Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [113]
I approached the bellboy I had tipped so generously. The best he could come up with was cocaine or quaaludes. I decided to forego second-class drugs and to try instead to cop some smack in L.A., where I knew the territory and could probably shake down some connections.
Late in the afternoon I called Ralston at Hillcrest. The switchboard girl put me through to him at the first tee. When he said, “First tee, may I help you?” his voice sounded strained.
“This is Brown,” I said. “Are you busy?”
“Not really,” he replied.
“Good. How’s our buddy? Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah, today in fact. He thinks you’re in Mexico. He got word somehow that Cruz and Sandoval are dead. He thinks you did the job. He’s pissed and maybe even scared. He’s going down there himself this weekend to look for you.” It was almost too good to be true, but I believed him. My mind ran around in circles for long moments. Finally, Ralston broke in: “Brown? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Look, when do you think he’ll split for Baja?”
“I don’t know. He usually leaves Friday nights, after he gets off duty. But maybe it’s different this time, because the trip is strictly business. Why?”
“Do you know his address in Del Mar?”
“No, I’ve never been down there. And I won’t ask him, in case you’re thinking of asking me to. I’m not fucking with you, I just don’t want to do anything suspicious. I’ve been staying away from him. When he called me today he said he wanted to see me, but I begged off. If he sees I’ve been beat up, he’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Listen, Daddy-O, don’t mess with the big fella. Are you afraid for your ass, Hot Rod?”
“Yeah. I am. Because I’m sane. Are you?”
“Yeah, but it’s almost over. I’ll call you when it is.”
Before he hung up, Ralston told me to be careful at least half a dozen times. In a cursory way I took each admonition to heart, but the wheels in my brain were already grinding out a plan.
I enlisted my bellboy buddy and we made a little recording on tape. My plan was starting to jell. I took a 7:15 flight from San Francisco International to San Diego Airport and rented a car from the Hertz office at the terminal.
The rest was simple. I called Del Mar Information and asked for the address and phone number of Haywood Cathcart. It took all of three seconds for them to give it to me: 8169 Camino De La Costa, 651–8291. Cathcart’s policeman-criminal mentality and sense of indentcy had dictated a phone listing (“I’m a police officer of high rank, and a solid American citizen. What have I got to hide?”).
I drove up the Coast Highway to Del Mar. Del Mar is a rich town, built upwards on rolling hills from the sea, but it does have a middle-class beachfront enclave and that’s where I found 8169 Camino De La Costa. It was so perfect that I almost collapsed in gratitude. Maybe there was a God.
A twisting road led me down to a giant parking lot. I parked and walked along the sand, checking out the house numbers. The houses, large bungalows really, were identical: white wood frame, obviously built as part of a development fifty or sixty years ago, and were spaced a solid fifty yards apart, separated by sand drifts. I found 8169. It was the most immaculately kept place on the beach front. I walked around the back. There was a chain-linked barbed-wire fence around a small back yard of some kind of synthetic grass. Old Haywood. Keep the property value up, and the niggers out. Through the fence I could see that the back door entered into some kind of service porch. It was a good setup and my mind clicked methodically