“Then there’s Dirt Road Dave. The ugliest guy I ever seen. Got this lantern jaw that sticks out about two feet. Used to hit all the invitationals. No caddy master would let him loop regular. He couldn’t even work Wilshire, and that’s the bottom of the line. So he’d loop invitationals to supplement his welfare check. He had a regular routine: at the end of the day, when all the loopers were hanging around the caddy shack, he’d chug-a-lug a half pint of bourbon, get up on a card table and suck his own dick. We used to throw quarters at him while he did it. He was one of the most famous caddies on the West Coast. Then he made his big mistake. He started doing it in public. The public didn’t understand. Only caddies and perverts could dig his act. Old Dave’s in Camarillo now.
“It’s the loneliness, that’s what gets me about looping. All these sad motherfuckers with no families, no responsibility, don’t pay no income tax, nothing to look forward to but the World Series pool at the Tap and Cap, the Christmas party in the caddy shack, the next drunk, or the big horse that never hits. We got this college kid, a real smart kid, who loops weekends, and he says that caddies is ‘the last vestige of the Colonial South. Golf course cotton pickers lapping at the fringes of a strained noblesse oblige.’ He said that we were a holdover from another era, that we were a status symbol, and it was worth it for clubs to keep us around, to uphold their image.
“Caddies on the pro tour is absolutely necessary, of course, but that’s another story. The club caddy is on his way out. Carts is coming in. Riviera went cart three years ago. Caddies is gonna blow it. They’re too unreliable. Never showing up, or showing up drunk. I’m lucky. If worst comes to worst, I can always do reupholstering. That’s my trade, but I hate it. I like looping for the freedom. I’m my own boss, except for the time I’m picking cotton. Besides, it ain’t too late for me to change my life. I’m only thirty-nine, like Jack Benny. My probation officer and my shrink have been helping me out a lot. I ain’t stolen no cars in over a year. Group therapy’s been helping me. My shrink tells me I don’t have to be a caddy if I don’t want to. That I can be what I want.
“It ain’t that way for Fat Dog, though. He’s locked into it. He don’t want to do nothing else. He hates niggers and he hates Jews, and that’s all he’s got. The shrink told me that people who hate other people real bad usually hate themselves. Maybe that’s how it is with Fat Dog. He’s got no friends, except Augie Dougall, who’s the only one in the world lame enough to put up with his shit. Fat Dog is always talking about this rich and powerful guy he knows, that he’s gonna team up with someday, but that’s bullshit. Fantasyland. If he wasn’t such a cheap, nasty prick, I’d feel sorry for him.
“Looping wouldn’t be such a bummer if it wasn’t for the guys who loop. Golf’s a great game, and golf courses is beautiful. It’s just the poor sad fuckers who pack the bags for a bunch of poor sad fuckers who can’t hit the ball that makes the whole thing so sad.”
Stan The Man finished his soliloquy, and I sighed in the darkness. I said, “I feel for you. I know how it is to be trapped, watching your life hotfoot it away. If your upholstering gig falls through, I can help you get started in the repossession racket. I know a lot of people. You could get paid for ripping-off cars. You’d have lots of free time to pursue whatever you wanted. Consider repo-ing, you might like it.” I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and handed it to him. “You can reach me at one of these numbers. I’ll do all I can to get you started.”
Stan put the card into his pocket and stared at me for a long moment. “Thanks,” he said. “I mean it. This has been one crazy night. I always figured that if someone offered me a break it would be some rich member at the club who liked the way I called putts, not some private eye repo-man. Let me think about it, okay? This is all happening real fast.”
“Think it over. Kick it around with your shrink. He might think it’s a bad extension of your disease, like me drinking all this fucking coffee to get a little wired. Let’s get out of here. I’ll look for Fat Dog later. Right now I’m cold and tired.”
We walked back to the car. A heavy fog was rolling in, clinging to the greenery and creating deep oceans of mist. There was a silence in the maintenance shack as we passed it. I drove Stan to his hotel in Culver City. We shook hands. He thanked me effusively, and promised to consider my offer. As I drove back to my pad all I could think of was one phrase: “Looping is sadness.”
6
The following day it seemed like a good idea to let sleeping Fat Dogs lie, at least for the moment. There were other angles to check out. My case was turning into a splendid example of inductive logic: searching for evidence a decade old to convict a killer whose identity I already knew. Since I was seeking to link Sol Kupferman to the Club Utopia, it seemed logical to start with the owner, Wilson Edwards.
Remembering that McNamara told me Edwards had a criminal record, I called Jensen at R&I for an address. He came through: Edwards had been busted the year before for possession of heroin. His address at that time was the Hotel Rector on Western Avenue just south of Hollywood Boulevard. I put on my intimidation outfit; a checked cotton sportcoat, tie, and contrasting slacks, and drove there.
The Hotel Rector was a thousand years old, and bespoke a despair that was uniquely Hollywood: the lobby was crowded with elderly pensioners awaiting their monthly stipends, black prostitutes, and low riders drinking beer. It smelled of urine and liniment. The loneliness there was almost tangible.
The old man at the desk told me that Wilson Edwards was still at the Rector and staying in room 311. I took the stairs. The hallways didn’t smell any better than the lobby and hadn’t been swept recently.
I knocked on 311. No answer. I knocked again. This time I heard the rumbling of a voice aroused from sleep. I knocked again, louder. Footsteps approached the door. “Eddie?” a voice called tentatively. “Is that you?”
Not wanting to disappoint anyone, I answered, “Yeah, it’s me. Open up.”
The man who opened the door was truly horrific. He looked like one of the concentration camp victims on the walls of Fat Dog’s shack: his gray skin hung slackly from prominent cheekbones, his eyes were sunken and filmy and the T-shirt and boxer shorts he was wearing encased his shrunken torso like a tent. He was shaking, and it took him several moments to realize I wasn’t Eddie. “You’re not Eddie,” he said finally.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not. Are you Wilson Edwards?”
“Yeah, are you fuzz?”
“No, I’m a private investigator. May I come in? I’d like to talk to you.”
His eyes turned shrewd, and as he sized me up he grabbed the door jambs with both hands for support. The veins in both arms were nearly obliterated. He was a long time junkie. I grabbed his left wrist. He tried to pull away, but I held on. Some of the tracks were recent.
“Is Eddie your connection?” I asked. “Are you sick now? You can tell me.” I tried to soothe him. “I won’t hurt you, I just want to ask you a few questions. It won’t take long.”
Seeing that he had no choice, Edwards motioned me inside. “I’m not sick yet, but I will be soon,” he said as I shut the door behind us. Then he started to laugh. “Man, that’s funny. I’m dying of cancer but I’m not sick yet. That’s funny.” He pointed to a beat-up armchair. “You have a seat. I’m gonna geez. I can’t talk to you till I get over these shakes.”