Angle of Attack (13 page)

A small apartment building sat behind a shallow lawn sandwiched between the unpainted concrete block walls of two flat-roofed commercial buildings, one a paint store, the other a garage. The apartment was square and plain, with four units in front, two up, two down. In the yellow light from the marquee of a large porno theater across Broadway, its color seemed pale blue. In the identical dark windows of all four living rooms, faces gazed out against the marquee’s glare. On the lawn stood two uniformed officers and three or four civilians. Wager recognized one of the patrolmen, Adamo, who had been a rookie on Wager’s beat ten years ago.

“Hello, Walt.”

“Gabe, amigo! I heard you moved over to homicide. Hey, a lot of people wanted that slot; I’m glad you got it.”

Walt Adamo was one of those who had wanted it, but with him, at least, there was none of the suspicion that the job had been given to Wager because he was part Hispano and the department was hungry for the federal money that came with compliance.

“What’s the story here?” Wager asked.

Adamo led him away from the witnesses and snoopers clustered near the small landing that served as a front porch. “We got a man shot twice by a male assailant; witnesses say he ran south on Broadway past the furniture store. We put out an alert on him.”

“I heard it.”

“The victim’s Charles Porfirio. You know him?”

“He’s been on the street five or six years? Pushes a little dope now and then?”

“That’s the one. A little dope, a little fencing, maybe some burglary, though I haven’t been able to land anything definite on him in that line—just rumors. Anyway, the witnesses say they were sitting on the porch, talking, when the assailant came out of this path here between the apartment and the paint store.”

“Got their names yet?”

“Yep.” Adamo tilted his notebook to catch the glare from Bunny’s Adult Arcade across the street. “The first one’s Jesus Quintana. He lives in apartment two.”

“Which one’s he?”

“The fat one over there by the steps, smoking.”

“Anything on him?”

“No. He’s been around the neighborhood for a while, but he hasn’t attracted any attention. That’s his wife in the front window of the right-hand apartment, first floor.”

The woman caught Adamo’s gesture and stared their way, a frown of worry pulling lines into her thin, dark face, and Wager half remembered the same expression, the same worries, on the faces of women in his childhood. It was more than the worry of a witness; it was the anxiety of someone involved. She said something to her husband, who looked at Wager and then went into the house. A moment later, he showed in the window, herding three small heads away to bed.

“According to him, the assailant walks up and says to the victim, ‘I been looking for you,’ and the victim says, ‘Well, you see me. What about it?’ Then the two of them walk over near the corner of the garage and onto the sidewalk, right there. They talk for a couple minutes and then the victim turns around and starts back to the steps to where Quintana’s sitting and talking with another witness, who’s staying with him. This second guy was leaning out the same window there where Mrs. Quintana is.”

“Pretty busy around here for three o’clock in the morning.”

“Yeah, well, some of these people don’t like to be seen in the daytime. The second witness is one Ernie Taylor. He’s the black kid talking to my partner. He’s new to the neighborhood, but he’s working some deal or other. You can smell it all over him.”

“What happened next?”

“The assailant shoots Porfirio once in the back of the shoulder, and as far as we could tell, the bullet stayed in. Then Porfirio starts running for that path next to the paint store, but he trips on a kid’s tricycle and while he’s trying to get up, the assailant runs up and pops him right in the back of the head. Then he takes off that way down Broadway.”

“He didn’t threaten or shoot at the witnesses?”

“No. They say he never even looked at them. Only at Charley. They think he was drunk or high, and that fits the behavior.”

“Where’d the victim fall?”

“Over here.” Adamo led Wager to a patch of yard worn to gray sand by foot traffic and children’s games. “That’s the blood there.” He pointed to a small, very soggy spot. “He was still pumping blood when the ambulance got here, and the attendant said he had a chance.”

“None of the witnesses recognized the assailant?”

“Crap, no. They swear they never saw him before. Never ever.”

“I hear you. Can you and your partner hang around long enough to keep an eye on this Taylor while I talk to Quintana? I’m working alone.”

“Let me tell the dispatcher I’ll be here a little longer.”

