Angle of Attack (17 page)

“I ain’t talking about it here, man.”

“Fine. I’ll see you on the corner of Colfax and Race in ten minutes.”

“Wait a fucking minute! I got—”

Wager hung up. Behind him, the stringy-haired youth said, “It’s about time, man,” and roughly elbowed past him into the booth. Wager stepped aside, careful to scrape his shoe down the skinny Achilles tendon poking beneath the fringe of frayed Levi’s. He left the kid dangling halfway between cursing at Wager and trying to save his coin in the telephone.

The swollen figure of Fat Willy in its linen suit and Panama hat was not on the corner when Wager drove past, and Wager wasn’t surprised. He went a block down Race Street and pulled around in a U-turn, moving back slowly to wait just beyond the glare of the East Colfax strip. Sooner or later the big man would come sauntering past the brightly lit liquor stores, porno shows, pawnshops, and fast-food joints that lined Colfax from the city limits to the shadow of the state capitol. And in another five minutes, Wager’s Trans Am rocked heavily as Fat Willy slid into the front seat beside him.

“How come you didn’t meet me right out on the street, Wager? Out there in the light where the whole motherin world can see me talking with you?”

“Because I’ve got to watch my reputation.”

“It ain’t
your
reputation’ll be hurt. Look, I don’t know nothing about what went down this afternoon, so this is just a waste of my time.”

“What do you mean? What went down?”

“You telling me you don’t know?”

“What went down?”

Fat Willy’s head tossed back with a loud “Haw! I swear to God, Wager, you couldn’t find your own ass with both hands and a rear-view mirror. You call yourself a cop and you didn’t hear about this Covino dude in Cañon City?”

“Tell me, Fat Willy.”

“He was stabbed today, man. Somebody nailed him real good.”

“Who told you this?”

“I heard it in casual conversation with a recent traveler from those distant shores. Haw!”

“Is he dead?”

“I do not know. And I did not ask. I don’t want to look too interested in that dude or in his friends—because I ain’t.”

“Have you heard anything about him and the Scorvellis?”

The bulk settled comfortably against the seat. “Wager, I recollect there was some little mention that this information you are after might be valuable. You read me?”

“I can’t tell you how valuable it is until I hear it.”

“Well, start counting coin, my man—here’s what I got.” He canted his head so the shadow of the large-brimmed hat shielded his face from a figure walking past on the sidewalk. “The word I hear around is that this Covino maybe did a job for Dominick Scorvelli.”

“The one in Cañon City? Gerald?”

“Naw, man. The other one that got hisself shot last week.”

“What kind of job?”

“The word I hear is ‘hit.’”

“Come on, Willy! We don’t have a thing to show that kid ever crossed the street.”

“They’s a lot of things cops ain’t got, Wager. One of them’s good sense. Now, you want to hear what I picked up? Or you want to waste time disputing my solemn word?”

“Which hit?”

“Dominick’s brother. Marco.”

The hell he did. Wager sat and turned that information inside out, upside down, and backward, and it still didn’t fit what he’d discovered about Frank’s life. Unless there was a pot load more to learn about him somewhere. As Willy said, cops never knew everything. “How’d you hear this?”

“Around.”

“It’s important to know, Willy. I’m not coming down on anybody; I just want to corroborate.”

“What’s this here ‘important’ worth?” Willy rubbed together a thick thumb and forefinger, the flesh making a dry whisper.

Wager pulled out his wallet and counted out a hundred dollars of his own money. Maybe the Bulldog would pay him back. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t.

Fat Willy counted the twenties against the light cloth stretched tight across his thigh. “Is that all? Hell, just sitting here is costing me more than this in business.”

“It’s all I have right now, Willy. If your information checks out, I’ll double it. If you don’t want it, you can always give it back.”

“Just like you gonna give me back my information, right?” He folded the bills into a tight wad and slipped them somewhere beneath the expanse of linen coat.

“How did you hear this about Covino and Scorvelli?”

“I heard it in a couple places. Couple days ago some people was talking about it at a game of chance I know about. And I heard it today, too, down at the Ebony Billiard Saloon. It come up when we got the word on the other one getting stabbed. It’s all over the place, man.”

