by James Ellroy
“He got shot.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s a shame.”
“Yeah. I’m going to have a seat on one of those sofas facing the door. If our buddy shows up, you come and let me know, capische?”
“Yeah.”
By eight o’clock the bar was filled to half its capacity, and by ten the sustained darkness had me feeling like a bat in the Carlsbad Caverns.
At around eleven o’clock, Red walked over and nudged me. “That’s him,” he said, “at the bar. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt.”
I motioned Red away and sauntered past the man on my way to the men’s room, taking the stool next to him when I returned and catching a heady whiff of his lilac cologne. I called to Red loudly and ordered a double Scotch, in order to get a reaction from Eddie. He turned toward me, and I committed to memory a handsome face, delicate and arrogant at the same time, well-tanned, with curly, rather long brown hair, and soft, deep-set brown eyes. Eddie turned back quickly, engrossing himself in his martini and the woman sitting next to him, a skinny brunette in a nurse’s uniform who was courteously feigning interest in his conversation.
“…So it’s been good lately. The trotters, especially. Don’t believe what you read. There are systems that work.”
“Oh, really?” the brunette said, bored.
“Really.” Eddie leaned into the woman. “What did you say your name was?”
“Corrinne.”
“Hi, Corrinne, I’m Eddie.”
“Hi, Eddie.”
“Hi. You like the ponies, Corrinne?”
“Not really.”
“Oh. Well, you know it’s really just a question of getting to know the game. You know?”
“I guess so. I don’t know, it just bores me. I’ve got to go. Nice meeting you. Bye.”
The brunette got up from her stool and left. Eddie sighed, then finished his drink and walked back in the direction of the men’s room, stopping and standing in front of the full-length mirror on the wall and going through an elaborate ritual of smoothing his hair, brushing lint off his shirt, checking the crease in his trousers and smiling at himself several times from different angles. He seemed satisfied, as he should have been: he was the very prototype of the smooth-talking L.A. lounge lizard, designed to charm, manipulate, and seduce. For a split second, I felt revulsion at my own womanizing, before telling myself that my motives were certainly entirely different.
I moved to another seat at the back of the room that afforded me a view of the whole bar. I watched as Eddie unsuccessfully tried to put the make on three young women. I could feel his disgust and desperation as he paid his bill, killed his last martini and stormed out. Quickly I exited, and followed him down a side street. He got into a ’46 Olds sedan. My car was parked on the other side of the street, pointed in the opposite direction, so as Eddie drove off I sprinted for it. I gave him a thirty-second lead, then hung a U-turn and tailed him. Eddie turned left on Wilton then right on Santa Monica a mile later. He was easy to follow: his right taillight was out and he drove smoothly in the middle lane.
He led me to West Hollywood. I almost lost him crossing La Brea, but when he finally pulled to the curb at Santa Monica and Sweetzer, I was right behind.
After carefully locking his car, Eddie walked into a bar called the Hub. I gave him a minute’s lead, then walked in myself, expecting it to be a lively off-the-Strip pickup joint. I was dead wrong: it was a pickup joint, but there were no women in the bar, just anxious-looking men.
I braced myself and walked to the bar. The bartender, a fat bald man, appeared and I ordered beer. He sashayed away from me to get it and I looked for Eddie.
I spotted him first, then heard him. He was in a booth in the back, arguing with another man—a handsome, decidedly masculine man in his mid fifties. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but was momentarily troubled anyway—what was he doing here? I had thought he was a woman-chaser. The argument grew more heated, but I still couldn’t hear any words.
Finally, the other man shoved what looked like a large manila envelope at Eddie, got up, and walked out the back door of the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Eddie sitting very still in his booth, then he suddenly bolted for the front door. I hunched over my beer as he passed by, then chased after him.
