’t even let me finish. He yells at me that this is police business, that he doesn’t want any insurance bimbo fucking things up. Then he has a harness bull escort me to my car. A choice shithead.”
“Let’s talk about the victims,” I said. “Did you pay out any money to their next of kin?” I was fishing now, hoping to luck onto something that would start my wheels turning. McNamara consulted his memory and his martini.
“Yeah, we did,” he said. “Ten thou apiece to the next of kin of four of the victims. The other two victims were elderly transients with no known next of kin.”
“Did any relative or friend of the victims sue? Either your company or Edwards? Or make any trouble?”
McNamara laughed. “No one sued, but one loco made a lot of trouble. Anthony Gonzalez’s kid brother, Omar. Tony Gonzalez was a Golden-Glover back in the 50’s. Omar worshipped him. He was about sixteen when his brother got French fried, and to say that he took it hard would be an understatement. He was probably the only one in L.A. who believed the fourth man existed, and Jesus Christ, did he make a stink about it. He pestered the cops, found out I was investigating the case for the insurance company, and then pestered me. He bugged the newspapers. It was insane. You remember the Joe Pyne Show? Every week he’d be in the audience. They had this thing called the Beef Box, where people from the audience could get up and air their gripes. Every fucking week Omar would be up there, running off at the mouth about the Utopia case and how the fuzz let the mastermind get away. He said the mastermind, that was what he called him, had a grudge against one of the victims and so he bombed the bar just to kill that one person. That way the cops wouldn’t check that one person’s enemies out. Kill six to get one. He said that Sanchez, Magruder, and Smith were just dupes. When they were executed, he took out a black-bordered ad in the L.A. Times. A full page. ‘When will the mastermind responsible for the death of my brother be brought to justice?’ etc. He used to hang out at 77th Street and buttonhole Cathcart, give him a hard time, expound on his latest theory. He bugged me a lot too, but I never resented it. Omar was a very bright kid, but his brother was strictly a punk. A barfly reliving his days of fistic glory. You remember a book—they made a movie out of it—Magnificent Obsession? That’s what it was for Omar.” McNamara’s eyes were clouding over with booze and nostalgia.
