The Big Enchilada

having him investigated. At first he didn’t believe me. I hadn’t told him your name, but I finally had to, to prove I was telling the truth. Dumb, huh? I know. I knew it as soon as I said it, but it just came out, and I did manage to get him to react. It didn’t last long, but that dead fish of a son of a bitch of a husband of mine actually looked scared. Real bright, right? I get the satisfaction of scaring him for thirty seconds, and I tell him everything I’m doing. Jesus! How can I let him get to me like that? But I do, and he does. All the time. I’m sorry I gave you problems.” She stood up. “I’m going to have a drink. What would you like?”
    “Gin and a couple of ice cubes.”
    “No mixer?”
    I shook my head.
    “Macho, macho,” she said, and went to fix the drinks.
    I lit up a cigarette, drawing the strong smoke deep into my lungs. So I was right that Simon Acker knew about me, so what? If anything, I was further away from finding out what was going on because one more possibility was now confirmed. I should have been pissed off at Clarissa Acker, but somehow I couldn’t manage it. The reason she screwed things up was the same reason she hired me.
    She came back with the drinks and bent over as she handed mine to me. The front of her kaftan ballooned out, giving me a good view of her small, well-shaped breasts and a lot of her belly. She stayed bent over a good while, making sure I got a long look. I obliged, and then moved my eyes up to her face. Her expression was absolutely blank, and then one eyelid dropped in a tremendous wink. I laughed, and she sat down, this time closer to me, with both her legs under her and the kaftan pulled up over her knees.
    My drink was a large one, and I took a big pull at it. Not surprisingly, it was good gin, smooth as satin but with just enough of an afterburn to let you know you’re drinking something.
    She took a sip of her drink and said, “Am I forgiven?”
    “There’s nothing to forgive. Just pay the bills and be straight with me.”
    “‘Just pay the bills and be straight with me,’” she mimicked. “Jesus, Hunter! Don’t be such a creep.”
    I laughed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Look, don’t worry about it. Your telling him probably won’t make any difference, and maybe it’ll turn out to be a help.”
    “Does that mean you’ll keep on working?”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “Thank you.” Her smile was warm and genuine, and it made her look pretty good.
    Shit! This was a woman who could really get to me. With no trouble at all, and without trying. Just by being the way she was. Careful, Hunter, I thought, and quickly got back to the issue.
    “You said your husband looked scared when he finally believed that you had hired me?”
    “Maybe not scared exactly.More sort of worried. But it didn’t last long. My husband has a lot of self-control. It’s one of the things I hate about him. He’s so mechanical. He—” She cut herself off with a shake of her head. “No, I won’t get started on that. Besides, you already know what I think of him.”
    “Why do you suppose he was worried?”
    “I don’t know. Because of what you found out? Because I was going to win the battle once and for all? Because I was going to get information that would expose him for what he was? Because he was afraid of exposure? Because he thought it would ruin him? I don’t know.”
    It might be possible, but somehow I doubted that that was the reason. What I’d turned up could be embarrassing for Simon Acker, and it could probably get his wife a pretty good divorce settlement, but not much more. Oh, there might be a small scandal, but this was Los Angeles, not some small town, and whatever scandal was created would be forgotten by the time the afternoon papers were out. Surely Acker realized that, and that wouldn’t scare him. But maybe he was worried I’d find out about something else?
    “Tell me about your husband’s business.”
    “I don’t think I can. I don’t really know anything. Nothing concerning my husband has been of any interest to me for years. Anyway, it’s been mutual, and he hasn’t confided in me for a long time. He’s become a very closed man.”
    “He wasn’t always like that?”
    “No, that started about four years ago.... No, maybe it even started a couple of years before that. Up until then we’d had an open relationship, always discussing whatever was going on. Actually, it wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad. But then