Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [36]
The trashers had done a good job: there was nothing personal to be found belonging to Omar Gonzalez. No papers, journals, or memorabilia of any sort, just the detritus of a young man’s life. I poked about in the rubble some more, this time with the lights on. I was looking for bloodstains. There was none. I put my gun back in its holster, went into the bathroom, found a large towel and wiped every plane and surface I could have possibly touched.
The sunlight and hot summer air were jarring as I walked outside. I was troubled. For the first time since the onset of my case, I didn’t know what to do.
Still troubled, I drove to the bank and withdrew two thousand in twenties for operating expenses, then went home and spent a long evening listening to Bruckner. Before I went to bed I laid out my light blue seersucker suit, yellow buttondown shirt, and navy blue print tie. I wanted to look good for Jane Baker.
At 7:45 A.M., I was stationed across the street from Kup-ferman’s house. At eight-thirty Jane Baker walked out the front door, carrying her cello in a black leather case to her car and driving off down Elevado. I was close behind. She led me to the large park across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she parked and lugged her cello to a bench and set it up on its collapsible pod. I parked down the street. As I approached she was assembling her sheet music on its stand, and the first movement main theme of the Dvôrák “Concerto” followed. I stepped into Jane Baker’s life: “That concerto was Dvôrák’s best shot,” I said. “Nothing else he did came close to it. Have you been playing long?”
Jane Baker gave me a long, slow look and a slow smile, tinged with the slightest bit of resentment. “I’ve been playing for ten years,” she said.
I sat down on a bench facing her and she resumed her playing. I was uncertain as to whether to continue with small talk or drop my bomb. She took the decision out of my hands: “You were right about Dvoak,” she said. “The cello concerto is his masterpiece. I wish I were equal to it.”
“Maybe you will be someday.”
“Maybe. You never know.”
“Am I distracting you from your practice?”
“Not really, yet. Are you a musician? You don’t look like one.”
“I’m not. But I love great music more than anything in the world. I think it’s the closest we’ll ever get to pure truth.”
Jane Baker was measuring my words with a hard-edged light in her eyes. “I agree, more or less,” she said, “but I think maybe you are distracting me. This whole thing has the air of being rehearsed, on your part. I’m not afraid of you, but you’re trying to manipulate me, and I don’t like being manipulated through my music.”
“Shall I cut the rebop, and get to the point?”
“Please do. I’ll give you five minutes, then I have to practice.”
“Fair enough. My name is Brown. I’m a private investigator. Your name is Jane Baker, cellist and nonconjugal roommate of Sol Kupferman, late of the fur business. Earlier this week I was hired to investigate you and Kupferman. I did. I didn’t discover anything damaging or incriminating. About you two, that is. However, in the course of my investigation, I gathered a great deal of evidence that indicates that your brother Frederick, AKA Fat Dog, is a psychotic arsonist and is determined to wrest you away from Sol Kupferman, even if it means killing him. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you—you’re his obsessive love object—but yesterday he burned Kupferman’s warehouse to the ground. Tomorrow he might torch Kupferman’s house and you may end up reduced to a pile of French-fried guacamole in the process. I don’t want that to happen. I want to find your brother and get him put away before he hurts anyone else. You can help me by getting Kupferman to talk to me, and by telling me everything you can about your brother.”
During