The Big Enchilada (Sam Hunter #1)

by L.A. Morse

When I was a young kid my father once sat me down for a serious talk, probably the only one we ever had. He looked at me for a long time, and I remember thinking he seemed kind of sad. “Don’t let them fuck you over,” he said, “don’t ever let them fuck you over. There are a lot of assholes out there who, because they’ve got more money or more muscle or more fire power, think they can make everybody play their game. And mostly they’re right, and everybody does play their game, but there’s no way that they can deal with the man who doesn’t give a shit about their game—who plays his own game in his own way. They’re so used to getting their own way that when someone doesn’t jump when they say jump, they don’t know what to do. If he doesn’t drool when they shake the carrot, they can’t run him. The man that won’t jump is a dangerous man because he’s his own man. It’s not a question of manhood or pride or any of that shit; it’s a matter of survival. If you let them stick it to you once, then you’re theirs, and you’re playing their game. But the man who won’t take any shit—and who doesn’t give a shit—is a free man, no matter what happens.” My father was a straight man in a crooked town. A week after he talked to me he was killed.

I thought about it. Domingo meant nothing to me. I kind of had the nagging feeling I had seen the word somewhere recently, but as hard as I tried to place it, it kept eluding me. I knew there was no point in pressing it. If it was there, it would have to surface by itself. When Luis brought me another beer, for no particular reason I asked him if he had ever heard of anyone called Domingo. “Domingo? I do not think so, Señor Hunter. The only Domingo I know is Sunday. That is the Spanish word for Sunday.” “Yeah, Luis, I know. You’ve never heard of a club or a gang or anything like that called Domingo?” Luis screwed up his face as though he was thinking real hard, but I knew that all his brains were in his fat belly. “No, Señor Hunter, I do not know anything like that. All I know is cooking, and I do not get into trouble.” “Who said anything about trouble?” “I know you, Señor Hunter, and if you are looking for someone, there is trouble.” He picked up the empty bottles and waddled back to his stove.

He was never a very warm man, but he got even colder. I wanted to help, because I still cared for him and for our relationship, but he wouldn’t let me, wouldn’t let me near him. And it just kept getting worse, until three or four years ago he closed up completely. Never said a word, just looked at me with cold contempt. I’ve thought about it a lot since, and I honestly don’t think it was my fault. I guess that was when I really started to hate him, the bastard. And I’m sure he hated me as well.” “Then why didn’t you get a divorce? You asked, didn’t you?” “Of course I asked. He would just stare at me for a long time and then say things like ‘It is forbidden’—like he was making a pronouncement. Shit, he isn’t even Catholic. At those times I felt like shooting the son of a bitch. It scared me, Hunter.” “So why didn’t you leave? Just leave. You could’ve.” “What, and give him that satisfaction? No way.” I looked at her and she shrugged.

We were moving about as fast as shit in a clogged sewer, but there was nothing I could do about it except relax and wait. I can do that when I have to, but some red-necked turkey in the car next to me had on a quadraphonic speaker system that was playing country-and-western garbage loud enough to be heard in Oklahoma. He was wearing a Hawaiian-patterned rayon shirt and puffing on a fat cigar which he didn’t bother to remove from his mouth when he drank from a can of Lucky Lager. I scowled across at him and he laughed like he thought he was some king of the road. Since the traffic wasn’t moving and it looked like I might be next to him for some time, I asked him to turn it down. He laughed again and told me to fuck off. It was too hot to put up with something like that. I reached across, opened the glove compartment, and pulled my piece from the holster. “Hey, asshole,” I shouted at him. He turned and started to say something when I stretched my arm out and pointed the gun at his head. His mouth fell open and the cigar dropped out. His eyes grew wide and his lips moved, but no sound came out. “Would you please turn it down,” I repeated. This time I had his attention. Without taking his terrified eyes off the gun, he leaned across the car, turned something, and the sound died away with an abrupt whimper. “Thank you.” I retracted the gun. I turned back to the front, but I could tell that the turkey continued to stare at me, unable to believe what had just happened. What I did...

Mama had run the restaurant for more than forty years, and she was an institution that was known in every ghetto in the country. Like all institutions, she inspired a lot of wild stories. Most concerned her immense wealth: everybody said she had a ton of money buried under her house, but she said she was just a poor cook. She laughed when she said it, and no one believed her. The best story, though, went back a long way. One day Mama had found that her current old man was cheating on her. She didn’t like that since she’d given him all kinds of presents. There was only one thing to do. She hatcheted him, and for the next couple of days he was served for dinner. They said he was pretty good. Nearly every day since then, some fancy man would come in and ask Mama if she had any of that special long pig. Mama would just laugh and say, “Not unless you’re offerin’ your services, honey.” I sat down at one of the few vacant tables. Mama knew what I wanted, and soon a large platter was put down in front of me. There were enough ribs on it to make up half a pig, along with homefries, greens, rice and beans, and a lot of cornbread. The sauce on the ribs was a combination of sweet and hot, and no one had ever figured out what was in it. The hot burned your throat, but right away the sweet soothed it like honey. Mama had turned down a lot of money for the recipe, and there was nothing else like it. I washed the whole thing down with some cans of Tecate beer and felt pretty good.

