by James Ellroy
“Is he still in town?”
“I don’t think so. I own this place, and he ain’t been back here. You lookin’ to settle a grudge? A rematch maybe?”
“I’m looking to get him out of a shitload of trouble he’s in.”
The old pug measured my words, then said, “I’m a sucker for dancemasters like you, so I’ll give you the only piece of skinny I’ve got. I heard Blanchard caused a ruckus over at the Club Satan, had to bribe his way out big with Captain Vasquez. You walk over five blocks to the beach, there’s the Satan. You talk to Ernie the cook. He saw it. You tell him I said to be kosher with you, and take a deep breath when you walk in, ‘cause there ain’t nothin’ like that place where you’re comin’ from.”
The Club Satan was a slate-roofed adobe hut sporting an ingenious neon sign: a little red devil poking the air with a trident-headed hard-on. It had its very own brownshirt doorman, a little Mex who scrutinized incoming patrons while fondling the trigger housing of a tripod BAR. His epaulet flaps were stuffed with yankee singles; I added one to the collection as I walked in, bracing myself.
From the sewer to the shitstorm.
The bar was a urinal trough. Marines and sailors masturbated into it while they gash dived the nudie girls squatting on top. Blow jobs were being dispensed underneath tables facing the front of the room and a large bandstand. A guy in a Satan costume was dicking a fat woman on a mattress. A burro with red velvet devil horns pinned to his ears stood by, eating hay out of a bowl on the floor. To the right of the stage, a tuxedo-clad gringo was crooning into a microphone: “I’ve got a rich girl, her name’s Roseanne, she uses a tortilla for a diaphragm! Hey! Hey! I’ve got a girl, her name is Sue, she’s a one-way ticket to the big fungoo! Hey! Hey! I’ve got a girl her name’s Corrine, she knows how to make my banana cream! Hey! Hey! …”
The “music” was drowned out by chants from the tables—”Donkey! Donkey!” I stood there getting sideswiped by revelers, then garlicky breath smothered me. “Joo want the bar, handsome? Breakfast of champions, one dollar. Joo want me? Roun’ the world, two dollar.”
I got up the guts to look at her. She was old, fat, her lips crusted with chancre sores. I pulled bills from my pocket and shoved them at her, not caring what denomination they were. The whore genuflected before her nightclub Jesus; I shouted, “Ernie. I have to see him now. The guy at Club Boxeo sent me over.”
Mamacita exclaimed, “Vamanos!” and ran interference for me, pushing through a line of jarheads waiting for dinner seats at the bar. She led me to a curtained passageway beside the stage and down it to the kitchen. A spicy aroma perked my tastebuds—until I saw the rear end of a dog carcass hanging out of a stewpot. The woman spoke in Spanish to the chef—a strange-looking guy who came off as a Mex-Chink halfbreed. He nodded along, then walked over.
I had the snapshot of Lee out. “I heard this man gave you some trouble a while back.”
The guy gave the photo a cursory eyeball. “Who wants to know?”
I flashed my badge, giving the breed a glimpse of hardware. He said, “He your friend?”
“My best friend.”
The breed tucked his hands under his apron; I knew one of them was holding a knife. “Your friend drink fourteen shots of my best Mescal, house record. That I like. He make lots of toasts to dead women. That I don’t mind. But he try to fuck with my donkey show, and that I don’t take.”
“What happened?”
“Four of my guys he take, fifth he don’t. Rurales take him home to sleep it off.”
“That’s it?”
The breed pulled out a stiletto, popped the button and scratched his neck with the dull side of the blade. “Finito.”
I walked out the backdoor into an alley, scared for Lee. Two men in shiny suits were lounging by a streetlight; when they saw me they picked up the tempo of their foot shuffling and studied the ground like dirt was suddenly fascinating. I took off running; gravel scraping behind me said the two were in hot pursuit.
The alley ended at a connecting road to the red light block, with another, barely navigable dirt fork angling off in the direction of the beach. I took it at a full sprint, my shoulders brushing chicken wire fencing, penned-up dogs trying to get at me from the opposite sides. Their barks destroyed the rest of the street noise; I had no idea if the two were still on my tail. I saw the ocean-front boulevard looming in front of me, got my bearings, figured the hotel to be a block to the right and slowed to a walk.
