by Rex Burns
“What the hell you think you’re doing?”
“Hey, man, chill out. I’m going to check you over, okay? I don’t know you, do I?”
Visser paused and, when Kirk didn’t answer, tugged the wallet out gently. Tilting the driver’s license to the sky glow, he squinted through the dimness to read it. Kirk knew what it said: Bernard DiAngelo and an address in Phoenix. The address was a motel whose manager was a friend of his uncle Wyn. The DiAngelo name wasn’t unknown to the Phoenix police as well as to certain Las Vegas figures who had low profiles and high insurance premiums.
“Since when do narcs sell stuff?” Kirk asked.
“Shit happens, man.”
He took his wallet back. “Don’t it. Now it’s your turn. Man.” He patted Visser down, finding a slender switchblade tucked in his belt at the back of his pants. “You think you’re going to use this?”
“No, man. It’s just I always carry it.”
He tossed the knife back to Visser. “You can try to use it right now if you want.”
Visser dropped it into a pocket and shook his head. “Like I said, I just carry it around. I forgot it was there. No offense, okay?”
“Right.” Kirk took his time leafing through the man’s wallet. It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know from the company personnel file. “Okay.” Kirk pretended to relax. “It looks like we can do business.”
“I want to find out a little more, first. Like where you get your stuff.”
“I’m going to tell you that?” Kirk snorted. “Man, if you want to do business, fine. But we ought to act like gentlemen about this. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand, sure. But it’s, you know, important we trust each other. We know a little bit more about each other, we trust each other, you know?”
“It’s good stuff. You can check it out. Good and consistent.”
“The kid says you’re up from Phoenix.”
“The kid’s right.”
“You know Mike Turley down there?”
“It’s a big town. I don’t know everybody. You in the market or not?”
“Take it easy, man. What’s your going rate?”
Devlin told him. “The kid give you a taste?”
“Yeah. It’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay. It’s prime. Ninety percent.” Devlin looked at his watch. “I got other business, man, so if you’re interested … .”
Visser, suddenly more nervous, backed off a step or two. His hand edged toward his pocket. “Listen, man, I don’t want to buy. Sorry about that. I’m here to give you a message is all.”
“What kind of shit is this?”
“The message is, find yourself another place to peddle. That factory’s our turf.”
“Bullshit.”
“Our territory, man. We see that kid reach out a hand, he’s pulling back a stump.”
“That the way it is?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“No. I’ll tell you how it is. We’re moving in. We’ve got prime stuff and we can undersell you for the next five years if we have to. So here’s your message: Either move out or split the territory with us. You tell your boss that—half of something or all of nothing.”
“I’m the boss.”
“Like hell you are, pimp. You tell him this is chickenshit crap he’s pulling. He wants war, he’s got one. He wants to work together, we can do that, too.” Kirk smiled. “We’re not greedy. But we’re building outlets in Denver. Like we’ve got them in Dallas and Kansas City.” He let that sink in. Nothing moved in either city without the mob’s okay. Even the Kansas City Haitians had to buy their territory from the mob.
“You’re full of shit.”
“Three days. You run back and tell your boss you got three days. Then we do what we have to.” Kirk backed into the view of Bunch and Chris, and Visser followed, frowning.
“You’re asking for trouble, man.”
“The kid’s like my ambassador. You talk with him. Understand?”
“You’re so full of shit. You guys are really full of shit, you know?” Visser turned and walked away with the stiff haste of anger, fear, and bravado. His car started before he reached it, and Devlin quickly picked up his pistol from the Lincoln’s hood. But the sedan only wheeled sharply across the rattle of tracks to become another cold gleam moving through lights made brittle by the chill silence of early morning.
The three met back at the office. Chris was still wiping sweat from his forehead with a large yellow bandanna. All he’d had to do was stand there and hear the murmur of voices tossed on the wind. But he felt as if he’d been running full speed for the whole ten minutes. “Wow—do you ever get used to that? My pulse is still about two hundred rpm.”
Bunch pressed the coffeepot down on the hot plate to make it boil faster. “Sure you do. Matter of fact, I was about asleep there before Dev and the toothpick came back.”
“Really?”
He yawned widely and nodded. “Just another night at the office, Chris.” He poured a cup and handed it to Devlin. “Did he buy it?”