As I was flinging open the door of my car, Eddie hung a tire-screeching turn north onto Sweetzer, heading up the steep hill to the Strip. I peeled rubber in pursuit and finally caught up with him as he was signaling a left-hand turn onto Sunset. I stayed right behind him for about a half mile until he turned right on a little street called Horn Drive and parked almost immediately. I continued on and parked some fifty yards in front of him, getting out of my car just in time to see him cross the street and enter the court of a group of Spanish-style bungalows.
I ran across the street, hoping to catch Eddie as he entered one of the units, but was out of luck. The cement courtyard was empty. I checked the bank of mailboxes on the front lawn, looking for Edward, Edwin, Edmund, or at least the initial “E.” No luck—the tenants of the fifteen bungalows were all designated by their last names only.
I went back to my car and pulled over to the other side of the street, directly in front of the entrance of the court, deciding to wait Eddie out. My curiosity about him was peaking; he was a volatile night owl and might well be leaving soon on another run.
I was wrong. I waited, and waited, and waited, almost dozing off several times, until nine thirty the next morning. When Eddie finally emerged, immaculately dressed in a fresh Hawaiian shirt, light blue cotton slacks, and sandals, I felt my enervation drop like a rock. I studied his face and body movements as he walked to his car, searching for clues to his sexual makeup. There was a self-conscious disdainfulness about him that wasn’t quite right, but I put it out of my mind.
Eddie drove fast and aggressively, deftly weaving through traffic. I stayed close behind, letting a few cars get between us. We drove this way all the way downtown to the Pasadena Freeway, out that tortuous expressway to South Pasadena, then east to Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia.
Entering the racetrack’s enormous parking lot, I felt relieved and hopeful. It was a brilliantly clear day, not too hot, and the parking lot was already filled with cars and plenty of people to hide me as I tailed my suspect. And I remembered what an old Vice cop had once told me: racetracks were good places to brace people for information—they felt sinful and somehow guilty about being there, and cowered fast when confronted with a badge.
I parked and sprinted to the entrance turnstiles. I paid my admission, then lounged, eyes downcast, next to a souvenir stand and waited for Eddie to show up. He did, a good ten minutes later, flashing a pass at the ticket-taker and getting a big smile in return. As he passed me, consulting his racing form, I turned my back.
The giant entranceway and passages leading up to the grandstand were filling up fast, so I let a solid throng of horseplayers get between us as we maneuvered toward the escalators that led to the betting windows. Eddie was going first-class: the fifty-dollar window. He was the only one in line there. He got a warm welcome from the man in the cage, and I could hear him plainly as I stood by the ten-dollar window a few yards away.
“Howsa boy, Eddie?” the guy said.
“Not bad, Ralph. How’s the action? You got any hot ones for me?” Eddie’s voice seemed strained under the ritualistic overtones.
“Naw, you know me, Eddie. I like ’em all. That’s why I’m working here and not bettin’ here. I love ’em all, too much.”
Eddie laughed. “I hear you. I got the system though, and I feel lucky today.” He handed the man a sheet of paper and a roll of bills. “Here, Ralph, that’s for the first four races. Let’s take care of it all now. I want to check out the scenery.”
The man in the cage scooped up the scratch sheet and money and whistled. He detached a row of tickets and
handed them to Eddie. He shook his head. “You might be takin’ a bath today, kid.”
“Never, pal. Seen any lookers around? You know my type.”
“Hang out at the Turf Club, kid. That’s where the class dames go.”
“Too ritzy for me. I can’t breathe in there. I’ll be back for my money at the end of the day, Ralph. Have it ready for me.”
Ralph laughed. “You bet, kid.”
* * *
—
I followed Eddie to his seat in one of the better sections of the grandstand. He bought a beer and peanuts from a vendor and settled in, reading his racing form and fiddling with a pair of binoculars in a leather case.
I was wondering what to do next when an idea struck me. I waited for the first race to start, and when the passageways cleared and the crowd started to yell, I made my way back down to the souvenir stand, where I bought the current issues of three magazines: Life, Collier’s, and Ladies’ Home Journal.
