Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [20]
I told him what I wanted. The Club Utopia firebombing case: the names of the victims, the name of the owner and his last known address, the names of the cops who made the arrests, the name of the insurance company and agent who serviced the claim, and, most importantly, notes on all testimony pertaining to the alleged “fourth man.” I promised him a C-note and told him I would call back in four hours. He hung up, chomping at the bit.
I walked across the street to a burrito joint, and scarfed up an enchilada plate and coffee. My head was reeling with the implications of what I had just learned. It gave me a headache, so I got some Excedrin out of the glove compartment and chased four of them with coffee. Somehow my mind quieted. My speculations would be futile until I talked to Mark Swirkal. But one theme emerged: I wanted it to be Fat Dog, for the sake of my own revenge. The L.A.P.D. with its overblown reputation blows a big time, highly publicized murder case only to have it solved years later by a former flunky cop they forced to resign. Almost reflexively I sized myself up in the full-length mirror at the back of the restaurant. My appearance was inconclusive: an outsized thirty-three-year-old man, neither handsome nor ugly. Personal qualities and morality open to interpretation.
I had three-and-a-half hours to kill before calling Swirkal, so I got the car and went cruising. I drove by Kupferman’s fur showroom, and saw his car parked in front. Relieved, I drove by his big house north of Sunset. CELLO-1 was parked in the driveway and faint cello chords drifted toward me across the broad front lawn. I stopped my car to listen and threw Jane Baker my silent resolve: that as long as I was around, no one would hurt her or her benefactor. I decided to go see Mark Swirkal in person.
Mark’s office was in a dingy turn of the century building on 6th and Union, just outside downtown L.A. proper and close to all the midtown courts. The building had been ruled unsafe after the big ’71 earthquake, but never condemned. Mark loved to save a buck and the attorneys he worked for didn’t care where he hung his hat; he was the fastest process server and courthouse bulldog in L.A.
I took a rickety elevator to the third floor. His waiting room was open and sparsely furnished—two folding metal chairs with Harbor General Hospital stenciled on the back and a stack of Playboys and Good Housekeepings on the floor. I opted for a Playboy.
Swirkal showed a few minutes later and led me into his office, which was smaller and more cluttered than mine, and not air-conditioned. We shook hands, then he opened his window and his mouth. Mark talks very fast. “I got what you wanted, Fritz. More or less. The trial was short so the transcript was short, first off…” Mark waited while I got out my notepad and pen. “First off,” he continued, “the Club Utopia was insured. The agent who sold the policy also investigated it for the company, Prudential. His name is James McNamara. The victims’ names were Philip Crenshaw, Henry Hadwell, Jacqueline Gaffany, Anthony Gonza-fez, William Eastero, and Margot Jackson. You got that, Brownie?”
I caught up with him. “Keep going,” I said.
“Okay. The arresting officer was Detective Lieutenant Hay-wood Cathcart, 77th Street Division. Now regarding the so-called fourth man. He was described as ‘a short fat guy, kind of grubby … a red-faced man in his late twenties … fat and mean looking … but no wimp. He had on one of those little tennis shirts with the crocodile on the pocket.’” Fat Dog. Eureka. Salvation. Mark went on talking, but I didn’t hear a word he was saying. Finally, he stopped.