Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [96]
I waded through twenty-five pages of anti-Semitic and racist drivel before there was more mention of Cathcart:
“The Big Man is everywhere. He knows my M.O.!!!! He sends me notes after my jobs, calls me his genius little boy. Good watchdog! He says! He’s everywhere. A tree on Bel-Air front nine. A big dog on L.A. South. An evil squirrel on Wilshire 8th. Won’t let me have Jane! Lots of money. But no Jane. Money don’t mean shit with no family. H.C. has X-ray eyes, like Superman. He can see at night, too. Like a cat. A big mean cat.”
The rest of the blue pages contained more anti-Semitism. I turned back to the yellow section to look for mention of a toy store fire. I found it. It occurred on October 14, 1973, in Sherman Oaks. Cause of blaze undetermined. The proprietor and his son were seriously burned. That was the final indicator.
I drove to my bank on Hollywood and LaBrea and withdrew $500 in twenties from my safety deposit box, then drove to a storage garage on Melrose and paid to have my Camaro stored for two weeks. I got my expensive reel-to-reel tape machine out of the trunk before I left, then took a cab to a car rental agency on Wilshire and Normandie, where I rented a two-year-old Ford L.T.D.
Next I went looking for interim housing. Feeling the need for an injection of beauty, I opted for the beach and found a quiet court-style motel on Pacific Coast Highway, north of Sunset. My room was clean and afforded a view of the ocean. I paid for a week in advance.
Then I dictated into my never-before-used tape deck for three hours, using up four reels of tape. I spoke of the case, starting at the beginning, running in chronological order, with frequent digressions. I covered everything, including my killing of Henry Cruz and Reyes Sandoval. When I finished I sat back and thought of Haywood Cathcart, and of myself. Both cops. Both cops gone bad, to different degrees. I wondered at his motives for joining the police department, then examined my own.
I had wanted a way to express my sense of fair play and my love of beauty. I had wanted to crack wise and kick ass on those who deserved it. I had wanted to express a cynical, world-weary ethos tempered with compassion that women would eat up. I wanted low-level, uncomplicated power over other people’s lives. To be 6'3", 200 pounds, with a blue uniform, a badge, and a gun seemed like a wonderful ego boost. The streets by day; Beethoven, booze, Walter, and women by night.
But I was a terrible policeman and an abuser of power. My dispensing of justice was arbitrary and dictated by mood. I ripped off dope dealers for their weed, smoked it myself, and congratulated myself on my enlightened stance in not busting them. I shook down prostitutes for quicky blow jobs in the back seats of squad cars. Whatever I touched in my search to assert, to be, turned bad.
But Cathcart, assuming he became a cop for similar reasons, went beyond me in his desire for power. Real power. Money power. He was obviously the Big Man in the Welfare ripoff, holding Sol Kupferman moral hostage in the process—first through Fat Dog, now through God knows what lever. And he remained anonymous, like a Republican fund raiser, savoring the real influence of power. No need to grandstand in a blue suit for Haywood Cathcart, he knew where the real goodies lay. And his complicity by silence was overpowering: he let Fat Dog burn and kill and sent him notes calling him my “genius little boy.” I thought my capacity for moral outrage was long dead, but it was attacking me now like a jungle carnivore. No, no, no, no, I said. Yes, yes, I said a dozen times in succession.
I walked down to a liquor store on Sunset and P.C.H., bought a fifth of Scotch and returned to my room. I put it up on the bookcase and stared at it. I said no a dozen more times. Then yes a dozen more. Then it rose up from the bottom of my soul with a screaming finality. Yes. Yes. I couldn’t run from it. I took the fifth of Scotch outside and smashed it to pieces on the pavement of Pacific Coast Highway. Yes. Yes.