“Enough to check out my name and address.” Which would be all right. Oscar, Uncle Wyn’s buddy at the Phoenix motel, knew what to tell anyone who called to ask about Bernard DiAngelo. “But I don’t know how convincing I was as a Mafia lieutenant.”
“Not very—you ain’t a wop. But that wimp wouldn’t know mob from Girl Scouts.”
“You think they’re going to roll over and play dead?” Newman took a cup from Bunch and sipped gingerly at the hot coffee. It seemed a lot like the times when he was a kid and stayed up to listen while the cowboys drank coffee and told tall tales around the fire.
“If they’re nickel-and-dimers, they will,” said Devlin. “If they don’t, that means they’ve got muscle behind them somewhere.” He saw Newman’s look and added, “If we find that out, we’ll pull you and let them have their laugh.”
“I can handle it—you don’t have to pull me out of it.”
“It’s not a question of whether you can handle it. It’s a question of wasting Reznick’s money.”
“Yeah,” grunted Bunch. “If it falls through, we go after them some other way.”
“What do we do now?”
Kirk shrugged. “My guess is Visser’ll go back to his boss and tell him what he learned. They’ll want to check out DiAngelo, maybe have a council.”
“You really don’t think Visser’s the boss?”
Kirk shook his head. “He has to be getting his stuff from somewhere. Either inside or outside the plant. Dope dealing’s a distribution system—his boss is whoever delivers to him to sell.” He remembered something. “Did you recognize the one driving Visser’s car?”
Newman shook his head. “I couldn’t see him too well, but it wasn’t Johnny or Scott. I’d have recognized them.”
Bunch stretched, his chair creaking and popping. “This is the toughest part—waiting.” He drained his cup. “Back to the sack for me. I got to get up early and baby-sit.”
CHAPTER 7
DESPITE ASSURANCES THAT no one was following him, Humphries still wanted protection. His check to that end was waiting in the mail when Devlin got to the office late the next morning. He’d found it was best to bill certain clients by the week unless they were a big enough corporation to stand the shock of a grand total at the end of a job. Moreover, a little working capital was always welcome. Devlin walked the check down to the bank to deposit it. He’d also discovered it was good to find out early if a man’s paper was really rubber.
His midday was spent down the street from Zell’s house. It was a split-level in a neighborhood of similar designs and located on the kind of curving avenue that a million other suburbs had. The lawn was getting shaggy, and Zell might discover enough physical ability to mow it one of these days. Armed with the cameras and lenses and a book to skim between snoops, Kirk slid the Subaru into a parking space just in sight of the yard and waited for something to happen. It sel
dom did, and today was no different. The lawn still hadn’t been mowed, and the hedge running down the property line from the street to the back fence was growing leggy and ragged. The afternoon sun slid toward the mountains and filled the car with drowsy warmth, and he could feel the drag of last night’s late hours pull at his eyelids. Yawning, struggling against sleep, Kirk finally gave up; it was time to move on. He wouldn’t do anyone any good dozing off when he should be watching.
The office telephone answerer gave its familiar red wink for Message Waiting, and far down the tape Kirk found a raspy voice that identified itself as Oscar: “Some guy called me to talk to Bernard DiAngelo, Dev. I give him what you told me— you know, DiAngelo’s out of town but I could hold his messages. This guy didn’t have no message. Thought you’d want to know.” And that reminded Devlin to check out Eddie Visser’s police record.
Sergeant Lewellen preferred to do favors for Bunch—they had gone through police training together and shared a squad car for almost a year. But he condescended to help Devlin because he was Bunch’s partner, because Devlin wasn’t asking for much, and possibly because of the expensive Christmas gifts Kirk and Associates provided each year. “Hang on, Kirk. I’ll see what I can punch up.”
In the background, Devlin could hear a blather of voices and an occasional telephone bell, the routine sounds of a squad room. “Okay, here we are: Visser, Edward Leonard … two felony raps and a misdemeanor sheet going back to juvenile. Spent time in Buena Vista … was a guest in Canon City … rape and assault with a deadly. Off parole last year. Looks like your everyday scumbag, Kirk. But right now he’s a rehabilitated citizen with all the rights and privileges thereof. What’s going down?”
