by James Ellroy
Christine was my next inamorata: a car hop at Stan’s Drive-in, catty-corner from Hollywood High. Christine wrote incomprehensible poetry and talked in riddles and metaphors. She was insane, a profound piece of passion pie one moment, a willful shrew the next. What a body! The last I heard she was a topless showgirl in Vegas.
It was a beautiful L.A. summer evening, ideal for the Bowl. Cruising west on Sunset with the top down my mind took flight with bits and fragments of the passing scene: the Strip gearing up for another go at nightlife, the giant lighted signs proclaiming rock groups and other coming attractions, the callow idolators of electric music cliquing up in front of the Whisky A Go Go. And punk rock was out in force, well represented by skinny teenagers in ’50s garb sporting green and blue hair and wrap-around sunglasses. One distaff punk rocker led another by a leash attached to a spiked dog collar. It was very naive, and I was feeling too good to be offended.
Stopped at the light at Sunset and Doheny, I checked my watch, then hitched myself up in my seat and gulped in the moment: 6:42 P.M., Friday, July 2. I committed the night air, the cloud formations, and the faces of the passersby to memory. It was my moment, spawned by my covenant, and it would never be again. The light changed and I drove into Beverly Hills.
I parked my old Camaro in the long circular driveway behind Jane’s Cadillac. Sol Kupferman’s newer, darker one was gone. I rang the doorbell and first notes of the choral part of Beethoven’s Ninth sounded off in chimes. A nice touch, no doubt added by Jane.
She threw open the door a moment later and bid me enter. I did. The living room was huge and lavishly appointed. Jane swept an arm toward the vast room, as though encouraging me to take it all in, but all I could look at was her. Her hair was down to her shoulders and she wore only the slightest touch of makeup. She looked demure yet sophisticated, a study in feminine charisma.
“Hi,” I said. “You look good.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Is Sol around? I want to sell him some fire insurance.”
“Very amusing. No, Sol is not around. Run into any firebugs lately?”
“No, but I have run into a few caddies who might serve in that capacity. I prowl golf courses at night, hunting for golf balls and sleeping in sand traps. Take me to your wisest golfer.”
Jane cracked up, doubled over in laughter and grabbed my arm for support. “Laughter in the face of adversity,” she said, “what a scream. It’s kind of decadent, but it feels good. Look, I’ve found two of those letters you wanted. But don’t read them tonight, okay? I don’t want to talk about the whole bum trip.”
“Okay, I was going to suggest the same thing.”
Jane squeezed my arm. “Good,” she said. “Wait here and I’ll get them. Then we can leave.” She scurried off upstairs and I eyeballed the room. Interior decoration doesn’t send me, but I can recognize superb design when I see it. The room had high ceilings; the walls were a rich mustard color. They were hung with oil paintings of sailing ships and landscapes from the last century. Large, tufted floral couches and easy chairs were arranged concentrically. Rich, dark wood was in abundance. The wide bay windows that fronted the street would provide gently reflected sunlight on bright days and a great muted view on darker ones. It seemed like a good place to live.
Jane returned with the letters and I stuck them into my back pocket without examining them. “Nice pad,” I said, “out of the low-rent district.”
Jane smiled. “I feel comfortable here,”
“I’m glad. You deserve it. Now let’s get out of here.”
We drove east. Darkness had fallen and the stars shining in the clear sky competed with garish neon for primacy and won. They didn’t usually, but the completeness of this night altered my perceptions of everything, including my city.
Jane and I talked comfortably.
“Why the cello, Jane?” I asked. “It seems an odd choice for a fledgling music lover. The piano or the violin seem more likely. Their virtuosity is overwhelming to a person just starting to appreciate music.”
“Very true. I’ve asked myself the same question a million times. With me the cello was love at first hearing. It reflected all my deep, inchoate feelings. You know, the sadness, the weltshmerz that sensitive young girls feel. And it seemed so stable, so steeped in tradition! Anyway, I just flipped for it. And I started listening selectively, too. When I came to live with Sol, he bought me a stereo and hundreds of records. And I fell in love with string quartets. Someday I’ll play with a good quartet, and that will be home.”
