The Big Enchilada (A Sam Hunter Mystery Book 1)

by L. A. Morse

  “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 need. You know, someone called in here a while back. Said you had gotten Charlie involved in something dirty. He wanted out. You wouldn’t let him. So he killed himself.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “That information’s confidential.”

  “Ah, the good old anonymous phone call. Right?”

  “Maybe,” he said grudgingly.

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because it’s not true. Charlie was murdered because he found out something. It was made to look like suicide. That phone call was to implicate me to get me out of the way. I know what Charlie found out.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “No. Not on the phone.”

  “Well, come on in, Hunter. I’ll be here all day.”

  “No good. Look. Neither of us knows the other one. I don’t think much of cops, but Charlie said you were okay. Charlie wasn’t very bright, but you still might be okay. Are you enough of a cop to get some information about your partner’s murder, or are you as dirty as some of your buddies down there?”

  “All right, you asshole, I’ll meet you someplace.” He was genuinely angry. I thought that was a good sign. “But only because Watkins also said that you were okay.... But you’re right—Watkins was stupid. Where do you want to meet?”

  I told him the name of a small park. I told him to come alone in half an hour. I knew the place, and I would be able to tell in advance if he was playing straight.

  “All right, Hunter, I’ll go along with you. But if you’re being cute, if you’re playing games with me, I’m going to come down hard on you, and you’ll see just what kind of a cop I am.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. See you in half an hour.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  From my secluded vantage point on a small hill, I saw Burroughs approach. At least I assumed it was Burroughs since the guy exuded “cop” from a hundred yards. He was short and stocky, and his brown suit was creased and rumpled. He was starting to lose his hair, and what was left was wiry and turning gray. He reminded me of an especially pugnacious watchdog who might be a little slow in reacting, but would never let go once he got hold of you.

  I let Burroughs pace around impatiently for a few minutes, just to make sure he was alone. Then I left my hiding place and walked down the hill to him.

  “Burroughs, I presume,” I said cheerfully.

  “Hunter.” He made it sound like a bad word. Neither of us extended a hand to the other.

  “Where’s the basket?” I said.

  “What?”

  “You were supposed to bring the picnic basket, and I was to bring the drinks. Or was it the other way around?”

  “Hunter, don’t be more of an asshole than is necessary, okay?”

  “Lighten up, Burroughs. I was just trying to ease the tension.”

  “Let’s just leave the tension alone.”

  We glared at one another, sizing up each other. There was no question that Burroughs was tough, and he probably was a bastard, but in a funny way I began to have confidence in him. I also realized that he had no confidence in me, and he’d have to if we were going to work together. I did something I didn’t much want to do. I took a piece of paper out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s the suicide note that Watkins was supposed to have left.”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “I obviously found Watkins’s body before anyone else.”

  “What the fuck, Hunter, don’t you know it’s against—”

  “Yeah,” I cut him off, “I know it’s a whole bunch of stuff. But I’m giving it to you now. If you decide to, you can use it against me in a couple of different ways.”

  “So why give it to me?” He was being very cautious.

  “Because I want your help, and to get it I know I’m going to have to get you to trust me—at least partway.”

  I explained to him why the note was a phony. He didn’t seem particularly responsive to my reasoning, and I began to wonder if I had made a mistake in opening up to him.

  “Why should I believe you?” he said when I had finished.

  “Because it’s true, but even more because of the phone call.”

  “What do you mean?”
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  “Didn’t it strike you as funny, getting that kind of call? Doesn’t it seem even funnier, now that you see the note? You wouldn’t have gotten the call if the note had been found.”

  “A case could be made that the call and the note support each other.”

  “Come on, Burroughs. You’re a better cop than that.”

  “You’re right. It is funny, except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  He thought for a minute. “I shouldn’t tell you, but what the hell. It can’t make any difference.... We found a pound of pure heroin in the trunk of Watkins’s car.”

  Nice touch. If I hadn’t found the note first, it would have looked very suggestive.

  “Then that should cinch it that it’s a frame.”

  “Or that Watkins was involved.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “A week ago, no. But Watkins had been acting funny, and then he disappeared, so now I’m not so sure.”

  “Look, you knew Watkins for a long time. What feels better to you? That he was involved in heroin traffic? Or that to make up for some mistakes, he stupidly started investigating on his own, found out something, and was killed before he could do anything about it?”

  He gave a big sigh. “I’ll go along with you, Hunter, though I’m damned if I know why. What do you have?”

  “I’ve got a line on an operation that’s bigger than you could imagine.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Now don’t take this the wrong way, but I think we should be dealing with a D.A.”

  His face grew red. He was taking it the wrong way. “I’m getting tired of you, Hunter. What’s all your talk about trust? You’ll tell me now or you’ll tell me down at the station. What the hell do you think I’m going to do?”

  “Take it easy, Burroughs. It’s not you. This thing is really big, and if we’re going to do it right, it’s going to take someone who can move hard, fast, and secretly.”

  “You think I’m going to announce it on the radio?”

  “I know you don’t have the authority to set it up on your own, and the more people you involve, the more chance there is that the wrong person will hear about it, and that’ll fuck it all up.”

  “Who are you afraid might hear about it?”

  “Ratchitt.”

  “Is he in this?”

  “With both hands up to his shoulders. He may even have done Charlie.”

  Burroughs’s face grew dark. “That scumbag. He makes me want to puke. He’s as dirty as they come and he thinks it’s a joke. I’d love to get him.”

  Burroughs meant it. He might be an S.O.B., but he was straight.

  “I can take him down,” I said quietly.

  Burroughs looked at me, and as he did so, the expression in his eyes changed. He still didn’t like me, but the hard antagonism was gone.

  “What do you want?” he said after a long pause.

