Angle of Attack (8 page)

“Smelled him?”

“Drunk as a skunk and twice as fragrant. Apparently, he had passed out before he could rifle the cash register, and there he lay sound asleep and soaking wet, with an empty bourbon bottle in his hand and a puddle of booze deep enough to drown in. Kentucky Royal, it was—foul-smelling stuff.”

“He pulled the job while he was drunk?”

Franconi’s eyebrows shrugged. “It’s not so unusual. Granted, you’re more likely to get stickups from drunken impulse than you are burglary. Still, it does happen, especially with your younger class of criminal.”

“I thought Covino had a little more going for him than that. I thought he was a pro.”

“Granted, that’s generally for the amateurs. But Covino wasn’t
that
much of a professional. We placed him in a holding cell until he sobered up and then tried to clear as many cases off him as we could. And there just weren’t that many. He admitted to half a dozen break-ins and burglaries, and that was all.”

If a suspect stood a good chance of conviction on one charge, it paid him to confess to all the others he had gotten away with. That way, he couldn’t be prosecuted on those after he was given his time for the first one. But Wager still felt something slippery underneath the surface of facts. “Covino has been out of Buena Vista for five or six years. Are you telling me he only pulled half a dozen burglaries in that time?”

“That’s all he admitted to. What would he gain by lying about that?”

A shorter sentence. But most wouldn’t gamble that against further convictions. Unless there was something Wager could not yet see clearly. “Any idea what else he was up to before he tumbled?”

“Nothing concrete. We of course asked around when we checked up on his claims to the other burglaries. But you know how that is—if you have someone who wants to help you clear your books, you’re not going to try very hard to paint him as a perjurer.”

“Any talk about him at all?”

“Only that he was very hungry for the big time. But most of our respondents thought he talked a great deal more than he accomplished. It merely adds up to the familiar picture of a small-time hood with dreams of glory.”

If that was the case, Covino would have been likely to exaggerate his other jobs. “Did you ever hear of a tie between his name and any of the Scorvellis?”

“No. I don’t recall any. I don’t think it’s likely, though. Covino was a nonentity. Indirectly, of course, he may have known them through his fence—the Scorvellis have a finger in that pie, too. But Covino never named his fence. He was quite arrogant about not spilling a thing.”

“You said he wasn’t alone on this drugstore thing. Any leads?”

“None. And the only reason I think he had accomplices is because he had no transportation in the vicinity.”

Wager thought that over. “West Thirty-eighth’s not too far from where he lived. He might have walked.”

“That’s possible, but not likely. My experience shows that most burglars will have a car within a block, either to pull up and load the goods or to put a lot of distance between them and the crime scene. There were no abandoned cars in the vicinity, and it’s likely that the accomplices were parked at the back door, waiting for him to come out. Remember now, at this point in time, Covino had been in there long enough to pass out. A burglary like that should have taken, at the most, three or four minutes once the door was open. By the time I reached the alley, some eight or ten minutes had passed since the alarm went off. If Covino’s accomplices were as amateurish as he was, they would be extremely nervous and might have left as soon as McBride and the other officer tried the front door. Or they might have had a police frequency scanner and heard the dispatcher call McBride. That technique’s becoming quite popular of late. Either way, if they drove out the other end of the alley, I’d never have seen them.”

And, Wager thought wearily, that left things about where they had been. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the cars.”

“Be with you in a minute. I want to wash up and comb my hair.”

W
EDNESDAY MORNINGS WERE
still conference mornings at the Organized Crime Unit’s headquarters in the old office building that gazed through the trees of the state capitol grounds toward the gold dome. Wager and Axton, following the Bulldog’s suggestion, stood outside a small pane of Plexiglas at the second-floor landing. Security person Gutierrez remembered Wager by name and smiled widely as she pushed the loud buzzer that unlocked the door. “They’re all in conference, Detective Wager, but they’ll be out in ten minutes or so. If you gentlemen want to wait in the interview room, I can get you some coffee.”

“Thanks. I’ll say hello to Suzy first.”

“Oh, do! She’ll be so glad to see you.”

Wager led Axton past the desks jammed into a warren of open cubicles to the corner that had been his. On the whole, the place was the same; but here and there, in small details such as a new wall chart or a different arrangement of office furniture, changes had been made. Wager felt that curious mixture of familiarity and distance, as if he remembered the location better than the location remembered him, and it brought home the fact that he was no longer an O.C.U. agent but just another visitor from an outside unit.

