by James Ellroy
“Thanks. I wasn’t quite ready to walk back to my room yet.”
“You know, I didn’t believe most of what you told us. I believe you were a cop, all right. You look like one. But the rest of it was a con job, right? I mean about being sickened by the violence and racism and all that. Right?”
“I guess so.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I’m not sure. I wanted you people to like me and I wanted to move you on a level you could appreciate, but I didn’t want to give up too much of myself in the process, I guess.”
“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Bad trouble?”
I nodded.
“I knew it. It’s your eyes. They’re scary. They’re not indent, whatever that is.”
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
“No. You’re scared enough for the both of us. I’ve got good antenna. I can tell when someone’s hurting. You’re hurting bad.”
“I’ll be all right, I think. There are some things I have to do down here, and a big mess waiting for me back in L.A. I’ve been drinking, but that’s over, so I should be okay. I appreciate your concern, Kallie. You’re a lovely young woman.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I hope so. I got involved with a woman in L.A. just before I left, but I’m not sure what will happen when I return.”
“I was just wondering.”
“I’ve got some business to attend to that should keep me busy down here another few days. I’d like to see you again.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. I want to give you something, but I don’t want to get involved.”
“I guess I was being forward. I’m sorry. I’m very stoned. It’s a strange sensation.”
“Don’t be sorry, Fritz. I like you. I’ve got a thing for men who are hurting. It’s kind of sick, I guess. If you want, you could stay with me tonight.”
“I’d like that.”
“Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want to get it on. I’m not promiscuous. I’ve got an aura. I can impart good feelings to people in trouble without sex. I’m a love carrier. I can help you. If you could see your own face, then you’d know how bad your vibes are.”
“I’ll do anything you like, sweetheart.”
Kallie led me to a high sand drift away from the other brothers and sisters. We laid out a large double sleeping bag and got in with our clothes on. We held hands and cracked jokes for about an hour. After a while exhaustion caught up with me and I started to drift off. Kallie placed my head on her breasts and gently ran her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep. I awoke in that same position hours later, as dawn broke across the water. Kallie had bared her breasts during the night and they were flushed and sweaty from the weight of my head. As I came awake, she did too. I looked at her expectantly, hoping her nakedness meant that we could now make love, but Kallie shook her head. We stood up and embraced.
“Thank you,” I said.
Kallie nodded and squeezed my hand. “Don’t come back, Fritz. I know you. You’ll do something to blow it here. I’ll remember you in my meditations. Count on that.” It was very final. I kissed her on the cheek and walked back to my life.
My room looked different when I returned to it. The squalor of peeling paint, the musty smell and the rusty furnishings caused me a long moment of self-revulsion. But that passed. The past was dead and there was a future to contend with. I started by pouring the remains of my Scotch down the sink. Then I carted my records up the fire escape to the roof of the building and sailed them off” in the direction of the housing development. Most of them died abruptly, but some managed to land on the roofs and gravel front yards of the impoverished dwellings. It made me feel good, like a god sending culture to the culturally deprived.
Back in my room I hemmed and hawed, worried and fretted. It was time to shit or get off the pot. I opened the closet and reached up to the high shelf for the wallets of the two men I killed.
The first wallet belonged to one Reyes Sandoval. It contained a car registration, a baptism certificate dated 1941, scores of Catholic blessing cards, some Mexican currency, and a valid Baja California driver’s license, sans photograph. He was born in Juarez, October 1, 1940, making him thirty-nine at the time of his death. His height and weight were in kilos and meters, from which I figured him to be medium-sized. Neither man had weighed much as I dragged them into the hideous death shack. The important thing was his address, which was right here in Ensenada: 1179 Felicia Terraco. There was a photograph of a nice-looking, pleasantly overweight woman holding two cuddly children, a boy and a girl. Reyes Sandoval, Mexican gunsel, was a family man.
There was nothing else of any interest in the billfold—no notations or papers of any kind. I kept the driver’s license and ripped the rest of the papers into tiny pieces and placed them in an ashtray.
