Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [51]
Omar thought about it. He was eyeing me suspiciously. “How did you get into this thing, anyway?” he asked.
“Good question. A car dealer I worked for hired me to repo a car off a woman named Sanders. She’s the fourth man’s ex-wife. When I came around to get the car, she invited me into the house to talk. She asked me if I had heard of the Club Utopia firebomb-ing. I said yes. Then she told me how her ex-husband planned the whole thing. I believed her. This guy I’m going to see tonight was in on the blackmail scheme with Ralston.” I could tell that he believed me. It was typical: members of minorities consider repossessors to be the scum of the earth—motivated by the basest of desires. The repo angle had convinced Gonzalez that I was telling the truth. He was no dummy, but he was easily manipulated through his prejudices.
“All right,” he said, “it’s crazy, but I believe you. All the fucking work I’ve done looking for this guy and you stumble onto him accidentally. Where do we go? Santa Barbara?”
“Right. South of there. Near Carpenteria, on the beach. There’s a deserted motel where we’re going to make the trade. He wants a thousand dollars, but he’s not getting it. I’m ripping him off. You can come along as back up. We leave now. What do you say?”
“I say you’re a nice guy. Repo ripoff in the night. You do much work in the Barrio?”
“Yeah. Taco wagons are my specialty. Also foxy Chicanas. Every time I do a repo in Hollenbeck, I stop for a jumbo burrito and a piece of Mexican tail. It’s charming talking to you, Omar, you’re a lovely conversationalist, but our rapport is getting a little strained. So let’s take care of business.”
I tucked my .38 into my waistband and got my newly purchased shotgun and tape recorder from the bedroom and threw four days worth of clean shirts and pants into a suitcase. I handed it to Omar. He didn’t say anything about it, his eyes were riveted to the shotgun. He was impressed. I was speaking his language now. As we walked out the door, he didn’t notice me jam a blackjack and a length of nylon cord into my windbreaker.
We drove north on 101. The suitcase, shotgun, and tape machine were nestled in the trunk, the other goodies on my person. Omar was quiet. I had been expecting a lot of militant jive talk and needling, but he was too sensitive for that; he was lost in contemplation, thinking he was approaching the culmination of a ten-year crusade. He was, but I would be the reaper of all glories to be had.
The Fourth of July weekend get-out-of-town traffic was heavy and we slowed to a crawl nearing Oxnard and Ventura. After that, it was smooth sailing and twenty minutes later I pulled off the highway near the Casitas Reservoir and took surface streets down to the long stretch of beach just south of Carpinteria. I was sure the Beach View Motel would still be there and would still be deserted. Walter and I had discovered the Beach View about five years ago. We were driving back from San Francisco, drunk, when a torrential rainstorm hit. Walter wanted to press on and catch The War of the Worlds on the Late Show, but I insisted we park on the beach and sleep it off. We found a beach access road, expecting to find a parking lot at the end of it, but we were wrong; what we found was the Beach View Motel, a squat, ugly, lime-green structure on a particularly barren stretch of oceanfront sand obscured from the highway. We spent the night there drinking and bullshitting. The dump had been born to lose and born for losers; but it would serve my purpose tonight.
The night was pitch black and it took me a while to find the sandy blacktop that led down to our destination. When I did locate it, Omar came out of his trance and started jabbering: “Are we here, man? Is this it?”
“This is it,” I said, “we’re a little early. The guy said ten-thirty. It’s just after ten now. But that’s good. I want to make sure we see him coming, in case he brought friends.” Omar nodded staunchly. He was a courageous vato, but out of his league. To my chagrin, I was beginning to like him.
As we pulled up in front