“Gabe! I mean, Detective Wager!” Suzy, whose plainness was one thing that would never change, looked up from her typewriter. “I heard you were coming by.”

She shook hands and he introduced her to Axton. “Is Ed in conference, too?”

“Sure—same old Wednesday routine. It looks like your new job really agrees with you! You’re looking just fine.”

“You do, too. I heard the unit was re-funded—that’s real good.”

She held up a thumb and forefinger, a quarter of an inch apart. “Gee, it was that close, but Inspector Sonnenberg really put on a good budget presentation. He really deserves a lot of credit.”

“That’s real good,” said Wager again, because there wasn’t much else to say, and all the words he’d used so far seemed awkward and strained. Odd, how things that seemed vital when he worked here weren’t worth talking about after he left. He glanced at the three desks, empty at the moment, lining the wall beside the old, square window. His had been the middle one and he had kept its surface clean. Now it was littered with a wad of papers and had somebody’s family album propped at one corner; on the other corner, beside the window, grew a potted marijuana plant with a small sign: “Keep Off the Grass.”

Suzy followed his glance. “That’s Detective Beasley’s desk. He’s real funny—he uses the plant for lectures to junior high kids.”

It made no difference to Wager whose desk it was any more or how messed up he let it get. “Do you know if anybody’s working on the Scorvellis?”

“I’m sure someone must be, but no one ever tells me anything.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but Suzy knew how to keep her mouth shut. That was how she kept her job, and Wager didn’t hold it against her. “Can we wait in Ed’s office for him?”

“Sure. I’ll get you another chair. Gee, it’s good to see you again!”

When they had been settled in the unit sergeant’s cubicle with a third chair and the usual cups of coffee, Axton murmured, “I think you’ve got a girl friend there, Gabe.”

“Suzy?” It was hard to imagine her as anyone’s girl friend, let alone his. “She’s a real nice girl. Like a kid sister.” More like somebody else’s kid sister, because Wager’s was a real bitch who still blamed him for his divorce.

“Ah,” said Axton.

“She takes pictures in her spare time. Photography.”

“Ah.”

They sat in silence while Wager wondered what the hell Axton meant by “Ah.” The cubicle’s plywood partitions were covered with the familiar pale-green paint and various framed awards and certificates that marked the points of achievement in Ed’s professional life. Through the rapid thump of Suzy’s typewriter and the pop of transmissions from radios scattered around the old building’s second floor, Wager picked out the raw squeak of the electric clock’s hand as it lunged ahead each minute. It used to be a sound as persistent and steady as the pulse in his own ears, and he had grown just as unconscious of it in the hours and days and months spent at that desk beside the window. Now the noise was new again, and it irritated.

Ed finally came in, his sloping shoulders and neck as stooped as ever, his pale red hair a strand or two thinner in its sweep back from his forehead to cover the balding spot on his crown. As tall as Axton, he weighed half as much, and Wager thought again that Ed looked less like a detective than a rawboned dirt farmer broken by the hard prairie and bent under the weight of mortgages. As usual, Ed went through five minutes of preliminaries to find out briefly how Wager was doing, and to tell them at length how he was doing, the O.C.U. was doing, the inspector was doing, and finally to ask for a pat on the back for getting the unit re-funded all by himself. “Well, me and Sonnenberg worked hard on that budget presentation, Gabe. I did the pencil work and the inspector presented it. He’s the senior man, so I guess it’s the thing to do. And I guess they liked it. We’re still suited up, anyway, but I tell you it was a long fourth-and-ten.”

At last the sergeant asked, “What can I do for you?” and Wager told him.

“The Scorvellis?”

The wrinkle between Ed’s sandy eyebrows told him that the question had poked at a sensitive area. Wager said, “We’re still looking into the murder of Marco. We think there may be some connection with a homicide that happened last weekend.”

“Well, sure, we’re scouting the Scorvellis—we always are. The whole game plan’s to keep the pressure on, you know. But I don’t see that I can give you much that you don’t already have.”

“I haven’t heard a thing since I left a year ago, Ed. Max and I would like to be brought up to date.”

“Right, sure! Has it really been that long? My, my.”

“Let’s start with what happened to the organization after Marco was killed.”

“Wager, I’m not starting anywhere! This Scorvelli family’s a very touchy issue around here, and I’m not about to be called offsides on it.”

“Ed, we’re on the same side. I used to work here, remember?”

“Then you ought to remember the inspector’s security regulations. Sure, we’re working on the Scorvellis—I’ll tell you that much. But I’m not about to tell you what it is or what we know. Period.”

