The Big Enchilada

white from gripping the edge of his desk.
    “You people are getting very sloppy. Everything is starting to unravel. One good pull and it’s going to fall apart.” “Then you will not accept my offer?” He maintained his control. He was tough.
    “Two’s not enough. Make it five.”
    “Very well.” He smiled coldly and put his pen on the check.
    “Forget it. If you’re willing to go to five now, you’ll go much higher later. That’s when we’ll talk.”
    His eyes got very cold and hard. “You’re making a mistake, Hunter, and it’s going to cost you.”
    “Not me. You’re in big trouble. You don’t realize it yet, and that means you’re in bigger trouble.”
    “You don’t know what trouble is.” He suddenly sounded tired.
    “Tell me.”
    For a second I thought he wanted to open up, but the hard surface was quickly restored. “I think we’ve exhausted this conversation.”
    “We’ll be in touch,” I said. “You’re going to need me soon, and you better believe that it’s really going to cost you when you do. You can pass that on to Domingo. I’m bringing him down.”
    I got up and went out of the office. As I passed his secretary’s desk I noticed one of the buttons on her phone light up. I smiled.
    Ah, Hunter, you really make the phone lines hum.

SEVENTEEN

    My car was still there, but something was stuck on the windshield. I figured I’d gotten a ticket, but it must have been my day. It only turned out to be a flyer advertising three rooms of furniture for $250—terms could be arranged. I was sure they could. I treated the flyer with the same reverence I would have given the parking ticket. I threw it away.
    The freeway back to the Valley was tied up with the normal perpetual traffic jam. The sun was a brilliant red ball cutting through the brown haze that hung over the city, the bloodshot eye of a town that’s had a few too many. The traffic wasn’t moving, and I had lots of time to look at the sun. It didn’t tell me anything.
    My shirt stuck to the back of the seat. My skirl was covered with the invisible grit that passes for air here. What a fucking lousy place to live. Was there even such a place as an empty beach in Mexico? The bus in front of me gunned its engine with the sound of a dying dinosaur and said, “No way, buddy, this is all there is.” A gust of diesel exhaust blew into my open window. Swell.
    In front of my apartment building a bunch of kids were playing a game they called Muggers in the Park. In a few years they’d be playing it for real—on one side or the other. Whatever happened to cowboys and Indians? Maybe that was what I was playing.
    I parked my car. Somewhere close by a woman with a voice like a banshee was screaming, “If you go out that door now, don’t you fucking bother coming back.” I heard a door slam. I guess he wasn’t coming back. I could see why he wouldn’t.
    Fifty-five minutes on a crowded freeway is just about what it takes to make my apartment look good. I was hardly through the door before I had stripped, poured myself a big glass of gin, and jumped into the shower.
    I finished the gin and the shower at the same time. I tried to phone Watkins, but he wasn’t at the cop shop or at home. I lay down on my bed to relax. I must have been tired because I went out pretty quickly.
    I dreamed I was chasing shadows. They looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place them. Suddenly they turned and started chasing me. I tried to turn around to see who it was, but they kept moving out of my vision. I was tripping over bloody corpses—a lot of them. Stubby Argyll popped up, saying, “It’s not the heat, but the humidity.” I listened as though it meant something. One Arm Shifty kept asking, “Do you want to play a game, sport?”
    I woke up and it was dark. I was covered in a thin film of sweat and I felt chilled. Either I was getting spooked or it was a mild flare-up of malaria, another memento of Nam. After I was awake for a couple of minutes, I knew I wasn’t spooked, so I took a couple of the pills I keep around. By the time I washed off the sweat, the pills were starting to work and I was feeling hungry.
    I would have liked to stay in, but I still had one more call to pay in my shit-stirring program. I dressed and went out.
    I let my stomach lead me to the Golden Dragon, a greasy little Chinese restaurant between a topless bar and an autoparts shop. There were a few clowns at the Formica tables who thought they were being