by James Ellroy
“You’re a smart, resourceful guy, Omar. I have no doubt you’ll go far in life, now that you’re free of your obsession.”
“But it’s not over, repo. This puto Fat Dog is dead, but there’s a lot more going on, you said so yourself. I want to know all of it.”
“You will. But you’re strictly a noncombatant. Remember that. When we get back to L.A., I’m going after Ralston alone. We’re dealing with killers here, not Barrio punks with switchblades and a snootful of angel dust. So you take a good look at Fat Dog’s corpse, and hold your nose while you’re doing it. If you’ve got the stomach for it, I’ll even let you desecrate it before the burial. He’s the one who killed your brother, no one else. The rest is icing on the cake and that’s my obsession. So when we get back to L.A., you keep out of it. You got shot once and survived. You were lucky. I’m going to find you a place with some friends of mine. You can stay there until this thing blows over.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll do it. I’ll make sure you know what’s happening. Just stay out of sight.”
“All right. You know, this feels strange. I’ve been waiting for this moment for over ten years, but it feels like a big letdown. I wanted to kill the puto myself, slowly. And I would have done it. Scum like this Fat Dog don’t deserve to live.”
“You’ve got that all wrong, amigo. You might have killed Fat Dog—if the timing had been right and your conscience and conditioning shut off long enough for you to do it. I might have, too, if I hadn’t been able to get him to confess and thought he might kill again. But he deserved to live. He just never had the chance. He had no choice in the matter. It was locked in, from the beginning. He was destined to become what he became. I’m no liberal, but I learned one thing from being a cop: that some people have to do what they are doing, that they can’t help it. I tried to explain this to my fellow officers, but they laughed me off as a bleeding heart. I’m doing what I have to do, so are you, so was Fat Dog. The only difference between us and Fat Dog is that our conditioning was tempered with some love and gentleness. His wasn’t. All he knew was anger, hatred, and meanness. That’s why I’m going back to bury him. He deserved better.”
“I didn’t think you were so soft-hearted. Do you consider what happens to the poor Chicano in El Barrio when you repo the car he needs to get to work in?”
“Yeah, I consider the consequences. And I come up with this: He knew what he was getting into when he signed the contract. All the repossessions I go out on are at least two months’ delinquent. So tough shit.”
“You’re a tough nut to crack, repo.”
“So are you.”
We both got a laugh out of that one. For the second time that day I pulled my Camaro over the concrete divider, giving the undercarriage a good wracking. As I hit the dirt road, I turned on my high beams, throwing light on small hills of brown scrub, dust, and a rodent family on the move. I took it slowly, staying squarely on the road. This time I drove all the way up to the death shack, turning the car around so that I could drive straight out.
There was a large Coleman lantern in my trunk. I lit it and mounted it on the hood of the car to provide light to work by. A slight breeze cut through the stench of the rotting greyhound pups in the front yard, leaving just a smell redolent of meat left out too long. I got the shovel and the large five-cell flashlight, which I handed to Omar.
“Dig this scene,” I said, “you’ll never see another one like it. The man who killed your brother is in the shack.”
Omar followed my directions, playing his light over the dead puppies. He seemed to be hesitant about going into the shack, though, like a kid at the amusement park with a ticket for the haunted house, knowing it’s the real thrill, yet afraid to go for it. “Go on, Omar. Get it over with. I want to get out of here.”
He nodded and walked up the steps while I began to dig, I was at it for about three minutes when he came crashing out the door, bent over and holding his stomach. He went around to the side of the shack and vomited, then retched dry, his whole body shaking with each convulsion. Finally he finished and walked up to me. He was pale and the look in his eyes aged him by ten years. “Jesus,” he said.
“Did you enjoy that?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “I wanted to look at his face, to try to read it, but there was no face to read. God. There were these bugs coming out of his nose and his guts hang … Jesus.”
“He’s been dead at the least three days. Have you had enough?”
“Yes.”
“Then you go and sit in the car. I’ll bury him and we’ll split.”
