by Rex Burns
“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 ball
point 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?”
“Yes—and thanks. Have the lab people come yet?”
“Jones was here while you were inside. He shot a couple pictures of the blood and poked around a little for the slug. He said they got the other bullet out of the guy’s shoulder, so they got good evidence.”
“What’s the victim’s condition?”
“Too early to tell.” Adamo said, “See you,” and the patrolmen pulled away, glad to leave the routine of investigation to Wager.
He turned to the slender Negro youth. “You’re Ernie Taylor?”
“Right, man.”
“Where do you live, Ernie?”
“Well, I’m new in town. I don’t really live nowhere, much.”
“How long have you been here?”
“In Denver? About two weeks. It’s a nice town you got here. I dig it, you know?”
“You looking for work?”
“Well, yeah. But I come here to go to college. I’m gonna start at Community College next semester, man.”
“Where’s your home?”
“Kansas City. But I done left home.”
“You must stay somewhere, Ernie. Where’s your mail sent?”
“I don’t get no mail. I just leave my stuff at a friend’s and crash around, like.”
“Where’s this friend?”
“Come on, man—he’s just a friend. I just put my suitcase in his closet is all.”
“What’s the closet’s address, Ernie? I have to put something on this piece of paper for an address.”
“That’s all? I mean, my friend’s just doing me a favor. I don’t want him to think I got him in wrong with the police, you know?”
“What kind of wrong?”
“Nothing, man! He’s straight! It’s just that a lot of people don’t like their names give to the fuzz, you know?”
“The address, Ernie.”
“It’s 525 Inca. Number eight.”
“Now, how about telling me what you saw.”
“I just went through it all with that cop!”
“I’d like to hear it.” The small of Wager’s back was beginning to ache, but he stood without moving; he stood as if he had all night and all the coming day. Which he did.
“Who else I got to tell this to? You think we could get them all together so’s I could tell it just one more time?”
“This should do it.”
“Yeah. Well, I was leaning out that there window …” He told his story while Wager noted what new items cropped up in Ernie’s version.
“Did you ever see this man before?”
“Naw.”
“Would you recognize him if you ever saw him again?”
“It was dark. I didn’t see him that good.”
“What kind of pistol was it?”
“It sounded like a twenty-two—you know that little pop they make. But it looked like it was on a thirty-eight frame. Chrome-plated.”
“You could see all that, but you couldn’t see his face?”
“Yeah—the light was on it. And he held it out like this. And I’ll tell you something else—I wasn’t studying his face, I was studying that gun!”
“What’s his name?”
“I just told you I never seen him before!”
“Jesus Quintana knows his name. He thinks he’s going to keep it from us long enough for him to go after that dude. I know you were in the park today when they had the fight. If Jesus wastes this dude, you’re going to get fouled on, Ernie.”
“Hey, I’m just visiting around here! I didn’t even know this stuff was going down!”
Wager shrugged. “It’s your butt. You’ll be ahead if we get this guy before Jesus does.”
“What you mean, it’s my butt?”
“You saw these two fighting in the park. You’re an eyewitness in the chain of circumstances. There’s all sorts of crap an eyewitness in a chain of circumstances has to go through—maybe even protective custody.” Wager didn’t know if there was any legal handle called a chain of circumstance, but it sounded good.
“Protective custody? That means jail?”
“For a few days. Maybe a week. Until we get things cleared up.”
Taylor made up his mind. “Shit—it ain’t worth that! I mean, it ain’t really my worry, you know?”
“That’s right. Just tell me everything the way it really happened and you’re clean.”
“Well, all I heard was Charley calling him Francis.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“In the park after the beef.”
“O.K. Let’s go over here and get comfortable.” Wager led Ernie to the police car and keyed the radio for Officer Adamo. A moment later, the dispatcher cleared the patrolman through. “The suspect’s name may be Francis something. Do you know any Francis that matches his description?”
“Francis Innis,” said Adamo. “I should have thought of him. You got a positive on that?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” He handed Ernie a pen and paper and told him to sit in the front seat. “Can you write down everything you told me? Do you want me to write it for you?”
“I can write, man—as good as anybody. I’m going to college!”
