by Rex Burns
“Why?”
“Gerry was hopped. It was like he’d been invited to the goddam White House or something. That’s all he talked about for a week: what the Scorvelli connection was going to do for him, what a big man it was going to make of him. He didn’t even smoke that cigar—just carried it around. Then all of a sudden he shut up about it. Not a peep. I’d ask, ‘How are you and the wops getting along?’ and he’d say, ‘Fine’ or something like that and get this worried look on his face. Finally, he got pissed and told me to shut up about them—that he wasn’t seeing Dominick any more. So I shut up. I figured he learned what Dominick wanted from him and didn’t like it.”
“Did he go see Dominick again?”
“I don’t know. Him and me finished up our business and he went his way. But he still had things on his mind. You could tell he was figuring something out.”
“How?”
“Well, when we divvied the—ah—the profits, it wasn’t as much as he was counting on. But that’s business, I told him; hell, he got just as much as I did, a fifty-fifty split. You couldn’t ask anything fairer than that, could you?”
“I guess not,” said Wager.
“Right. Anyway, he said that pretty soon he would be taking his off the top. ‘Sure,’ I says. ‘See you next time.’ ‘Don’t count on it,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to work for a living no more?’ I says. And he says, ‘Not with you. Not for this piddly crap,’ meaning the money, you see. It wasn’t such a little bit, either!” Santos’s voice said Gerald’s words still stung. “It was like he was getting even because I’d tell him he was full of crap when he’d start blowing about all his big plans.”
“How long was this before he was arrested?”
“Two weeks, maybe three. I don’t remember exactly.” Santos started another cigarette, talking while he puffed it alight. “But it’s sure something, ain’t it? He’s got all these big connections and big plans and won’t be working with me no more, and then he goes and gets popped on a two-bit job like that. Still”—this time the wrinkles deepened even further—“he didn’t drink bourbon ever. That just don’t make sense. It’s like somebody planted him there.”
Wager agreed with most of that. “Did you ever know Gerald’s brother, Frank?”
“Nope. I knew he had family. His mother came down to Buena Vista to see him once, but we never talked about families. He kind of felt like I do—mine don’t give a shit for me, so I don’t give a shit for them.”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted Frank dead?”
“Dead? His brother’s dead, too?”
“You didn’t read it in the papers?”
“I might of. But I didn’t connect the names.” Santos scratched behind his ear. “Maybe Scorvelli, for something Gerry did? It’s like them wops. I told Gerry working with wops was bad news.”
“Why would Scorvelli want to kill Gerald’s brother?”
“You got me. Maybe Gerry talked too much, told him something, and Scorvelli found out about it. Like that bourbon—it don’t make sense.”
“About that,” said Wager. “How many people knew bourbon made him sick?”
Santos shrugged. “A few friends, I guess. He never made a big thing of it; he just never drank the stuff.”
“He knew that you knew?”
“Sure. He’d come over to talk business and I’d offer him a drink. I drink bourbon myself, so I’d have to get a bottle of something else for him.”
“What kind do you drink?”
“Kentucky Royal. It’s real good stuff for the money.”
“That’s the kind Gerald was wearing. Do you think he could have been telling you something about the drugstore job?”
For the first time, Santos’s mouth hung open without a cigarette; he held it just off his lips and stared at Wager through the smoke. “He was telling me something?”
“That the job was a setup. That he set himself up to be arrested. He was telling you it was no accident.”
“Son of a gun! That would be just like Gerry! Yeah—it would be just like that bastard!”
Thirteen
THEY ATE AT a Cowboy Bob’s Chuckwagon near Santos’s apartment. The orange walls were hung with bent-wire outlines of bowlegged cowboys roping frisky little calves, and the waitresses wore fringed skirts and white patent boots. Except for the designs pressed into the Naugahyde booths—mesas, cattle brands, and six-guns—the restaurant was like all the other chain stores that based their sales pitch on some kind of image and not much else. Max had forgotten about going to the Frontier for lunch and simply aimed himself toward the nearest restaurant; Wager did not remind him. When they reached the homicide office, the twenty-four-hour board held an old message from Gargan and a new one from the Bulldog. Gargan’s note asked somewhat plaintively for anything fresh on the Frank Covino murder; Doyle’s said simply, “See me.” Which meant immediately.
