by Rex Burns
“All right. You cover for me this afternoon. I’ll go down after lunch.” Wager turned the car across the Sixteenth Street viaduct toward headquarters, radioing a stolen car report on Frank Covino’s missing vehicle.
He had read over the jacket on Gerald Edward Covino before making the three hour drive to the state penitentiary in Cañon City. In addition to his adult record, Covino had a juvenile sheet, mostly petty theft. It culminated in a tour in the reformatory at Buena Vista for grand theft, auto; the last adult conviction was for breaking and entering a place of business. That was the tumble that put him behind the walls at Cañon City. There were half a dozen contact cards on him, too, which revealed him to be a suspect in various burglaries and even a couple of armed robberies. None of those ever got as far as the courts, though of course the cards didn’t state why. But as Wager’s grandfather used to say, when you step on a thorn long enough, you know something’s there; to his sister, however, Gerald was just one more downtrodden victim of a racist capitalist materialist sexist society, and it was everybody’s fault except his.
Wager steered the road-hot vehicle off Highway 50 to the parking lot of the prison. As usual, the pale stone walls and the gnawed-at granite of the hillside behind them spoke of eternal rock and dust and heat. No trees, no grass, no shrubbery that could shelter an escaping inmate; blank walls that gave clear fields of fire from the towers, and were surrounded by acres of crushed gravel. People had been crushing that gravel for a lot of years here, and Wager was damned satisfied that he had swept some of that garbage off the streets and stuffed it behind these walls.
He showed his identification to the matron in the control center and filled out the request form, sliding it across the scratched and stained fiber tabletop to a turnkey.
“You want to sit over there, Sarge? I’ll see if he’s in.”
It was a tired joke and Wager didn’t smile back. He chose one of the sticky plastic couches of the reception area and waited to be called to an interview station. It was between visiting periods and the only other person in the room was a young black woman who smoked steadily and tried hard not to look worried. In about twenty minutes, the turnkey called him by name. “Station two, Sarge.”
Gerald Covino was waiting when Wager entered the booth with its warning signs and bars and the thin Plexiglas barrier forming the line between inside and out. Gerald was in his late twenties, Wager knew, but the face that looked guardedly at him over the inside telephone had that stiff prison quality that could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty.
“I’m Detective Wager, Covino. Homicide Division, D.P.D. You heard about your brother?”
“What about him?”
So the sister who loved him so much had not bothered to telephone the news down yet. And the papers and television had not broadcast the name. “He was killed last night. Gang style.”
“Frankie? You sure it was Frankie?”
Wager gazed through the Plexiglas at the man’s bulging eyes and probed for the seam between sincere shock and expert lying. With this one, it would be hard to tell.
“Do you have any idea why somebody might want your brother dead?”
Covino, still chewing on the news, shook his head. His straight black hair swept back above his ears into a ponytail on his neck, and a thin scar ran through his upper lip to make a light line across the dark flesh. The man’s face slowly stiffened again into the prison mask.
“It’s your brother, Covino. Somebody executed him. They used a shotgun on his head and left him like a scumbag in an alley. I’m not asking you to fink on any friends of yours; I’m asking you to give me something on whoever wasted your own brother.”
When the man finally spoke into the telephone, it was to say, “I don’t know, man. What do I know, stuck here in this fucking place?”
Sometimes inmates knew things as fast as the police—or faster. “Was Frank into anything?”
“Frankie was clean! He saw what happened to me, man; he didn’t want nothing like this.” Covino stared at the plastic top of the shelf for a long minute, and through the shadowed reflections in the Plexiglas Wager saw the man’s knuckles grow white around the telephone. “Mama,” he said softly. “He was the baby. It’s gonna kill Mama.”
This one had done his share, too, Wager thought. “She’s suffering,” he agreed.
“You went and seen her?”
“I did.”
“You told her that Frankie was mixed up in something?”
“I did not. I asked her if he was, and she said no.”
