The Big Enchilada (A Sam Hunter Mystery Book 1)

by L. A. Morse

  He was still dialing when I got to the booth. I yanked open the door, grabbed the receiver from his hand, and pulled the cable out of the box.

  “Sorry. This phone’s out of service,” I said.

  “Wha—” he said.

  “Who were you calling?”

  He didn’t answer but started to reach for his gun. The cramped quarters of the phone booth made it awkward for him to unsnap his holster, and I had plenty of opportunity to swing the receiver back and smash it into his mouth. Fragments of teeth and a spray of blood spattered the walls of the booth. He groaned and tipped his head back. I clubbed him in the forehead with all my force, and a couple of times on the back of his head as he sank down. He wasn’t moving as he settled into the pile of dog shit that adorned the floor of the phone booth.

  I didn’t know what it was, but beating the shit out of a dirty cop sure made me feel good. I just hoped that Green hadn’t sent him to make the phone call. Fuck it. It was a little late to worry about that.

  I took his handcuffs off his belt and secured his wrists behind his back with the chain of the cuffs running around one of the phone booth’s metal supports. He’d stay there for a while.

  The gas station attendant, an overweight adolescent with “Bob” written above his heart, looked on with mild interest. He shrugged and went back to work.

  I went into Venus Films. The outer office was empty except for Green, who was looking through the desk. He wasn’t pleased to see me.

  “Before you say anything,” I said, “did you send one of your men down to the corner to make a phone call?”

  “Of course not. No one except Burroughs and myself was to have any outside contact.”

  “Then one of L.A.’s finest is in a phone booth with his nose buried in a mound of dog shit. He must have slipped or something, because he’s all cut and bruised. Funny thing was, as he was falling he managed to handcuff himself to the booth. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “Is this one of your jokes, Hunter?”

  “No. He was about to make a call when he had his accident.”

  “Lucky accident.”

  “Wasn’t it?” I said sourly. “Shit, Green, what are you doing? Didn’t you check out any of these guys?”

  “I thought I did. Who was it?”

  “Gryffin.”

  “He was a last-minute replacement.”

  “Nice going.”

  “Leave it alone, Hunter.” He opened the door to the studio and called out a name that sounded like Purble. In a minute a very young, pink-cheeked, uniformed cop came out and snapped to attention.

  “Yes, Chief?” he said.

  I looked at Green and rolled my eyes. He rolled his back.

  “What do you know about Gryffin?” Green asked.

  “Gryffin, Chief?”

  “Gryffin. He’s in your division.”

  “I know that, Chief.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing, Chief.” The cop looked bewildered, but then he probably always looked that way.

  “Do you know where he was before?”

  “Northern Valley Division, Chief.”

  “And before that?”

  “I don’t know, Chief. I think he once said he was downtown. He worked with Ratchitt of Vice, I think he said.”

  “Nice going, Green,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily because Green looked disgusted with himself.

  “At least that explains it.” Green told the young cop he could go.

  “Right, Chief,” he said, bringing himself up so straight it looked like he was trying to propel himself through the ceiling. He did a military turn and went to the door.

  Green called after him. “In the future, Purble, please don’t call me Chief. I’m not, you know.”

  “Okay, Chief,” the kid said cheerfully as he went out of the room.

  “That’s good material you got there,” I said.

  “At least he’s clean.”

  “Only because no one’s tried to bribe him with bubble gum.”

  Green shook his head. “Don’t worry. He’ll be all right.”

  “Sure, he’s just the kind of sophisticated cop you want to bust prostitution and dope rings. How’d it go?”

  “Great so far. We caught them in the middle of filming a scene using four underage girls. You wouldn’t believe what they were doing.”

  “Yeah, I would.”

  He looked at me. “You probably would. We were lucky to catch them in the act, but even without that, we’re finding enough stuff here to put the bosses away for a good long time... unless, of course, they cooperate.”

  “How does that look?”