“You’re home now. Savor these years of practice and study. I know that when, years from now, you reflect on your life, you’ll consider them among your finest.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment, Fritz. How did you become interested in music?”
I laughed. “It was sort of funny and totally unexpected. I was twenty-one and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. My parents had died recently and I was totally up in the air. They had wanted me to attend college and enter one of the professions. I went to Cal State for a year, to placate them, but I hated it. Their death let me off the hook. I was working for a gardener part time and living off the money from their insurance policy. One afternoon we were trimming shrubs in Pasadena and I heard thunderous, powerful music coming from the house of the people we were working for. It was the Eroica. It knocked me flat on my ass. I felt that I had come home, too.”
“And you decided to become a musician? And it didn’t work out?”
“Wrong. I decided to become a cop.”
It was Jane’s turn to laugh and she did, heartily. “That’s so funny! What a non sequitur! Why did you quit the police force?”
“That’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you later tonight, if the music moves me to confession. I love Brahms and the L.A. Philharmonic isn’t half bad, but I can’t stand Mehta.”
She could tell that I didn’t want to talk about my police experiences, so she let it pass.
I turned north onto Highland. The Bowl traffic was already heavy. By the time we reached Franklin, we were crawling at a snail’s pace. As we arrived at the vast expanse of parking area, I looked out with affection at the throngs of music lovers, nightlife lovers and just plain lovers all hurrying toward a summer rendezvous with Brahms.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jane dig into her purse for cigarettes and matches. She lit a cigarette nervously, inhaled, and threw it out the window. I pulled to the curb, my spirits sinking.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Reality, I guess. I just know I can’t take the goddamned Hollywood Bowl.” I felt my spirits hit bottom.
“Shall I take you home?”
“No. I just don’t want to be around people.”
“A drive, then?”
Jane smiled. “All right.”
We ended up in Ferndell Park, with its eucalyptus-shaded walkways and fish ponds. I was at a loss for small talk, so I impulsively took Jane’s hand as we walked uphill toward the picnic grounds. Jane squeezed mine, and when I turned to look at her she gave a warm smile. “I love this place,” she said. “You know L.A., don’t you, Fritz?”
“I’ve lived here all my life. I think I know it. But it’s changing. Every time I look around another landmark from my childhood is gone. Are you from L.A., Jane?”
“More or less. I was born here. My parents moved to Monterey when I was one. They died there, and the foster homes I lived in were here. Do you have a family?”
“No, my parents died within six months of each other when I was twenty. You know, it’s funny. Most of the people I know are orphans or come from fragmented families—you and I, my friend Walter, the man I do a lot of work for. All strays awash in a sea of neon, all trying to survive and find a little more than survival.”
Jane smiled at my half-hearted attempt at poetry. “You said earlier that you’d tell me why you quit the police force,” she said.
“It’s an ugly story, Jane. Are you sure y
ou want to hear it?”
She squeezed my hand briefly. “Yes,” she said. “I called Lieutenant Holland this afternoon, to check you out. I didn’t tell him why I needed the information, just that we had met and you offered him as a reference. He said that you were a good man, but when I asked him if you were a good police officer, he was ambiguous. You can tell me, Fritz.”