I dug some Kleenex out of my back pocket, tore off a few small pieces and wadded them into my nostrils. Carrying the flashlight that Omar had left on the ground, I entered the shack. I was somewhat inured to violent death and stiffs, but Fat Dog’s was too much: the stench crept through the wadded-up Kleenex and my eyes stung from the acidity of rotting flesh. I grabbed the corpse by both wrists and pulled. The left arm came loose at its socket, flying up in the air, spraying decomposing matter. I lost my balance and almost fell, letting out a strangled cry when a viscous glob of rented flesh flew up and hit me in the cheek. I brushed it off and took a moment to compose myself, then grabbed Fat Dog by the ankles and began pulling him toward the door.
I was about to begin my descent down the three shallow steps when I heard a gunshot ring out from the direction of my car. I dropped Fat Dog’s ankles, grabbed my flashlight, and pulled my .38 from my waistband. Flattening myself up against the wall, I took frantic deep breaths to stifle my fear and allow my mind to operate. Some seconds passed, then I heard voices speaking in Spanish. Through the door crack I saw the shapes of two men approaching the shack. I waited. As they got closer, I could see that the man on the left was carrying a rifle, held in the crook of his arm, pointed downward.
When they were about two feet from the steps, I swung out and flashed my light dead in their faces and fired all six shots into them at chest level. They both went down and I hurled myself back against the inside wall and reloaded from the loose shells I kept in my back pocket. I heard moaning and in the next instant a volley of rifle shots tore into the shack, splintering the wood around me. I grabbed hold of a chunk of the splintered wood and yanked, cutting my hand in the process. I stuck my flashlight in the hole and surveyed the scene: one man lay in front of the steps; I couldn’t see the other man, the one with the rifle, until an instant later when I heard a weak thumping and stifled moaning coming from the steps. He was trying to crawl into the shack, his rifle held out in front of him. I held my breath for a few seconds, then as I saw the rifle barrel make its way into the shack, I padded over and flattened it to the floor with my foot. The man who held it looked up at me from his place on the steps. I couldn’t discern his features, but I could see a bright trickle of blood dripping from his mouth. It was over for him. I placed my gun up against his temple and squeezed off three shots. His head burst inward like a crushed eggshell. I walked over to where the other man lay. I was sure he was dead, but I emptied my remaining three rounds into the back of his neck anyway.
I walked back to my car, knowing what I would find. Omar Gonzalez lay dead, sprawled across the front seat, shot in the head. There was very little blood, the bullet obviously still embedded in his brain. I pulled him out by his arms and carried him gently to the incomplete grave I had intended for Fat Dog. If Fat Dog had deserved better, then Omar Gonzalez had deserved the best life had to offer. It took me half an hour to bury him. When I finished, I tried to bring to mind a Dylan Thomas poem about “Death having no dominion,” but I couldn’t recall the words.
I went over to the car and siphoned gas into a gallon can and carried it to the shack. I dragged the two killers inside to rest beside Fat Dog. After lifting their wallets, I doused the three bodies with gasoline and dropped a match on them. As they started to burn, I thought what a fitting end it was for Fat Dog.
By the time I got back to my car and pul
led out, the shack was engulfed in flames. I headed straight for the toll road. Before I got there, I realized I was weeping for the first time since my early childhood discovery that tears did no good. Now they were streaming down my face and I was trembling like a child. For the third time in one day, I banged my car across the concrete divider. This time I was going south, toward Ensenada and an all-night liquor store.
I don’t know how I made it into Ensenada or even why I fled south, deeper into a foreign country. When a body cries “alcohol,” logic does not apply. Driving the winding coast road, I passed two toll booths and headed south. I shielded my dirt- and tearstained face from the toll takers, handing them a dollar bill and zooming past with what I hoped passed for a friendly wave. My body was functioning—the ritual of driving, of keeping all senses alert to the needs of the road, kept me from breaking down into total hysteria—but my mind wasn’t. Fear, and the inchoate realization that my life had exploded into irreparable fragments kept my head slamming painfully, causing the windshield and highway to blur in front of me.