“You didn’t even have to ask her that! Anybody could of told you—he was clean!”
“Then who executed him? It wasn’t an amateur hit, Covino. His car is missing, but his wallet, watch, and money were on him. We figure he parked his car somewhere and took a ride with somebody who knew exactly how to handle the job. Now come on—he was your goddamned brother!”
“I told you, Wager—I told you, I don’t know! He was a kid—seven years younger than me. We didn’t even go around with the same bunch of people. But he was no chulo.”
Wager turned back to fiddling with his pen and with the little green notebook that lay open on the tabletop, which was gummy with the nervous, oily sweat from countless other arms. “All right, Covino. Let me tell you what it looks like so far. If your brother was as clean as you say, then it looks like somebody might have been after you. Or wanted to tell you something.” He glanced up. “Was anybody with you in that breaking and entering?”
“Maybe; maybe not.”
“Did any of them ever think you might fink?”
The man’s black eyes narrowed. “I don’t fink. Nobody thinks that. Is that what you’re after? You come down here giving me all this shit about my brother being dead, thinking I’ll fink?”
“Frank is dead,” said Wager. “It’ll be on the news tonight. And what I’m after is a lead on who did it. Is anybody after you, Gerald?”
The scarred upper lip twisted into a sour grin. “If anybody wanted me, cop, they could get me in here. For one fucking carton of cigarettes. Look, Wager, I been inside ten months now. Four more, maybe six at most, and I’m up for parole. It’s downhill on my time, man. I’m not gonna fink on anybody now. Why should I? And everybody knows it: Gerry Covino’s no fink. If somebody’s trying to tell me something by offing Frankie, I swear I do not know who or what.”
“Ever hear the name Scorvelli?”
A total blankness of expression. “Who hasn’t?”
“I had a tip just before your brother was killed that he knew something about Marco Scorvelli getting wiped last year.”
“Shit! Who handed you that shit, man?”
Wager half smiled. “Sure—I’ll tell you! What do you know about it?”
“I know it’s a bunch of crap. Somebody’s crapping all over you. Frankie was straight—he didn’t know Scorvelli or anybody like him.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
“Did you ever know any of the Scorvellis?”
“No, man. We don’t run in the same circles.”
“Denver’s a small town.”
“Not that small. I heard the name is all. But they don’t even know I breathe their air. The wops don’t like us, you dig?”
Nothing. Wager tapped the ballpoint on the table. Maybe nothing would turn out to be something. Sometimes it worked that way. But more often, nothing was just that. “Covino, I’m sorry you lost your brother. I’d like to nail the ones that did it. Here.” He wrote a telephone number on a leaf of his notebook and turned it so Covino could read it. “This is my number—memorize it. If you get any ideas or hear anything, use one of your telephone calls to help me get whoever killed your brother.”
The hard black eyes never shifted from Wager’s own. “I’ll be keeping my ears open, don’t worry about that. But I don’t fink. Even on this.”
Three
THE NEXT MORNING, Wager reported in early, as always. Munn, who was alone
on the graveyard shift this month, had that baggy-eyed look of someone who has suffered a long, slow night waiting for the sun to rise. And then didn’t like what he saw. “How’re you doing on that Covino shooting, Gabe?”
Wager looked through the papers in his box and glanced over the twenty-four-hour board for any messages. “Not a thing so far. Maybe Axton had better luck.”
Munn stretched and drained his coffee cup and tried not to look too eager to leave. “Nothing happening last night. Dull as a goddam cucumber.”
“Cucumber?”
“Ain’t that the expression? Cucumbers always struck me as being pretty goddam dull. Next to zucchini.”
Wager turned back to his handful of papers.
“God, I feel lousy,” said Munn. “I think I’m coming down with something.” He snorted some phlegm down his sinuses and into his throat. Munn really didn’t look healthy; dark skin puffed under his eyes, and beneath the stubble of morning whiskers, his cheeks were sallow. “Maybe I had too much coffee. I always drink too much coffee on this shift. Especially when it’s so goddam quiet.”
