The Big Enchilada

were still there. If they’d been smart, they wouldn’t have bought in the first place.
    Driving through the streets with the barren, weed-choked lots surrounding the faded, dilapidated houses, I felt I was on a deserted army base or one of those temporary villages that spring up around some big public-works project and are then left to rot when the project is completed. This village was still inhabited, but by people who wished that they were elsewhere. If for no other reason, I could see why Watkins’s wife left him. A sleeping bag in a swamp would be preferable.
    I passed the remains of a gopher that had unsuccessfully tried to cross the road, and slowed down to look for Watkins’s house. I could never remember if his was the phony Cape Cod or the phony Tudor. It was the phony Tudor, and it looked like I was in luck. His car was in the sagging garage.
    I parked, and as I walked up the pitted drive, I noticed that he was sitting in the car, like he was getting ready to go out. I Waved and went over to him.
    He wasn’t going anywhere. He was sitting upright, held in place by his seat belt and shoulder harness. His head was drooping forward and his chin rested on his chest, as though he were looking at something on the seat next to him. At first I thought he was, and then I saw the two-inch hole in the top of his skull. I put my head through the window and looked up. A circle of dried blood and brains was stuck to the roof of the car, radiating around a bullet hole in the roof liner. His hand was beside him. It held his revolver.
    I went around to the passenger side. Being careful not to leave any prints, I opened the door. I saw that his jaw was hanging open, a slimy trickle of blood still oozing from the hole in the roof of his mouth. Not much doubt about what had happened, but there were some questions about why. And why had he been trying to contact me? To tell me what he was going to do? Possibly. Even though I could see Charlie offing himself, in view of everything else that was happening, it didn’t seem right.
    I carefully picked through the litter of rubbish that covered the car seat. Maps, old newspapers, candy wrappers, empty bags from fast food joints, all the kinds of stuff that remain from long hours on stakeouts. I finally found the note. He was sitting on half of it and his arm was covering the rest of it. I maneuvered it out from under him.
    Holy shit! It looked like it was Charlie’s writing, but very labored and awkward. The note was short: “Hunter got me involved in something. It was too dirty and I couldn’t take it anymore. This is the only way out. Tell Rosie I’m sorry.”
    Charlie didn’t commit suicide any more than Stubby was a hit-and-run victim or Maria died of natural causes. The first part of the note was total crap. I knew it, but the cops probably wouldn’t. Whoever killed Watkins not only rigged it to look like suicide, but fixed it to implicate me. If Maria’s death wasn’t enough, here was something else to tie me up.
    I also knew that Charlie fought it, but he was forced to do it. That’s what the last line meant, but I was the only one who would understand it. Rosie was a Saigon whore who Charlie had spent a lot of time with. One time he’d had it fixed up to meet her, but he’d gotten a last minute assignment. He’d tried hard to get out of it, but he had no choice. He asked me to tell Rosie he was sorry he couldn’t make it.
    It looked like Charlie might have been drugged and forced to write the note. He’d had no choice, but a part of him had held out, and he put in that last line just for me. Charlie had more spunk than I thought—not any more brains, but more spunk. So long, Charlie.
    I looked over the setup. Somebody was sure working hard, and it would have gone down fine, except I got lucky and got there before the body was found. Otherwise, I was supposed to have been picked up at my office. I would have been in custody when Watkins’s body and the incriminating note were found. And then I would really have been in for it.
    Without any hesitation I pocketed the note. That was against the law, but there was no point in being lucky if I left the damn thing lying around. That improved the situation, but not much. There might still be other stuff concerning me that I didn’t know about. I was being more and more isolated, made more and more vulnerable. I was dancing to somebody else’s tune, and I didn’t like the feeling, but I was not at all sure