Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [11]
I almost lost her a couple of times, but when she hit the Victory Boulevard offramp, I was right behind her. She led me into the poorer residential areas of Van Nuys. No sidewalks. Ugly eight-and ten-unit apartment buildings and small houses painted in depressing pastel shades. I had done a lot of repo-ing around here; people trapped with dead-end jobs often neglect their car payments. Jane pulled over abruptly against the dirt shoulder of a particularly seedy street. I passed on by her and stopped at the corner. Out of my rear-view mirror I watched her walk up a gravel driveway and enter a tiny yellow wood frame house.
Jane showed five minutes later and within a few minutes we were back on the Ventura Freeway, this time southbound. She was driving smoothly now, and I stayed several cars back, my eyes half-glued to the road, and half-glued to her long car aerial. I followed her onto Hollywood Freeway, headed east. Ten minutes later Jane signalled her departure from Freeway Land and I followed her north on Vermont and East on Indent Avenue, a rundown street of apartment buildings which house students from nearby L.A. City College. When she parked I was right behind her.
My stomach was growling and I was losing patience. It hit me that Fat Dog might try to duck me for my bill. He was riding high now, but he had the air of a horseplayer who hit it big and was flashing the roll he was certain to lose. The idea of being stiffed by a golf course flunky pissed me off.
Jane had trotted across the street and into an old four flat. This time I could see that it was an elderly man who admitted her. I wrote down the address. She returned just seconds later, practically running to her Cadillac. She tore out, and I was all set for hot pursuit, but my car wouldn’t turn over. Shit! It was the capper to a frustrating morning. I watched Jane Baker turn right and zoom out of sight.
I got out of the car, my stomach turning over like a hungry dog’s, and opened the hood. I’m no mechanic, but I spotted the trouble immediately. A distributor wire had come loose. The repair job took one second, but of course, Jane Baker was long gone. I walked around the corner to Vermont and found a Mom and Pop market crowded with students on lunch break. I bought a quart of milk and two refrigerated pastrami sandwiches. I found an alley around the corner and took a long overdue leak behind some trashcans. A black couple strolled by hand in hand as I was doing this and snickered at me. I was getting a bad play from blacks lately, probably karmic revenge for my years with the L.A.P.D.
I ate my lunch outside my car and reviewed my options. I decided to concentrate on Sol Kupferman. He was probably just a nice old fart with a hard-on for a beautiful young cellist, but it was Fat Dog’s C-note-and-a-quarter a day.
Driving away, I remembered yesterday’s phone call to R&I. I found a pay phone on 3rd and Vermont and buzzed my old buddy Jensen. It took him a few minutes to get to the phone, “Yo, Jensen,” I said, “this is Fritz Brown. You got that information for me?”
“Hold on, Brownie. You got a pencil?”
“Yeah, shoot it.”
“Okay, on Jane Baker, no criminal record. We got a whole shitload of Jane Bakers here, but none of them could possibly be her, according to the age and description you gave me. I checked D.M.V. and they gave me this: Jane Margaret Baker, D.O.B. 3–11–52, L.A., brown and blue, 5'9", 130. The usual numbers of the usual citations, except for two reckless-driving citations, no booze or dope involved. Does that sound like her?”
“That’s her. Shoot me the other two.”
“Okay. On Frederick ‘Fat Dog’ Baker, we got some interesting shit. Three vandalism beefs as a juvie, all three times the judge recommended counseling. That figures. Two weenie wagger convictions as an adult: 8–14–59 and 2–9–64. Not registered as a sex offender, probably drunk, just got the urge to whip out his cock and take a piss. Under employment, we got him down as a caddy, and believe me, for a caddy that’s par