I was half a block off—in my favor.
The dump was about a hundred yards away. Catching my breath, I strolled there, Mr. Square American slumming. The courtyard was empty; I reached for my room key. Then light from the second floor fluttered across the door—now minus my spit hair warning trap.
I drew my .38 and kicked the door in. A white man sitting in the chair by the bed already had his hands up and a peace offering on his lips: “Whoa, boy. I’m a friend. I’m not heeled, and if you don’t believe me then I’ll stand a frisk right now.”
I pointed my gun at the wall. The man got up and placed his palms on it, hands over head, legs spread. I patted him down, .38 at his spine, finding a billfold, keys and a greasy comb. Digging the muzzle in, I examined the billfold. It was stuffed with American cash; there was a California private investigator’s license in a laminated holder. It gave the man’s name as Milton Dolphine, his business address as 986 Copa De Oro in San Diego.
I tossed the billfold on the bed and eased the pressure on my gun; Dolphine squirmed. “That money’s jackshit compared to what Blanchard was holding. You go partners with me and it’s easy street.”
I kicked his legs out from under him. Dolphine hit the floor and sucked dust off the carpet. “You tell me all of it, and you watch what you say about my partner, or it’s a B&E roust and the Ensenada jail.”
Dolphine pushed himself up onto his knees. He gasped, “Bleichert, how the fuck did you figure I knew to come here? It occur to you that maybe I was nearby when you did your gringo cop routine with Vasquez?”
I sized the man up. He was past forty, fat and balding, but probably tough—like an ex-athlete whose hardness reverted to smarts when his body went. I said, “Somebody else is tailing me. Who is it?”
Dolphine spat cobwebs. “The Rurales. Vasquez has got a vested interest in you not finding out about Blanchard.”
“Do they know I’m staying here?”
“No. I told Cap I’d start the tail. His other boys must have picked you up. You lose them?”
I nodded and flicked Dolphine’s necktie with my gun. “How come you’re so cooperative?”
Dolphine put a light hand on the muzzle and eased it away from him. “I got my own vested interest, and I am damn good at playing both ends against the middle. I also talk a sight better sitting down. You think that’s possible?”
I grabbed the chair and placed it in front of him. Dolphine got to his feet, brushed off his suit and plopped himself into it. I reholstered my piece. “Slow and from the beginning.”
Dolphine breathed on his nails and buffed them on his shirt. I took the only other chair in the flop and sat down facing the slats so that I’d have something to grab. “Talk, goddamnit.”
Dolphine obliged. “About a month ago, this Mexican woman walked into my office in Dago. Chubby, wearing ten tons of makeup, but dressed to the nines. She offered me five hundred to locate Blanchard, and she told me she thought he was somewhere down around TJ or Ensenada. She said he was an LA cop, some kind of lamster. Knowing the LA cops love that green stuff, I started thinking money pronto.
“I asked my TJ snitches about him, showed around this newspaper picture the woman gave me. I heard that Blanchard was in TJ around late January, getting in fights, boozing, spending lots of dough. Then a pal on the Border Patrol tells me he’s hiding out in Ensenada, paying protection to the Rurales—who are actually letting him booze and brawl in their town—something Vasquez just about never tolerates.
“Okay, so I came down here a
nd started tailing Blanchard, who’s playing the rich gringo to the hilt. I see him beat up these two spics who insult this señorita, with Rurale troopers standing by doing nothing. That means the protection tip is straight dope, and I start thinking money, money, money.”
Dolphine traced a dollar sign in the air; I grabbed the chair slats so hard that I could feel the wood start to give. “Here’s where it gets interesting. This one pissed-off Rurale who’s not on the Blanchard payroll tells me that he heard Blanchard hired a couple of Rurale plainclothesmen to kill two enemies of his in Tijuana in late January. I drive back to TJ, pay out some bribe money to the TJ cops and learn that two guys named Robert De Witt and Felix Chasco were bumped off in TJ on January twenty-third. De Witt’s name sounded familiar, so I called a friend working San Diego PD. He checked around and called me back. Now get this, if you didn’t already know. Blanchard sent De Witt up to Big Q in ‘39, and De Witt vowed to get even. I figure that De Witt got early parole, and Blanchard had him snuffed to protect his own ass. I called my partner in Dago, and left a message with him for the Mexican woman. Blanchard is in Ensenada, protected by the Rurales, who probably snuffed De Witt and Chasco for him.”
