Ensenada opened up below me in a scatter of light. Hugging the outside lane and concentrating on driving slowly, I saw the lights of ships illuminating the harbor. On the outskirts of town I found a road that led down to the beach. After about a mile I found what I was looking for: a beachside men’s room. I sat on the toilet and let go of my bowels and bladder. Then I took deep breaths for one minute, gauging the time by the second hand of my watch. I washed my crusty face, first with warm water, then cool, and smeared some abrasive powdered soap under my arms in an attempt to eradicate the smell of fear. I combed my hair and started to feel a little bit better; my survival instincts were still intact. My tremors were all internal now, so I felt ready to face civilization.
I drove into town. Ensenada was a muted version of T.J., less low-life, quieter, and featuring a sea breeze. The night was perfectly clear, and as I parked in front of the first liquor store I came to I glanced north, expecting to see the dusty brown Mexican Hills afire with my handiwork, but there was nothing.
The liquor store proprietor didn’t give me a second glance when I purchased two fifths of Scotch, a bag of ice, and a quart of ginger ale. Now all I needed was a safe house, a place to hole up and drink. The sleazy downtown hotels would provide protective coloration for an outsized gringo, but they were too noisy, too close to the arena of tourism. So I drove south, feeling secure with my booze on the seat beside me.
On the south border of Ensenada, nestled on the edge of a housing development, I found my safe harbor: a two-story white stucco rooming house. The big sign out front said “cuartos” — rooms. I left my shotgun in the trunk and collected my suitcase and brown paper bag of booze. I rang the bell on the door lettered “managerio,” and inquired in broken Spanish after a room for a week. The woman led me down the musty hallway to an open room with a bed, table, two chairs, a wash basin, and a huge lightbulb dangling on a cord from the ceiling, “Si,” I told her. “Quantos?”
She replied. “Fifteen dollar.” I turned my back to her, not wanting her to see the size of my roll, then handed her the money. She reached into her housecoat and gave me a key. Then she looked me up and down sagely and turned and walked away.
I locked the door behind me and checked out my image in the cracked mirror above the basin. I looked gaunt and scared. I placed the two fifths of Scotch on the table and stared at them. They didn’t go away, so I stared some more. I dumped my bag of ice in the sink, making sure the plug was securely in the drain. I put three ice cubes in one of the paper cups the previous tenant had kindly left behind. My mind was raging, but I felt perfectly calm. For one split second, clarity hit and I knew what the consequences would be if I drank, but I shunted them aside. Pouring the cup full of Scotch, I drank it in one greedy gulp.
And I knew. The chickens had come back to roost. I had been saved again. I let the booze shake and warm my body. I sat down in one of the stiff wooden chairs., fondling my paper cup. My mind was just inches away from clicking into place, rushing forth with epigrams, pronouncements, and profundity.
I picked up the two wallets I had taken from the men I killed and placed them on a high shelf in the closet. The men I killed. That caused me to shake, so I had another drink. This time relief was instantaneous, my mind running with sentimental meanderings, fragments of my relationship with Walter and odd bits and pieces of symphonies and concertos. In stereo. I had been away a long time, and Mother Booze was being generous, throwing me a mellifluous parade as a welcome home present. I was with Beethoven at the first performance of the Eroica, with Bruckner as he sought God in the Tyrolean Alps, with Liszt as he seduced the most beautiful women of his day.
I went to the mirror and checked myself out: I looked indent again, even handsome. My indently ruddy face looked a little more florid than usual, but I attributed that to too much sun. I studied the planes and angles of my face, and decided that Fritz Brown, thirty-three-year-old ex-L.A.P.D. bimbo and repo king of the greater L.A. area, would do. That caused me to smile and I amended my opinion slightly: my teeth were too small, and my eyes should be blue. Blue eyes were in. Women dug them. Even ghetto blacks were sporting blue contact lenses and getting laid as a result.
I looked around for a phone. Of course there wasn’t one. I felt like calling Walter and telling him everything was okay. I thought of an old girlfriend named Charlotte who had been in love with the Chopin “Heroic Polonaise.” She always wanted to listen to it before we went to bed. I always advanced the opinion, derived from Walter, that Chopin was a cornball and a sentimentalist. Now the “Polonaise” was banging through my brain like the repeated drone of an air raid siren.
My mind swung from Charlotte to women in general and from there to Jane. She was real, she was now. When I couldn’t shake the image of our night together, I started to panic. I grabbed the bottle and drank until I passed out.
I awoke the next morning around nine without the shakes, not knowing where I was. When I saw the empty fifth of Scotch on the table, my memory kicked in and it all came back. I held my breath against a sudden burst of panic. It never arrived. That gave me heart. I was utterly dehydrated, so I dug the remnants of the bag of ice out of the sink and wolfed them down, sending chills throughout my body. As if in answer, a lightweight case of the shakes started, but I held them at bay while I shaved and walked down the hall for a quick shower. The hallway was dirty and the shower room even dirtier. The hall rug was threadbare and no thicker than a tortilla. The shower emitted a sluggish stream of brownish water and I had to tiptoe to avoid cutting my feet on the stucco chips that covered the floor.
Back in my room I counted the money in my bulging billfold — $3,123. As soon as I realized I had time and money on my hands, the shakes started again. It got bad fast this time. My ten months of sober living had not inured me to the payment that booze demanded. The case went through my mind. It was waiting for me, but for now it was out of my control. There was an easy remedy for the shakes: drink. So I did, this time sipping the Scotch slowly from the paper cup, mixed half and half with the lukewarm ginger ale.
I decided that if I could limit my plans to this single day, today, Monday, I would be all right. I could lie low for a few days, drink, then taper off and detox. Then back to L.A. But after a few drinks, my mind became mired in a welter of plans and conspiracies, always reaching toward the ultimate: the case and Jane. It was too much. I took a large slug, straight from the bottle, locked up the room and went outside. The “managerio” gave me a slight nod and a suspicious look as I walked down the hall.
At 10:45 A.M., it was already reaching one hundred degrees. There was a sea breeze that did its best to help, but failed. I decided to leave the car and walked into town — a 502 in a foreign country was all I needed. I walked through the streets of the housing development, a blatant ripoff of American values that nonetheless carried the essence of the Mexican ethos: women and toddlers sunning themselves on the steps of the plain one-story stucco dwellings, dogs cavorting happily and chickens squawking in their low, fenced enclosures. I waved to several groups of children and they waved back. I was never a child. I came out of my mother’s womb full-grown, clutching a biography of Beethoven and an empty glass. My first words were “Where’s the booze?”
I walked down to the road that paralleled the ocean. There were fewer turistas out now. Most of the people I saw driving were Mexicans with Baja license plates. The Coast Highway took me north into Ensenada proper, past scores of signs advertising fishing, lobster dinners, and Jai alai. I passed an impressive monument similar to the American one at Mount Rushmore, this one heralding three great Mexican patriots, their heads in striking bas relief.