by Rex Burns
“That’s right,” Wager said again. It was useless to talk about it; anything Max would say Wager had already thought of, and none of it fully answered the self-accusation he felt. It had not been wrong to dig for a link between Covino and the Scorvellis. A lead was a lead, and by God, cops chased after them. But Wager still felt the sourness of not having done enough when he felt that small tingle of suspicion at the end of his interview with Gerald. It would have taken only one telephone call to have Gerald reassigned to a more secure area. One call, and Wager had not done it. He had let the chance go by and it had cost Gerald his life. And—something Wager didn’t bother to explain to Max—it was less Grace Covino’s sorrow at losing another brother than Wager’s regret at losing a main figure in the case that affected him.
“What do you think about that forty-five hundred bucks?” asked Max.
“It could have been his Christmas account.”
“Right—and the little elves helped him save it. Do you remember what burglaries he confessed to when he was busted?”
Wager didn’t. He and Max would have to comb through the records and transcripts again to see if any or all of the stolen property added up to that much money. If it could not, then there remained that worrisome rumor about the Covinos and the Scorvellis; to kill Marco Scorvelli would be worth that much money. More, even. And if the case took a turn in that direction, then the self-accusation Wager felt would be truly justified, because his questioning of Dominick would have stirred fears about Gerald’s reliability. “The arresting officer, Franconi, said he was small-time as a burglar. But that doesn’t have to mean the forty-five hundred’s Scorvelli money,” Wager told himself as much as Axton.
It was Max’s turn to say, “That’s right.”
He turned off Federal onto Mississippi and drove down as far as the Colorado and Southern Railway tracks before slowing to look for the salvage yard. They found it, a steel-mesh fence laced with metal slats to block the public view of twisted and stripped car bodies; but the patches of rust and the scrawls of spray paint along the fence didn’t do much to help the beautification effort. Max pulled up beside a two-room box with the sign “Office” and a neighboring pen crowded with two wolf-like German shepherds whose rough coats looked wild and angry.
Inside the small building, a kid was trying to fit a slightly worn generator into a cardboard box; behind him on a board shelf flanked by out-of-date Pirelli calendars whose girls looked too good to be real, two radios squawked—one with country wails and electronic twangs, the other, a shortwave band, carrying queries and replies for parts from salvage yards all over the Southwest. As they entered, it asked for a 1968 Olds 98 left front fender, location and price to A & S Salvage, Alamogordo.
“Can I help you?” The kid, in oil-stained overalls, glanced up.
“We’re looking for Pete Zamora.”
It wasn’t the usual request for a Corvette transmission or a Kaiser grille; a little wrinkle came and went between his brows. “He’s in the yard, cutting. But customers aren’t allowed out there.”
Wager showed his badge. “Where in the yard?”
“Is this some kind of bust or something?”
“No. You expecting a bust?”
“No, man! It’s just that I only started working here yesterday. If something’s wrong, I don’t know anything about it.”
It wasn’t hard to figure why the kid was nervous; last month the Colorado Bureau of Investigation had broken a five-state ring whose members were using a Denver junkyard to take stolen automobiles apart. Sold piecemeal, a five-thousand-dollar car could be worth ten or fifteen thousand. Plus very low overhead for the chop shop. “You think something’s going on here?”
“No, man! Like, I’ve only been here two days.”
“Is business good?”
“Oh, yeah! We got twenty, twenty-five pieces to ship this morning, and that doesn’t count the walk-in trade.”
Wager peered around the room, cluttered with ripped-out dash instruments and an assortment of dusty hoses and belts dangling from wire hooks. “Where does Zamora keep his records?”
“In the back there, I guess.” He pointed through a door-less frame to the corner of a desk. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” reminded Wager.
“Oh, yeah. This way.”
He led them past the police dogs, who neither barked nor growled, but became ominously still. “Man, talk about your junkyard dogs. They scare the hell out of me, and I work here. I think Pete feeds them a little gunpowder to make them crazy mean, you know?”
