Джеймс Эллрой - Brown's Requiem

Stan The Man was the perpetrator of the country-western ear-splitting, standing by the jukebox, feeding it coins. Of all the caddies in the place, he looked like the only one capable of giving me a hard time. He had the wary eyes and angry mien of someone who had done time, so I decided on the phony badge ploy.

After ten minutes of cowboy laments, I got my chance. Stan The Man moved from his perch at the jukebox and walked back to the can. I waited a minute, then followed him. He was walking away from the urinal, zipping his fly, when I braced him. I whipped out my badge. “Police officer,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you.”

Stan The Man flinched, then said, “Okay.”

“We’ll go outside,” I said, “the bar’s too noisy.”

He muttered “Okay” again. I started to feel sorry for him. He obviously had a long history of being hassled by the fuzz in odd places.

I tried to quash his fears. “You’re in no trouble. I just want to talk to you about a caddy you know.” Stan The Man just nodded. We moved out onto the street. The night air was welcome after the smoky din of the bar. “Let’s take a walk,” I said, “my car’s just up the street.”

As we walked I learned that Stan The Man was one Stanley Gaither, late of Brentwood Country Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Bel-Air Country Club, and the L.A. County Jail system. His thing was auto theft. He said it was compulsive, that he was on probation, hoeing the straight and narrow and seeing a psychiatrist. This came out in a torrent of words, unsolicited. He was lonely and I started to like him. I introduced myself as Sergeant Brown. Once we were in the car, I said, “It’s like this, Stan. I’m interested in Fat Dog Baker, and I heard you got along with him as well as anyone. Is that true?”

“Kind of. We’ve known each other for years. Looped a lot of the same clubs. I don’t hate him like a lot of guys do. Is he in big trouble?”

“No, I just want to talk to him. Tonight.”

“Are you with vice?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. A crazy fucker like Fat Dog sleeps outside, never changes his clothes. I’ve always had this feeling Fat Dog was some kind of pervert. I mean, shit, he used to be the golf-ball king of L.A. He had three hotel rooms filled with nothing but golf balls, fifty thousand of ’em. He was keeping every driving range in the city supplied and keeping a fifty thousand ball reserve. Fifty thousand golf balls at ten cents a ball is five grand! Fat Dog paid rent on three hotel rooms to keep ’em safe, while he slept on the fifth tee at Wilshire. A guy who’d do something like that has got to be a pervert. Don’t you think so?”

“Maybe. What does Fat Dog do with his money? I heard he still carries a heavy roll.”

Stan considered this. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think he just likes to look at it. That, and go to Tijuana. He loves T.J. He goes down there all the time. He’s crazy about the dog races. He loves that scumbag town. The mule act, the Chicago Club, the whole scene. He’s always saying he’s gonna retire down there and race dogs. He hates Jews and niggers, but he loves Mexicans. He’s got to be a pervert.”

Stan The Man looked at me expectantly, hoping his information would be enough and that he could go. It wasn’t, and tonight I needed a tour guide. “You’ve caddied at most of the clubs in L.A., haven’t you, Stan?”

“All of ’em. I’m a loopin’ motherfucker.”

“Good. I need you to take me around tonight. I want to talk to Fat Dog. We’ll start with Bel-Air. Okay?”

Stan The Man’s “okay” was resigned and sorrowful, the lament of a man used to carrying freight and complying with orders. I started the car and we took off.

The Bel-Air course yielded nothing, but it was beautiful. Armed with flashlights, the reluctant Stan The Man and I searched for an hour and a half. We hopped the fence by the statue of Jesus and made our way north. Stan claimed that he knew all of Fat Dog’s campsites and that it wouldn’t be necessary to check out the whole golf course. He explained to me that Bel-Air was a tight urban course built in and around little canyons. That was why the big houses that loomed off to our right looked so close: they were close.

We walked up a steep hill that led to the first tee. It was pitch black, and the grass smelled wonderful. The view when we reached the top was so beautiful that for a minute I completely forgot the purpose of my mission. The golf course spread out before me, deep black hills that seemed to promise peace and friendship. It was very still and chilly — a good ten degrees cooler than the city proper — and clear, the lights of Los Angeles etched sharply in pastel shades. I was here to talk to a murderer, a psychotic whose lifestyle was incomprehensible to me, and yet for a split second I envied him the solitude of his urban hideaway. If he lived here he had superb taste and the very best of two worlds; nestled in the arms of a great city, yet free, during the night hours, from all her strife.

We crossed the “Swinging Bridge,” a suspension bridge over a deep canyon that carried golfers from the tenth tee to the tenth green. It was aptly named, for a night breeze and the weight of two men sent it swaying gently. Stan broke the silence and told me that on a clear day you could see all the way to downtown L.A. and the San Bernardino Mountains.

Shining our flashlights into sand traps, we walked up from the green into a tunnel. Stan said that this was the end of the line, that no way would Fat Dog camp out on the back nine. He hated it too much, calling it the toughest nine holes he had ever packed. I believed Stan. The still night beauty of this place seemed to have informed us with a wordless rapport. We made our way back the way we had come.

Once back in the car, Stan The Man sighed. “Well,” he said, “we got a choice to make. There’s four more country clubs on the West Side: Riviera, Brentwood, Hillcrest, and L.A. You can forget Riviera. They don’t have caddies, and Fat Dog sleeps out only on courses where he knows the caddy master. Brentwood and Hillcrest are Jewish clubs, and Fat Dog ain’t camped out on them courses in years. That leaves L.A. and it’s huge. Two courses, thirty-six holes. If Fat Dog’s in town, that’s probably where he’s at.”

“Let’s hit it, then,” I said. We drove south, along the periphery of the U.C.L.A. campus, to Wilshire, then east. It was shortly past midnight, and I was getting tired.

“Your best bet is the south course,” Stan was saying. “There’s a gate on Wilshire that’s open twenty-four hours. There’s a bunch of wetback maintenance guys who live there. They got their own barracks. We can park in their lot. There’s the gate coming up. Slow down.” I did. The gate led down to a woodsy nothingness. I could hardly see. Stan was giving explicit directions. “Real slow now, hang a right now and stop.”

I stopped and Mexican music hit me. Then I heard laughter. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see a large, one-story bunkhouse off to my left. There were men sitting on the doorway steps drinking beer. They stopped talking as they heard us approach. I grabbed my flashlight and thermos of coffee and beckoned to Stan The Man to follow me. We walked up to the beer drinkers. “Hola,” I said, “we’re looking for El Perro, Perro grande y blanco?”

It broke the ice. The five or six voices that answered my query were friendly. As best I could understand them, they all said the same thing: they hadn’t seen any big, white dog. I should have told them I was looking for a fat dog, but I didn’t know the Spanish word for fat. “Gracias, amigos,” I said.

“De nada,” they returned. As Stan and I moved into the darkness, they turned their mariachi music back on. Silently I wished them a good life in America.