The Alvarez Journal: A Gabe Wager Novel

by Rex Burns

  “We don’t carry much in the furniture line. Mostly decorations and souvenirs. You might try next door.”

  “Do you sell enough of that for a good business?”

  A deprecating shrug. “We do all right. Maybe we’ll go into furniture soon.”

  “Are you Mr. Montoya?”

  The smile went away and the boy’s brown eyes flattened into suspicion. “Mr. Montoya, he ain’t here.”

  Wager could feel someone listening intently from beyond the bead curtain over the back doorway. Moving casually along the front of a dusty glass case filled with ceramic pots marked “hecho en México,” he peered over the boy’s shoulder. The shadow of a man waited just beyond the door. “I thought I heard you talking with somebody when I came in.”

  A pause. “That was my uncle. Mr. Montoya owns the place but my uncle and me manage it.”

  “I see. I wanted to talk with Mr. Montoya. You know where I can reach him?”

  “Maybe you better talk to my uncle.”

  He disappeared, and after a short whisper the waiting figure pushed through the curtain and around the glass case, brown eyes laughing at Wager’s attempt to hide his surprise. “Gabe! After all this time! It’s good to see you.”

  There it was: the silent electric quiver, the click of two scattered things snapping together.

  “Rafael!” Wager let his hand be taken in both of the other’s, and wondered as he smiled if he had changed as much as Alvarez. Where, as a teen-ager, Rafael had been as slender and smooth-faced as his nephew, he was now growing heavy along the jaw, and the lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes had the carved look of permanency. Three years in jail would give him the lines; too comfortable living would flesh out his chin.

  Alvarez leaned back to look up and down. “No uniform? You still with the plainclothes detail? Hey, Anthony, this guy’s from the old neighborhood—now he’s big time in the police. Come on in the back, Gabe. Have a cup of coffee … maybe a drink?”

  The walk was like the old Rafael’s, one shoulder hitching slightly higher than the other as if ready to throw up a defense; and once again Wager had the feeling of having been moved back in time. “How long have you been here?”

  “Over a year now. Almost two. Hey, this is a real surprise!”

  Wager looked around the small office and took the padded seat Alvarez pointed to. It had the feel of a home rather than a place of business: the worn cloth on the overstuffed chairs, the scattered and filled ashtrays, the magazines, and even a small color television in the corner panning across an emerald infield spotted with tiny white figures. “So you’re in the import business now,” Wager said.

  “It’s a good living, Gabe, and an honest one. Like I tell Anthony here—he’s my sister’s boy—honesty’s the best policy. Hombre, I sure have learned that!”

  Anthony smiled and looked embarrassed. “The Cubs are leading six to two,” he said, and turned the sound off so the two men could speak. “It ain’t much of a game.” Wager liked the boy’s manners.

  Rafael tipped a shot into a small glass and pushed across a covered dish of lemon slices and a salt shaker. “Here, a little José Cuervo.”

  “Salud y pesos.” Wager lifted the glass and touched his tongue to the salt.

  “Amor y besos,” said Alvarez, laughing.

  They swallowed and bit into the lemons in silence. Alvarez waited.

  “Business seems slow,” Wager said.

  Alvarez’s eyes narrowed in another laugh, and he nodded at the younger man. “Anthony’s always saying that, too. He wants to get rich quick. But business is really pretty good,” waving a laborer’s broad hand over the desk crowded with envelopes and catalogues. “We do a good mail-order business. To gift shops and things.” He offered Wager a cigarette and apologized, “I forgot you don’t smoke,” when Wager shook his head.

  There was another silence, and finally Wager said, “I’m not with the burglary and stickup division any more.”

  “Oh?” Alvarez’s hand slowly balanced his cigarette over the ashtray.

  “No. I’m with the Organized Crime Division now. The narcotics unit.”

  “That so? That’s a promotion, I guess. Gabe’s a smart man, Anthony. From patrolman to detective in—what is it now—six years?”

  “Seven.”