Wager went into the dark, narrow hallway of the apartment building and knocked on the door of number two; the husband opened it. “Mr. Quintana? I’m Detective Wager. You think you could tell me what you saw?”

“I already told the policeman. That tall one there.”

“I’d like to hear it from you. Maybe you could show me exactly where they were standing and where you were when everything happened.” Over Quintana’s thick, sloping shoulder, Wager could see his wife sitting stiffly in the dark; the lights from the porno marquee invaded the small room and fell across her tense face. From a half-open door came the excited whispers of children. Wager nodded hello; she didn’t answer, but watched with wide eyes as her husband led Wager into the yard.

“Well, I was sitting here, and Ernie was at the window over there, and Charley was standing on the walk here, talking to me and Ernie.”

“What about?”

“Aw, nothing. Just shooting the—ah—bull about this and that. You know how it is on a warm night.”

“And then?”

Quintana scratched at the stomach bulging beneath his brightly patterned shirt. “Well, I didn’t see the guy at first; he come from around there, and I’m sitting over here. But Charley says, ‘My, my,’ or something like that, and this guy says to him, ‘I want to talk to you. Come over here.’ And Charley, he don’t really want to go. He says, ‘We got nothing to talk about.’ The guy says, ‘I been looking for you. I want to talk to you.’ He was acting high, you know. Drunk, maybe.”

“Did Charley say his name?”

“No. And I never seen him before.”

“Ernie’s a friend of yours?”

“Yeah. I met him a couple weeks ago. He needed a place to crash tonight and I let him use my couch.”

“Did Ernie know this guy?”

“No. Neither of us ever seen him before.”

“What next?”

Quintana walked to the corner of the small, treeless yard near the corner of the garage and struck a pose. “They stood here and talked a little and then Charley turned around like this and starts back and the next thing I know, pow! This dude’s shot Charley in the back. Charley starts running.” Quintana jogged heavily a step or two and then tumbled gently across the apartment’s short sidewalk, looking up from the ground to speak to Wager. “And then he trips over a goddam tricycle. It ain’t my kids’; it belongs to them people up in four. They let their kids leave their crap all over the place.” He stood to brush the dead grass from his shirt and then backed up two or three steps and hunched over, holding an arm out in front as if he had a pistol. “Then this guy just runs right up like this and lays that pistol up against Charley’s head and lets fly, man! That son of a bitch must of been high—he aimed for the head and he still missed, this close. The bullet come out right here.” He tapped the hollow of his throat. “Charley flopped over twice, kicking like shit, and got this far.” He pointed to the bloodstain, black as a hole in the cold sand. “In the meantime, this dude’s cut out, heading south.” Quintana loudly smacked a fist into his palm. “Loaded or not, that son of a bitch knew what he wanted. He came here to waste Charley and he tried like hell to do it.”

“What were you doing while all this was happening?”

“Man, it went down so fast, I didn’t do nothing! I mean, here I am shooting the shit with my cousin and a friend, and along comes this nut and out of nowhere starts wasting people! You’d think them kind of people would be locked up, man. But the—ah—patrolmen, they got here real quick. The police did real good, getting here so quick.”

“The victim was your cousin?”

“Did I say that? Well, yeah.”

“Who called the police?”

“Ernie did. I got a phone in my apartment, but I guess he didn’t know it. He jumped out the window and ran to the booth on the corner. Sometimes it works; it’s all the time getting vandalized. This is a very bad neighborhood, you know?”

“Did anyone besides Ernie see anything?”

“Well, I guess my wife saw a little bit. She come out of bed running when that first shot went off. At three o’clock in the morning, man, that son of a bitch was loud.”

“Can you describe the assailant?”

“Yeah. He was maybe twenty-five. Anglo. Blond hair. I already told that to the other cop.”

“Did he have a mustache or beard? Was he clean-shaven? Any scars? Jewelry? Was he wearing a hat?”

“No. He wasn’t wearing no hat. But I didn’t see him good. He was just a guy.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“No.”

“He stood this close and you wouldn’t recognize him again?”

“It was dark, man, and everything happened fast. And I never seen him before.”

Wager slipped a sheet of paper from his clipboard. “I’d like you to write down what you told me. Just put it in your own words, everything you told me.”