“Come in.” Doyle gestured toward his private coffee-maker. “Pour yourselves a cup.”
Max did; Wager didn’t. He sensed in the offer a signal of some kind and did not want his guard down.
“I had lunch with Inspector Sonnenberg.”
“Yessir.”
“He went into great detail about his operation, something I wish he had done with me at the very beginning.”
“Yessir.”
“The upshot is, I want you two to cool your activity on the Scorvelli aspects of the case. Sonnenberg’s made a good argument for his priority, and it looks like a great opportunity to not only get Scorvelli but also penetrate organized crime activities in other states as well.”
So Sonnenberg had talked Doyle into easing off, and all the Bulldog’s tough words about his territory and his decisions were just that: words. Wager leaned back against the hard angles of the straight chair and kept his voice carefully neutral. “You don’t want us investigating the Covino homicide any more?”
Doyle studied him. “I said I don’t want you approaching it from the Scorvelli angle. I’m sure there’s a lot more you can do on the case that doesn’t involve the Scorvellis.”
“Everything that leads anywhere points at them,” persisted Wager.
“Then dig up some other leads. What about that suspect with the long coat and the beret?”
“That’s a real lead—yes, sir, it sure is. Just how long are we supposed to sit on this?”
“Until I damned well tell you otherwise, Wager!”
At his desk, Wager topped his cup with metallic coffee from the old urn and meticulously filled out a request for a reimbursement totaling one hundred dollars paid to a Confidential Informant for services on the Covino case. Then he just as meticulously filled out a second form, requesting another hundred for Jesus Quintana, C.I. The Bulldog would probably deny the money for Fat Willy and Jesus, but Wager went ahead because he knew the requests would irritate Doyle; when the chief turned them down, it would be one more instance of a lack of support, and both he and Wager would know it.
Max shifted restlessly from his desk to the dust-filmed window, where he stood watching the construction outside as if he, too, wasn’t quite sure where to point his nose now. He belched and muttered something about eating too fast. Finally, he wandered heavily back to his desk to pick up the telephone and dial the mail room. When he hung up, he told Wager, “The courier’s in from Cañon City. I’m going down and see if they have anything for us.”
Wager nodded; he was finishing the justification section of the special funds request when the telephone rang.
It was Gargan. “Nice hearing you, Wager, but I’d rather talk to Max the Ax.”
“He’s out right now. Try again in ten minutes.”
“If I had ten minutes, I would; but it’s deadline time. What more can you give me on the Covino thing? I understand his brother’s dead, too.”
“That’s right. Whether there’s any connection, we don’t know. We’re still working on it.” More or less, and more less than more.
“While you’re
sitting over there drinking coffee? It must be great to be on the city payroll.”
Wager hung up without replying. Most cops got along with most reporters—but Wager wasn’t most cops, and most reporters weren’t Gargan. Signing and dating the forms, he slipped them into a routing envelope, which would make its way down three stories to the mail room, and then, sometime next week, wander back up those same floors to the office just along the hall. Doyle’s procedure manual allowed only emergency correspondence to be hand carried to his desk; routine communications were to follow routine methods of delivery.
“Here it is, Gabe.” Max returned, trying to kindle his own flagging enthusiasm, and opened the string on the envelope to slide the prison reports onto the desk. “Maybe we’ll find something that doesn’t have the Scorvelli name all over it.”
“Something wearing a beret and long overcoat?”
“Yeah. Say, maybe the guy’s a French flasher—maybe we should check the M.O. files.” Axton’s wide fingers sorted the papers held in small stacks by paper clips. “Here’s Gerald’s initial evaluation.”