  “Que tiempo ha pasado! It seems like yesterday you were on the burglary detail. You remember when Gabe busted my house, Anthony?”

  The young man’s eyes glided without blinking from his uncle to Wager with some of the puzzlement replaced by a harder interest. “This was when you worked construction?”

  “Right on—Gabe’s the man. There I was, sweating my talangos off for two dollars an hour and when I come home, what do I find! My whole house a mess—drawers emptied, beds upside down, some dude crawling through my attic with a screwdriver, wife and kids crying, supper not cooked, and there’s good old Gabe, cool as a cucumber in the middle of it all!” He laughed again, the gold fillings of his teeth catching light from the low ceiling. “Gabe had this big idea that I was handling stolen goods or pot or something. Maybe you even thought my kids were fencing, eh, Gabe? But good old Gabe didn’t find a thing, because there wasn’t anything to find. But Holy Mother what a mess! It took my old lady a week to clean it up. Another drink?” He pushed at the bottle with his polished fingernails.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I ask you, Anthony—you’re a smart boy—would I be doing peon work for two lousy bucks an hour if I could get rich without working?”

  “He’s the one you took the picture of?”

  “Hey, yeah—I forgot about that. Remember, Gabe? I even took a picture of you standing with the wife and kids.” He winked at Anthony. “It ain’t every day you get visited by a bunch of real live detectives.”

  “I think I’d of been pissed off.” Anthony stared at Gabe.

  “What for? There was a search warrant—everything was legal. Gabe had a job to do and he did it. It’s in his blood, like. He was just wrong is all. Mistakes happen.”

  “What happened at the border a few years ago?” Wager said.

  A shadow crossed Alvarez’s face before he shrugged and smiled again. “Another mistake—mine this time. I shouldn’t have done it; it was dumb. But no more, brother, no more. I learned: you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. Now I’m straight.”

  Wager looked around the office, at its plastic imitation wood paneling and standing lamps. A serape with banderillas hung on one wall, and the shelves of a small bookcase were filled with straw vaqueros and wood carvings of a skinny Don Quixote. “This is a real nice place. It must cost a lot to get set up like this.”

  “Honest work, Gabe—and lots of borrowing. It’s sort of a family thing. You know, the uncles and cousins—they invested.”

  “Is Montoya a relative?”

  “A distant cousin—by marriage.”

  “You think it’s any of his business?” Tense anger had replaced the young man’s politeness. Wager wasn’t just a cop, but worse: a Chicano turned cop.

  “Anthony! What do we have to hide? Honesty is the best policy, and if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear.” He smiled apologetically at Wager. “He’s young … believes in that machismo stuff. It’s in the blood, you know.”

  Wager nodded and stood up. Anthony, an inch or so taller, looked down at him with masked eyes. Rafael stood, too. “You leaving already?”

  “I have to get back to work.”

  “I thought you wanted to see Montoya?” The eyes laughed again. “Or buy some furniture.”

  “Not any more.”

  “Oh. OK—well, hombre, it’s good seeing you. And any time you’re in the neighborhood … you don’t need a search warrant here, OK?”

  Wager sat a few moments in the car to let the impressions settle. Something was going on; he felt it in Alvarez’s words, his smile, the feeling that Alvarez had been waiting for some kind of investigating officer, had rehearsed what was to be said, and then
found himself relieved and even amused that the officer turned out to be good old Gabe Wager. And—despite the caution—Alvarez had been unable to keep the slight note of challenge out of his voice, as unable as Wager to forget the childhood competitions, the taunts that signaled victory or jealousy, the constant efforts to outdo each other. But this wasn’t childhood, and these games, if no more serious, could be far more deadly. Anthony. He seemed like a good boy. But there was something about him, too: not just defensive, but aggressive and personal. In his eyes, Wager wasn’t just Cop; he was also Enemy. And yet still basically a good boy, new to his uncle’s game, giving some fancy political or psychological name to what he was doing so it wouldn’t sound like what it really was. Maybe even some college education, so he wouldn’t have to think but could just pin labels. Cachaza, amigo, cachaza! If he was dealing, suspicion wouldn’t convict—it took evidence.