The second wallet, a gaudy machine-tooled Tijuana souvenir job, yielded more: Henry Cruz, forty-two, was American born and possessed a California driver’s license, issued to an address in Bell Gardens, a white-trash suburb of L.A. From the mug-shot-like photograph and my vague recollection of that horrible night, Cruz was the man who came into the shack after me, the one I killed at close range. There was forty dollars in American money in the billfold along with a piece of paper with a telephone number. I wrote it down and, except for his California license, burned the remains of both wallets, including the Mexican money. I took the ashtray full of charred paper down the hallway to the bathroom, dumped it into the toilet and flushed. I locked the room, got into my car, and headed for 1179 Felicia Terraco.
A friendly English-speaking news vendor in downtown Ensenada gave me directions, pointing north to a large scrub-covered hillside dotted with small houses. I drove up, taking a dirt trail that ran out of Ensenada proper straight through a large bean field. My trusty Camaro strained in low up steep, narrow streets lined with dwellings that ranged from “Tobacco Road” sharecropper shacks to proudly tended stucco four-flats with rock gardens. The street signs were hard to follow and inexplicably the numbers ran out of sequence. After backtracking repeatedly I found 1179, a cube-like, off-white hut of aluminum siding—the kind of material trailers are made of. It was small, but looked comfortable. I could see airconditioning units attached to the side windows, denoting the Sandovals as members of the Ensenada middle-class. All I could do was wait.
I parked against a wooden railing that separated the road from the edge of the bluff. The view was spectacular: Ensenada to my left and directly below; to my right the crystal blue Pacific laced with darker seaweed beds and dotted with small boats.
After an hour or so I was rewarded. The Sandoval widow came out of the house, alone. She had lost weight since the picture in Sandoval’s wallet had been taken and she looked troubled. She walked three houses down and got into an old Chevy and drove away, toward Ensenada. I let her go. What I wanted was probably in the house, whatever it was. I decided not to risk a daytime B&E. Too many prying eyes about. Since I would have to wait until nightfall, I drove down into Ensenada for a lobster dinner.
After the meal, I got a sudden urge to call Jane and tell her I was all right; I had been gone six days now. But I decided not to risk it. She would ask too many questions that as yet I couldn’t answer. There was another call to be made, though. I dug out the number I had copied from the effects of Henry Cruz. He was an L.A. homeboy, so Los Angeles was the obvious place to dial.
I found a bank of enclosed phone booths in a dark passageway at the back of the restaurant and shoved a handful of Mexican coins into the slot, first to reach the L.A. operator and then to get through to my number. No answer. After thirty rings the operator refunded my money, flooding the coin box like a Vegas payoff. I dialed again. This time the phone was answered on the third ring. A friendly sing-song voice called out “Hillcrest Country Club. May I help you?”
I almost died right there. Cruz. Ralston. Fat Dog. Kupferman. Hi
llcrest. The woman was cooing into the mouthpiece, her voice melding into my colossal adrenalin rush. “May I help you? This is Hillcrest. May I help you?” I hung up. There was nothing to say.
Henry Cruz, one of Fat Dog’s killers, had been calling someone—undoubtedly Richard Ralston—at Hillcrest. Fat Dog was blackmailing Ralston and had been knocked off for his perfidy. On impulse I called Hillcrest back. The same operator answered. “Richard Ralston, please,” I said.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the voice returned, “the first tee is closed for the day. Did you wish a starting time for mixed foursomes tomorrow? … I …” She wanted to continue her sing-song helpfulness, but I cut her off:
“Is Ralston the starter there? The caddy master?”
“Yes, sir, he is. If you’ll …”
“Thank you,” I said, and hung up.
I paid my check and cruised the Ensenada streets, killing time before dark. The seaside town was coming alive with the setting sun—servicemen in civvies beginning an evening of barhopping, Mexican Nationals out for a stroll en familia, the curio shops jammed. As the sun dropped below the ocean horizon, I headed toward the high bluff north of town. This time it didn’t take me long to find the place. I parked in the same spot and walked across the dirt road to the darkened house.
