“And Freddy and Jane were sent to other foster homes?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen them since?”
“Not Jane. Freddy once in a while throughout the years. Not recently. He turned into a terrible, vicious-minded man, and I wanted nothing to do with him. He and George used to caddy at the same tournaments and sometimes he brought Freddy home, but I told him not to. Freddy scares me.”
“So you haven’t seen him recently?”
“No, but I knew he and George still saw each other. They even did ‘business’ together, if you can call it that. About ten days ago Bobby Marchion came by. He dropped off some keys for George from Freddy to his golf ball business. Freddy had sold George thousands of golf balls for four hundred dollars. They were in this cheap hotel room in L.A.”
“Do you still have the keys?”
“Yes.”
“Could I have them? I’ll gladly pay for them.”
“You can have them for free. I’ve had enough of golf bums, golf, and golf balls. I’ve been sober for three years in A.A.; I’ve got a Higher Power in my life, and George, as much as I loved him, was a terrible burden. It’s God’s will now that I move away from my old acquaintances. With George gone, I can do that. So you take the keys, with my best wishes.” She went to a drawer and handed them to me, three of them on a rabbit’s foot chain.
“What’s the name of the hotel?” I asked.
“It’s the Westwood Hotel in West L.A. The room number is on the big key.”
I thanked her and pocketed my prize. “One thing before I go,” I said. “Do you know of a scrapbook that Freddy Baker had?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’ve been a tremendous help.” We shook hands. I walked out the trailer door.
“God bless you,” she called out after me.
I didn’t take the blessing to heart. I couldn’t. I was flying high on my own omnipotence. I got a cheap motel room in Indio. It was dirty, but air-conditioned, and in the morning I got up and drove back to L.A.
V
Concerto for Orchestra
12
Back in L.A., ray first stop was the Hall of Records on North Broadway. I was armed with two dates of birth and was hunting for big game: birth certificates to prove a theory that was forming in a dark corner of my brain. I explained to the harried, underpaid black woman working the records counter that I was Frederick Baker, born in L.A. on 7–14–43 and I needed my birth certificate because all my I.D. had been ripped off. While I was here, I said, I wanted to get a copy of my sister’s birth certificate also. She was going to Europe soon and needed the copy to get a passport. Would it be possible? I asked. It would be.
I gave the girl Jane Baker’s D.O.B., 3–11–52, and sat down to wait. The expected results came fifteen minutes later. No Frederick Bakers or Jane Bakers were born in Los Angeles on the dates I had given. So far, my theory was bearing out. I trusted that the birthdates given to me by Jensen at L.A.P.D. R&I were accurate. If my next gambit didn’t pay off I would have to make a computer check of all births on those dates, which might prove difficult and futile; for if Jane and Fat Dog were born outside L.A. County, I was screwed.
I pulled off my next ploy. I found another busy clerk and told him the same story, this time substituting the name Kupferman for Baker. I hung out nervously for twenty minutes in the crowded waiting room until the clerk called out “Kupferman!” Though I was expecting it, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I paid the man his Xeroxing fee with shaking hands, then took the copies to a corner of the room and read them, suppressing shivers all the while.
Frederick Richard Kupferman was born in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on July 14, 1943. He. weighed nine pounds six ounces. A Fat Dog from the start. His parents were listed as Solomon Kupferman of Los Angeles and Louisa Jane Hall of Pasadena. Jane Elizabeth Kupferman was born in the same hospital, of the same parents, on March 11, 1952. Everything is connected. The anti-Semite is a Jew. The beloved cellist is a daughter. Which explained Kupferman’s interest from the start in the Baker siblings, which explained his overpowering fatherly love for Jane and his reluctance to deal with Fat Dog’s psychoses. And they were born out of wedlock, by the same woman, nine years apart. Unmarried parents were frowned upon in those days. Why no marriage? And the nine-year gap between births. Who did little Freddy live with during those years?
Marguerita Hansen had said that Sol Kupferman’s long-time paramour had committed suicide. Why? She had also told me the first foster parents were killed in a fire. Started by Freddy? Was he psychotic that young? Only Kupferman could answer those questions, and I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
I found a pay phone down the corridor from the records storage room and called the Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions. Impersonating a police officer — again — I demanded information on Frederick and Jane Kupferman. It was going well until I told the clerk their dates of birth. “I’m sorry, officer,” I was told, “our records only go back to 1956.” I hung up, stuffed the two birth certificates into my pocket, retrieved my car from the lot on Temple and headed for the harbor freeway and the Hotel Westwood.
The Westwood was a solidly built, tan concrete building on Westwood Boulevard about a mile south of the Village. It was a one-story walk up, L-shaped, situated above a dry cleaner’s and photography shop.
There was a small parking lot in back of the building. I ditched the car and walked up the rickety back steps. Walking into the hotel was like walking into another era. The flat finished white stucco walls, ratty Persian carpets in the hallway and mahogany doors almost had me convinced it was 1938 and that my fictional predecessor Philip Marlowe was about to confront me with a wisecrack.
I found room 12 at the far end of the tail of the “L.” There was no one in the hallway, but from within the rooms I could hear T.V.’s and radios blaring. I unlocked the door and walked into golf ball heaven. There were crates of golf balls on the floor and shopping bags of golf balls on top of them, piled up to eye level.
There were no furnishings in the room except an old mahogany dresser with three boxes of golf balls on top, and when I opened the four drawers, they were, naturally, filled with golf balls. There was a sink next to a window looking out on the parking lot. It was filled with golf balls. There was a metal trash can below the sink. It, too, was filled with golf balls. Against one wall was a closet door that I could barely glimpse through the maze of golf ball crates. I looked at it with trepidation. There was probably a golf ball junkie sleeping inside who would kill me on the off-chance that my pockets might yield a few golf balls.
I risked it anyway, clearing away a half-dozen crates of the pebbled sporting eggs. They were heavy little fuckers. The closet contained jumbo plastic laundry bags full of golf balls, piled up to a top shelf. I couldn’t see anything on the shelf, but swept my hand across it impulsively and came away with a key ring. There were two keys on it and they were labeled, in the tiniest of print, with the names of country clubs in the L.A. area, followed by numbers: Wilshire 71 and Lakeside 16.
I stopped and thought. Fat Dog’s access to the country club milieu of Los Angeles was profound, but only on the level of caddy. Caddy shacks contained lockers that were probably numbered and these keys were locker size. I could tear this room up looking for the scrapbook and come up with nothing but golf ball jaundice, so I split, locking the door behind me.
Only one thing troubled me. Marguerita Hansen had given me three keys. Keys to what? Then I flashed. The community shower and toilet might require a key to enter. I tried them both and they fit. I felt like a third grade kid who had solved a difficult puzzle.