“We have a security problem in the plant where he works. I’m checking out everybody in his section.”
“I’d say you found your problem. And if it’s on private property, I don’t want to hear any more about it. We’re understaffed and we got shit up to our ears.”
“How about Scott Martin and John Atencio?” He added quickly, “Then I won’t bother you anymore.”
“Hang on.” An audible sigh and more background noises. “I got two Scott or Scotty Martins, one in Canon City right now and one with a couple knocks for dealing. Nothing big locally, but he did a stretch in Illinois for burglary. No cross- reference to Visser in the known-associates file. Atencio I can’t help you with unless you got a birth date or his Social Security number. I got maybe fifteen John or Juan Atencios.”
Kirk could get that information from the man’s personnel file and call back. “Thanks, Sergeant. I owe you a bottle.”
“Make it Johnny Walker. Black label.”
Kirk would, and on the Advantage expense account. The electric clock on the wall—placed there for Bunch’s convenience because his wrist was too big to wear a watch—marked ten after three. Though Kirk was eager to find out what Chris Newman had learned at work today, it was best not to call him at the plant. For one thing, it was against company policy for workers to get personal calls. Worse, it would draw attention to him. Kirk would have to be patient until five-thirty, when Chris was due to telephone his daily report. And since Bunch wouldn’t be back in the office until later, that left Kirk a block of time for a much needed sweat at the A.C.
Bunch was sweating too. The afternoon sun fell through the windshield of the cramped Subaru and burned across his lap. Zell had another half hour and that was it. Bunch had promised to convoy Humphries back from Colorado Springs, and the ride down to the Broadmoor would take an hour and a half. In fact, he should have started fifteen minutes ago, but Devlin wanted an eye kept on Zell’s house. He had a theory that the man would be out mowing his goddamn grass one of these days. That the lawn was ratty was true enough. What wasn’t true was that Zell would mow it himself. Bunch didn’t think the man was that stupid; he wasn’t going to show the neighbors how healthy he was. No, what he’d do was hire a kid to mow it, and all this extra surveillance would turn out to be one more goddamn waste of time.
Bunch swigged at the thermos of stale coffee and shifted to find a different cramp for his jammed legs. Fifteen minutes more. That’s all. Whether or not Dev got here in time to relieve him. Fifteen minutes.
Bunch shifted again, forcing his heavy eyelids to stay open against the day’s heat and the long night. He consoled himself with the idea that he was probably doing just as much good here as anywhere else, and the fact that he’d be driving his Bronco to the Springs made him feel better. That led to a consideration of what kind of game Humphries might be playing. He and Dev had talked things over and done some basic background on the man, but it hadn’t turned up much. There was no marriage license in their names issued in Colorado. But that left only forty-nine other states and the rest of the world where they could have been married. Humphries’ credit rating, as expected, was excellent, and the list of references he used on his home loan application would make an investment counselor salivate. No criminal record. No loans other than the tax-deductible mortgage. His credit card purchases showed fairly routine entries: a number of restaurant bills, clothes, travel expenses. He traveled a lot, but given his business, that was to be expected. The only odd thing was an absence of any charges in the name of Mitsuko Humphries. Apparently she paid cash.
But the man’s check was good, and as long as he was willing to pay the bill, Bunch was willing to give him his fill. Though that would be a hell of a lot more fun with Mitsuko-san. And wasn’t she the little tease? Bunch knew the commandments of P.I.-dom, the first of which was: Thou shalt not sleep with the clients. Devlin had forgotten that once, and it cost them both a lot. Still, it was hard to watch that saucy little tail switch around the room without having visions of romps on the futon dance through his head. He sighed and scratched at his sun-warmed groin. It was no surprise the woman flirted with him—big, handsome, gum-chewing stud that he was. A few people had it, a lot didn’t; Bunch knew he was among the select few. And he’d run across plenty of women, newly married or not, who agreed enough to want to find out. That’s how he read Mitsuko: knowledgeable about the world of men and sex, yet still eager and excited to learn more. To compare men, perhaps. And already bored with Humphries. Just as she would be bored after she sampled Bunch. Which was okay with him: a quick roll in the hay and a “heigh-ho Silver” was all he wanted anyway.
