Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [100]
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