Wager looked at the electric clock high on the tan wall. The walls of the building were either anemic tan or sick green, and because the department had been scheduled to vacate a year or so past, they had not been painted in a long while; around the base, the color was leached out by the splash of mop water, and the morning light, cheerful coming through the window, lost its warmth on the dirt and scuff marks in the gray film. The clock said 7:45. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
“You’re a real jewel, Gabe.”
He was glad to see Munn go. When the old shift hung around, there was always the feeling of intruding; and when Wager was on duty, he liked to think of it as his shift, and his only. Tossing the mail onto his desk, he took it in random order: a request for information on a suspect being held in Phoenix, a query from neighboring Jefferson County about the disposition of a case, the union telling him what great benefits they had won for officers in New York and asking why he didn’t join the Colorado chapter now. It was the usual routine pile of papers, but down at the bottom was a memo from Chief Doyle: “You and Axton see me before leaving this morning.” It was noted 0730; the Bulldog seemed to spend as much time here as Wager did.
He pulled the Frank Covino file and spread the photographs and the lab report and the offense report and the witness statements across the glass top of the desk. When Axton came in at precisely 8 A.M., Wager was staring at the pictures and at the jottings in his green notebook. But if Max had asked him what he was thinking, Wager could not have put it into precise words; it was more subjective—more like absorption than thought.
Axton’s first move was for a cup of coffee; his second, to ask about Wager’s progress down in Cañon City.
“Gerald’s tough,” answered Wager. The Spanish word was duro and was more accurate, but Max wouldn’t have understood it. “I tried to shake him into telling me something, but he wouldn’t even squeak. It was his own brother, and still he wasn’t about to talk to any cop.”
“Sounds as if you like the guy.”
“Hell, no.” Though maybe he admired Covino’s tenacity. It was always good to see someone under pressure who did not crack or give up; it restored Wager’s faith in humanity. “But I have the feeling he’s keeping secrets. Maybe he wants to even things up himself.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time somebody tried that—you screwball Chicanos and your codes. Did he hint anything at all?”
“Not a word, and I don’t think he will, to us.” Wager gazed at the papers and photos on his desk. “Do you know who the arresting officer was on Gerald’s bust?”
Axton shook his head. “It wasn’t on his sheet.”
Wager pushed the telephone button for Records and asked the same question of the police person who answered; in a few seconds she came back to say, “Detective Franconi; Burglary and Stickup Division.”
Under the desk’s glass top with its rings of dried coffee and rubbery threads of old eraser was the month’s duty roster for all the detectives. It noted that Franconi was on the four-to-midnight shift, and Wager would have to talk with him then. Possibly the burglary detective had heard something about Gerald’s brother. It was a very slender angle, but Wager would play them all; sometimes the angle you missed, no matter how unlikely, was the one that would pay off. “What about Frank’s friends?” he asked Max.
“It took me all afternoon and half the night to locate eight of the people on that list—kids that age never stay in one spot more than ten minutes. But not a one of them knew of any reason why Frank would be killed. They all said he was a good kid, hardworking, a real boy scout.”
“Were any of them with him Sunday night?”
“Not that I talked with, and they all had verifiable statements. There’s five or six more, that I couldn’t catch up with; maybe we’ll have better luck today. I did go see the owner of that liquor store where Frank worked.”
“Same story?” That was a dumb question. If it had been different, Axton would have told him.
“Just about. According to him, Frank was very reliable and got along real well with the customers—which, he said, is no easy thing over there.” Axton sighed, the chair back ticking lightly as his torso rose and fell. “Gabe, I’m really beginning to dislike the bastards that killed this kid.”
