The Big Enchilada

that if I got into a dance with the cops, I’d be so tied up I’d never get back on the trail. Or when I did, there wouldn’t be any trail.
    I made up my mind in an instant. I had no choice. I had to get away. I wasn’t worried about the cops pinning the murder on me, but I wasn’t a great favorite of theirs, and they might keep me locked up for a while until they decided I was clean, just to remind me of my place. Certainly, they’d hassle me all they could, and I had enough to do without dealing with that. I realized it wouldn’t do me any good to tell them what I knew. There was hardly anything tangible. What there was was centered on the Black Knight, and Ratchitt had that sewed up.
    No, if I was going to do anything, I’d have to stay loose. The cops would sure want to talk to me after they found the mess in my office, but I figured I was better off with them looking for me than with their knowing I was nice and available in a cell downtown, to be hauled out at leisure.
    I heard the elevator grinding away and footsteps coming up the stairwell as I went down the back way. I was glad that no one had thought to cover that exit, or they’d have been after me for assaulting an officer along with everything else. I was in no mood to take any shit from anybody, in uniform or out.

NINETEEN

    After I got onto the street, into my car, and away, I realized it was probably a good thing the cops came when they did. Otherwise, I might have kept sitting there, getting nowhere, having no ideas, growing crazy-mad again, seeing red, and running in circles until I paralyzed myself. At least I was moving now. I didn’t know where or to what end, but it was better than foaming at the mouth and howling at the walls. At least movement kept me in the game.
    I knew I was going to get pretty hot pretty quick, and I’d have to get some of that heat taken off. Charlie Watkins could help with that, and I needed to find him anyway to see what he’d been trying to talk to me about. I had a feeling it was tied in with all this, but the thing was, first I had to find him.
    I got to a phone booth and made a couple of calls with the same result I’d been getting. Shit. What to do? It was starting to get to me, and I was even beginning to feel exposed standing in the phone booth.
    Then I realized what I ought to do. I’d go to Watkins’s house and wait there. It would keep me off the street, and Charlie would have to show up eventually.
    Driving back into the Valley, I was feeling very conspicuous. If I’d had a new car like every other jerk in the world, I’d have blended right in, but the age and condition of mine made it stand out. Or at least that’s the way I felt. Christ, I was getting spooked. I tried to comfort myself by saying that you’re not paranoid if someone really is after you. What a comfort.
    Watkins lived in one of those crappy tract houses that look the same wherever they’re built. Six- or seven-room flimsies with all the character of a parking lot. The tract that Watkins lived in was especially bad. About a year after it was fully occupied, the houses started to disintegrate. Plaster cracked
    and fell off the walls. Electrical wiring burned out. Plumbing backed up and stopped working. Roofing material fell off and the roofs leaked. All the appliances and equipment were factory seconds with a life-span measured in months. And if all that was not enough, it turned out that the soil had some odd chemical composition that killed anything that was planted. A few varieties of weeds seemed to thrive, but that was all.
    Naturally, when all this came out there was a big scandal followed by an investigation. It revealed that at every possible opportunity the developer used substandard material and workmanship. If a nickel was to be saved, he saved it, and almost nothing in the houses met even the minimum standards of the building code. To get away with all this, there were big payoffs to inspectors up and down the line. The investigation resulted in enough indictments to wallpaper most of the houses in the tract. But by the time this happened, the developer and the others who had made all this possible were comfortably residing in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, nobody would buy any of the houses at any price, and payments still had to be met every month. Those that were smart abandoned their houses to the banks and finance companies, took their losses, and got out. Those that weren’t smart stayed. Obviously most people