Wager had heard of people doing that. “Is that Zamora over there?”
“Yeah—just follow the hoses.”
The thin high-pressure lines, one black the other dull red, ran from scarred tanks of oxygen and acetylene to a gaping Dodge pickup. From inside the cab came the hiss and splatter of a cutting torch and a fiercely whispered “Come loose from there, you son of a whore!”
“Mr. Zamora?”
The stained green coveralls plunging over the seat and under the dash wiggled slightly and the hissing lessened. “What? What the crap you doing in the yard?”
“Police, Mr. Zamora. We want to ask you a few questions.”
The gas shut off with a pop and Zamora, dust and sweat mixed on his wide face, wriggled out of the truck. He lifted the goggles and dragged his thumbs over the circles of cleaner flesh beneath them. “What about?”
“Some money you were holding for Gerald Covino.”
“What money? Never heard of him.”
He was about Wager’s height, though half again as wide, and seemed to be in his early thirties; when Axton leaned toward him, Wager saw Zamora’s eyes travel up the thick body like a woodsman measuring a tree.
“We’ve already talked to Covino’s sister, Mr. Zamora,” Max said quietly. “We’re trying to find some reason for his death.”
Zamora wiped again at his sweaty face, the soot spreading like war paint. “All I did was put a little money in the bank for him.”
“No law against that,” agreed Axton. “Do you remember when this was?”
“Nope.”
“What bank was it?” asked Wager.
“I forget.”
Wager deliberately gazed around at the lines of cars whose metal ticked and creaked beneath the hot weight of the sun. “You have papers for all these vehicles?”
Zamora, face flushed and streaked, looked back without answering.
“Did you notify the Motor Vehicle Division to cancel the license plates on every one of these cars, and do you have evidence that those plates were in fact destroyed?”
“Come on!”
“The law’s there, Zamora. And the M.V.D.’s very interested in the salvage business right now. When’s the last time you had your records audited?” Wager continued.
“Last year. The inspector was out just last year!”
“I’m not talking about an inspection, Zamora. I mean a detailed audit of each number on every registered frame and motor. A careful audit that might take as long as two weeks to check out every number in this yard.”
“Hold on now, Gabe. Mr. Zamora doesn’t want that—he’d have to close down for the whole audit. He’d lose a lot of business.” Axton turned his earnest eyes to the stocky, sweating man, who stood as silent and tense as his dogs. “It would be better all around if you helped us out, Mr. Zamora. Gerald’s dead; he can’t tell us where the money came from, so there’s no possible accessory charge we can bring against you. And if you’ve got nothing to hide, what good does it do to withhold evidence in a homicide investigation?”
“You dudes are a real Laurel and Hardy team,” said Zamora.
Wager smiled. “Guess who’ll have all the laughs, Zamora?”
“All I did was put some fucking money in the bank for him and then take it out like I was asked to.”
“Then you must have an entry in a bankbook,” said Wager.
“Aw, shit! Com
e on.” Muttering, he led them to the office past the soft whine of the dogs and the glance of the busy kid. Rummaging through the drawer of the beat-up desk, he yanked out a small blue passbook embossed with the gold words “World Savings and Loan.” “Here.” He shoved it at Wager.
Wager had noticed before that people kept bankbooks even after the account was closed, as if the tiny numbers still had some value. Inside the book’s cover, the blanks were filled in with two names: “This certifies that Peter J. Zamora or Gerald E. Covino has a savings account … issued at Denver, Colorado, on the 12 day of June, 1978.” The entries were only three: the date of deposit, which was the same as the opening of the account, and for an amount of $4900.00; an earnings notation of $261.66, for a total of $5161.66; the account-closed note was the same day that the interest was figured.
“You gave Grace Covino only forty-five hundred dollars,” said Wager.