The prison admittance chart was full of jargon that, Wager decided, was designed to free the prison psychologist of responsibility no matter how the inmate turned out. It said that Gerald showed antisocial tendencies—which made sense because he was in prison for breaking and entering; and it said that Gerald could be rehabilitated provided he changed his attitude. Wager had that bit of wisdom figured out, too; but because he didn’t have any letters after his name, he couldn’t say it without being laughed at. He pushed that report aside and joined Max in reading the next, a brief survey of the inmates drawn from the turnkeys’ logs. There was no indication of violence or insubordinate behavior. Gerald had been placed in a light-security cell block and seemed to be doing easy time; apparently he was working for an early release. His job assignment was the automobile compound, where he was busily being reeducated as a car washer by practicing on state vehicles, and the work reports were all “satisfactory.” His log of visitors showed three. Just after he was admitted, he was visited by his sister, Grace Covino; the second was Wager. The third came two days before Covino’s death and the name listed was Charles Smith. Covino also made a few telephone calls, but because of the new emphasis on prisoners’ right to privacy, neither the number nor the conversations were monitored. But Wager noted that Covino had placed his final call on the evening of Wager’s visit to Cañon City and before “Charles Smith” came down. He would give a lot to know who Gerald had telephoned—and strongly suspected that both Sonnenberg and Doyle would not want him to try to find out. The warden’s summary said that Gerald was generally a loner and had no close friends, which included his cellmate; that he spent a little time in the library and a lot of time watching television; and that he had been involved in only one altercation, his first and last.
“Covino didn’t start that fight,” said Max.
Wager had already decided that. “But there’s no sense wasting time with the kid who did.”
“No. Scorvelli wouldn’t leave any direct lines, and Uhuru’s not going to say anything different, anyway. I think we’re stuck with the official report—that it was a racial fight and Uhuru thought Covino was trying to kill him. He knifed him in self-defense.”
Wager grunted agreement and picked up the telephone as if it were one last straw. Dialing the Records Section, he said, “This is Detective Wager. Did the L.A.P.D. come back to us on that query about a Bernie Chavez?”
“Just a moment, sir,” said the police person. Then her voice returned. “The reply came in at 1217; they requested more on the description, sir. ‘Insufficient detail for compliance’ is what they say.”
“Thanks.” So much for that straw. He answered Max’s glance. “‘Insufficient detail.’”
“Crap.”
Which was the way Wager felt for the rest of the long afternoon as he and Axton made the rounds, backing up the uniformed officers on the street, supporting the other sections of the Crimes Against Persons Division at the inevitable assault or robbery. After finally turning over the shift to Ross and Devereaux, Wager and Max stood a few moments in the afternoon shade of the old headquarters building before crossing the sun-scorched parking compound to their cars.
“Do you have any goddamned ideas at all, Gabe?”
“Sure. Go after Scorvelli.”
“Other than that.”
“Wait. That and keep our ears open. What the hell else can we do?”
“Yeah.” The big man’s disgust matched Wager’s and he gave a slight whistle between his teeth like a steaming kettle. “By the way, Polly asked me to invite you to dinner Sunday night. If you don’t already have plans,” he added quickly.
Wager rapidly tried to think of something he could call plans, but he wasn’t fast enough; Max took the brief silence for consent.
“Fine. Come on over about seven—that’ll give us time for a drink.”
“I—”
But Max strode out of earshot with a wave of his wide hand, and Wager had the feeling of being told rather than asked to come to dinner. He watched Axton’s square Bronco pass between the steel posts of the parking compound’s gate and swirl among the heat-shimmered car roofs surging down Thirteenth Street in rush-hour traffic. Feeling the twist of irritation that always came when someone pushed him into something he didn’t want to do, he had an impulse to call and tell Axton that he had a date. One he’d forgotten about. Except that Axton wouldn’t believe him, and the thought of being weak enough to have to lie his way out of something was more painful than the thought of going to dinner. Besides, Wager was getting tired of that book on fur trappers; the only reason he wanted to finish it was that he had started it. And what the hell, maybe Axton’s wife was a good cook.
