Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [59]
“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,