Angle of Attack

by Rex Burns

  If there was a single word that Wager could use to describe the man, it would be “tired.” Espinosa was like a tired runner or laborer; he moved with the economy of exhaustion, as if he had just finished a task that drew off the last quiver of energy and left him in that numb state where even saving his own life would bring a groan of effort.

  “How about telling me?” Wager asked.

  “Why not? This buddy I know—a trusty—told me that just before Covino bought the farm, somebody from the Scorvelli organization came down to see him.”

  “Did your buddy know who that somebody was?”

  “Nobody important. This friend of mine knew him from somewhere, and he’s what you might call a step-n-fetchit, a burro for the Scorvellis.”

  “Did your friend have any idea why somebody like that would be seeing Covino?”

  “No. Every once in a while Covino hinted about some kind of connections. He wouldn’t talk too much about them, but you got the idea he had something going for him when he got out. But you hear that all the time; hell, sometimes it turns out to be true.”

  “Did Covino say anything after the Scorvelli man came to see him?”

  “Nothing you could take to court. He hinted about getting out soon and seemed a little cocky and anxious at the same time—like a short-timer. We figured he was going to be sprung soon, but he got dusted first.”

  “Sprung over the wall?”

  “Naw, legitimate. Get him a good lawyer, somebody to talk for him at the parole board and tell them he had a job and all. Covino had his good time coming, and they’re hard up for space down there.”

  “Did Covino ever say anything about his brother?”

  “No. He never talked about his family. Hell, who does? We all heard his brother got blown away, but Covino didn’t say nothing about it. The padre tried to talk to him about it, but he told him to go to hell.”

  “That was before or after the visitor from the Scorvellis?”

  “Before. I guess his brother’s death made him a little uptight. Like I say, he was more like a short-timer after the visit.”

  “Loose enough to start a fight?”

  Espinosa thought about that, drawing on the cigarette stub pinched and cupped beneath his palm. Finally, he said with conviction, “No. I didn’t even think about that at the time—people are always getting cut down there. But no, Covino wasn’t one of the crazies. If he thought he was getting out soon, he wouldn’t of screwed that up with a fight. It looks like he really was set up, don’t it? But you’re never going to prove it.”

  “Did he ever say anything about his bust? Anything that sounded strange or different?”

  Some of the weariness in Espinosa’s eyes faded momentarily as surprise came into them. “You really do know something about Covino, don’t you?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Most guys when they get there claim they got finked on or had bad luck—that it wasn’t their fault they got busted. But Covino almost joked about it. I mean, he was pretty pissed at the judge for hitting him an indeterminate on a breaking and entering—that’s pretty heavy, even for a second offense, and Covino really didn’t expect that. But as for the bust itself, he acted like it was a big joke, like it was something he’d put over on somebody else.”

  Which he had.

  Fifteen

  THE HORNS AND rapping exhaust of midmorning traffic woke Wager around ten. Saturday—especially a warm spring Saturday—made the streets on the east edge of Capitol Hill throb with young singles gathering other young singles into young groups for the day’s run to the mountains or the tennis courts or the city parks and reservoirs for Frisbee and beer. Wager leaned on the balcony railing with his first cup of coffee and watched slender, long-legged girls in their jogging shorts and braless tank tops hop into cars or onto bicycles or motorcycles, freed for the weekend from stacks of typing or nurse’s uniforms or airline schedules. He had put down the book about fur trappers and now thumbed through a well-advertised best seller called It Was Never Me. The author, someone who spoke of the sixties as “our” generation, had discovered with great surprise that “our” generation no longer made the six o’clock news; but, undaunted, he turned to a compelling and in-depth exploration of “our” generation’s inner space. It was the kind of naïve and childish self-centeredness that tightened Wager’s jaws, but he forced himself through the book, knowing that his disgust would keep away the closer anger of waiting through this day, through tomorrow, through next week, perhaps through a lifetime, before moving closer to Dominick Scorvelli. But wait he did, until just after sunset, when the telephone rang.

  “That you?” It was Jesus’s voice, and Wager answered that yes, it was him.

  “I been following Tony-O like you wanted me to. That viejo’s a hell of a lot tougher than he looks, man. He about walked my feet off at the knees.”

  “Did he meet Bernie Chavez?”

  “Not that I saw. He talked with—I don’t know—twenty, maybe thirty, people. A lot of them were viejos like him and I knew some of them. The ones I didn’t know I’d ask around about, and none of them was named Chavez. None of them knew any Chavezes like that, either.”

  “You asked for him by name?”

  “Oh, I was cool about it—no sweat. I’d ask around about somebody Tony-O talked to, and then I’d say, ‘Oh, I thought that might be old Bernie Chavez. You know old Bernie?’ And they’d say, ‘No.’ If that Chavez dude is around, he’s using a different name, hombre. “

  That, like too many other things, was also a possibility. But if Chavez was afraid, it made a lot of sense. And it would not be likely that Tony-O would go to him openly, either, if he was hiding somewhere. “Did Tony go any place in particular or did he just wander around?”

  “Mostly, he seems to have a regular path—the grocery store, two or three bars, a pawnshop, liquor store, a couple hotel lobbies. It’s like he goes around once a day to shoot the shit with whoever’s there. He went down to Union Station, too, and messed around down there with some more old guys. I always thought that place was empty; that’s a real nice old building, you know? I’ll have to take the wife and kids to see it before somebody tears it down.”