“All right. I was a shitty cop. I was drunk a good deal of the time, so I got shunted off to Hollywood Vice. A sympathetic sergeant told me I’d fit right in with the kind of people the Vice Squad dealt with: drunks, dopers, hookers, bookies, pimps, homosexuals, and perverts. The cream of Hollywood society. I did fit in and I enjoyed the job for a while. But gradually the despair of hassling people who should have been left alone got to me. I was depressed so I drank and popped uppers to kill the depression. Which brings us to Blow Job Anderson. He was a character out of my youth, from the old neighborhood, a legendary pervert who was seducing twelve-year-old boys when Walter and I were that age. He was six or seven years older than us. He was still living in the neighborhood and Walter told me he was seducing a new generation of kids. After I’d been working Hollywood Vice for eight or nine months, I found out that Blow Job Anderson was a big time informer to Narcotics Division. I went to the Commander of Narco and told him that Blow Job was a known pervert who had been seducing young boys since I was a kid. He told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. He didn’t do a goddamned thing. I went to the guys in Narco themselves, and told them. They didn’t care, either. They told me to cool it, that I had no proof, and that Anderson was a good snitch they couldn’t afford to lose. Finally, word came down from the commander of Hollywood Station: ‘Shut your mouth about Blow Job Anderson.’ I knew what I had to do. I got drunk one night and went looking for Anderson. I found him and broke both his legs with a lead filled baseball bat. I told him if I ever heard he was still bothering kids, I would kill him. While he was lying on the ground screaming, I poured a five pound bag of sugar into the gas tank of his Corvette. When I went to work the next day I was summoned to the Captain’s office. He handed me a resignation form. ‘I strongly suggest that you sign this,’ he said. I did. Farewell, police career.”
I had begun my story seeking absolution and had ended it on a note of intransigent pride. I wondered if Jane had noticed it. We stared at each other.
Finally, she spoke. “I don’t care. I don’t think any more or less of you for what you’ve told me. You just saw corruption that you couldn’t take. You—”
“That wasn’t it,” I interrupted. “I wasn’t an outraged moralist like most cops. I let plenty of perverts slide. I came down hard on others. It was arbitrary, dictated by mood. What I couldn’t take was that Blow Job Anderson was more valuable to the L.A.P.D. than Fritz Brown. That was what ate me up.”
“Did you abuse your power often when you were a policeman?”
“Yes, and terribly.”
“I understand. You were a Dissension Center. You were drinking, but now you’re sober. I was a Dissension Center, too. I loved power. Sexual power. I laid half the boys at St. Vibiana’s. I loved having them want me, knowing that I could say ‘no’ and castrate them. Knowing that I could get what I wanted by offering my body in barter. But that was then. Now I have my cello. There’s a good chance I’ll be accepted at Juilliard in January. Now I’m a Unity Center. You are, too. You don’t hurt people anymore, do you?”
“No,” I lied.
“And you’re not drinking. Do you have plans for the future?”
“Not really. I’m going to Europe this fall, though. A musical holiday. Germany and Austria.”
“So am I! Sol has been pushing me toward a vacation for years. I’ll probably leave in October.”
“Maybe we can travel together,” I blurted out.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane said, almost mockingly, “but right now what I’d like to do is listen to some good chamber music on a good stereo.”
“I know just the place. I live there. Shall we go?”
“Yes, please.”
So we went to my apartment, a few minutes’ drive away. But we didn’t listen to chamber music, we made our own. It was an urgent coupling, freighted with knowledge that tomorrow reality would come down hard. Afterward, I hooked up the bedroom speaker and put some Vivaldi on the turntable, with the volume down low. We lay in bed holding hands and not talking until I couldn’t stand it any longer and burst out laughing. “Jane, Jane, Jane,” I said. “Jane, a very traditional name. I like that.”
She laughed along. “Fritz is a good ethnic name,” she said, “I like that. You’re scowling, dear. What is it?”
“I never know how I stand in situations like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, will there be a next time?”
“Anytime. Including now.”
I reached across the bed and pulled her toward me. We held each other tightly for several minutes, then made love again, this time more for reassurance than passion. Then we fell asleep.
I awoke at eight o’clock. I heard water running in the bathroom, and Jane came out a moment later, fully dressed. I knew from the look on her face that reality had hit. “Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning. I have to go. I have my lesson at nine-thirty.”
“What is it?”
“What the hell do you think it is?”
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes!”
I told her, omitting nothing. From Fat Dog’s visit to my office, to the Utopia firebombing, to Sol Kupferman’s past, to my assessment of her brother’s psychoses, to the Omar Gonzalez angle. Jane’s reactions ranged from head-shaking denials, to trembling, to sobbing. When she started to cry, I let her, making no move to provide comfort. I wanted her to be afraid. Finally, surprisingly, anger took over. Her wet face went red. I handed her a handkerchief and she wiped away tears. When she spoke, it was with heart-stopping resolution: “Get him, Fritz.”