I took them into the men’s room, locked myself into a stall and thumbed through them, finding what I wanted almost immediately—five black-and-white photographs of rather ordinary women, taken from the neck up. I tore them out, left the rest of the magazines on the floor and placed the blowup photo of Maggie Cadwallader in the middle of the tear-outs.
Then I went looking for Ralph, the man at the fifty-dollar window. He wasn’t in his cage, so I strolled aimlessly through the now-deserted passageways until I spotted him walking out of the radio broadcasters’ booth, smoking a cigar and holding a cup of coffee.
He spotted me too, and some sort of recognition hit him even before I showed him my badge. “Yes, Officer,” he said patiently.
“Just a few questions,” I said. I pointed across the hall to a snack stand that had tables and chairs.
Ralph nodded patiently and led the way. We sat facing each other across a grease-stained metal table; I was brusque, even a little bullying.
“I’m interested in the man you were talking to at the window about a half hour ago. His first name is Eddie.”
“Yeah. Eddie.”
“What’s his last name?”
“Engels. Eddie Engels.”
“What’s his occupation?”
“Gambler. Punk. Wise guy. I don’t think he has a job.”
“I’m interested in the women he runs around with.”
“So am I! Ooh, la la!” Ralph started cracking up at his own wit.
“Don’t be funny; it’s not amusing.” I fanned the six photographs on the table in front of him. “Ever see Eddie with any of these women?”
Ralph scrutinized the photos, hesitated a moment, then placed a fat index finger square on the picture of Maggie Cadwallader. My whole body lurched inside and my skin started to tingle.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“How are you sure?”
“This tomato is a dog compared to some of the babes I seen Eddie with.”
“When did you see them together?”
“I don’t know—I think it was a couple of months ago. Yeah, that’s right, it was the day of the President’s Stakes—in June.”
I gathered up my photos and left Ralph with a stern warning. “You don’t breathe a word of this to Eddie. You got that?”
“Sure, Officer. I always figured Eddie wasn’t quite on the up and—”
I didn’t let him finish. I was out the door, looking frantically for a pay phone.
I called L.A.P.D. R&I, gave them my name and badge number and told them what I wanted. They got back to me within five minutes: there was no Edward, Edwin, or Edmund Engels, white male, approximately thirty years old with a criminal record in Los Angeles. I was about to hang up, then got another idea: I told the clerk to go through the automobile registration files for the last four years. This time he hit pay dirt: Edward Engels, 1911 Horn Drive, West Hollywood, owned two cars: the green ’46 Olds sedan I had tailed him in, and a ’49 Ford convertible—red with white top, license number JY 861. I thanked the clerk, hung up and ran out to my own car.
My next stop was Pasadena, where I looked for Ford and Oldsmobile dealerships. It took a while, but I found them and got what I wanted: advertising stills of their ’46 and ’49 models. Next I drove to a five and dime on Colorado Boulevard and bought a box of kiddie crayons. In the parking lot I went to work on my visual aids, coloring the Olds sedan a pale sea green and the Ford a bright fire engine red with a pristine white top. The results were good.
By this time it was one forty-five and getting very humid. I needed a shave and a change of clothes. I drove home, showered, shaved, and changed. I got out my diary and destroyed all the pages pertaining to my encounter with Maggie Cadwallader. Then I stretched out on the bed and tried to sleep.
It was no good. My brain wouldn’t stop running with plans, schemes, contingencies, and expectations. Finally I gave up, shooed Night Train out to the back yard, locked up, and drove to the Sunset Strip.
I timed it just right, parking my car in the lot of a gas station on Sunset and Doheny and starting off on foot. The nightclubs were just opening, gearing up for another evening of high-life, and the barmen, waiters, and parking attendants I wanted to talk to were fresh faced and had plenty of time to answer my questions.
I was developing a theory about Eddie Engels; that he was arrogant, cocky to an extreme, loudmouthed, and rather stupid—just stupid enough to bring women he was planning to harm or even kill into his own back yard to wine and dine. It seemed logical. He lived within walking distance of the hottest night spots in the city, and he clearly loved to be seen with women.
