“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.
Walter didn’t answer my ring and there was no response when I knocked loudly on the window of his room. This was surprising; maybe he was making the run to the liquor store. I walked back to the front steps to wait.
After five minutes his mother pulled up in her senile Mustang. She hates to spend money, unless it’s on spiritual artifacts of the Christian Science Church, like her Wedgwood bone china plates inlaid with drawings of the Mother Church. Over the years Walter has sailed a number of them off the twelfth floor of the Franklin Life Building at Wilshire and Western, but she keeps replacing them. She’ll withstand the greatest indignities with a stoic resolve to keep him under her thumb. Once Walter boiled her eighty-five dollar morocco-bound copy of “Science and Health — A Key To The Scriptures” in a pot that was equal parts water and Thunder-bird. He presented it to her on a silver chafing dish embossed with the likeness of Mary Baker Eddy — in front of her Wednesday night Bible Study class.
She saw me as she was locking her car and dredged up a smile from the dark recesses of the cold city that she lives in. “Well, Officer Brown, how nice to see you,” she said.
“I quit the police department a long time ago, Mrs. Curran,” I said, “you know that.”
“Yes, and such a pity, too. You were so handsome in your uniform.”
“No doubt. Where’s Walter?”
“Chief Davis is such a fine man. I was hoping you would follow in his footsteps and make the police force your career.”
“You would dig Davis. He’s as crazy as you are. Where’s Walter?”
“Walter? I think he’s on hiatus somewhere. He left last night. He’d gone to one of those terrible A.A. meetings where everyone smokes cigarettes and takes the Lord’s name in vain. You know how those meetings upset him. I’ll give you your due, Officer Brown, you are not a nice man and you have an evil tongue, but you do know my boy. Although not as well as I do.”
“Yeah, I do know old Walt pretty well. Do you know what I like most about him? His restraint.”
“His restraint?”
“Yeah, his restraint at not having strangled you in your fucking bed a long time ago. Good day, Mrs. Curran.”
I walked back to my car leaving Walter’s madre to catalogue my indignity for future use against him. I was worried now. I had been unavailable to my friend for several days and he was in one of his periodic descents into reality, with all the terror that brings. When Walter takes off on what he terms his “periodicals,” anything can happen. Once he bought two hundred tennis balls and hurled them at passing cars from the bus stop at Beverly and Van Ness. Another time he barricaded himself in a motel in Hollywood with a bag of weed and a supply of dexedrine and porno books, convinced he could kick booze that way. Both times I was able to effect some sort of reconciliation between Walter and the world before he was locked up.