  “Not bad. At least that Monroe guy went pretty limp. There’s no fight in him. His mother’s another story. Shit. What a nasty old broad. She almost took out one of my men, and she hasn’t stopped yelling since we got here. We’ve had to restrain her. If we keep her away from Monroe, he’ll talk pretty quick. We should get enough stuff to break up a big distribution outfit, and the feds will be interested in the out-of-state stuff. This was a good tip, Hunter.”

  “There’s still more to do, you know.”

  “I know. We’ll bring it home.” He looked at me for a minute. “Uh, Hunter, thanks for sticking around. If you want, come along tonight.”

  I went to the door and turned around. “Okay, Chief.”

  He laughed. “Where are you going?”

  “Outside—to make sure no other birds decide to fly.”

  None did.

  It took another two hours for them to wrap up things at the studio. They filled up the truck with boxes of material, and everyone was hustled off to a quiet precinct house where it was hoped everything would remain quiet.

  This was one of those operations where the cops watched each other more closely than they watched the prisoners. No one was to use the telephone or to leave the room alone. They even went to piss in pairs.

  Green talked to the girls they had picked up. They were twelve to fourteen years old, runaways who had all been on the street for a while. They gave him some good info on the connection between Venus Films and the Black Knight. Promising talent got the chance to move over to the club where the hours were shorter, the work easier, and they were taken care of better. None of the girls seemed to be getting much money for what they were doing, and they were unaware how valuable a commodity they were. When they got older—if they got older—they would probably regret the missed opportunity they had had to score big when they were more than just another piece of twenty-year-old meat on the block. I looked at one of the twelve-year-olds who seemed about as wasted as a thirty-five-year-old hooker-junkie. Her life was essentially finished. That’s the way it goes in the big city, folks.

  The hours passed slowly until it was time to begin the second phase of the operation. About eleven-thirty the troops started to assemble. More than half were to go with Green to the Black Knight. The rest would go with Burroughs to take out the smack factory. It was planned that the hits would go down simultaneously, and since Medco looked to be a piece of cake, I decided to go with Green.

  As usual the house that contained the Black Knight looked deserted, but the Lincolns, Caddies, and assorted expensive sports cars scattered along the street indicated that things were in full swing.

  Two cops went to cover the rear door, and the rest moved silently up the walk and stood close to the door out of sight of the spy hole. I knocked on the door.

  “This is Sam Hunter,” I called. “I’ve got to see Lascar right away.”

  The door flew open. Bulldogs I and II had been replaced by III and IV, though it looked like they were wearing the same dinner jackets.

  “We been told what to do with—” one of them barked, but he never finished because the side of my hand rammed him in the Adam’s apple. He made a noise like “Quah, quah” before he fell over and was grabbed and cuffed by one of the cops.

  As soon as Bulldog IV saw what was happening, he started to reach und
er his jacket, but one of the uniformed cops—Purble, remarkably enough—was through the door and brought his nightstick down hard on the bulldog’s elbow. There was a sound of crackling kindling, and the fight kind of went out of the guy. Purble giggled, blushed, and then giggled again.

  The cops descended on the lounge, abruptly terminating that evening’s performance—”The Rape of the Vestal Virgins.” Unfortunately they were not in time to preserve the virtue of the girls in question. But ten minutes wouldn’t have made any difference. Ten years, maybe.

  The audience was shocked that they were being busted, except for one fat, old, bald bastard seated in a dark corner. A girl was on her knees in front of him with her head buried between his legs. “Just a minute! Just a minute!” he shouted. “I’m almost there. Give me a break, will you? It’s the first time in years I’ve had it up.”

  I didn’t wait around to see if they gave him a break. I led Green and a few cops down the corridor to Lascar’s office. We went in without knocking.

  Lascar was behind his desk, engrossed in watching a television that was built into a wall cabinet. It wasn’t the movie of the week that held his attention, not unless one of the networks had been taken over by an S-M leather freak. A barely pubescent girl, clad only in thigh-high boots complete with spurs, was busily swatting the flabby bare ass of a guy wearing a baseball cap. There was no sound, but he seemed to be shouting encouragement. Abruptly he turned on the girl, pulled her over his knee, and began spanking her. As she squirmed in his lap, a rapturous expression came over his face. The plot wasn’t very good, but the performances were strong.

