The first several were devoted to newspaper clippings of the Club Utopia firebombing. I pored over them, looking for something I didn’t already know. There was nothing, just the initial accounts of the tragedy, the apprehension of the bombers, their “fourth man” story, their trial, appeals, and eventual execution. Lt. Haywood Cathcart was highly praised for “almost singlehandedly bringing the culprits to justice” — Mayor Sam Yorty. Cathcart called the “fourth man” story “pure hogwash. A cheap ploy to avoid the green room at San Quentin that isn’t going to work.”
Cathcart’s involvement in the Baker-Ralston-Kupferman mess had to date from the bombing; it was only logical. He had to be the lever, the buffer, the balance between Fat Dog and Solly K. I turned the page and found out just how monstrous his culpability was. Following the Utopia clippings were notes on Cathcart:
“Something bad happened, but it’s going to be okay. Cop — H.C., hassled me today. Says he thinks he can pin me to 4th man in Utopia torch. Says he remembers seeing me in area. Said I’m hard to forget. True — there is only one Fat Dog!!!! Says he don’t care — guys who threw bomb will fry. Asks me — You know about book at Utopia? All caddies bet the horses. I tell him I don’t book action with no Jews. Says he don’t like Jews, either. Why? Why, why, why, did you torch the joint? he says. So I figure it out. He wants something. He’s got something in mind. He hates Jews (big blond German-looking guy!!!) and he knows about Solly Kike being in mob. So I tell him about Solly Kike. I hate him!!!! He smiles. You going to be my watchdog, he says. We’ll do real good together. Then he says — you firebug? I try to say no, but he hits me. I can read your mind, he says. Don’t fuck with me and you’ll be able to do whatever you want in peace. Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll make money!!!! He scares me. He can read my mind. He knows. After I did toy store in Valley, he gives Hot Rod letter to give me: ‘You got a thing about toy stores, Fat Dog?’ it says. ‘Remember, I know you. Your buddy.’ He does know me.”
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. Yes. It was locked in a moral imperative: Cathcart had to die.
I rose the next morning from a troubled sleep populated by my old patrol partner Deverson, a mad collector of Fab 40 records and women’s pubic hair. The songs were all there in my dreams: “Runaway” by Del Shannon, “Chanson D’Amour” by Art and Doddie Todd, “Blue Moon” by the Marcells. I took three Exedrin to knock them out, and drove to a clothing store on Santa Monica Mall and bought four changes of clothing — short-sleeved shirts, pants and socks, and shaving gear. At a phone booth I dialed Information and got Richard Ralston’s address: 8173 Hildebrand Street, Encino.
Then I thought: brace him at his pad? Too risky. At Hillcrest? Too many people around. Surveillance — wait and pick my shot? Also too risky. Ralston was on edge and would spot me sooner or later. I needed an “in,” someone who knew Ralston and his modus operandi. After a moment I remembered the resentful old looper I had talked to at the Hillcrest caddy shack two days ago.
I placed another phone call, this time to Hillcrest, and learned that Ralston would not be in today, that Friday was his day off, and that his assistant, Rudy, would be acting as starter. Divine providence. I drove to Hillcrest, parking on a side street off Pico.
Pops was easy to find — he was the only caddy left in the shack, an indication of his low status. He saw me approach and grimaced. “Hi, Pops. Remember me?”
“I remember you,” he said, “I’m not senile. And don’t call me Pops or I’ll call you Sonny Boy.”