The Big Enchilada

it, not me, but you may be right. He’s got a big house and a yacht and fancy clothes and nice cars, and he’s always bragging about them. Burroughs, my partner, hates his guts. Won’t even stay in the same room with the guy.... Well, anyway, he comes down to see me. Says he heard I was asking about the Black Knight—-he seems to hear everything, that guy He wants to know why. I gave him a song and dance about checking an alibi, and so on, and he seemed to buy it. But then he said to make sure I stayed far away from that place—that there was a long-standing investigation going on, and that he didn’t want anybody poking around and fucking it up. Can you believe it? A long-standing investigation? With about three pieces of paper in the file?”
    “The rest is probably in a safe deposit box somewhere, drawing big dividends.”
    “Jesus, Sam. I don’t even want to think about it. I just thought you should know, though, that this is Ratchitt’s territory, and that’s one mean son of a bitch. I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind, Charlie.”
    “Yeah,” he laughed sadly. “Sure you will. I know you, Sam.... What’s this all about?”
    I said I really didn’t know, and then I told him about what had happened the day before. I asked him if he knew about any Domingo. He thought for a minute.
    “No, no help.... Say, wasn’t there a private eye on television a long time ago—when we would have been kids—that was called Domingo or Dominic or something like that? You remember that? I thought he was really cool.”
    “If you say so.”Big help, Charlie. Shit. No wonder the city was being buried in dope.
    “Maybe it was somebody else.... Anyway, I think I know who the guy is who threw you around.”
    “Yeah?” That would be a big help.
    “Yeah. It’s got to be an ex-wrestler who was called something like Mountain Cyclone, I think it was. Don’t know his real name. But that was a long time ago. I think he killed somebody in the ring. If I remember the story right, the guy was incredibly strong, but really dumb. He couldn’t absorb the fact that it was all phony—that he had to follow a script. One day he was supposed to throw somebody out of the ring Instead of putting the guy over the ropes and letting him drop on his feet, Mountain heaved him into the tenth row. The guy’s spine was broken in about four places and he died. Needless to say, Mountain didn’t wrestle any more, and I don’t know what happened to him, but it sounds like your guy. Any help?”
    “It’s someplace to start.”
    “Glad to help, old buddy. But just take it easy. These are some nice acquaintances you’ve got, real nice. Jesus... Well, I’ve got to go now. I got some things of my own to check out.”
    “You sure you should do that on your own? Shouldn’t you bring your partner into it?”
    “I can look after myself, old buddy.”
    Sure, Charlie. Fuck it, I had my own problems, and I didn’t know why I should be concerned about him. I had only saved his life, I didn’t own it.
    Anyway, I thanked him for his help, and he got up. He seemed a little bit more determined than when he came in. I watched as he purposefully crossed the room, opened the bathroom door, and went in. A second later he came out, an embarrassed look on his face, went to the right door, and exited. I shook my head. Some detective—he can’t even find the front door. Watch out, you dope pushers, Popeye Watkins is in town.
    I still had plenty of time before I went to see Maycroft, so I decided to take another shower. It wasn’t just the steadily rising temperature. Watkins had left me feeling vaguely depressed, and I wanted to wash his visit away.
    I got in the shower and adjusted the head to the hardest spray. I let it run as hot as it would go, and after a couple of minutes the bathroom was completely steamed up. I turned off the hot and ran the straight cold. After I alternated hot and cold several more times, the last remaining kinks in my back had just about disappeared.
    I wasn’t singing arias or anything like that, but I still didn’t hear my apartment door open. I didn’t know anyone had come in until the bathroom door opened. I must really have been slipping to let something like that happen. Either that, or some of the incipient disaster that Charlie Watkins carried around had rubbed off.
    I stuck my head around the shower curtain and saw that it could have been a lot worse. It could have been The