“If I have to, I can take this right up to the D.A., Ed. You know that. And you know Doyle over in homicide, too. If I tell him that you’ve refused to cooperate in a legitimate investigation run by his department, he will raise such a stink you’ll have to fumigate this place. Think about that when funding time comes around again.”

The stoop-shouldered man ran a hand up his narrow forehead and across the wedge of thin red hair, then patted it back down. “Maybe you’d better talk to Sonnenberg.”

“Maybe we had.”

The unit chief, Inspector Sonnenberg, was lighting a fresh maduro from one of the long kitchen matches he kept in a glass at the very edge of his almost vacant desk. Wager and Axton each were issued one of his rare smiles with their handshake, then Sonnenberg sat back down in his dark-green swivel chair. “I take it you’re after something that Ed won’t give you. What is it?”

Wager was just as direct. “We want to know what the Scorvelli organization’s done since Marco was killed. It may have some bearing on another homicide that happened last weekend.”

Sonnenberg swiveled so that they could see only his angled profile. He rolled the cigar between pursed lips and held it just off his mouth; out of its wet end a tendril of brown smoke curled like a small question mark. “I haven’t heard of their involvement in any recent homicide. What is it exactly that you’re looking for?”

It would have been a lot easier if they had questions on specific points, Wager knew. But just now they were groping, and that was on a rumor from an uncorroborated source. “We’re not sure,” he admitted.

The inspector swiveled back quickly. “You mean you’re fishing?”

“We have a tip, but … yessir, a lot of it’s fishing.”

“I can’t allow you to blindly poke around, Wager. The subject is extremely sensitive, and I don’t want anyone making waves right now.”

“A good informant told me that Marco Scorvelli’s hit and this latest homicide were linked.”

“What informant?”

“Tony-O. He told me Sunday afternoon that one Frank Covino knew something about Marco’s death, and on Sunday night Covino was killed.”

“Lord, is that old man still around? He goes back as far as the Scorvellis. Further, even.”

“Yessir.”

“But he’s also been out of the action for a long time. His tip could be wrong; we never had a whisper to indicate who actually killed Marco.”

“Yessir, he could be wrong. But Tony-O knows the street, and you have to admit it’s a weird coincidence. So there’s a chance that he could be right, too.”

“Wager, if you had some specific questions, I could answer them. But as it is …” Sonnenberg shook his head.

“It’s the only lead we have on a class A felony, sir. Homicide.” Wager did not spell out the threat the way he’d had to for Ed.

The inspector played with the cigar again. Wager heard Axton beside him shift his weight in the groaning captain’s chair. Ed, restless as ever, slowly rocked from one thin ham to the other.

“All right. I’ll let you have as much as I feel you need to know, Wager. But for God’s sake keep the lid on it.”

That wasn’t necessary, Wager kept his mouth clamped and gazed back into Sonnenberg’s blue eyes.

“We have a contact inside the Scorvelli organization. You know what it would mean for him if anything I tell you gets out.”

“I know.”

“Well, you remember it. And remember this, too: the only reason I’m telling you is that you’ve worked with us before and I trust you.” The chill blue eyes shifted to Axton. “And if Wager’s told, his partner has to be let in. But nobody else. Absolutely.”

“Yes, sir,” said Axton.

“All right.” Sonnenberg drew another mouthful of smoke and then lowered his voice and leaned across the desk toward them. “The contact is an agent—not local, but you don’t have to know anything more than that. He tells us that Dominick had his brother Marco killed because he—Marco—objected to the direction in which Dominick wanted to take the organization. It involved a possible loss of local autonomy, but you don’t need to know about that, either. Who the hit man was, we have no idea. A local soldier, somebody from out of town—we just don’t know. Apparently Dominick made the arrangements very surreptitiously in order not to create any divisions in the organization after his brother’s death. But the fact, if not the details, leaked out, and Dominick had to convince a lot of people that the move was the right one. In the last few months, it’s become clear that he’s consolidated his position and now feels that he can develop whatever it was that Marco objected to. Apparently, Dominick’s organization is looking for new capital to finance a major expansion, but in what direction, our man hasn’t found out yet. As usual, Dominick’s very close-mouthed about his plans. But here’s why things are so very sensitive just at this time: our agent has a chance to be promoted when the expansion does occur. The organization trusts him that much. Dominick told him that the expansion’s going to be in an entirely new direction, one that will require new personnel, and that he has our agent in mind for a very responsible position in the new division.”