  Wager jotted the information on a contact card and then let his pencil follow his thoughts. Little or no business and a perfect front for shipping stuff across the border: notify postal authorities and customs for routine surveillance of mail with the Rare Things address. Probably nothing hidden on the premises; Alvarez would move the stuff out fast when it came in. If it came in. Storage. That much grass would have to be stored and then packaged: a warehouse somewhere else. And a family business.

  That would be tough: a tight organization would make it impossible for an outside informant to work his way in. Yet if it was that big, that well-organized, they should have heard of it; a lot of cannabis was on the street, but Alvarez’s name wasn’t linked to any of it. Something was wrong there. But something was going on; Wager felt it. And whatever it was, Rafael felt safe enough to offer him a drink and to show that he was laughing at him.

  Cruising slowly past the shop once more, he turned right at the corner and right again, through the narrow tar-paved alley that ran behind the building. The rear doors were unmarked and had once been painted pink. A sign bolted to the bare concrete block said “CUSTOMER PARKING ONLY—RARE THINGS IMPORT SHOP—VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED BY THE LAW.” A nice touch, that, pure Rafael; Wager smiled to himself and pulled into the square of crushed gravel dusted with bottle chips and tufts of wiry grass. A car sat scalding in the sun: red-over-black ‘73 Firebird, Colorado number AS 3101. On the front seat rested a Panama hat; the back seat had the clean emptiness of a new car. No business in the store, an expensive new car in the drive. Something was going on. No windows at the rear of the store, though the pink door had the tiny bead of a peephole, and Rafael was probably staring out at him and splitting a gut right now. Across the alley was someone’s back yard guarded by a slat fence, with the redwood boards broken and sagging here and there. Anyone sitting on the other side of the fence could be easily seen. The west end of the alley behind the Cantina Bar would be the best place for surveillance.

  On the way back to the office, Wager radioed for the owner of the license number; it was registered to Alvarez, address 655 West Eighth, Denver. Another tiny click. He called Suzy’s number, and in a couple of seconds her thin voice radioed back, “This is two-one-six.”

  “What was the address of the owner of the Rare Things Import Shop?”

  “Wait one.” He could picture her flipping through the yellow folders until she came to it. “Six-five-five West Eighth.”

  “Thanks. Ten-twenty that address.”

  “Ten-four.”

  He remembered the house when he saw it: brown brick, squarely built, with the front porch a deep shadow across the first floor, the second floor rising in a peak. White wooden pillars, needing paint, lifted from stubby brick bases on the porch. The last time he’d stood here, Alvarez’s wife, pale with shock and anger, had stared numbly at the warrant he’d held. But now the house was empty of kid noises, almost empty of life. The screen door, thick with old patches, rattled as he knocked. Finally, an old man’s face peered out between the tassled curtains masking the small pane in the door; then a lock grated open to show a thin figure shorter than Wager’s.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Montoya?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you the owner of the Rare Things Import Shop?”

  The rheumy black eyes widened a little, and Wager felt the old man’s sudden worry. “I own it. But I don’t work there none. I’m too old now.”

  “Does Rafael Alvarez live here?”

  The worry deepened. “Who are you?”

  He showed him his badge. “Detective Wager. Does Rafael Alvarez live here?”

  “No, sir. He moved out south. On Monaco.” Under the sagging chin of his scraped neck, a thin Adam’s apple bobbed once or twice. “Is there some kind of trouble?”

  “His car is registered to this address.”

  “I don’t know nothing about that. He moved maybe six months ago.”

  “Did you run the shop before Alvarez took over?”

  “Yes, sir. Eighteen years. We moved to that new store in 1965.” His dark eyes slid past Wager and stared at some vision against the thick shade of the elm trees. “That was before my wife, Sadie, died. Business was better at the old place. That new store”—he shrugged and shook his head—”it’s too far out of the way.”

  “Don’t you have a good mail-order business?”