I had good cover; the night was dark and Mexi-rock was blasting from the adjoining houses. I knocked on the front door and then the back, getting no response. Looking both ways for signs of trouble, I picked the back door lock with a straight pin, sliding the bolt back with a jammed-in credit card. I entered into a room that was part service porch, part playroom. A beat-up washing machine and dryer competed for space with a huge welter of dolls and broken model airplanes.
Keeping my flashlight low to avoid creating glare, I walked into the living room. I had to laugh. It was crammed with T.V. sets and cheap stereo consoles, at least two dozen of them, covering every bit of floor space. It was safe to assume the late Reyes Sandoval was a burglar and/or a fence. I flashed my light into corners. Nothing. No dressers, no tables, no shelves.
To the right of the living room was a kiddie-room-sewing-room combo. More broken toys and an elaborate loom of the kind that turns out Mexican souvenir blankets. On the floor were a dozen Singer sewing machines. Reyes was an inept killer, but a good thief. I checked the closet, tearing through racks of gaudy dresses and men’s suits. Nothing. Nothing in the pockets except cleaning tags.
I saved the bedroom at the end of the narrow hall for last. It slept the whole family: there was a set of children’s bunk beds against the wall and a jumbo canopied bed in the middle of the room. I closed the door and risked turning on the light. A score of cheap oil paintings of Jesus stared down at me from every wall. The artists had all portrayed Him as a Mexican. Above the bed a different, more somber holy man gave me the eye. I couldn’t place him. He was a tough-looking Biblical Chicano with a shepherd’s staff. Maybe he was the patron saint of low-lifers.
There were three sets of dresser drawers against one wall and a large walk-in closet. I dug into the dressers first and hit pay dirt. Pay stubs, a big pile of them, made out to Reyes Juan Sandoval and bearing the imprimatur of the Baja Nacional Cannerio de Pescado. Mrs. Galino’s high school Spanish class finally did me some good: Reyes was a recent employee of the Baja Fish Cannery. I put one pay stub into my pocket. The job designation seemed to be “laborero,” but the numerical computations were beyond my comprehension. The walk-in closet contained fishing gear: rods, poles, bait, and tackle boxes.
I was getting nervous and sweating in the sealed-up house, so I turned off the light and gave the kitchen a quick going-over—boxes of canned tuna fish, a refrigerator packed with leftovers, and a dirty sink. But I had a lead. I went out the way I came in, closing the door gently.
I consumed time on Sunday with swimming and aimless sightseeing. I located the fish cannery, a smelly factory on a low, flat wharf. I got up at four on Monday morning and drove there dressed for work.
It was lucky that I got there early. Some hippie types and destitute Mexican Nationals were milling outside the gate when I arrived, passing a bottle of Gallo White Port. From them I learned that there was a fleet of tuna boats coming in today and that a large number of swampers would be needed to unload them at eighteen dollars American or x number of pesos. I decided it was worth a try.
The crowd of work-hungry men swelled to about forty. At dawn a group of officious-looking Mexicans came down and began handing out “work cards” which we were exhorted to keep in our pockets, lest we lose them and forfeit our day’s pay. Next we were formed into work crews of ten men each, and sent down to the dock to await the arrival of the tuna fleet. I was hoping they would never show, allowing me plenty of time to gently question my coworkers about Reyes Sandoval. But it was not to be—after a half hour’s wait the ocean was churning and bubbling with scores of small fishing craft heading straight toward us.
It was the hardest day’s work of my life. We formed a line at dockside and huge oilcloth bundles of smelly, greasy fish were passed to us from the ships. We passed them on up the line where pickup trucks waited to take them to the processing area. Soon I was drenched in sweat and my brand new work clothes were covered with fish oil. When one boat was unloaded, we took a two- or three-minute break while another one moored to the dock. There was little time for conversation. At eleven o’clock we took forty-five minutes for lunch. A vendor came by and dispensed chorizo, tacos, and burritos to the hungry slaves.
During our break I broached the subject of Reyes Sandoval to three gringos and three Chicanos. They didn’t know who the hell I was talking about and couldn’t have cared less. We resumed work and I vowed never to touch another tuna sandwich, ever again.
At long last the workday ended. I was beyond tired, the resident of a new realm of exhaustion. As the last tuna boat headed back to sea a beaming Mexican came down to the dock and distributed our pay envelopes.
