Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [73]
“Was Henry a dealer?”
“What do you mean ‘was’? Is Henry all right? Tell me!”
I hesitated.
“He’s all right as far as I know. Is he strung out?”
“Yeah. Bad.”
“Was this guy Henry used to play baseball with named Richard Ralston?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of job was he supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Look, what’s your name?”
“Dorcas. I mean Dori. Dorcas is a shitty name. It sounds like dork, so I use Dori.”
“Dori, I know Reyes Sandoval is a burglar, and you tell me Henry is strung out. I don’t care. I don’t want to bust anyone. This case I’m involved in is too complicated to explain to you. I need the man who hired Henry to do this job. Then maybe I can find out if Henry is all right. We both know that this man wanted Henry to kill somebody, right? That’s the only thing it could be.”
Dori collapsed in sobs, her body quaking. “I know, I know, I know! Now this guy Ralston is after me. He says Henry is gone, Reyes is gone, and the dope is gone. He thinks I know where Henry is. I told him I know where the dope is—he can have it back—but Henry is gone and Reyes is gone and I just know they’re dead!”
“Sssh. Maybe they’re not. Ralston wouldn’t be bothering you if he knew they were dead, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Better than maybe. Probably. Can you tell me who hired Henry and Reyes to do this job?”
“I don’t know his name. Ralston set it up. He’s a rich American, I know that. He’s got a huge house down the coast. Henry told me about it, and I remembered passing by there once.”
“Can you take me there?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Has Ralston been hassling Sandoval’s wife? I know you know her. I followed you there.”
“Yes. Tina’s scared, too. She sent her kids to T.J. to live with her parents.”
“I think you and Tina should lay low for a while. I’ll make you a deal. Show me this rich guy’s place tonight, and I’ll give you and Tina Sandoval some money to hide out on. I’ll even drive you to the border.”
“How much money?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“Really?” Dori smiled for the first time.
“Really. I’ve got it right here.” I patted my wallet.
“What about my things?”
“Forget them. You’re probably in danger. Forget your job, too. You can always come back to it. If you can take me to this place, then I’ll drop you with the Sandoval woman. We’ll ditch Mexico tomorrow.
“But Tina’s Mexican. She don’t have a green card.”
“Let me worry about that. Now pack a bag so we can split.”
She went into the adjoining room and I surveyed the apartment: it was cheap plush, an unschooled person’s idea of high class. Dori came back, suitcase in hand, surprisingly fast. She was pulling together nicely. The hardness I had discerned in her at the cannery was real. “One thing before we leave,” I said, “where’s this supply of dope Henry received?”
She nodded toward the bedroom. We walked in. She opened up a dresser. Hidden underneath some men’s shirts were six plastic baggies of white powder. A fortune in heroin if the stuff was pure. I opened a baggie and tasted: the blood rushed to my head and my body shook for a brief instant. It was very pure. If I hadn’t killed Henry Cruz he would have died of an overdose before too long. I looked at Dori.
“It’s good stuff, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Extremely,” I said. “Stuff like this doesn’t deserve to live. We’re going to hold a funeral service for it.”
“But it’s worth a lot of money.”
“The money you’d get from selling it wouldn’t deserve to live, either. Where’s the bathroom?” It was adjacent to the kitchen. I carried the baggies in, and emptied them, one by one, into the toilet. It made me feel pure and very moral. When I flushed, it was almost like an act of penance for my old sins. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.
We drove south in my car and we talked, or mostly Dori did. She was nervous, worried, but excited over the prospect of my thousand dollars. She had had a long, hard relationship with Henry Cruz. She was an L.A. girl, and Cruz had taken her virginity when she was fifteen. They had been together ever since. He had turned her