I let go of the slats, my hands numb. “What was the woman’s name?”
Dolphine shrugged. “She called herself Delores Garcia, but it was obviously a phony. After I heard about the De Witt-Chasco angle, I pegged her as one of Chasco’s bimbos. He was supposed to be a gigolo with plenty of rich Mex gash on the line, and I figured the dame wanted revenge for the snuff. I figured she already knew somehow that Blanchard was responsible for the killings, and she just needed me to finger him.”
I said, “You know the Black Dahlia thing up in LA?”
“The Pope a guinea?”
“Lee was working on the case right before he came down here, and in late January there was a Tijuana angle on it. Did you hear of him asking questions about the Dahlia?”
Dolphine said, “Nada. You want the rest of it?”
“Rapidamente.”
“Okay. I went back to Dago, and my partner told me that the Mex dame got the message I left. I took off for Reno and a little vacation, and I blew the money she paid me at the crap table. I started thinking of Blanchard and all that money he had, wondering what the Mex dame had in mind for him. It really got to be a bug up my ass, and I went back to Dago, worked some missing persons jobs and came back to Ensenada about two weeks later. And you know whatt? There was no fucking Blanchard.
“Only a fool would’ve asked Vasquez or the troopers about him, so I hung around town picking up skinny. I saw this punk wearing Blanchard’s old letterman’s jacket, and this other punk with that Legion Stadium sweatshirt of his. I get word that two guys got hanged in Juarez for the De Witt-Chasco job, and I think, Rurale railroad all the way. I stay in town sucking up to Vasquez, snitching hopheads to him to stay on his good side. Finally I piece the Blanchard thing together. So if he was your buddy, get ready.”
At “was,” my hands broke off the chair slat I was grabbing. Dolphine said, “Whoa, boy.”
I gasped, “Finish it.”
The PI spoke slowly and calmly, like he was addressing a hand grenade. “He’s dead. Chopped up with an axe. Some punks found him. They broke into the house he was staying in, and one of them blabbed to the troopers, so they wouldn’t get tagged for it. Vasquez bought them off with pesos and some of Blanchard’s belongings, and the Rurales buried the body outside town. I heard rumors that none of the money was found, and I stuck around because I figured Blanchard was rogue and sooner or later some American cop would come looking for him. When you showed up at the station with that horseshit about working Metropolitan, I knew it was you.”
I tried to say no, but my lips wouldn’t move; Dolphine speedballed the rest of his pitch: “Maybe the Rurales did it, maybe it was the woman or friends of hers. Maybe one of them got the money and maybe they didn’t, and we can. You knew Blanchard, you could get a grip on who—”
I leaped up and roundhoused Dolphine with the chair slat; he caught the blow on the neck, hit the floor and sucked carpet again. I aimed my gun at the back of his head; the shitbird private eye whimpered, then double-speeded a mercy plea: “Look, I didn’t know it was so personal with you. I didn’t kill him, and I’ll back off if you want to get whoever did it. Please, Bleichert, goddamn it.”
I whimpered myself. “How do I know it’s true?”
“There’s a sand pit by the beach. The Rurales dump stiffs there. A kid told me he saw a bunch of troopers burying a big white man right around the time that Blanchard got it. Goddamn you, it’s true!” I eased down the .38’s hammer. “Then show me.”
The burial ground was ten miles south of Ensenada, just off the coast road on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A big, burning cross marked the spot. Dolphine pulled up next to it and killed the engine. “It’s not what you think. The locals keep the damn thing lit up because they don’t know who’s buried there, and lots of them have got missing loved ones. It’s a ritual with them. They burn the crosses, and the Rurales tolerate it, like it’s some kind of panacea to keep the great unwashed gun-shy. Speaking of which, you want to put that thing away?”
My service revolver was pointed at Dolphine’s midsection; I wondered how long I’d been holding the bead. “No. Have you got tools?”
Dolphine swallowed. “Gardening stuff. Listen—”
“No. You take me to the spot the kid told you about, and we dig.”