  “Can you get a D.A. with the authority—and the ability— to act quickly and quietly? And he’d better be squeaky clean. The bunch we’re up against has a lot of juice where it does the most good.”

  Burroughs thought a minute and then nodded. “Jim Green.”

  I knew who he was. He was an assistant district attorney who was young, tough, and ambitious. I told Burroughs he would do.

  “But you’ve got to give me something to take to him. He’s not going to agree to see you unless he knows what it’s about.”

  “Okay. It’s about a heroin factory in full operation. It’s about a private club that’s a brothel for kinky sex. It’s about prostitution—male, female, and children. It’s about blackmail of some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the city. It’s about bribery and protection. It’s about a big producer of child pornography. It’s about the dirtiest cop of them all.”

  “You can deliver all that?”

  “I can. It’s also about the murder of four people—Watkins, my secretary, a P.I. named Stubby Argyll, and a cheap punk called Faro. My secretary is the only one that’s down as a homicide.”

  “Jesus Christ, Hunter! You don’t want to tell me about any of this now?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll get you your D.A.... Shit! I don’t know why I’m doing this. If this gets fucked up, we’re all in for it, and it won’t give me any satisfaction to know that you’ll get it worst of all.”

  I told him it wouldn’t give me any satisfaction either, but that I thought we could bring it off so that everyone smelled like roses—or at least like cheap after shave. Burroughs didn’t find that very funny. The man has no sense of humor.

  Burroughs left me after I cautioned him about a dozen times to be sure he talked to no one except the D.A., and to make sure the D.A. also said nothing to anyone.

  I was surprised to find that I was so nervous about this. I suppose that’s what comes from having to rely on other people. I didn’t like the feeling.

  Burroughs worked fast, and in a couple of hours I was sitting in the back of a crummy bar with him and James “Mad Dog” Green, the Young Turk of the District Attorney’s office. His nickname came from the way he played linebacker in college football, but I gathered it was not inappropriate for the way he did his job as D.A. He had a reputation for single-minded ferocity that was most distressing to some of his less energetic colleagues. We disliked each other on sight, but we both realized that each of us could be very useful to the other.

  I talked for a long time. I told them about Mound of Venus Films and how that enterprise was a major supplier of the child porn films that everyone was getting so bothered about, and how it also provided young talent to the club. I told them about the Black Knight Club—what went on in the club and what happened to the members after they made use of the facilities. I told them about the heroin factory at Medco and how that setup tied in with the club. I told them about the part Ratchitt played. I told them that one man was behind all of it. I told them everything except who that one man was.

  When I started my story, they didn’t believe me, but as I went on, explained connections, examined coincidences, they became less skeptical, and by the time I finished they were believers. Thank Christ for that!

  As their incredulity changed to belief, anger turned to red-eyed fury. Green was jumping around, ready to call out the dogs, sound the alarms, order all hands on deck, and descend like an avenging angel. That was just about the worst way to handle things, and it took me a long time to calm him down and explain that a little subtlety was called for if he really wanted to close things up. I finally got him to agree that the more noise he made, the more likely it was that somebody would be tipped off and his net would come up empty.

  Then Green started in on me about the identity of the man behind it all. I kept quiet.

  “Damn it, Hunter,” he said, “I need to know the name. I can’t proceed without it.”

  “Come off it. I’ve given you enough stuff to act a dozen times over. You don’t need the name right now.”

  “But he’s the one I want,” Green said, hitting the table with his fist.

  “He’s the one I want as well. The only one I want. I don’t suffer from moral outrage, and all that other stuff doesn’t bother me too much—except as it relates to the big man. And I intend to see him brought down. But it won’t happen unless we do it my way. He’s too well insulated, and he’ll get off. He might be slowed down, but he won’t be hurt. He should be hurt.”

  “Scum like that should be exterminated,” Burroughs muttered.

  “I didn’t hear that,” Green said quickly.

  “I did,” I said, and grinned at Burroughs.

  From that point on, I had an ally in the cop, and together we talked Green around to leaving the big man to me, at least to begin with. Nobody talked about what I intended to do to him, but the unspoken idea hung over the table like a heavy shadow.

  I outlined the way I thought Green should handle things. He was to get the
necessary warrants as quietly as possible, from a judge in whom he had absolute confidence. He couldn’t be too careful about this because the big man had connections all over the place. The same applied to the cops who would be chosen for the assignment. Only a small group was needed, but they should be handpicked and absolutely trustworthy. If possible, they should be from outside the immediate area, and they should be assembled with the least possible fuss in order to minimize the chance of anything being noticed or leaked. Up until the time they went into action, no one except Burroughs and Green would know what was going down. Then, if there was a leak, we’d all know where to look.

  I asked Green if he could manage all that, and how long it would take. He thought it would be no problem and that he and Burroughs could have the strike force ready in a couple of hours. It’s amazing how the red tape just falls apart if you use the right scissors.

  Their first target would be Venus Films. They would hit it in the late afternoon when work would be proceeding as usual. They shouldn’t run into any resistance there, and they should find enough material to keep them busy for quite a while. The important thing was that anyone they netted should be kept on ice until the rest of the operation was done. They should be kept incommunicado, out of sight and seeing no one. I told Green that if that wasn’t done, he could forget about the rest of the evening. Just to be on the safe side, the cops should all be kept together as well. Green figured he could manage that.

  That night they would split up. Burroughs would hit Medco, and Green would take the rest of the men and raid the Black Knight, pulling in everyone on the premises. If possible, they’d be kept on ice until the morning. That wasn’t too essential, but it would ensure me of a good night’s sleep. After the second set of raids, Green would call off the search for me. That would let me return to my apartment. I wanted to be there in the morning. I figured Domingo might want to see me when he heard the news. I wanted to be available.