After a while, my panic became almost familiar, and the edge of it softened. I knew there was a panacea that would put everything in perspective: booze. And the only thing that mattered now was getting it.
Ensenada opened up below me in a scatter of light. Hugging the outside lane and concentrating on driving slowly, I saw the lights of ships illuminating the harbor. On the outskirts of town I found a road that led down to the beach. After about a mile I found what I was looking for: a beachside men’s room. I sat on the toilet and let go of my bowels and bladder. Then I took deep breaths for one minute, gauging the time by the second hand of my watch. I washed my crusty face, first with warm water, then cool, and smeared some abrasive powdered soap under my arms in an attempt to eradicate the smell of fear. I combed my hair and started to feel a little bit better; my survival instincts were still intact. My tremors were all internal now, so I felt ready to face civilization.
I drove into town. Ensenada was a muted version of T.J., less low-life, quieter, and featuring a sea breeze. The night was perfectly clear, and as I parked in front of the first liquor store I came to I glanced north, expecting to see the dusty brown Mexican Hills afire with my handiwork, but there was nothing.
The liquor store proprietor didn’t give me a second glance when I purchased two fifths of Scotch, a bag of ice, and a quart of ginger ale. Now all I needed was a safe house, a place to hole up and drink. The sleazy downtown hotels would provide protective coloration for an outsized gringo, but they were too noisy, too close to the arena of tourism. So I drove south, feeling secure with my booze on the seat beside me.
On the south border of Ensenada, nestled on the edge of a housing development, I found my safe harbor: a two-story white stucco rooming house. The big sign out front said “cuartos”—rooms. I left my shotgun in the trunk and collected my suitcase and brown paper bag of booze. I rang the bell on the door lettered “managerio,” and inquired in broken Spanish after a room for a week. The woman led me down the musty hallway to an open room with a bed, table, two chairs, a wash basin, and a huge lightbulb dangling on a cord from the ceiling, “Si,” I told her. “Quantos?”
She replied. “Fifteen dollar.” I turned my back to her, not wanting her to see the size of my roll, then handed her the money. She reached into her housecoat and gave me a key. Then she looked me up and down sagely and turned and walked away.
I locked the door behind me and checked out my image in the cracked mirror above the basin. I looked gaunt and scared. I placed the two fifths of Scotch on the table and stared at them. They didn’t go away, so I stared some more. I dumped my bag of ice in the sink, making sure the plug was securely in the drain. I put three ice cubes in one of the paper cups the previous tenant had kindly left behind. My mind was raging, but I felt perfectly calm. For one split second, clarity hit and I knew what the consequences would be if I drank, but I shunted them aside. Pouring the cup full of Scotch, I drank it in one greedy gulp.
And I knew. The chickens had come back to roost. I had been saved again. I let the booze shake and warm my body. I sat down in one of the stiff wooden chairs., fondling my paper cup. My mind was just inches away from clicking into place, rushing forth with epigrams, pronouncements, and profundity.
I picked up the two wallets I had taken from the men I killed and placed them on a high shelf in the closet. The men I killed. That caused me to shake, so I had another drink. This time relief was instantaneous, my mind running with sentimental meander-ings, fragments of my relationship with Walter and odd bits and pieces of symphonies and concertos. In stereo. I had been away a long time, and Mother Booze was being generous, throwing me a mellifluous parade as a welcome home present. I was with Beethoven at the first performance of the Eroica, with Bruckner as he sought God in the Tyrolean Alps, with Liszt as he seduced the most beautiful women of his day.
I went to the mirror and checked myself out: I looked indent again, even handsome. My indently ruddy face looked a little more florid than usual, but I attributed that to too much sun. I studied the planes and angles of my face, and decided that Fritz Brown, thirty-three-year-old ex-L.A.P.D. bimbo and repo king of the greater L.A. area, would do. That caused me to smile and I amended my opinion slightly: my teeth were too small, and my eyes should be blue. Blue eyes were in. Women dug them. Even ghetto blacks were sporting blue contact lenses and getting laid as a result.