I looked into the lounge on my way out. The show was just beginning. An oily little bastard was announcing it was something called “The Spanish Inquisition.” From the murmured reaction of the audience, it was obviously a big favorite around here. A spotlight came on to reveal a pretty blond girl who was completely naked. Her skin was very white and her nipples very pink. She was lifted above the stage by ropes attached to her wrists. She was surrounded by three men in dark red cloaks with hoods over their heads. She screamed as they began to poke and scrape at her fair skin with various metal implements. From where I was, I couldn’t tell if it was real or fake, but I wasn’t much interested. I left before the performance was over. I had a fair idea how it came out.

He didn’t know Acker belonged to the Black Knight and was startled to hear it. No, he repeated, he didn’t have a clue about what was going on. “Does this help you at all?” he said after he had finished the story. I thought. Had it? I knew more than I had before, but it seemed that the more I got, the more complicated it became. I didn’t know if I was getting closer to or further from the answers. The Black Knight was sure some operation, though —taking it in from all sides and directions. Money from one end, power and influence from another. Whoever was behind the club must have enough people in his pocket to do just about anything he wanted. Quite a setup. I could see why Ratchitt would fight pretty hard to protect his piece of it. And what was the situation with Acker? He seemed to be right in the middle, or close to it. Was he being blackmailed? Faro had no pictures, but there might be something else. And if Acker was being blackmailed, what did he have to do? And where did he get the money to buy the company? And why? Too many questions. Maybe Stubby would have some answers when I got in touch with him in the afternoon.

“Well?” I said. I was really sharp this morning. “I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.” “Not really.” I had a good idea. Two, in fact. “I gather you’ve been screwing my daughter.” Right on one count. It figured the girl would brag, being locked in competition with her mother. “Guilty,” I said. “But could you accept that she seduced me?” She laughed. “I could... that bitch. But you’re not going to tell me you were an unwilling participant.” “Well, my heart wasn’t in it—” “Something else was though,” she cut in with a harsh laugh. “—and it was unpremeditated.” “Hey, Sam, I’m not complaining. If she’s going to fuck around, she’s going to fuck around, and she might as well learn from the best, which is what you are, baby.” Another entry for my book of testimonials. “All I want is my fair share of the goodies. I haven’t seen you for a while.” I was right on both counts. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She was naked, and she stood there with her legs apart and her hands on her hips, looking like she meant business. She was fleshy but still firm. Her breasts were slightly cone-shaped, capped by hard, pointed nipples, and they swelled slightly with each breath she took. “I’m not so bad, am I?” she said hoarsely. She wasn’t. I said so, though the movement of the towel I had on made my answer unnecessary. She hungrily eyed the mounting bulge. “And I still know a few tricks that the girl hasn’t had time to learn yet,” she said as she crossed over to...

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.

I got up earlier than I probably had to, but I wasn’t going to face those dreams again, and 1 wanted to be sure I was ready for what I thought would come down. It was still quite early, but it was already fucking hot. The radio that was blasting away in the next apartment said the heat wave would continue for at least ten more days and maybe longer. Brown- and black-outs could be expected to continue from the over-use of air conditioners, and acute water shortages were inevitable. Forest fires were engulfing half the state. A crackpot mystical group said the weather was due to L.A.’s bad karma, and would not improve until everyone ate only green leafy vegetables and stopped using underarm deodorants. And that was the news.

This was the town, all right. Cults, sects, whatever you wanted to call them, they flourished here like mushrooms in bullshit, showing the way to the lost, the blind, and the lame, promising easy answers to people who didn’t even know what the fucking questions were. This was the land of sunshine and palm trees and golden opportunity waiting to be plucked like a juicy orange; if you couldn’t make it here, you were in deep shit, because there was nowhere else to go. This was the edge, the last frontier, the end of the goddamn line. There’d never been any shortage of dime-store gurus here, or of terminal losers looking for the magic mantra that would let them put it all together. A few groups had some staying power, but most sprouted at night, bloomed under the full moon, and scattered to the wind when the Ultimate Solution turned out to be just one more scam in the City of Angles.