Fourteen
AT TEN THAT evening, Wager quit forcing himself to relax. The lingering spring warmth had long faded from the stone of his balcony wall, and the restless glare of Friday-night traffic rose from Downing Street below to wipe away any stars that may have shown above the ragged black shadows of the mountains. He had again resisted as maudlin the impulse to have a last meal at the Frontier and instead ate a frozen dinner whose picture this time said it was turkey and green peas, though it tasted suspiciously like roast beef and broccoli baked in cardboard. Rinsing the silverware, he left it to dry, poured himself a beer, and sat down once more to the book on fur trappers.
But he was too restless to read.
Even the news on TV didn’t soothe him. The small screen flipped pictures of rescue groups at plane crashes, police squads at crime scenes, political teams accusing other political teams, and platoons of demonstrators accusing everybody. Then the twenty-two-second editorial questioned earnestly if “our city” was going to become a hunting ground for organized crime since the police still had no suspects in the gangland slaying last week, and it ended by saying that the television station and this reporter certainly hoped not, and qualified persons having contrasting views were encouraged to respond.
Wager turned it off and stood, forehead against the cool glass of the balcony doors, to look out across the winking, gliding lights of the city below. Colorado had had its share of organized crime since the days of Soapy Smith a hundred years ago, and with varying intensity it was still here—all the way from Trinidad in the south to Fort Collins in the north. The Scorvelli family was only the best-known in Denver, having made contributions to the city’s criminal code for the past thirty years. The family had large territories in Denver and Pueblo, and many members lived just north of Denver in a small ex-coal-mining town which called itself “the most law-abiding little city on the Eastern Plains.” But there were plenty of other groups, some bound by loose ties, who had carved up the rest of the state. Sonnenberg’s classified files were packed with reports and studies of them, and they came and went and changed alliances with the shifting flow of money and the rare convictions of an occasional leader. What filled Wager with mild wonder was the TV editor
ial’s assumption that the Scorvellis and all the others had disappeared; that somehow Denver was clean and now ran a risk of being sullied by “new” criminal activity. It was a public blindness, a laziness, perhaps even a cowardice in the face of facts—one that Wager could not understand.
The afternoon paper, too, had carried a story about Covino’s death: an article headlined “Police Still Baffled by Gangland Slaying,” by police reporter Gargan. Since the reporter had got nothing from Wager, he apparently called the Bulldog, because most of the short column on page 28 quoted what Chief Doyle had said—that yes, the police were still looking for the culprits; no, they had nothing concrete yet; no, all leads to well-known criminal figures had been exhausted; and no, the police had no further plans to investigate in that area.
And Wager, too, had better not have any plans to go near Dominick. Not the man himself, nor the Lake Como restaurant, nor any of the people close to the man—the only people most likely to know of any connections with Gerald, and who might be squeezed into talking if Wager had enough freedom to get his hands around their necks.
But he was free to get out on the street and find the man in the beret. He would never locate him. Wager was absolutely certain he would never locate him, since the coat and beret had been used for a disguise. But prowling through those streets down there was better than prowling through this apartment up here, kicking the two sling chairs from one spot to another and back again, straightening the Marine Corps sword and the framed photograph on the wall. He would not ask anyone about Scorvelli; but if someone wanted to walk right up and say, “Wager, I’ve got proof that Dominick wasted Frank and Gerald,” he wouldn’t say, “Don’t tell me.” Sure, someone was going to walk up and say that and everything would work out just fine! Just like the proud City and County of Denver was still a virgin.
He slipped his Star P.D. into its holster and shrugged into his light sports coat. At times like these, the street was better than his apartment. In fact, most of the time the street was better than his apartment.
