Larry Brubaker and I drove north, toward the farm country east of Ventura. I was armed with a 10-gauge shotgun, a .38, and a hypodermic syringe; Brubaker with a masochistic delight at the predicament he was in. He knew I was armed for bear–he had supplied me with the syringe and he knew what I had to do. Brubaker was driving, but he knew only the barest outline of my plan; he knew only the territory where the game was to be played.
I stared at him out of the corner of my eye. He was a skillful driver, deftly weaving through traffic like a rider jockeying for post position, and even with his head bandaged from the result of my outrage he maintained an icy calm.
He had supplied the details, and he had agreed to sign a confession to all his knowledge of Doc Harris’s malfeasance and his own part in the drug robbery. He was an accessory to murder and much more. That confession was now, four days later, lying in my Bank of America safe-deposit box. After signing his name with a flourish to the twenty-three-page indictment I had drawn up in his cluttered back room, Brubaker had said: “There’s only one way to play this game and win. Doc owns a plot of land east of Ventura. Just a nasty little good-for-nothing pile of dirt. It’s his tax sting; he’s got no visible means of support, being a respectable middle-class dope pusher like he is. So he writes off his rockpile and pays a C-note a year in income tax. That’s where he hides his stuff. He gives it to me and I turn it over for him. We meet there once a month, on the fifteenth, to make the trade: I give Doc the month’s take, he gives me the stuff. That’s the place to take him. You dig, baby?”
I dug, and I wanted to make sure Brubaker reciprocated. “Yeah, I dig. You dig that if this thing doesn’t come off, I’m going to kill you right there?”
“Of course, baby. It’s the only game in town.”
I saw a clock as we passed Oxnard–8:42 AM., and I noted the time and place–Saturday, July 15, 1955, and I thought of what I wanted from Doc Harris on the biggest day of my life and the last day of his: I wanted a dialogue before the strychnine-laced morphine entered his veins. Remorse was beyond his capability, but I wanted a crumbling, or at least an expression of grief, as my personal revenge. And more importantly, I wanted information on the state of mind of his “moral heir.” How far had he gone in perverting Michael’s mind? How conscious and subtle were his methods of brainwashing? And I wanted him to die knowing that Michael would live free and sane because of his death.
We passed the Ventura County line and headed east. I felt like I was going to vomit, and reflexively looked at the cold mien of Larry Brubaker for signs of stress. I was rewarded: he had tightened his hands on the steering wheel until his pale brown knuckles had turned a throbbing white.
“You want to hear a joke, Larry?” I said.
“Sure, baby.”
“It’s my definition of a sadist. Are you ready? Someone who’s kind to a masochist.”
Brubaker laughed, first uproariously, then obscenely. “That’s the story of my life, baby! Only I was playing both parts. It’s too bad you ain’t gonna get the chance to know Doc. He would have dug your act.”
“Tell me about the setup. How do you and Doc work it?”
“He drives up alone; I do likewise. He’s got the stuff buried in a watertight chest in this little grove of trees next to this little shed. We make the trade and we have a drink or two and talk politics or sports or old times, and that’s it.”
“Would Doc’s ear fit in this shed?”
“Probably. How do you expect to get Doc to sit still while you hot-shot him? That’s what you’re planning to do, ain’t it, baby?”
“Don’t you worry about it. And your meeting time is always ten, and Doc is never early?”