  Lascar swiveled in his chair. His look of annoyance changed to incredulity and then fear when he saw the uniforms.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he managed to squawk.

  “Police,” Green said. “You’re busted.”

  “Hey, you’re making a big mistake. That’s all taken care of.”

  “Not anymore,” Green said.

  Lascar’s head was twisting around so much he couldn’t speak. It looked like he was trying to shake it off his neck. I was standing in the background, but he finally noticed me when his spasm subsided. “Hunter! You’re in this? You’re a dead man,”

  I grinned at Lascar, and, following Green’s order, he was cuffed and removed. He started to weep like a girl as he was dragged from the room. Tough guy.

  I walked over to the TV.

  “Shall we see what else is on? This is getting boring.”

  I turned the dial. The next channel on the closed-circuit television showed an unoccupied room decorated with lots of frills and stuffed animals, like a little girl’s room. I turned again, and a couple humping in the missionary position appeared on the screen.

  “Hmm. How dull. Must be a rerun,” I said, and switched the channel.

  A dark-complected man with a hairy, muscular chest appeared.

  “Say, that’s Rick Stallion!”

  That exclamation of surprise came from Purble, who was still in the room. It was, indeed, Rick Stallion, a pop singer whose sexy, super-macho, stud image made middle-aged ladies dampen their drawers. The intricate posture in which he was entangled with a slender young man would not have helped his image.

  “What’s he doing?” Purble said, open mouthed, and his expression changed from puzzlement to horror as the couple shifted their position. “That’s disgusting!” Purble said just before he threw up on the carpet.

  “Hardened crew you’ve got here, Green,” I said, but Green was busy issuing orders for his men to grab the occupants of the private rooms.

  I watched the action on the TV. It was the funniest show I’d ever seen on the tube.

  The net haul included a pair of corporation presidents, a prominent banker, and a municipal judge who had made a name for himself by being tough on pornography and prostitution. He’d probably try to explain that he was in the club doing field research, the asshole.

  Everything was under control, but Green had a lot of tidying up to do. I wanted to get over to Medco and see how things had gone there. Before I left, Green assured me that he’d hold everyone as long as he could. I told him it didn’t matter anymore, now that the operation had gone down smoothly, but that Lascar had to be kept on ice for at least twelve hours. He was the only one that could tie me to the raid, and if he did, it would fuck up my plans for the morning. I reminded him about what he was to do if I called him, and he impatiently nodded. He was anxious to start bargaining with the fat asses he’d caught.

  Green was humming happily to himself as I left. I was sure he was already seeing beyond the governor’s mansion to Washington. He could have it. He wouldn’t get my vote, but nobody else would either.

  I drove across to Medco. For a change, there was hardly any traffic and I made good time. If everything went as well there as it did at the club, friend Domingo would have a nice surprise in the morning.

  I hadn’t told Burroughs about Mountain. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t warn him, but I thought it might tip him to Domingo, and I wanted the man to myself. If Burroughs had run into Mountain, he would really be pissed at me, so I had to hope that the giant hadn’t shown up.

  Medco was dark and quiet. I saw the unmarked cars parked at the back of the building, and there were no ambulances around, so I figured Mountain hadn’t been there.

  I went to the side door off the alley. It was being guarded by a cop who recognized me. He said that everything had gone well. I went in and found Burroughs in the lab. The chemists were across the room, cuffed, guarded, and not looking terribly pleased with developments.

  Burroughs seemed pretty happy, or as happy as that sour son of a bitch ever got.

  “Good tip, Hunter,” he said reluctantly.

  “These the only ones you found here?” I said, gesturing at the three prisoners.

  “Yeah.”

  “You couldn’t have overlooked a guy about seven feet tall? Weighs five hundred pounds and looks like he escaped from a Japanese monster flick?”

  “Who’s that? You didn’t tell me anything about that. What’re you trying to pull?”

  “Take it easy. He wasn’t here. And you could have handled him anyway. He’s not nearly as tough as he looks. Cut off his arms and his legs and he’s nearly defenseless.”

  “Hunter!” he growled at me.

