The Big Enchilada

checks came in. No, Domingo became a supplier.”
    “...Of?”
    “Of anything.Of other people’s habits. He would find out what people wanted—things that were difficult to get—and he would give it to them... for a price. Girls, boys, dope, protection, silence, whatever. A dream merchant in the land where dreams are made. There’s money to be made_ doing that, and they say he made a lot of it. But the more money he made, the more invisible he became. People even stopped whispering about him. If his name came up, there would be a sudden silence, and people would look embarrassed or uncomfortable... or scared. He became—he is—a very powerful man. He’s supposed to have more dirt on people than I do, and they say he uses it. He is a nasty man. I wouldn’t take him on, and you know I take on anyone.”
    “Is that it? You can’t give me anything else?”
    “Like I said, he’s invisible. No one ever sees him anymore. He values his privacy. He doesn’t like people talking about him, and so people don’t. Take some advice. Don’t tangle with him. You’re such a gorgeous hunk, it’d be a shame if something happened to you.” She tried to leer at me and stretched out a bony hand in the direction of my crotch. I moved away from the old lizard.
    “Come on,” I said, “you’re not interested in men.”
    “Not ordinarily, dear boy, but I might make an exception for you. It might be interesting. You never know, I may make it with you one of these days.”
    “Is that a threat?” I said, standing up.
    “Dear boy.” She looked appraisingly at me. “Perhaps we’ll have a quiet tête-à-tête after I have my face lifted next month.”
    Her rasping, cackling laugh followed me out of the room.
    “Don’t forget, dear boy, to pass along anything juicy you might get,” she called as I closed the door.
    None of the staff paid any attention to me as I went through the front room. One of the girls was on the phone, looking very frustrated. “Look, sweetheart,” she was saying, “I don’t care if she eats hummingbirds and champagne for breakfast. I want to know who she’s fucking this week. Capisce ?”
    That’s what we like to see: investigative reporting.
    I strolled across the expansive hotel grounds, which were being manicured by scores of wetback gardeners. At the swimming pool there were some pot-bellied men from Iowa who looked disappointed because there were no buxom starlets frolicking in the pool, only a pair of pot-bellied women from Kansas.
    If Cora Cardiff knew nothing more about Domingo than she told me, he was a man with a lot of juice. You didn’t need very many friends if your enemies were scared shitless of you, and Domingo’s were that.
    Cora had at least given me a little background. The gossip was probably right, and Domingo had been a low-level crook before his rise to stardom. When that went bust, he reverted to type. He saw his opportunity to play his same old game, only this time he was going to be in the big leagues. He started supplying goods and services. This brought him good money, but more important, it brought him knowledge. Knowledge of things people didn’t want known. Knowledge meant power. Power meant more money. And more money in turn meant more power. Once he got started, it must have been easy, and the easier it got, the more he wanted. It didn’t make any difference if he needed it, it was enough that he wanted it. And so it went. Until he brought me into it. Then he went too far.
    I had reached the bank of phone booths off the hotel lobby-I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice. I dialed the police and asked to be connected with Burroughs, Watkins’s partner.
    “Yeah.Burroughs here.” He sounded harried.
    “This is Hunter. I—”
    “Jesus Christ! This is all I needed. Hunter, do you realize that half the cops in the city are looking for you? I’d like to see you myself, but if you’ve called in to surrender, do me a favor and call someone else. Things are coming apart here, and I don’t need any more grief.”
    “Maybe I can help you.”
    “Only by hanging up.”
    “Is Watkins’s death part of the problem?”
    “Naw. Things are always cool around here when a cop offs himself.”
    “Do you think he did?”
    “It seems cut and dried. Why? What do you know?”
    “I know he didn’t. He was killed.”
    “How do you know? You do it?”
    “Charlie was a friend of mine.”
    “So he said. Friends like you he didn’t