So I theorized, and walked east, showing my photograph of Maggie Cadwallader to parking lot attendants, doormen, maître d’s, and waiters. I hit every nightclub and juke joint on both sides of Sunset from Doheny to La Cienega—with no luck. I was about to admit defeat when I decided to start checking out restaurants, as well.
At my third one, I got my first confirmation. It was an Italian place and the garrulous old waiter nodded in recognition as I showed him the photo. He remembered Maggie from several weeks before, and was about to embark on a long discourse about the food she ate when I hissed at him, “Did she have an escort?”
Startled, the old guy smiled, said “sure,” and described Eddie Engels. He went on to tell me of all the “nicea-looking bambinas” the “nicea-looking young man” brought to eat there. It was enough confirmation, but I wanted proof. I wanted it covered thoroughly from every angle, so that when I presented my case to my superiors it wouldn’t leak an ounce of water.
I hit four more restaurants, all within five blocks of Eddie Engels’s apartment on Horn Drive, and got three more positive identifications from waiters who recalled Eddie as an extravagant tipper who talked loudly of his racetrack winnings. They remembered Maggie Cadwallader as being quiet, clinging to Eddie and drinking a lot of rum and Cokes.
I took down the names and home addresses and phone numbers of all my witnesses and ran back to my car. It was eight thirty, which gave me, I figured, about two hours before most people would be in bed.
I drove to Hollywood and started knocking on doors. The people I spoke to weren’t surprised: other officers had been around the week before asking questions. When I showed them my colored photos of the two cars, they were surprised. The other cops hadn’t asked anything about that—just about “strange things,” “funny stuff” that they might have seen or heard on the night of the murder. One after another they shook their heads. No one had noticed the ’46 Olds or ’49 Ford ragtop. I covered all of Harold Way and turned onto De Longpre, getting discouraged. Lights were starting to go off; people were going to bed.
On the corner of De Longpre and Wilton, I ran into three high school boys playing catch by the light of a streetlamp. I played it very palsy with them, even letting them look at my gun. Wi
th their confidence gained, I showed them my pictures.
“Hey!” the biggest of the three kids exclaimed. “What a sharp drop-top! Man, oh, man!”
One of his pals grabbed the photo and scrutinized it silently. “I seen a car like that. Right here. Just down the street,” he said.
“When?” I asked quietly.
The kid thought, then looked to the big kid for support. “Larry,” he said, “you remember last week, I snuck out and came over. Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. It was Monday night. I had to go to—”
I interrupted, keeping my voice stern and fatherly, “And the car was red and white like the one in this picture?”
“Yeah,” the kid said, “Exactly. It had a foxtail on the antenna, real sharp.”
I was ecstatic. I took down their names and phone numbers and told them they were on their way to becoming heroes. The kids were somber with the gravity of their heroism. I solemnly shook hands with all three of them, then took off.
I found a pay phone on Hollywood Boulevard and got Eddie Engels’s telephone number from Information. I dialed it, and let it ring fifteen times. No answer. Night owl Eddie was on the prowl.
I drove back to the Strip, turned north on Horn Drive and parked across the street from his bungalow court. I dug around in my trunk for some makeshift burglar tools and found some old college drafting stuff—including a metal T-square with thin edges that looked as if it could snap a locking mechanism. Equipped with this and a flashlight, I walked toward the darkened courtyard.
This time I knew to look for “Engels” on Number 11. It was three bungalows down, on the left-hand side. All the lights were off. I pulled open a flimsy screen door, looked in both directions, then covertly flashed my light on the inner door and studied the mechanism. It was a simple snap-bolt job, so I got out my T-square, transferred the flashlight to the crook of my left arm, wedged the metal edge between lock and doorjamb and pushed. It was hard, but I persisted, almost snapping the blade of the T-square. Finally, there was a loud metallic ka-thack, and the door opened.