As we filed out toward the gate in small talkative groups, I saw her. I knew I knew her, a severe, fiercely sexual woman in her mid-twenties with a red natural. A gringa.
I followed her. She was walking ahead of a crowd of women dressed in smocks—assembly line workers in the cannery, probably—but she was no factory peon. She walked ahead, aloof and proud, smartly dressed in a tailored pantsuit. I wondered what she would look like nude, then I remembered—she was the girl performing in the porno photos I had found in Fat Dog’s arson shack! She was older now -a mature woman with the mien and sexual charisma of the very worldly. I remembered that she was the only girl in the pictures not performing with animals. It was too good, too right to pass up.
Keeping a safe distance behind, I followed her out the gate and down the broad boulevard that led into Ensenada. After a block she got into an old Mercedes. I dashed for my car, got in and jammed a U-turn up to the first parking space available behind her. Then I waited. She was still sitting at the wheel of her car, as if deciding on a course of action. Finally she pulled out, turning left into the middle of the Ensenada shopping district. I was right behind her. She turned left again on Ciudad D’Juarez and drove north, out of the city. Soon we were heading across the scrubland that fronted the bluff where the Sandoval family lived.
Keeping a car between us, I followed the old Mercedes up the bluff and around a mile or so of winding roads to Felicia Terraco. I wasn’t surprised. Walter used to tell me that everything in life was connected. I didn’t believe him. Now I did. It was eerie, almost like proof of the existence of God.
When she rounded the final turn before the Sandoval casa, I stayed behind. I waited five minutes, then left the car and walked around the corner. Sure enough, Red’s Mercedes was pulled up in the Sandoval driveway. She had to return my way; Felicia Terraco dead-ended a quarter mile in the opposite direction. I waited nervously, discarding my fish-permeated shirt and tilting back the driver’s seat so I could prop my feet on the dashboard.
Red skidded around the corner a few minut
es later, narrowly missing the divider. I caught a glimpse of her fear-flushed face. She looked anguished and disoriented. I counted to ten and began pursuit. We were back in Ensenada in half the time it took us to make the trip up. Red Top was driving fast and erratically, sending up clouds of dust that kept me hidden behind her as she tore through the sandy area outside of town. I was getting frightened for her; she was distraught, self-destructive, and in imminent danger of totaling her car.
When she hit the busy Ensenada streets she cleaned up her act, slowing down and driving with restraint through town to a quiet residential block on its east side. This was a side of Ensenada I hadn’t seen: tree-lined streets and up-to-date condo-convenience apartments that reminded me of L.A.’s better suburbs. She pulled up to the curb in front of an elegant, pseudo-French chateau apartment house, and I pulled up directly behind her. I was throwing caution to the wind, because there was no possible ploy I could use in confronting her. It would have to be direct, and that scared me. This was not my country.
She had not yet noticed me, I was sure of that. She was in some nether world of fear and self-obsession, staring up at the building as if debating the risk of entering. Then she bolted, slamming the car door and running into the large vestibule. I tucked my gun into my pocket and ran after her, entering the foyer just in time to catch sight of her going up a flight of carpeted stairs off to my left. I followed, taking the stairs three at a time. My rubber-soled work shoes made my approach soundless and I caught her in the fourth floor hallway, nervously unlocking an apartment door.
I waited until she was almost inside, then shoved the door open and grabbed her just as she began to scream, putting a hand over her mouth and wrestling her to a couch in the middle of the room. She was straining hard in my grip, with the unnatural strength of the very scared. As I sat her down, my hand still clamped over her mouth, I spoke as gently as I could: I’m not going to hurt you. Please believe me. I know you’re in trouble. I’m going to mention some names. You nod if you believe I want to help you, okay? Then I’ll let go of you and we can talk, okay?” She nodded, the terror in her eyes lessening slightly. “Fat Dog Baker, Richard Ralston, Omar Gonzalez, Reyes Sandoval, Henry Cruz.” At the mention of the last two names she began nodding vigorously and squirming in my grasp. I let her go and sat back on the couch holding my breath.