“Who was talking it up?”

“Nobody special. It was just talk, you know?”

“You think somebody could have planted it?”

“Sure! But how in hell’s anybody going to know if it’s the real skinny or it ain’t? I mean, you got to get a lot closer to them Scorvellis to know that, and I am as close as I aim to get.” He opened the door and grunted his way out, then bent to the half-lowered window. “And another thing: why would somebody want to blow smoke like that? And another thing, too: somebody sure didn’t like them Covinos for some real heavy reason. You dig? Don’t forget, you owe me. I be waiting.”

He was gone, a wide blur of white against the darkness of worn and cautious houses whose shades were pulled to pinch out the glare and noise and eyes of the Colfax corner.

Why would somebody plant that story? It would be easy enough to do—a murmur here, a whispered “did you know” there. Anything about the Scorvellis was news everywhere, and the person who could tell his buddies something first would stand a notch taller in their eyes. A day, two days, and the story would be all over town and impossible to trace back to the one who started it. But for what reason? The police weren’t even close to a suspect in Marco’s death, so there was no one trying to shake off attention. And there was no reason Wager could see in naming Frank the hit man after he was dead—no reward to collect from Dominick, no revenge against a corpse. And not one goddamned bit of the kid’s life even pointed that way. But as Willy said, Frank was dead, and now his brother had been stabbed.

An uneasy chill ran up Wager’s back. Frank had been shot just after Wager had heard the name, and Gerald was stabbed within three days after Wager had gone to see him. It was almost as if there was a connection—as if Wager, himself, was the connection.

But that made as little sense as the rumor that Frank killed Marco. As little sense as any other link between that and Gerald’s stabbing. Wager swore again and started his car and turned it west on Colfax, toward headquarters.

“Well, jumping Jesus—it’s Wonder Wager.” Ross looked up from a mound of papers, his red ballpoint pen aimed at the line of type he had been studying. “Did you come down on your free time just to help us lesser minions serve and protect?”

“No. I came to find out something about that stabbing in Cañon City today. Did you or Dev get anything on it?”

When it came to business, Ross could forget his animosity toward Wager. “Only that it happened. Is it part of that shooting last weekend?”

“I don’t know. It’s the victim’s brother, but there are too many loose ends to say they’re tied together.”

“Anything we can do?”

Wager ran a finger down the list of frequently called numbers, looking for the duty officer at the state penitentiary. “I guess just listen around. So far, there’s not much to do anything with.”

“What do you want us to listen for?”

Wager told him what Fat Willy had said. If Sonnenberg didn’t like the Scorvelli name talked about, he could take it up with Fat Willy.

“My, my. The plot does thicken. Is there a jacket on this Frank Covino?”

“He seems as clean as a hangman’s conscience. But unless there’s some kind of truth in that rumor, nothing makes any sense.” Wager dialed the number and waited four or five rings before the male voice of the duty officer, cadenced with routine, answered.

“This is Detective Wager, D.P.D. Can you give me a status report on the prisoner who was stabbed today—Gerald Covino?”

“Just a minute.” The voice came back. “He died at approximately 10:30 A.M. without regaining consciousness.”

Damn. “Any idea who did it?”

“Yes, sir. But we’re not allowed to give that information out over the telephone. We can send a report if you’ll give me your official address and a statement of need to know. Or you can come down here. It might be quicker if you came down here, anytime between 9 A.M. and 3 P.M.”

“Has the next of kin been notified?”

“Yes, sir. They have.”

Wager hung up and looked at Ross without really seeing him. Dead. Another thread cut—a thread of life, a thread in the case. Somewhere, Wager realized, half buried in the back of his mind, he had been putting some hopes on Gerald. Give him a little time to think about his brother, let his mother’s suffering work on him a little; make another trip down to Cañon City in a week or two and then again until something broke in the case. Hell, Gerald wouldn’t be going anywhere—and Wager had plenty of time on his side to chip away at the man’s silence. But now Gerald was gone for good, and Wager couldn’t help the recurring question about his own part in it; he couldn’t help wondering if somehow he had set Gerald up like a mouse trapped in a box. Like poking a stick at a goddam mouse cornered in a box.

