by James Ellroy
“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 Kupfer-man’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, a
nd 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.