  I had mixed feelings about Mountain. If the cops had got him, I would have felt more comfortable. On the other hand, he owed me a lot, and I wanted to collect so badly it made my fingers ache.

  “How’d it go?” I said.

  “Perfect. We caught them making the junk. Quite a setup they had here. There’s no question this is the source of all the shit that’s been floating around. Christ, they must have processed twenty kilos a week. In a little while there are going to be some mighty unhappy people on the street. Looks like a long, dry summer ahead.”

  “Have you gone through the company records yet to see how all that extra money was accounted for?”

  “Not yet, but we have lots of time. There’s only one thing I want to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where Acker is.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s not at home. I called.”

  “You called?” I said. Shit.

  “Don’t worry. I just asked if he was there. Some woman answered. Said she didn’t know where he was and she didn’t care. She sounded like she meant it.”

  “She did. That was his wife.”

  “Oh. I just hope the bastard hasn’t skipped.”

  “Why should he?”

  “How the hell should I know? I just want that scumbag.” He looked at me curiously. “You wouldn’t by any chance know where he is, would you?”

  “I might have an idea.”

  “Well?”

  “I’ll check it out and let you know.”

  “Hunter!”

  “Stay calm, Burroughs. I haven’t let you down yet.” If I could manage it, I wanted to see Acker before the cops go
t him. There were still some loose ends, and I thought I might tie them up easier than the cops. I was also thinking about Clarissa Acker. If I was going to pull her out, I had to get going.

  “All right, Hunter. But remember, you still got a rope attached to you. If you fuck up, it’s your ass.”

  “Your confidence in me is really encouraging,” I said as I left the lab.

  Christ, I gave Burroughs the biggest score of his life, and he still treated me like I was the enemy. Fuck it. He was right. I was the enemy. I just happened to be on his side for this one.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I figured that there was a good chance that Acker had gone to his private apartment, a rodent returning to his hole. I drove into West L. A. and parked in front of the ten-story building that had about as much architectural interest as a freeway off ramp.

  I went into the underground garage, spotted Acker’s car, and took the elevator up to the sixth floor. Using the key that had gotten me into the apartment once before, I silently opened the door and went inside.

  There were no lights on, and at first I thought that Acker must be asleep. As I became accustomed to the darkness, I noticed there was an odd glow coming from the living room, and I heard a strange giggling sound, a metallic hee-hee-hee from a robot’s voice box.

  I crossed the small entry hall and looked into the living room. The glow originated from a large TV screen. The giggle came from Simon Acker. He was seated on the couch about five feet from the television. He was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on the screen. He was naked. He was vigorously masturbating, and his penis was large and swollen. Okay.

  I turned my attention to the television, which I saw was connected to a video recorder. This was apparently my night for kinky viewing. I saw a man wearing a long cloak that hung open in the front. He was naked underneath the cloak and in a state of arousal. He crossed the room to a young blond girl who was chained to the wall, her arms and legs spread wide. She was naked and looked afraid. The man looked steadily at her and then ran his hands slowly over her body. The girl tried to twist away from his touch, but she was too securely fastened to the wall. He then started to grab and squeeze her with increasing force, pinching her nipples and twisting her breasts. The girl protested, and, even though there was no sound coming from the television, it was obvious that she was pleading with the man. He slapped her hard across the face several times and then dipped his head. The girl screamed in pain as he bit the soft flesh of her breast. At the same time his hand went between her legs and viciously tore at the inside of her thighs. The man was frenzied now, and his hands flew over the girl’s body, scratching, digging, pulling at her skin. The girl was screaming frantically, and the man punched at her to quiet her, but she continued to scream. His face contorted with passion and anger. To silence the girl he put his hands around the girl’s slender throat and applied pressure. The girl stopped screaming and her eyes grew wide with fear. The man continued to choke her, pressing his penis against her belly as he did so. The girl’s eyes turned up in her head and her body sagged. The man continued to throttle her long after she was dead. Finally he ejaculated, his mouth open wide in a triumphant yell. He released his hold on the girl and fell to the floor. There was no doubt this was a snuff film. The real thing.