by James Ellroy
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 undertstand?” Ralston nodded, cowering against a
nother 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.
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?”
