The Big Enchilada

orders to the cooks, telling -the busboys to move faster, trading jokes with the customers. She helped out at the huge stove, ran the cash register, and moved with the grace of an Olympic gymnast.
    Mama had run the restaurant for more than forty years, and she was an institution that was known in every ghetto in the country. Like all institutions, she inspired a lot of wild stories. Most concerned her immense wealth: everybody said she had a ton of money buried under her house, but she said she was just a poor cook. She laughed when she said it, and n ° one believed her.
    The best story, though, went back a long way. One day Mama had found that her current old man was cheating on her. She didn’t like that since she’d given him all kinds of presents. There was only one thing to do. She hatcheted him, and for the next couple of days he was served for dinner. They said he was pretty good. Nearly every day since then, some fancy man would come in and ask Mama if she had any of that special long pig. Mama would just laugh and say, “Not unless you’re offerin’ your services, honey.”
    I sat down at one of the few vacant tables. Mama knew what I wanted, and soon a large platter was put down in front of me. There were enough ribs on it to make up half a pig, along with homefries, greens, rice and beans, and a lot of cornbread. The sauce on the ribs was a combination of sweet and hot, and no one had ever figured out what was in it. The hot burned your throat, but right away the sweet soothed it like honey. Mama had turned down a lot of money for the recipe, and there was nothing else like it.
    I washed the whole thing down with some cans of Tecate beer and felt pretty good. I lit up a cigarette and watched Emile, the black dwarf newsie, walk by with his odd rolling gait. Up front he had a newspaper stand, but he ran the biggest book in the city. His clothes were always tom and dirty, but he owned a lot of Beverly Hills real estate, and he came to Mama’s in a chauffeur-driven limo.
    After one of Mama’s dinners, about all you want to do is curl up with a nice soft woman. I had one in mind, but I had other things to do. I paid and drove to the Black Knight Club.
    The club was in a big house on one of those old quiet streets south of Hollywood Boulevard. There were no signs on the place. The windows were boarded up, and it looked dark and deserted.
    I went up the walk and rang the bell. Nothing happened for a while, and then the peephole opened up and an eye looked at me for a long time. I wondered what would happen if I suddenly jammed my finger into the eye. Maybe next time.
    The door opened about a foot and a beefy guy with a bulldog face blocked the way.
    “Yeah?” he said.
    “I’m here to see Lascar.”
    “Mr. Lascar don’t see nobody.”
    I was saved further stimulating dialogue when Faro came over, moving nervously like a gimpy stork. Bulldog reluctantly let me in, and I saw that he had a twin standing next to him. They were both wearing badly fitting dinner jackets that were too small for their large shoulders, causing them to hunch over awkwardly, a pair of penguin weight lifters.
    Faro led me down a long hallway, not saying anything or even looking at me. On the way we passed a large room that was set up like a lounge with lots of couches and chairs facing an elevated stage. Even though the room was extremely dark, I could see most of the seats were occupied by men looking expectantly at the empty stage. A number of the men were being fondled by women who wore little or nothing.
    At the end of the corridor we came to a door. Faro knocked and we went in. He introduced me to Lascar and quickly left.
    Lascar was lean with unhealthy pale skin. He had a black patch over one eye and an ugly-looking scar ran up his cheek and disappeared under the patch. He was dressed in a black suit over a black turtleneck. He was smoking a long, thin Brazilian cigar. He was the perfect image of a tough, sophisticated sex club manager, but somehow he didn’t quite make it. It was a role he didn’t look comfortable with, and he knew it, which made him seem even more awkward. He tried to appear relaxed, but he made a nervous movement with his head, continually twisting it to the side and looking over his shoulder with his good eye.
    We looked at each other for a while until he felt compelled to break the silence.
    “I understand you’re selling something we may be interested in.” He had a surprisingly soft voice that