“Yeah, sure. I hope that son of a bitch didn’t kill Charley. If he did …!”

Wager left Quintana squatting in the pale light that splashed across the street and over the apartment’s steps, and knocked once more on the door of number two. The wife opened it.

“I’m Detective Wager, Mrs. Quintana. Is Charley your cousin or your husband’s?”

“His—my husband’s.” Both her hands clutched at her corded neck.

“I’m sorry all this had to happen. It’ll help us get the man that did it if you can tell us what you saw. Are you up to it? Do you think you can just write down what you saw?”

“I … I think so.”

“Did you ever see the assailant before?”

“I …”

She didn’t want to say any more. Wager waited, smelling the familiar odor of chicken and rice floating through the small room toward the coolness outside the open window. Across the street, under glaring bulbs that spelled “Sugar Buns and Teeny Teasers X X X,” a chesty girl in a pink miniskirt and shiny white boots stared toward the police cars, absently swinging her white plastic purse back and forth. Finally, Wager said, “Here’s what I think, Mrs. Quintana. I think maybe your husband knows who it is and won’t say because he wants to get even.
Soy hispano, señora; y comprendo la familia
. But suppose this guy has cousins who feel like your husband does?” Wager let her think about that. “You’ve got three children.”

“Oh, God!”

“I’m not trying to scare you, Mrs. Quintana. I’m trying to tell you that it’s best to let the police handle it. If we go after this guy, your husband’s clear; if he goes after him, there’s no telling where it might end.”

She stared out the window above the marquee and into the lightless sky, looking at her choices and burdened by them all.

In the old days, it would have been the
jefe
—someone like Tony-O—standing here trying to prevent a blood feud from ripping through the neighborhood. Now it was just a cop, and there wasn’t much neighborhood left to tear apart. Only a family. “The sooner we get the assailant, the less time he’ll have to build an alibi. The law can handle him, Mrs. Quintana. If your husband tries to, there’s going to be a hell of a lot more trouble. He might even end up in jail—no job, and you and the kids on welfare. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, I know it. Jesus, he’s …” She took a deep breath and turned to face Wager. “Yes, I seen this guy before. Today. We went to the park with the kids and Charley, for a picnic, and this guy showed up.”

“What park?”

“I forget its name—the one off Speer Boulevard with all the bushes and a place to play baseball. The kids like it there.”

“The Sunken Gardens?”

“Yeah. We was there and this Anglo kid comes up and hassles Charley. Aw, Charley’s into something … We all know it—Charley’s always got something going. But not Jesus! He’s got a job, you know? And he’s got the kids, too. But Jesus likes to think he’s in on Charley’s action. But he’s not—not really; he just likes to talk. And he’s Charley’s cousin. Family’s important to us.”

“
Sí
.
La familia es todo
.” It was his mother’s phrase whenever someone needed help. The family helped its members, regardless. If it didn’t, no one would.

“Yeah.
La familia
. You really are Chicano, ain’t you?”

“What happened in the park?”

“Well, Charley and this guy got into a fight, a little shoving and some loud words, and Jesus, he made me take the kids down to the creek to watch the water for a while. He loves the kids, you know—he really does—and he didn’t want them seeing all that. After a while we come back and every­thing’s cool; the guy’s gone.”

“What was the fight about?”

“I don’t know.” She meant that she had said enough about that to a cop and would not cross the line between a present worry and a new one.

“It was the same person who shot Charley tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Was Ernie at the park, too?”

“For a while, yeah.”

“Did he know this guy?”

“He didn’t say so.”

“Would you mind coming down to headquarters to look at some pictures?”

“Jesus, too?”

“Yes. And Ernie.”

“I’ll have to get somebody to watch the kids. They’re still excited. They shouldn’t see things like this. This is a lousy place for kids to grow up. A lousy place!”

“It won’t take long.”

“O.K. I guess so.”

Wager left her slowly pushing a ballpoint pen over a sheet of paper as she wrote down her version of what happened. Adamo and his partner, flanking Ernie, looked anxious to get back on the street; patrols and checkpoints waited, and they had an entire neighborhood to survey.

“You through with us, Gabe?”