The Big Enchilada

tongue. I knew his kind. He’d buy only the most expensive stuff and then drink it like it was rotgut because he was too big a man to bother with niceties like tasting it.
    After he had drained the magnum he tried to get out of his armchair. His fat ass was too heavy and sunk too low in the deep cushions, and he just rolled around like a beached walrus. On his fourth attempt he had built up enough momentum to propel himself from the chair. He staggered a few steps before he achieved equilibrium. With a shake of his head he adjusted his dressing gown and waddled over to the window. There he was, the big enchilada, and he looked out with a satisfied, master-of-all-he-surveys expression that made me want to flatten his face. I contented myself with the thought that he would not be nearly so pleased with things if he knew about the snake lurking in his garden. Domingo puffed on his cigar a few more times. He turned a little unsteadily, walked into the corner of a table, said something that was probably not very polite, and left the room. The lights went off as he did so. The stage was dark.
    I waited a few minutes to make sure everything was quiet and went back over the fence. I got into my car and went over the hill into the Valley.
    On the way back to the motel I stopped at Hamburger Haven, a burger joint with pretentions. I had no use for their dim attempts to be stylish. I mean, it was a fucking hamburger shop, and who cared if they had fake Tiffany lamps all over the place? However, they were open all night, and their burgers were okay.
    I had a couple of half-pounders with a good half inch of Roquefort cheese melted on top and capped with slices of a very young dill pickle, still almost a cucumber. With it I had a double order of onion rings dipped in beer batter and deep fried. Three Amstel beers went down very easily.
    I was sucking in my second Gitane, and feeling pretty good.
    I now knew who I was up against, and I knew what was going on. I didn’t know what I was going to do with this knowledge, but I’d think of something.
    I always did.

TWENTY-FOUR

    In the morning when I woke up I knew what I was going to do. I didn’t have to think about it, it was just there. I realized I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. To do the job right was too big for me, especially since I was such a hot property at the moment. I looked at my idea from every angle and saw there wasn’t any way around it. It didn’t make me very happy, but I knew I’d have to use the cops if I was going to wrap up this thing.
    But first I needed a little more info. Shit. I didn’t even know that son of a bitch Domingo’s real name.
    I had some coffee and doughnuts at a place next to the motel. It was part of a large chain of dumps that ran from coast to coast and catered to people who lacked the sense to eat elsewhere. My doughnuts came on a small disposable plastic plate. I would have been better off eating the plate.
    If I needed information about anything or anyone in Hollywood, there was only one person to go to—Cora Cardiff. She had been a syndicated gossip columnist for longer than, anyone could remember, and if there was anything to be known about anyone, she knew it. She was a vicious, predatory old dyke with about as much warmth as a lizard in the Arctic, but I had helped her out a couple of times, and she seemed to like me.
    She lived in a three-bedroom bungalow on the spacious grounds of an old Beverly Hills hotel. She had a staff of secretaries and a bank of telephones manned round the clock, and she never left the bungalow except for periodic excursions for cosmetic surgery. The days of her greatest glory were gone, but she still had significant power and an even more significant income.
    I went through the massive oak door of the Spanish-style bungalow, past the clutch of secretaries, typists, researchers, and telephone operators who were spreading the tendrils of Cora’s web, and into the woman’s bedroom, popularly known as the Lavender Lair. Everything in the room was in shades of purple—the drapes, the carpet, the furniture. Even the walls were done in padded, upholstered, lavender satin. It was like being inside a grape. The woman herself was propped up in her giant round bed covered in purple silk, the small, dry, hard seed at the center of the grape.
    “Dear boy!” she said as I came in, her voice a harsh rasp like sandpaper on stone. “Here. Sit next to me on the bed.” I sat. “How good of you to