Dolphine got out of the car, walked around and popped open the trunk. I followed, watching him remove a large earth spade. Flame glow illuminated the PI’s old Dodge coupe; I noticed a pile of fence pickets and rags next to the spare tire. Tucking the .38 into my waistband, I fashioned two torches out of them, wrapping the rags around the ends of the posts, then igniting them in the cross. Handing one to Dolphine, I said, “Walk ahead of me.”
We strode into the sand pit, outlaws holding fireballs on a stick. The softness made the going slow; torchlight let me pick out grave offerings—little bouquets and religious statues placed atop dunes here and there. Dolphine kept muttering how gringos got dumped on the far side; I felt bones cracking beneath my feet. We reached an especially high drift, and Dolphine waved his torch at a tattered American flag spread out on the sand. “Here. The punk said by el bannero.”
I kicked the flag away; a swarm of insects buzzed up. Dolphine screeched, “Cocksuckers,” and swatted them with his torch.
A putrid smell rose from a big crater at our feet. “Dig,” I said.
Dolphine went at it; I thought of ghosts—Betty Short and Laurie Blanchard—waiting for the shovel to hit bones. The first time it did I recited a psalm the old man had force-fed me; the second time, it was the “Our Fathers” that Danny Boylan used to chant before our sparring sessions. When Dolphine said, “Sailor. I can see his jumper,” I didn’t know if I wanted Lee alive and in grief or dead and nowhere—so I pushed Dolphine aside and shoveled myself.
My first blow sheared off the sailor’s skull, my second tore into the front of his tunic, pulling the torso free from the rest of the skeleton. The legs were in crumbled pieces; I shoveled past them into plain sand glinting with mica. Then it was maggot nests and entrails and a blood-mattted crinoline dress and sand and odd bones and nothing—and then it was sunburned pink skin and blond eyebrows covered with stitch scars that looked familiar. Then Lee was smiling like the Dahlia, with worms creeping out of his mouth and the holes where his eyes used to be.
I dropped the shovel and ran. Dolphine shouted, “The money!” behind me; I tore for the burning cross thinking that I put those scars on Lee, I did it to him. Reaching the car, I got in, gunned it in reverse, plowed the crucifix into the sand, then gnashed through the gears one-two-three going forward. I heard, “My car! The money!” as I fishtailed onto the coast road northbound, reaching for the siren switch, slamming the dashboard when it hit me that civilian vehicles didn’t have them.
I made it to Ensenada,
highballing at double the speed limit. I ditched the Dodge on the street by the hotel, then ran for my car—slowing when I saw three men approaching me in a flanking movement, their hands inside their jackets.
My Chevy ten yards away; the middle man coming into focus as Captain Vasquez, the other two fanning out to close me in from the sides. The only shelter a phone booth near the first door on the left U of the courtyard. Bucky Bleichert about to be DOA in a Mexican sand pit, his best friend along for the ride. I decided to let Vasquez get right up next to me and blow his brains out point-blank. Then a white woman walked out the left-hand door, and I saw my ticket home.
I ran over and grabbed her by the throat. She started to scream. I stifled the sound by moving my left hand to her mouth. The woman flailed with her arms, then clenched herself rigid. I pulled my .38 and pointed it at her head.
The Rurales advanced cautiously, hand cannons pressed to their sides. I shoved the woman into the phone booth, whispering, “Scream and you’re dead. Scream and you’re dead.” Inside, I pinned her to the wall with my knees and removed my hand; the screams she put out were silent. I aimed my gun at her mouth to keep them that way, grabbed the receiver, fed the slot a nickel and dialed “O.” Vasquez was standing in front of the booth now, livid, reeking of cheap American cologne. The operator came on the line with “Que?” I blurted, “Habla inglés?”
“Yes, sir.”
I held the receiver chin to shoulder and fumbled all the coins in my pocket into the slot; I kept my .38 glued to the woman’s face. When a shitload of pesos were swallowed up, I said, “Ferderal Bureau of Investigation, San Diego field office. It’s an emergency.”
The operator muttered, “Yes, sir.” I heard the call going through. The woman’s teeth chattered against my gun barrel. Vasquez tried bribery: “Blanchard was very rich, my friend. We could find his money. You could live very well here. You—”