Ross was saying something to him.

“What?”

“Did Covino buy it?” Ross asked again.

“Yes. This morning.”

Ross wagged the ballpoint pen in a series of short taps. “Convenient, ain’t it?”

It was that. And again came that feeling, like a moth butting its head and shredding its wings against the screen to get at a light inside, that something was there just beyond him. Something that he should be able to get hold of. “The dumb bastard should have told me what he knew.” Wager said it more to himself than to Ross. “The dumb bastard could have saved his life if he’d told me.”

“Or had his throat cut for being a snitch.”

“I suppose.” Wager hadn’t built that box; the mouse had found it all by himself and crawled in and was trapped by its own stubbornness. It was that simple. It should be that simple.

“Do you want Dev and me to start shaking the trees? We’ve got a few contacts that even you don’t have, Wager; and if there’s any word about the Scorvellis, they’re bound to hear it.”

Sonnenberg wouldn’t go for that; he was already getting diarrhea over his project, and to have the whole Homicide Division snuffling at Dominick’s heels would either give the inspector a heart attack or send him right up to the department chief himself. And that would bring in another variable, a political one, which Wager didn’t want to risk right now. “No. Just listen around.”

He could see it in Ross’s eyes—the other detective figured that Wager was trying to keep the case entirely in his own hands, that Wager was afraid there wouldn’t be enough glory to share. “Sure. If that’s the way you want it.” What the hell, it wasn’t skin off Ross’s fanny; he’d offered and he sure as hell wasn’t going to beg to be let in on it. Ross turned back to the forms, the red ballpoint pen stabbing sharply at the lines of print.

Wager got out of the office; it wasn’t his shift, so it wasn’t his territory. Let Ross sulk if he wanted to; there were things that Wager could not explain to him. And there were things he couldn’t explain to himself, either. Call it instinct or ESP. Or even Celestial Seasoning tea leaves. But damn Gerald and damn the feeling that padded after Wager like a hungry dog down the corridors empty of everyone but the night janitor swinging his heavy, noisy waxer from wall to wall like the weighty pendulum of a clock.

Sitting in his car, Wager fiddled with the GE radio pack that rode either on his hip or in the rack he had mounted just under the dash. The terse queries and replies filling the police band told him nothing. He knew they wouldn’t, but neither did they bring that calmness which often came from half listening to the routine governance of the city’s daily violence.

Maybe he should go back and start at the beginning. At this time of night, midnight, it was as good a place as any; and Wager knew he would not be able to sleep, anyway.

Turning up Lawrence, he parked just north of the cold symmetry of the main post office, with its government lions in frozen crouch and the scattered bums sprawling on the benches at their stone feet like sacrificial offerings. Two blocks over was the Little Juarez section, and this time Wager cruised it on foot, silent among the loud intermingling of broken Spanish and fractured English, and the louder, brassy music spilling from the bars. Panhandlers came a step or two toward him, recognized a cop, and suddenly found something across the street to interest them; men lining the small bars that he entered one after another watched him from the corners of their eyes or in the mirrors. An occasional bartender nodded hello, and Wager asked quietly if he’d seen Tony-O.

“He came in maybe an hour ago. I ain’t seen him since.”

“Any idea which way he went?”

A shrug. “Out.”

“If he comes back, let him know I’m looking for him.”

“I’ll tell him, sure. But you know how he is—
mucho orgulloso
, that one.”

“I know. Just tell him.”

“
Cómo no
. Sure.”

It wasn’t in a bar that he found Tony-O; it was crossing the street in front of the wide concrete walls and blank, tinted plate glass of an office building that formed a barrier between this raw corner of the city and Old Larimer Square, where tourists paraded in shiny shoes or imitation grubbiness through expensive bars and restaurants, looking for authentic echoes of the boom town that Denver used to be. The old man walked with his usual careful but erect stride through the bustling street life, his wrinkled face restless in its habitual scan of the people strolling the sidewalks or weaving through cars stopped for the traffic lights.

Wager cut across the street and caught up with him. “Tony-O! Wait a minute.”

“
Quién es
? Wager?”

“Let’s get a beer. I need to talk to you, Tony.”

“What about?”