Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [99]
The room was dank and sparsely furnished: a cot, a water cooler, the nightstand, and a deck chair. I told Ralston to get up and sit on the edge of the cot. He did, slowly. I shut the door behind me and drew a paper cup of water from the dispenser. I handed it to Ralston, who gulped it down. I removed my tape deck from where it was jammed into my pants, located an outlet next to the nightstand and plugged it in. I took a seat in the deck chair and eyed Ralston. I hardly knew where to begin. There was so much I needed to know.
Ralston broke the silence. “Look,” he said, his voice under control, “hurting me won’t help you. Fat Dog is dead. The men who killed him are dead. He was an arsonist. He started a lot of fires. He burned down Kupferman’s warehouse. I know that Fat Dog hired you, why I don’t know, but all this trouble began about that time. Sol Kupferman is a generous man. He’d be grateful to you. I could put in a word for you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I dug brass knuckles out of my pocket as Ralston maintained eye contact with me and rambled on with his plea bargaining. “Solly K has been known to set people up in business, the whole shot,” he was saying as I leaped on top of him and slammed my iron clad fist twice into the fleshy part of his back. He started to scream, then thought better of it and began to whimper.
He was shivering, and I placed an arm on his shoulder and spoke softly: “Ralston, I know most of it. But you can put together some of the pieces. I need to see how it all works. If you don’t talk to me, now, I’m going to go internal. I’m going to bang your kidneys until it’s all over. If you don’t talk to me, I’ll maim you, then I’ll kill you. Tonight. Is it Cathcart that’s worrying you? Are you afraid he’ll get at you for talking to me? Nod if that’s true.” Ralston nodded, vigorously. “Good, that’s what I figured. I’ve got a handle on Cathcart. I know he’s cold, utterly ruthless, and a killer. But I’m worse. Cathcart might kill you for talking to me, but that’s an unknown factor. If you don’t talk to me, you die. That’s absolute. And Cathcart’s finished. I’ve got Fat Dog’s scrapbook, I’ve checked out Cathcart’s palace in Baja, I know he’s got to be the big man in this Welfare scam. He can’t do you any good now. But if you help me you’ll survive. You gonna talk?” Ralston nodded again.
I gave him a minute to compose himself, while I loaded the tape deck with a spool of blank tape. I attached the condenser mike and held it a foot or so from Ralston’s face. He flinched as he saw it, but cleared his throat as if preparing to speak. He was utterly demoralized and hurting. I took a voice reading, and played it back. The reception was good. Ralston fidgeted on the cot as I introduced myself to the machine and said that this was the companion interview to my previously recorded notes. I held the mike in my left hand and kept the brass knuckles coiled into my right fist, which I waved in front of Ralston. “The truth, Ralston,” I said. “Get ready. What is your name?” I said into the mike.
“Richard Ralston.”
“Your age?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Where are you employed?”
“At the Hillcrest Country Club.”
“In what capacity are you employed?”
“As the starter and caddy master.”
“How long have you had this job?”
“Since 1958.”
“How did you get the job?”
“Through Sol Kupferman.”
“How did you know Kupferman?”
“Through baseball. We got friendly at the old Gilmore Field games. I was a shortstop for the Hollywood Stars. Kupferman was a big fan.”
“Did you help Kupferman run his bookmaking operation at the Club Utopia?”
Ralston squirmed and ran a sleeve over his sweaty face. “Yes. I collected the bets, sent guys to the track to place them, that kind of thing. It was penny ante, but Solly paid me well.”
“Are you still involved in bookmaking?”
“Yes. Still small time.”
“When did you meet Frederick ‘Fat Dog’ Baker?”
Ralston started to open his mouth, then changed his mind. He seemed to be gathering his mental resources. I raised my right hand,