“O.K. Do it on the way downtown.”
Wager drove the three witnesses to D.P.D. headquarters. Quintana and his wife sat in the back saying little—she still with that worried look which, Wager knew, would become permanent in too few years; he silent and lip-heavy, glaring sullenly at the passing streetlights. Ernie, awkwardly printing his statement, said once, “It’s a drag, man.”
“What is?”
“This stuff. People. They ain’t no need for people to act thataway.” Then he was silent like the rest.
Wager guided them through the brightly lit but empty corridors, whose stale odor was being overlaid by the smell of fresh wax. Placing them separately in vacant offices, he gave the bored Records clerk Search Applications for Charley, Jesus, and Francis Innis. Charles Porfirio listed convictions for assault and burglary, and then went up a notch to fraud and receipt of stolen property. Francis Innis had a long list of petty charges and convictions going back to 1967 and beginning in San Diego. Jesus Quintana had no record.
From a drawer in the homicide cabinet marked “Cases Closed” he pulled a large envelope filled with identification photographs of past suspects. Spreading a handful on his desk, he carefully selected a half dozen who roughly fit the description but who didn’t look too much like Innis, whose photograph he had taken from the suspect’s folder. One thing Wager didn’t want was a conflict between eyewitnesses on an identification. He went into the burglary office, where he’d placed Mrs. Quintana by herself.
“All right, Mrs. Quintana. Why don’t you sign your statement right here at the bottom and put today’s date on it. Then I’d like you to go through these and see if you can spot the man.”
“You sure this is right? Jesus is awful mad that I said anything at all.”
“We both know it’s right. He will, too, when he cools off a little. I’ll talk to him.”
She chewed at dry lips; Wager went into the hall and came back with a paper cup of cool water.
“Gracias.”
“De nada, señora. Now, just take your time and look through the photographs.”
“I don’t need no time. This is him.” Her finger prodded Innis’s face.
“You’re positive?”
“Yeah. It’s him.”
“O.K. Just put your initials on the back of his picture.” He waited until she had, then gathered up the collection. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Ernie was on his feet, peering around at the Wanted posters and the patrol schedules of the homicide section’s office. “How much longer,
man?”
“Just a few minutes. You finished with your statement? Want to sign and date it there at the bottom?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Now, take a look at these and tell me which is the one.”
Ernie squinted slowly through the pictures and pulled out a chubby, balding face. “This might be him.”
Wager drew a long, slow breath. It was Ernie’s moment of glory and he wanted to stretch it out. “Do you see anybody else that might be him?”
“You mean this ain’t it?”
“Maybe; maybe not. Just look through the pictures again.”
“‘Maybe; maybe not.’ Ha.” He squinted once more through the series and then started again, slowly flipping the photographs onto the table with a grunt of “Maybe … maybe not.”
The bastard was having a lot of fun, but Wager was getting wearier. “Do you wear glasses, Ernie?”
“Naw! I ain’t no four-eyes.”
“Then what do you see?”
“This one. Here it is!” He slapped Innis’s picture onto the table like a high card. “I got eyes, man, good ones!”
“You’re sure this is the one?”
“Sure I’m sure!”
“Then put your initials on the back, right here.”
“How much more of this draggy stuff I got to go through?”
“Just a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Comfortable—sure.”
Quintana had been saved for last. He made a show of refusing to look at the pictures when Wager spread them on the glass surface of a desk in the bunco office where he sat alone.
Wager shook his head sadly. “You mean to tell me you don’t know Francis Innis?”
“Who?”
“And that you weren’t in the park this afternoon when Innis and Charley had their beef?”
“I don’t know Innis.”
“Quintana, it’s almost five o’clock in the morning. I go off duty at eight,” lied Wager. “The people coming on are going to ask the same questions, but they won’t understand why you don’t want us to get Innis. They’re Anglos—they’re going to think that maybe you set up Charley so Innis could waste him. They’re going to think of you as a suspect—an accomplice—instead of just a witness.” Wager rapped Quintana’s signed statement. “Because this isn’t true, Jesus. You signed a false statement, and if it gets into court, your ass is grass and mowed short.”