I looked around for a phone. Of course there wasn’t one. I felt like calling Walter and telling him everything was okay. I thought of an old girlfriend named Charlotte who had been in love with the Chopin “Heroic Polonaise.” She always wanted to listen to it before we went to bed. I always advanced the opinion, derived from Walter, that Chopin was a cornball and a sentimentalist. Now the “Polonaise” was banging through my brain like the repeated drone of an air raid siren.
My mind swung from Charlotte to women in general and from there to Jane. She was real, she was now. When I couldn’t shake the image of our night together, I started to panic. I grabbed the bottle and drank until I passed out.
I awoke the next morning around nine without the shakes, not knowing where I was. When I saw the empty fifth of Scotch on the table, my memory kicked in and it all came back. I held my breath against a sudden burst of panic. It never arrived. That gave me heart. I was utterly dehydrated, so I dug the remnants of the bag of ice out of the sink and wolfed them down, sending chills throughout my body. As if in answer, a lightweight case of the shakes started, but I held them at bay while I shaved and walked down the hall for a quick shower. The hallway was dirty and the shower room even dirtier. The hall rug was threadbare and no thicker than a tortilla. The shower emitted a sluggish stream of brownish water and I had to tiptoe to avoid cutting my feet on the stucco chips that covered the floor.
Back in my room I counted the money in my bulging billfold—$3,123. As soon as I realized I had time and money on my hands, the shakes started again. It got bad fast this time. My ten months of sober living had not inured me to the payment that booze demanded. The case went through my mind. It was waiting for me, but for now it was out of my control. There was an easy remedy for the shakes: drink. So I did, this time sipping the Scotch slowly from the paper cup, mixed half and half with the lukewarm ginger ale.
I decided that if I could limit my plans to this single day, today, Monday, I would be all right. I could lie low for a few days, drink, then taper off and detox. Then back to L.A. But after a few drinks, my mind became mired in a welter of plans and conspiracies, always reaching toward the ultimate: the case and Jane. It was too much. I took a large slug, straight from the bottle, locked up the room and went outside. The “managerio” gave me a slight nod and a suspicious look as I walked down the hall.
At 10:45 A.M., it was already reaching one hundred degrees. There was a sea breeze that did its best to help, but failed. I decided to leave the car and walked into town—a 502 in a foreign country was all I needed. I walked t
hrough the streets of the housing development, a blatant ripoff of American values that nonetheless carried the essence of the Mexican ethos: women and toddlers sunning themselves on the steps of the plain one-story stucco dwellings, dogs cavorting happily and chickens squawking in their low, fenced enclosures. I waved to several groups of children and they waved back. I was never a child. I came out of my mother’s womb full-grown, clutching a biography of Beethoven and an empty glass. My first words were “Where’s the booze?”
I walked down to the road that paralleled the ocean. There were fewer turistas out now. Most of the people I saw driving were Mexicans with Baja license plates. The Coast Highway took me north into Ensenada proper, past scores of signs advertising fishing, lobster dinners, and Jai alai. I passed an impressive monument similar to the American one at Mount Rushmore, this one heralding three great Mexican patriots, their heads in striking bas relief.
I was drenched with sweat now, the alcohol spreading out through my pores. I found a bar that looked like a good place to replenish my liquid content and stepped inside, but the loud Mexican disco music that blared from the jukebox drove me straight back out the door. I tried a few other dives, but the “music” was the same. Finally, I found a quiet bar on a side street. I needed a drink now, and as I sat down at the bar I arranged a stack of one dollar bills in front of me. The bartender understood and when I said “Scotch” he brought it to me wordlessly, taking a single dollar bill as payment.
I was starting to feel nervous: Armando, who I was certain had nothing to do with Fat Dog’s murder, might discover the destruction of his property and finger me to the cops. The fire I started might have spread. I was at a disadvantage not knowing Spanish—I could have checked the newspapers for mention of it. The tire marks I had left at the scene could be traced to my Camaro. My passage through the toll booths might have been noted. Fear breeds fear, and booze quells fear, temporarily.