The Big Enchilada (A Sam Hunter Mystery Book 1)

by L. A. Morse

  The problem with heroin is never the manufacture or distribution of it, but its importation. That’s the weakest, most vulnerable part of the chain, and the place the authorities attack the hardest and where they have their greatest successes. The scheme in effect at Medco entirely eliminated that link, and it was no wonder Watkins and his Narco buddies were having such a hard time getting a line on it. Even if they managed to crack part of the distribution scheme, they’d always run up against a blank wall,

  The idea of using an established pharmaceutical supplier for the processing plant was so beautiful it was almost laughable. You might look for a backroom kitchen somewhere in the desert or the mountains, but you’d never look at a well-known drug company in the city. Not only that, but Medco could easily and legally obtain all the supplies of morphine they wanted. A simple chemical process converted the morphine into H., and because they were using good morphine, they would end up with a dynamite product. It wouldn’t be difficult to juggle the company’s accounts and records to make a pretty sizeable quantity of morphine disappear. Acker, having been general manager, would know how to do that.

  By the same token, a lot of the profits from the heroin could be funneled through Medco’s legitimate books—a slightly bigger sale here, a nonexistent order there, and pretty soon you’ve got the means to justify a considerable improvement in life-style; whatever is not declared that way is gravy, and the existence of that extra money would not be very obvious. As long as Medco’s books looked good and they paid their taxes like a good corporate citizen, nobody would look very closely at them. If somebody did get curious, it would be a lengthy, difficult process to discover what was wrong, and the participants could be clear long before the whistle was blown.

  Given all that, it was hardly surprising that things at the factory felt funny. The whole place was just a front, and the legitimate business wasn’t enough to justify their existence.

  If my reasoning was right, and I was sure it was, it was easy to see how the whole thing had come about. Through the Black Knight Club, Domingo had gotten something on Acker. I had no idea what it could be, but it had to be something pretty heavy because Acker didn’t seem to be the type to be bothered by anything comparatively mild. In any event, pressure was applied, and they came up with this scheme. I didn’t know for sure, but Acker must have been pretty agreeable to it, since he’d end up with more money than he could ever hope to get any other way.

  There had been the problem of the proposed take-over , but that was easy to deal with. Sweet caved in without a struggle. It only remained to give Acker the money to buy out the owner, and the boys had their private chemical company to do with as they pleased, complete with protection, happily provided by their old pal detective Ratchitt. Nice, nice, nice.

  It all held together, but, after thinking it through, I was still bothered by the fact that they reacted so strongly to my appearance on the scene. They were pretty secure, and it was unlikely I would have come upon the Medco setup unless I had been pushed into it. Even the coincidence of my poking around Venus Films asking about Linda Perdue didn’t seem enough to account for their overreaction. Of course it could be that they were really stupid, but they couldn’t have come up with this beautiful operation if they were that dumb. No, there were some things I didn’t know.... Even beyond the identity of Domingo.

  Clarissa Acker’s face popped into my head, and I began to wonder what all this would mean to her. Not anything good, that was for sure. She had no involvement in her husband’s dirt, but she would be affected just the same. Badly.

  Shit. What was happening to me? Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have given it a thought—I’d just let things fail where they would. And they were going to fall. Hard. Too much had gone on, and I was owed too much. I didn’t have any choice. I had to take it all the way, no matter what, no matter who got buried. The damn thing was, I knew she would understand that, even if she was one of those who got buried. Well, I’d just have to try to pull her out. “How” was another of those things I didn’t know.

  Shit.

  My deliberations were cut short by the appearance of Mountain around the corner of the building. He was carrying a couple of shopping bags, and they didn’t contain his groceries.

  He put the parcels in the back seat of the car and squeezed into the space behind the wheel like a giant hand going into a glove that’s too small.

  The limo moved out, a silent black shadow.

  After a pause, I fell in behind.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It wasn’t hard to follow the limousine. It was the biggest thing this side of the yacht harbor, and I was able to keep it in sight from a couple of blocks back.

  Mountain made a lot of detours and circular maneuvers to see if there was a tail on, but I anticipated his moves and was so far behind anyway that he never picked me up. Finally he settled down and continued in a fairly straight line. He was heading toward Beverly Hills.

  He left Sunset and turned up into the hills. A couple of more turns and he was onto one of the pricier streets. Suddenly I realized I knew where he was heading, and I knew what it was about Domingo that had been scratching away at the back of my skull.

  When I had been staking out George Lansing’s house to see what his idiot son was up to, I spent a lot of hours sitting in my car. This disturbed some of the residents and the cops came around to check me out. They would have liked to roust me, but there was nothing they could do. Just to make things look better, I moved around a bit—parking up the hill one day, down it the next. I spent two days in front of an elegant house that was three up from Lansing’s. There was nothing special about the place, but there was a small ivy-covered sign at the bottom of the drive. I had just remembered that the sign said Casa Domingo.

  It was fucking incredible. No, on second thought, it wasn’t. I had stopped being surprised by anything a long time before. Now I knew what had started it all. In combination with everything else, my spending two days in front of his house had got him pretty nervous. He didn’t know I was watching a different house and that the cops were trying to chase me away. What he thought he saw was cause for alarm... and for action.

  I didn’t need to follow the limo any more. I turned off at the first opportunity and raced up a street that ran roughly parallel to the one where Domingo lived. From the time I spent on the Lansing case, I knew the neighborhood pretty well, and I knew how to get into the backyard from the next street over. I figured it was better to approach the house that way than from the front.

  I studied the houses I was going past and parked in front of the one I thought was likeliest. It was completely dark, so I didn’t have to worry about being seen and having some half-wit hero defend his household by firing a shotgun into the night.

  I went up the driveway and into the backyard. I skirted the swimming pool built in the shape of a giant star—very classy—and made it to the rear fence. I hoisted myself up and looked around. I could just see Lansing’s house from where I was, and counted three. Dead on. I was looking into the backyard of Casa Domingo.

  As I was letting myself over the fence, I saw the lights come on in the big room that looked out on the rear gardens. The drapes were open and it was like I was looking at a brightly illuminated stage. I moved as close as I could safely go and hid myself behind a large clump of spiky desert plants.

  As soon as I was in place, Mountain trundled into the room carrying the two bags. He stood motionless for a few moments, and then a man crossed to him. The new arrival was of medium height but was grossly obese. He wore a dressing gown that was thickly embroidered with red and gold Chinese dragons. He had thick black hair, a prominent hawk-like nose, and droopy sensual lips. Without the excess weight he would have had the dark, striking good looks that one associates with Mediterranean gigolos, and he looked familiar to me. I concentrated.

  Son of a bitch! Charlie Watkins was right after all. Take off fifteen or twenty years and more than 150 pounds and it was the guy that played that ha
lf-baked television detective Domingo. The critics had said his acting was criminal, and I guess he took it to heart. I realized then that his was the voice that had called me about Stubby Argyll.

  Not much was happening on the stage. Domingo took the bags from Mountain and carried them off past where I could see. He returned in a minute, lit one of those special cigars, and opened a magnum of champagne that was icing in a bucket. He didn’t bother to offer any to Mountain, who was pulling candy bars from his bulging pockets and stuffing them into his mouth. I couldn’t tell if he troubled to remove the wrapping first.

  The rest of the scene was about as interesting as Domingo’s long-dead TV series, with about as much action. Domingo said a few words to Mountain, and Mountain left. The fat former actor continued to pour out glasses of champagne and toss them back in one swallow. The wine probably never even hit his 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. 1 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 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 serie
s 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 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.”