“That was the deal—if anything happened to Gerry, I was supposed to give his mother forty-five and keep four for my trouble.”
“What about the interest?”
Zamora’s face grew darker beneath the streaks of drying soot. “Gerry didn’t say nothing about that.”
“Neither did you. Any idea where he got this money?”
“No. And I didn’t ask. It was none of my business. He was a buddy and he wanted me to help him out is all.”
“How long did you know Gerry, Mr. Zamora?” asked Axton.
“Since we were kids. He was a year or two behind me in school, but he ran around with us. He liked to hustle for the older kids—what you call ‘advanced for his age.’”
That was the second time Gerald had been called ambitious. And now there was a bank account to show that he had somehow furthered his ambition. How did a small-time burglar who was dumb enough to pass out in the middle of a job suddenly get his hands on five big ones just before he was locked up?
“Did you know Frank, his brother?” asked Max.
“No. I mean, I saw him around when I’d go by for Gerry. But he was just a little kid, you know. Maybe eight or nine.”
“Have you ever been arrested, Zamora?”
“Yeah. And I did my time. So don’t try hassling me for that.”
“When was that?”
“Eleven years ago. I did six months in Buena Vista for car theft. I been clean since.”
“Was that the same fall Gerry took?”
“Naw, he was smart on that one. Said he was just hitchhiking and that I picked him up and he didn’t know the car was hot. I backed him up—hell, what are friends for? He was sent down there after I got out.”
“Did you stay friends with him all this time?”
“Sure. We didn’t run around like we did before, because I got busy with my business here. But we’d have a couple beers now and then.”
“Did you know he was a burglar?”
“No. He had a job at a car wash, and I figured that’s what his act was. But listen—I’m clean, man. This place gets me plenty and I don’t have to run no risks for it.”
“You never wondered where Gerald got that forty-nine hundred?” prodded Wager.
“He told me he won it, and that was cool with me. There’s a few games around.” He glanced at Wager and then out the window as he lit a cigarette. “The cops know about them, you know what I mean?”
“You want to file a report on that?” asked Wager.
“Hell, no.”
Max interrupted. “Who are some of the people Gerald ran around with?”
“I don’t know. I’m here from seven in the morning until seven at night, man, and that don’t leave much time to be nosy about other people. Besides, we didn’t see each other that much.”
“You didn’t see each other that often, but he trusted you with all that money?” asked Wager.
“What the hell you mean by that?”
“I mean, why didn’t he give it to somebody he saw more of?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t trust them; too bad you can’t ask him. But he was that way—when he needed help he’d go to somebody he ran around with in school. Me, too: I need a special favor, I call one of the old buddies. Hell, everybody keeps in touch with buddies from school. Don’t you?”
Axton nodded; Wager did not bother to shake his head. “Can you give me some names of the people he ran around with before he went to Cañon City?”
“No. He didn’t say much about them and it was none of my business.”
True or not, Zamora wasn’t going to name anyone to a cop. Wager looked closely at the man’s eyes. “Did he ever mention the Scorvellis?”
They blinked surprise. “Not that I remember. No, I never heard him say anything about them people.” Zamora was tempted to ask something, but he stifled it; Covino’s activities were still none of his business.
“Did you hear from him while he was in prison?” Max asked quickly.
Zamora shook his head. “First I heard was when I read he was killed.”
“Any idea why he might have been killed?”
“Down there? Yeah—because he was La Raza. Some nigger did it, right?”
Max tried one more time. “Do you know anybody who might have been with him on that burglary when he got caught?”
“Like I said, I didn’t even know he was into that.”
In the car, Wager once more read the entries in the passbook, then he turned back a few pages in the little green notebook that always rode in his shirt pocket. “Covino and Zamora deposited the money a week after he was arrested.”
“After?”
“Yep. Now, think about this guy making minimum wage at a car wash, and suddenly one week after he’s busted and has to make bail, he has almost five thousand dollars.” Something else suddenly struck Wager and he leafed through his notebook, but did not find what he looked for. “Do you remember the date Marco was killed?”