  “Mail order? I never mail-ordered nothing. It ain’t that big of a store. For mail order, you got to have lots of stock and storage space. And clerks, if it’s big enough. And capital to get started—that kind of business takes a lot of mail advertising.”

  “You don’t have a warehouse?”

  “Warehouse? Ain’t no warehouse. Just the store.”

  “How long has Alvarez had the business?”

  “He came about a year and a half ago, and then took over when I retired. He’s a smart young man. He’ll do good in the store.”

  “You retired six months ago?”

  “Yes, sir. Just after my wife, Sadie, died.”

  “At the same time Alvarez moved from this residence?”

  The Adam’s apple bobbed again.

  Wager let the silence work for him.

  The old man’s hand, knuckles bony under the wrinkled skin, tugged at the curling tip of his white collar. “Yes, sir. We made a kind of … agreement.”

  “Like what?”

  “He lets me live here and I let him run the store for the profits.”

  “You don’t pay him a salary for managing the store?”

  The collar was tugged again and the worried eyes shifted to defensive embarrassment. “I couldn’t pay him nothing. I was going to close the store, and he said he’d manage it for the profits and let me live here rent free in trade. I … I needed a smaller place after my wife, Sadie, died.”

  “Did you sign any papers?”

  “No. Did I have to?”

  “I guess that’s up to you.”

  “I mean, was it against the law not to?”

  “Not that I know of—it’s your property. Is Alvarez making a profit now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t go by the store no more, but it never did too good since we moved there. Maybe it is now, though. Rafael was willing to gamble on it, he said, and he’s been able to take care of the overhead and taxes, anyway.”

  “That was a pretty good deal: a free manager and a rent-free house.”

  “It wasn’t my idea! Rafael said he’d do it; he said he needed to learn how to run a store and he was willing to gamble on the profits. The store’s still in my name. We never signed no contract to trade anything anyway, and if he wants out he can leave tomorrow. We never signed no papers and there ain’t nothing in the law against it. You said so yourself!” The thin folds of flesh quivered under his jaw as he stopped for breath. “Business is business!”

  “Do you know Alvarez’s new address?”

  “I got it wrote down.” He disappeared into the dark living room, and Wager heard a drawer slide open. Then the short figure returned, reading from the back of a business card, “1123 Monaco P
arkway Circle.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Montoya.”

  “Say, is there something wrong at the store? Something I should know about?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why all these questions, then?”

  “Just checking out the car registration.” Alvarez would get a call from the old man five minutes after Wager left, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to worry some. Worry was good for the soul. If you had one.

  In the car, Wager noted his talk with Montoya and called Suzy to let her know he would be in the office by four-thirty.

  “Detective Denby says Willy has some more action.”

  “Pat and Mike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ten-four.” Fat Willy was using up his free dope fast. He was probably cutting it again, for a little profit off the high-schoolers, and maybe Wager should care a little more about that. But he didn’t, not really down deep. If the little bastards wanted to shoot up, nobody could stop them, and their lunch money might as well go to the good cause of nailing pushers. At this rate, they’d be able to set up Pat and Mike by next week; another week and then Willy’d be hungry again and cruising the streets to sniff out another pusher.

  The Monaco Circle address was in one of the many new residential suburbs where streets curved around each other, and only signs such as “Prairie Wood” or “The Downs” or “Partridge Hills” separated one sprawl of homes from the next. Alvarez’s was a split-level: entry, living room, and dining room on the ground floor; bedrooms and baths up half a flight over the garage; basement—probably furnished—down half a flight beneath the living room. Lot, location, and building about, Wager guessed, thirty-eight thousand. Plus a hot new car. Not bad for a laborer two years out of prison and running a store that had no customers. But the fact that a man had money didn’t mean the money came illegally. Or so the courts would say. Click-click-click, pieces of the puzzle were coming together here and there. But one big fact still didn’t fit: it would take a lot of marijuana to provide that much money; and nowhere had Wager heard Alvarez’s name linked to marijuana. Or to anything else.

  From his desk at the office, he called the DEA and asked for any information they had uncovered from the Seattle tip.