Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [49]
“Hello, Omar,” I said, “I was looking for you yesterday.” There was no response, so I tried again. “You are Omar Gonzalez, aren’t you? If you’re not, it’s the fuzz and the slammer. And maybe an ass-kicking, by me. I don’t like the idea of people fucking around with my pad. You probably feel the same way, if you’re Omar Gonzalez, that is. Somebody righteously trashed old Omar’s pad the other day. Really ripped it up. Looking for something. Bookie ledgers, maybe. Somebody righteously fried Omar’s brother back in ’68, too. I know who did it. Maybe you heard about the case, the Club Utopia firebombing? Three of the bombers were caught and executed, but the ‘Mastermind’ got away. You seen old Omar lately? I sure would like to talk to him.” I gave the Chicano my widest, most innocent smile, the kind that won me First Place in a Beautiful Baby Contest in 1948.
“I’m Omar Gonzalez, motherfucker,” he said.
“Good. I’m Fritz Brown. Don’t call me ‘motherfucker’ again. It’s not nice. Well, Omar, I think we need to exchange some information. What do you say?”
“I say you broke into my car and ripped me off for two boxes of stuff, that’s what I say. The lock on my trunk is all fucked up. I had to tie it shut.
“Tough shit. You broke into my pad. I’d say we’re even. Besides, we were both looking for the same thing, right?”
“You tell me.”
“I know who instigated the Utopia torch. How I got involved isn’t important. James McNamara told me about you, and how you’ve been obsessed with the ‘fourth man’ for years. I have my own reasons for wanting the bastard. I’m a licensed private investigator. I can arrest him and make it stick. You need me, for that reason. You’ve been messing with this case for years, in an amateur fashion, and you’ve obviously discovered something. The ledgers, the porno photos. Our investigations have been running along parallel lines. We need to compare notes. Together we may be able to find this scumbag.” I watched Omar’s macho-stoic reserve crumble. I went to him and unlocked his handcuffs.
He rubbed his wrists and smiled. “Okay, repo-man, let’s do it.” He reached over and we shook on it.
“Tell me about this investigation of yours,” I said, “from the top.”
“From the top, I just knew something was wrong with the way the cops handled the case. They caught the guys wham, blam, thank you ma’am. It made the cops look good. The three guys confessed, but when they said that a fourth guy was the ringleader, the cops thought it was a plea to beat the death penalty. I talked to Cathcart, the cop who headed the investigation, about it. ‘What if it’s true?’ I asked. ‘Do you honestly think these three drunks were crazy enough to knock off six people just because they got kicked out of a fucking bar?’ I was a youngster then and Cathcart shined me on. I admit I was an imaginative kid. But at the trial I knew I was right. I mean, man, I knew. Those guys were telling the truth when they testified about the fourth man. The way they described him, it was just too real. The guy they described was just too fucking bizarre to be made up.
“I got a lot of publicity out of my crusade, even though everyone thought I was a crank. I was almost a regular on the old Joe Pyne Show. I developed a theory—that the mastermind was only after one of the victims—and that he torched the bar to hide his motive. I checked out the backgrounds of all the victims—except for my brother Tony, they were dull. Working stiffs, juiceheads, that type. The Gaffany dame was a semipro b-girl. I checked out Edwards, the owner of the joint—a dope fiend. I checked him out real good. Nothing on any of them.
“For a while I hung out with a guy who wrote for True Detective magazine. He found out that the Utopia had a bookie wire going—small-time. So I checked out some bookies who operated in the Normandie-Slauson area. They told