The Big Enchilada

you’ve got to do, and if you play it easy, nobody’ll find out about you—at least not from me.”
    “What do you want?”
    “I want to get into the club tonight. I want to see Lascar.”
    “Are you crazy? I can’t do that. That’ll blow everything.”
    “Not if you do it right. You’ll tell Lascar that you met me somewhere, and that I’ve got a business deal for him.”
    “What kind of deal? It’ll have to be good.”
    I thought for a minute and suggested something to him. He wasn’t happy, but he thought it would work. We worked out our story, and I told him when I’d be coming by the club.
    I cut the neckties with the knife. He stood up, but immediately fell to the ground. He had cramped up from being tied so long.
    I turned as I got to the front door. “Remember, Faro, you cooperate and you’ll come through this. If you try to fuck with me, I’ll pull the plug on you.” '
    He looked at me with a scared, mournful expression as he tried to work some life back into his knotted limbs.
    Lying on the floor in a twisted heap he didn’t look like much.
    He wasn’t.

ELEVEN

    It was early evening by the time I got back to my apartment. A lot of the sun’s power had diminished, but the heat that had been soaking into the ground all day was now radiating back up in an effort to compensate. There was no wind at all to provide any cross ventilation through my apartment, and it was about as comfortable as a sauna bath.
    I took a tall glass, put a few ice cubes in it, and filled it up with gin. I swirled the ice around a couple of times and drank off half of it. I don’t know if it cooled me off or just made me less sensitive to the heat, but I started to feel better. I put in another ice cube, refilled the glass, and took it into the bathroom. I stripped and got under the shower, letting it run hot and then gradually turning off the hot until it was running straight cold. Periodically I stuck my head out and took a pull on my drink. After about ten minutes of this I was feeling okay. The soreness where Cueball had hit me had completely gone, but it looked like the bruise would stay around for a few days.
    I lay around for a while until it got dark, letting the events of the day flow around, waiting to see if any clear patterns emerged. I was starting to see some outlines, but there was nothing very firm. I had a feeling, though, that it wouldn’t be too much longer.
    I got up to dress. I looked in my closet. I didn’t have anything sleazy enough for the part I was going to play, so I decided to dress for comfort: a pair of hopsacking trousers, a loose-fitting shirt and a lightweight sportcoat to cover the gun I would wear on my belt at the back. I looked in the mirror. I didn’t exactly look like a pom merchant, but it’d have to do.
    I went out into the night, which had turned very muggy without getting any cooler, and headed back to town. On the W ay I decided I felt like barbecue, and when you feel like that, there’s only one place to go.
    Mama’s Bar-B-Que is not located in a black neighborhood, but it’s good enough for a steady stream of blacks to cross town to eat there regularly. For a couple of blocks around the place, the streets were lined with pimpmobiles—those customized chrome and pastel hybrids with Cadillac fins in the rear and Rolls-Royce grills in the front that cost their owners over 50 K.
    Inside, Mama’s was crowded as usual. The owners of the cars were there, each with an elaborate display of gold and diamond jewelry, each surrounded by his stable of ladies. The tables that weren’t occupied by pimps were full of the biggest numbers men or dope movers, each trying his hardest to look like the pimps. Most succeeded. I couldn’t have stood out more if I had come in wearing a white sheet and carrying a burning cross, but I had once helped Mama out of a jam, and she liked me, so my presence was usually tolerated.
    The place wasn’t much to look at—a few rooms crowded with tables covered with red-checked tablecloths. Sawdust on the floor. Old ceiling fans that didn’t do much good. Beer advertisements that alternated with old travel posters for the Rhine Valley provided the only decorations. Not much of a place except for Mama.
    Even with all the fancy ladies and their fancier men, Mama dominated the place like a cat in a cage of canaries. A shiny black woman, enormous, ageless, who dressed like a southern mammy, she was everywhere at once, her gravel voice shouting