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.”
o o o
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?”