Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [110]
It gave me pause. I would need him to get at Cathcart. If he fingered me to old Haywood, it would be ink on my death warrant.
I checked my watch and counted the remaining bankbooks. It was 2:10 P.M. and there were nine remaining, containing a total of over $70,000. I estimated we had at least $265,000 in my suitcase. I looked at Ralston and slapped his shoulder, then tossed the passbooks into his lap. “For you, Hot Rod,” I said. “Over seventy thou. Spend it in good health.”
Ralston smiled briefly, then shook his head. “You’re out of your fucking mind to think you can get away with this,” he said. “You don’t know Cathcart. He’s out of his mind, too, but in a different way. You better blow the country now, while you’ve got a chance, because sooner or later he’ll find you. Then it’s all over.”
“No, you’ve got that wrong. Let’s reverse it. Sooner or later I’ll find him. Then it’ll be all over.”
“You’re crazy, Brown.”
“Not really. Tell me about Cathcart. I know he’s brilliant and I know he’s an iceberg. Big fucking deal. But I’m curious about one thing: with all his money, why does he continue to be a cop?”
Ralston didn’t even have to ponder this question. “Because he loves it. All the good guys versus the bad guys shit. He eats it up. He hates niggers. He’s always talking about keeping the niggers under control so they won’t revolt. He says he loves doing his part to keep the Welfare State solvent, that it’s a counterrevolutionary broadside. He says sooner or later the niggers will breed to the point that they’ll have to be dealt with violently, but in the meantime they provide a scapegoat for the poor white moron to hate, and it’s important to keep them strung out on dope, in jail, and on Welfare. It’s spooky. I don’t particularly like niggers, but I don’t want to hurt them. Cathcart’s cuckoo on the subject.”
“Did he supply Henry Cruz and Reyes Sandoval with heroin as payment for killing Fat Dog?”
“How did you know about that? They’re dead.”
“I know. I killed them.”
Ralston reacted with a contorting of his whole face. “Are you going to hit Cathcart?” he asked incredulously.
“Hit Cathcart? Hit?” I answered, equally incredulous. “Who do you think I am? Marlon Brando in The Godfather? I don’t want to hit Cathcart, I want to become his buddy. I’m a nigger trainee with aspirations. All I want is a million-dollar Welfare check and a lifetime supply of soul food. Then I’ll convert to Judaism and join Hillcrest. You can fix me up with a good caddy when I learn to play golf.”
“You are crazy.”
“Shut up. Tell me more about Cathcart. What does he do for kicks?”
“He goes marlin fishing in Baja. He listens to this really serious music. He talks about the cops being the front line of containment against the niggers. That’s about it. He’s got no family. He doesn’t go for women, so far as I know.”
“Where does he live?”
“He’s got an apartment in Van Nuys. He tries to live cheap so that it looks like all he’s got is his cop’s salary.”
“How often does he go down to Baja?”
“Every few weeks, I think.”
“How does he get down there?”
“He drives. he’s got kind of a cover-up going. He owns a little house outside of Del Mar. He tells the people he works with he’s going there. He says it’s part of the picture he’s painting: he makes good dough as a Captain and he can afford a small place down there.”
“Does he spend any time at the place in Del Mar?”
“I think he stops overnight, to make it look good. Then he drives to Baja. The guys he works with know he’s a fishing fanatic. He’s got it all figured out.”
“He sure talks a lot, for a careful man.”
“He trusts me. He knows I’m scared shitless of him.”
I let the remark hang in the air, dead weight between us. Then I harpooned Ralston with my coldest hardest look. When he started to avert my gaze, I said: “Stay scared of me and you’ll survive. You’ll have your hotel, your bar, your job, your health, seventy grand plus whatever else you’ve got going. Now drive me back to my car.”
We drove silently back over Coldwater to the Valley, a fortune wedged between us on the