He glanced at the dash clock and was about to start the car when a movement caught his eye. The garage door was opening to show the rear of a new Ford Taurus—another benefit of Zell’s claim. A few seconds later, the man himself worked a lawn mower past the car’s gleaming chrome and bent to start the machine. Goddamn Devlin was right again. Bunch grabbed the camcorder and aimed as Zell pulled the rope several times, until the mower bucked with a puff of blue smoke. Like a distant insect, it began to hum. Bunch taped a series showing the man push against the handle as the blades churned through the high, thick grass. When the mower jammed, the camera followed as Zell bent to free something from the blades and restart the engine; when it reached the end of a row and had to be swung in a different direction, Zell’s body heaved against the mower and Bunch caught that, too. For a man whose back had made him a permanent invalid, he was pretty spry. After the lawn was scalped, Bunch cruised past with the camera braced across his arm to get a close-up of the man’s face. Then, satisfied, he quickly headed back downtown to drop the film off at the photo lab that did Kirk and Associates’ work. Devlin would be pleased to express the videotape to New York. Bunch was pleased too—one less suspect to watch from the cramped front seat of the Subaru.
Devlin made it back to the office about a quarter after five. Comfortably loose from the stretching and lifting, he felt more awake than if he’d slept for a few hours. There were times when working out seemed like too much of a burden and he’d be tempted to let it go for a day or two. Tell himself that he’d make up for it with a real sweat when he finally got over to the gym. His self would answer that he’d better go now even if he didn’t feel like
it, because it was an investment in his line of work. The day might come when he’d have to bench-press a malefactor. But the real reason he would groan and heave himself to his feet to face the gleaming machines and the running track was because he knew he would feel better after it was over.
This afternoon was no different, and his sense of well-being was added to by the good news waiting on the answering machine in Bunch’s voice. The Zell case was close to payoff. All in all, it was a very satisfactory day. That satisfaction was in his voice when, at exactly five-thirty, he answered the telephone. Hurriedly, Chris told him Atencio said that Visser was pissed and worried, that the man had come to work angry and thoughtful, and that he—Atencio—wasn’t sure what it was all about. But Visser wanted Atencio to tell him every word Chris had ever said to him.
“Did Visser make any threats?”
“No.” Chris poured himself a beer from the small refrigerator. It sat on a shelf in the kitchen alcove that wasn’t much bigger than the machine. “I hardly saw him all morning. I wanted to eat lunch with Johnny and he said we better not. That’s when he told me about Visser. But get this.” He paused and waited until Devlin asked what. “Visser came up to me just before quitting time and said he wants another meet with you.”
It was strange not just because Chris wasn’t expecting it after what Devlin said last night but also because Visser seemed almost happy. He even smiled and smacked a hand on Chris’s shoulder like they were the best of buddies.
“Where and when?” asked Kirk.
“He said he’d let me know in a day or two.”
Kirk wasn’t sure what it meant either. “All right. As soon as you hear, call in.”
Kirk spent the next morning watching Truman’s house. Maybe their luck with Zell would spill over. After an early breakfast, he cut across town before the six a.m. traffic began to build into a rush hour. He figured Truman might be one of those people who got out of the house before the rest of the world was awake, since she never seemed to come out during normal hours. In the gray of dawn, the condominium was silent and dark. He parked in the street, facing away from the house, and adjusted the rearview mirror. Slowly, the neighborhood came to life. A milk truck made its stops to let the driver run clunking up and down the long sidewalks linking the clusters of four- and six-unit condos across green widths of carefully tended lawns. Shortly after the blue and white milk van pulled out of sight, the first of the day’s workers backed from garages and parking slots to turn into the gleam of rising sun. Then the pulse of the neighborhood picked up with the main migration of cars leaving the condominiums. After that, traffic slowed to the occasional school bus, followed by housewives, salesmen, and delivery vans. And a few people—like Kirk—who seemed to have no reason for being there. No Jean Truman this morning. He pulled out into the small increase of traffic that came with noon. The street wound through the trimmed common areas and past privacy fences that marked each unit’s own attached patio. He found an Arby’s restaurant and dawdled over the hot bread and beef with his legs fully stretched out. Then he drove back to sit again and wait for Truman to do something.