The Big Enchilada

ecstacy as I slammed her again and again.
    When I was through I let her down slowly. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, skirt above her waist, legs spread wide, totally spent.
    I zipped up my pants and left the office.
    I wanted to get something to eat.
    I also wanted some information. About Domingo. Whoever or whatever that was.
    My vacation would have to wait. Until after I found Domingo.
    At the very least, Domingo owed me a new desk.

TWO

    Sitting in the back booth of Luis’s burrito place, I was feeling a bit better. I had eaten a couple of one-pound chile relleno burritos that were so hot they drained my sinuses, scalded my throat, and temporarily turned the tendons in my elbows and knees to water. But they filled up my belly and helped to clear my head. A couple of Dos Equis beers, and the fire in my mouth had died down, and my initial anger had also cooled.
    I gave it some thought. Did I really care about what had happened? My office and my dignity had been messed up, but neither of those were worth a hell of a lot. At least my office sure wasn’t, and my dignity wasn’t such a precious commodity either, but—shit—there was something at stake.
    When I was a young kid my father once sat me down for a serious talk, probably the only one we ever had. He looked at me for a long time, and I remember thinking he seemed kind of sad. “Don’t let them fuck you over,” he said, “don’t ever let them fuck you over. There are a lot of assholes out there who, because they’ve got more money or more muscle or more fire power, think they can make everybody play their game. And mostly they’re right, and everybody does play their game, but there’s no way that they can deal with the man who doesn’t give a shit about their game—who plays his own game in his own way. They’re so used to getting their own way that when someone doesn’t jump when they say jump, they don’t know what to do. If he doesn’t drool when they shake the carrot, they can’t run him. The man that won’t jump is a dangerous man because he’s his own man. It’s not a question of manhood or pride or any of that shit; it's a matter of survival. If you let them stick it to you once, then you’re theirs, and you’re playing their game. But the man who won’t take any shit—and who doesn’t give a shit—is a free man, no matter what happens.”
    My father was a straight man in a crooked town. A week after he talked to me he was killed. I don’t know if he died a free man or not, but I do know he died. Besides his last advice, his legacy to me consisted of a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick and a book on how to win at poker. I wasn’t sure what happened to the books, but I always remembered what he said. For a long time I never really understood it—what kid would?—but then I went to Viet Nam.
    Somehow or other I found myself in military intelligence. Some people say those two words are contradictory, and they may be right, but I had a pretty good time learning how to conduct an investigation and assess information. I had a better time, though, when I wasn’t working. I was living with a Vietnamese girl. She was the only woman I ever lived with, and the only one I ever wanted to live with. She was delicately beautiful, serenely composed, and genuinely tender. While physically very different, Maria reminded me of her in a lot of ways, but I tried not to think about that too much.
    I had planned to take the girl back stateside with me when my tour was up. At least I had planned that until four army punks got drunk and decided they wanted a woman and she happened to be nearby. She never regained consciousness.
    It hit me harder than anything in my life, but I was still playing by the book in those days. I conducted the investigation myself and built an air-tight case against the four punks, but it turned out that one of them belonged to a congressman and another to a general. So, in spite of my protests, the matter was allowed to drop quietly because there was “insufficient evidence,” because nobody needed a scandal, and because, anyway, who cared what happened to a slope? I finally got my father’s message. The four who did it thought the whole thing was pretty funny... right up to the time I got to them and made sure they wouldn’t ever again think anything was funny.
    Then the army started to pay attention to me. They wanted to put it to me but decided it might backfire, and so they sent me home