The Big Enchilada

come. Especially since you’re now a celebrity.”
    Huh? “What do you mean?” I said.
    “You mean you haven’t seen the morning paper?—Now where have I heard that line before?—Here. Take a look. You’re famous.”
    She turned to an inside page of the paper and pushed it across to me. The headline said, “Private Eye Wanted for Questioning in Connection with Homicide.” The story was about Maria and didn’t say very much, but the impression was that I was suspect number one. The short article concluded with the ominous line, “Police wish to question Hunter about several other matters as well.” Christ, I was hotter than I thought. There was even a picture of me. Fortunately, it was an old one, not very good, and could have been of almost anyone.
    “They say that one day everyone will get to be famous for twenty minutes. This must be your time, dear boy. Enjoy it.”
    “I’ll try,” I said.
    “But why are you here? I hope it’s not to confess to me. I wouldn’t mind getting the story, but I’ve been hearing so many messy confessions lately that I’m feeling positively soiled. Dear boy, you simply wouldn’t believe some of the things that people do.”
    Just then a woman came in one door, slowly walked across the room, and went out another door. She was over six-four, large-limbed, with good muscle definition and a wild mane of brown hair that reached the middle of her back. She wore shiny black, leather shorts and nothing else. Her breasts were a pair of large, firm cones protruding proudly in front of her.
    Cora’s eyes followed the Amazon until the door closed behind her.
    “Do you like her, dear boy? That’s Magda the Marauder, the queen of the roller derby. She’s delightful, isn’t she?” “Delightful,” I said, “but I don’t think I’d want to go two out of three falls with her.”
    “But I do, dear boy. I do.” Cora looked almost wistful for a second, and then asked me what I wanted.
    I said I wanted some information, and she said if she didn’t have it, she would make some up.
    “Do you remember a guy—about fifteen or twenty years ago—played a detective on television called Domingo?”
    I thought I detected a momentary twinge of uneasiness, but she recovered smoothly. “You mean Harvey Millicent. Of course I remember, dear boy. Only the body’s going, not the mind.”
    “Harvey Millicent?”
    “Yes, dear boy. Isn’t it a scream that the actor they tried to promote as the New Valentino was called that? Somebody figured that there were so many Rocks and Biffs and Lances at the time that it would be a good idea to use his real name, which was Harvey Millicent. Except that as soon as the series started, everyone began calling him Domingo after the character he played, and the name stuck. I think he liked it. Wouldn’t you, if you were named Harvey Millicent?”
    “What happened?”
    “The same old story, dear boy. So boring. The series was an instant hit. Overnight, as they say, Harvey went from being a nobody—people claim he was a not very successful pimp before he was discovered, but that may be just maliciousness—to being a star. He bought a house in Beverly Hills. I think he even named it after the TV show. Tacky, tacky. He had lots of money and he started spending it. Acquired quite a taste for la dolce vita, and it began to show. He started gaining weight and getting sloppy. In the second year of the series, you might say he became a gigantic shadow of his former self. He also became unmanageable, developed an ugly temper. That’s fine if you have the talent to back it up, but old Harvey couldn’t play dead if you shot him through the heart. Midway through the third year, the series was canceled. Good-bye, Domingo.”
    “And then?”
    “What ‘then’? Dear boy, in this town there is no then. If you’re canceled you cease to exist. You disappear.”
    “Except that Domingo didn’t disappear. Come on, there’s more.”
    She didn’t look very happy. “If you know that, then you already know more than is good for you, dear boy. Domingo is one of those people it is not healthy to talk about in this town. If somebody tries to tell me something, I don’t listen.” I looked steadily at her, and she heaved a dry, scraping sigh. “You know, a taste for the good life can be habit forming. Domingo had the habit.”
    “How did he maintain it?”
    “Not from carefully investing his earnings as an actor, I can assure you. Those were spent before the