“I will.”
“Do whatever you have to do. I don’t want him hurting Sol or anyone else.”
“I will.”
“Would you take me home now, please?”
“Yes.”
Jane rounded up her things while I pulled out the car. We drove to Beverly Hills in tense silence. A dozen funny, cheery remarks came into my mind, but I rejected them as fatuous. Finally, I spoke. “We have to talk about a few things, Jane.”
“All right.”
“I want you to tell Kupferman what I’ve told you. Tell him to be careful, to keep his bodyguard around at all times. Tell him that I want to talk to him when I get back from Mexico. Will you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him also that I don’t give a damn about any of his past dealings. That includes the bookie operations at the Utopia. Tell him all I’m interested in is seeing Fat Dog put away.”
A flash of anger came into Jane’s eyes. “You’re sure of what you’ve told me?” she said, her voice rising. “That Sol was book-making in the late ’60s? Fifteen years after the grand jury? I won’t have him slandered by anyone, including you!”
I looked over at her. “Easy, sweetheart. I’m sure. And it’s hardly slander. Bookmaking should be legal.”
Jane shook her head. Her whole manner was like a stifled scream. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I know I’m strong enough to stand all this, but I’m not sure about Sol.” I put my free hand on her knee and squeezed. She didn’t respond. I pulled up across the street from the Kupferman mansion. Jane and I looked at each other. I didn’t want a protracted goodbye and I sensed she didn’t either. “Be careful in Mexico,” she said.
“You be careful here. Practice well. You can give me a recital when I get back.” We kissed hard and in an instant Jane was out of the car and running across the street toward the large house.
Driving away, I did a fairly good job of putting Jane out of my mind and concentrating on what I had to do next: find a quiet spot to
read Fat Dog’s letters. I pulled into the large parking lot at Hancock Park, and found a bench in the shade, surrounded by elderly Jews killing a summer midmorning, and a slew of plaster dinosaurs killing eternity. The letters were undated and barely legible. The postage stamps had been ripped off all three when they were opened. Jane had said they were recent, though, within the past month. I plunged in:
“Deer Jane, my sister, I hope you are feeling good. I am too. I’ve been doing good at Bell-Air, lots of juicy loops. I’m the king there. They got nothing but winos looping there. I saw on T.V. this musical show, this big orchestra. They showed this woman playing that thing like you play. Only she don’t play as good. I could tell. You dont need that scum Kupferman no more. I know. Jews got big money but they don’t know the score. I do. I got a rich friend who does to. He likes me. I don’t have to loop no more. I just do it cause I love golf. Soon I will be going to Mexico. To retire kind of. Live like I should, like a king. The king of caddies and king of dog racers. Why don’t you come to? I’ve got lots of $!!!!!!! I know a feemale grayhound pup I can buy for 200!!!!! We can breed her and go big time at the track in T.J.!!!!!! Raise lots of pups, all champs!!! In Mexico they treat white people like kings!!!!! Tell that bastard Sol K to fuck off!!!! Come to Mexico and be with your family!! My friends got a big castle neer Ensinada. We can go fishing. You can play your thing in piece with nobody to bug you. My buddy can get you into a good band. All white. Listen to me!!!!! Jane!!!!! I’m your brother, your only kinn!!! A talented girl like you should stay with her family. We can have good times, like the old days before the Jew and the fiddle. Call me at the Tap & Cap 474-7296. Leave a messige and we can get together and go to Mexx. Don’t dellay, call todday. Ha! Ha! I love you. Your brother, Freddy.”
It was about what I had expected, grammatically and thematically, yet none of Fat Dog’s surprising intelligence and cunning shone through. I quickly read the other two letters. They were simply repetitions of the first, but they reinforced my hunch that Fat Dog was now in Mexico, and that his rich friend might not be a figment of his imagination and might be a possible lead. I was itching to get started. But I had to see Walter first to check on his well-being and say au revoir. There was a fear on the back burner of my mind that I might never see him again. I quashed it and stuck Fat Dog’s letters in my pocket and hotfooted it to the old neighborhood.