Max scratched at his ear lobe as he thought back, and then finally shook his head. “We can find out.” He keyed the radio and asked for the Records Section; the reply came back within minutes. “The body was discovered on the morning of June 4, at 0520.”
Wager tapped his finger on the entry in his notebook. “That’s the same night Gerald was arrested.”
Twelve
MAX SIPPED A mouthful of coffee, winced at its heat, and set the cup on the gritty desktop; he shook his large head slowly. “It’s hard to believe.”
“What better cover could the bastard have?” asked Wager. “He kills his man, then trots across town to get himself arrested for breaking and entering. We run around looking every place in the country except our own hip pocket.” Wager smiled to himself. “I kind of like it.”
“But doing that much time—six months to a year—for only five thousand dollars …” Axton’s head wagged again. “Even tax-free, that’s not much of an income.”
Wager’s coffee was just as hot as Max’s, but he made it a point not to wince as he drank it. “It’s about a year’s pay at minimum wage—which is all Gerald was making legitimately. A year of sitting on his tail at state expense instead of washing cars.”
“I don’t think so, Gabe. It’s not enough money to go into the joint for.”
People had gone for a hell of a lot less, but seldom voluntarily, it was true. “I think,” said Wager, “he saw it as an investment.”
“How’s that?”
“With Scorvelli.” Wager groped to put into words the picture he had been building almost unconsciously. “Say you’re a guy who’s been gnawing his knuckles off trying to move into the big time, and say a chance comes along to do a job for somebody as important as Scorvelli. You’d jump at it, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s conceivable, I guess.”
“And say you figure that if you do the first job right—and it’s a big one—Scorvelli will keep you in mind. Hell, maybe you’ve been told that. So this is your one chance to impress somebody who can open the door to all the things you’ve dreamed of since you were a kid swipi
ng cars and pretending they were yours: plenty of money, clothes, cars, all the women that money can buy, and being on the inside of the real action. Being able to walk down the street and have the eyes of dudes on the corner follow you the way you’ve stood there and watched others walk past. Others who weren’t a damn bit better than you, but who somehow got the lucky break.”
“You make it sound mighty nice.”
“It is nice. It’s the chance you’ve been dreaming of all your life, and you grab it. The money’s O.K.—it’s great, in fact. But you’ve been so hungry for this break that you’d have done it for nothing.”
“But to kill somebody … That’s not just another burglary, Gabe. A man just doesn’t jump from burglary to contract murder.”
“Every hit man jumps from somewhere, Max. And the target’s not just anybody. It’s a Scorvelli.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s somebody who’s dipped his hands in shit all the way up to the elbows to get where he is. It’s somebody who knew the chances and took them, just like Gerald knew them and figured it was worth trying anyway. He was asked to get rid of a puke that nobody—not even his own brother—wanted around. And the one who asked him was this ‘Count’ Scorvelli.” Wager took the next step, too. “It could be that Gerald didn’t see himself as a murderer, but as a soldier in a separate world, a mirror world, where it’s not called murder but—I don’t know—‘liquidation’ or ‘political necessity.’”
Axton looked at Wager for a long moment as if seeing him from a new angle. “God help us when our language is a license for murder.”
“I don’t think Scorvelli called it anything but what it was. I think Gerald did that—he was the one willing to be used that way, and so he told himself something to make it sound better.”
“Ambition?”
Wager would say it was something more; his name for it was hunger, or, stronger, starvation.
Axton sipped again at the coffee and gazed through the dusty window at the slabs of dark concrete rising from the new building next door, which would soon block the view of distant Longs Peak with its flattened tip and ribs of pale-blue snow—a tiny scene that, from here, was as unreal as the postcard picture it resembled. “Then if you’re right, there was every reason for Gerald to do good time. He had a hell of a lot to look forward to when he got out.”