Wager knew what Axton meant. There was a correlation between the kind of victim and an attitude toward the killer. If the murder was the result of a family fight, Wager might feel a little sorry for the husband or wife who did it; if it happened between criminals, the only feeling he could recall was a tinge of satisfaction at getting two for the price of one. But the victim who didn’t deserve it—the child, the waste of a decent, innocent person—that stirred Wager’s anger; and so far Frank Covino seemed to be the kind of Hispano Wager liked to contrast to the loudmouths and whiners. But, Wager reminded himself, all the evidence wasn’t in yet; what things are often turn out differently from how they seem, and the luxury of anger could wait for a certainty. He gathered the file together. “The Bulldog wants to see us.”
Chief Doyle’s thrusting lower teeth showed briefly when he said good morning, and Wager and Axton took it as a friendly snarl. “If you gentlemen want some coffee, there it is.” His office had its own machine and it was rumored that he ground the blend himself—by hand. It did not taste any different from the hot, metallic flavor that boiled out of the division pot, but the detectives always told Doyle how good it was. “Bring me up to date on this shooting.”
Wager did, Max adding a point or two about Covino’s acquaintances.
“Any chance it’s a thrill killing?”
“There’s the chance,” said Wager. “But it doesn’t have that feel about it.” He listed the reasons why. “A shotgun’s not a thrill killer’s weapon, there were no signs of torture or a struggle, and the killer didn’t walk around and look at the body when he apparently had a chance to. What it feels like is a professional hit.”
“Mistaken identity?”
“That’s a good possibility.” Wager told him about his suspicions concerning Gerald Covino.
“But the brother gave you nothing solid?”
Wager wouldn’t be sitting on his tail in the Bulldog’s office if he had something solid; Doyle knew that. Wager did not bother to answer.
“Marco and Dominick Scorvelli …. That’s one very interesting wrinkle.” Doyle’s gaze roamed the wall over their heads. “How reliable is your source for that information, Wager?” Doyle still had lingering suspicions about Wager’s Narcotics Division background, and they crept out every now and then in questions of judgment that he would not ask other experienced officers.
“He’s been around a long time and a lot of people talk to him. When he gives me something, it’s usually been good.”
“How much do we pay him for it?”
Doyle was always worried about that. “I drink a few beers with him no
w and then. He won’t accept any money.”
“Jesus,” said Max. “The taxpayers could use more like him.”
Doyle only grunted. Then he said, “Well, we’re getting some media interest in this shooting—nothing heavy, but I’d like to wrap up the case as soon as possible. Why don’t you drop by the Organized Crime Unit, Wager? You know those people over there; see if they’ll tell you what they have going on Dominick Scorvelli. Maybe we can come at this thing from another direction.”
Doyle had called the O.C.U. “those people” because they had their own budget and organization and liked to work without letting the regular units of D.P.D. know what they were doing. Security, they called it; arrogance was how most of D.P.D. saw it. But Doyle was right on two counts: it was worth a try since nothing else seemed any good; and since Wager had worked over there not too long ago, they might be a little more relaxed about giving information to him.
Outside the Bulldog’s office, Max asked, “You want to split up? I’ll take the remainder of this list of Covino’s friends while you go visit the O.C.U.?”
They would cover more ground that way, but sometimes it was better, as his grandfather used to say, to run with slow strides. “If we’re together we might come up with more.” Besides, there was still so much missing—still so much that he couldn’t squeeze between these ten fingers—that he was hungry to handle every fragment of the case. It was the same feeling as when he sat and stared at the photographs—the same need to absorb every detail he could.
As they left main headquarters by the rear corridor, a voice cut through the clatter of machinery from the building under construction next door. “Max! Max the Ax—wait up!” Police reporter Gargan, his familiar black turtleneck shirt showing through the open parka, jogged toward them from the new performing arts complex. “Max—can you give me something on this shooting?” The reporter ignored Wager and looked up at Max hopefully. “Anything at all?”
“Not yet, Gargan. The killer or killers didn’t leave much information. We’re just doing what we can with what we’ve got, and right now that’s not a hell of a lot.”