  It sounded like any other old man of the village filling his days with visits and gossip. “Did he talk to anybody important?”

  “Important? Like a Scorvelli?”

  “Or anyone else like that.”

  “No. But just before lunch he had a meet with a couple dudes maybe in their twenties. That was different—that looked like business. I recognized one; he’s got a little action going here and there, but nothing worth making headlines over. He always thinks it is, though. He always has this guess-what-I-know look on his face. But maybe that’s because he’s a faggot.”

  “Name?”

  “The one I know’s Tom Nihisi. Claims to be an Indian, but he’s got more Afro-American in him than anything. You ever see an Indian with curly hair?”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Just about anything for a buck. Ha—that’s pretty good. You get it?”

  “I got it. What’s the other one look like?”

  “Anglo with long blond hair and a big gold ring on his hand, a college ring or something. He looked like a salesman or a TV broadcaster—one of them ‘personalities’ with a limp wrist. Tony-O was laying something down and Tom and this Anglo didn’t say much. They just nodded and asked a few questions and then the old man split without even finishing his beer. Like I say, it was business, not pleasure.”

  “Where’d they meet?”

  “The Foxtail. Know the place?”

  It was a gay bar near the post office terminal building, not too far off lower Larimer. There were a lot of jokes about the bar’s service to the mail carriers.

  “Man, I tell you I did not feel comfortable sitting there by myself. All them cangrejos! I just hope nobody in the place knew my name is all.”

  “Where’s Tony-O now?”

  “Home. And there’s wher
e I got to go—I promised the wife and kids I’d take them to the drive-in. They’re just starting for the summer. There’s one about this little girl who can make animals attack their masters; even the worms start chewing on people.”

  “One thing more, Jesus. Do you know anybody who wears a beret and a long overcoat?”

  “Beret? That’s one of them little round hats?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. But if you sit at the Foxtail long enough, I’ll bet something like that comes in. Hombre, what a place. I even saw two guys in the parking lot kissing!”

  It was dark enough now so that Wager could keep an eye on Tony-O without the old man recognizing him. He found a corner doorway just beyond the glare of Larimer Street traffic and settled in to watch the small frame house with its two empty chairs on the porch. If Chavez was hiding in Denver, and if Tony-O was in touch with him, the visit would probably be made at night. Leaning against the cool wood of the doorframe, Wager kept a practiced eye on the house and the occasional figure that walked past it. Half heard was the flat honk of a switch engine along the tracks lining the river bottom, and Wager felt himself glide into the state of mind that seemed to dominate most surveillances: alert to the target area, aware of the surroundings, yet his mind floating here and there to touch on distant, unrelated points.

  Tilting a page of his little green notebook to the street glow, he wrote a few words to remind him to request another fifty for Jesus. It wouldn’t be enough to spoil his new snitch, but it would make him feel like one of the family. And just maybe he’d buy something for his wife out of it.

  The previous half hour Wager had spent in Records reading the jacket on Tom Nihisi, and as he thought back over the file, not a thing important remained from it. It held a couple of arrests for theft and receiving, but no major convictions. Nihisi was one of those smart enough or lucky enough not to be caught yet, but dumb enough to believe they never would be. There was absolutely no reason at all for him to be mixed up in the Covino thing, but his name had come up and Wager was nosy, and cops followed their noses when there was nothing else to follow. Besides, all day the feeling had grown stronger that Tony-O hadn’t told everything he knew about the elusive Bernie Chavez, and as Wager had scanned the book that laid bare the very soul of “our” generation, his attention kept swinging back to Tony-O as much as to Scorvelli. He remembered telling the Bulldog that everything that pointed anywhere pointed at Dominick Scorvelli; but he had begun to realize that a lot of those things pointed that way because of Tony-O. Not that it made any sense; just that it was so. But the more he thought about that, the more curious Wager grew. Until, tonight, he found himself consciously ignoring time’s passing, waiting for whatever it was he awaited.

  Shortly after eight-thirty, a stiffly erect silhouette showed briefly in the glow of the opening front door, then came down the three narrow porch steps to the sidewalk. Tony-O paused to light a cigarette, the flare of the match bright on his seamed face for a moment, then, shaking the flame into a tiny spark, he turned left toward the clustered bars of Little Juarez. Wager drifted behind him on the opposite side of the street, holding to the shadows or turning away as Tony-O paused to say a few words or was stopped by one person after another. Wager watched a bent, white-haired figure in splitting shoes shuffle up to him and hold out a hand; Tony-O dropped a coin into gnarled fingers and the white head bobbed thanks. One of the darting kids who hawked the Spanish newspapers trotted up to him with a paper ready folded and Tony-O felt in his pockets for another coin. Then he turned into La Taverna and, through a scrape in the bright-blue poster paint across the inside of the window, could be seen sitting at a bar stool, the paper flattened to catch the yellow light while the sweating bartender quickly set a beer in front of him and hustled off to serve the thirsty Saturday-night crowd. Tony-O sat there for an hour, nursing two small beers, occasionally answering someone’s greeting; when he went—often, as old men do—to the men’s room, the busy bartender kept the seat vacant despite the growing crowd and the occasional customer who reached for the stool. It was, Wager knew, a sign that Tony-O was thought to be muy gente—a real gentleman. As it neared ten, he finished the last page of the paper and folded it, placed a bill between it and the empty glass, and lifted a hand good night through the room’s din of loud voices and the quick thump-thump-thump of a bass fiddle from the jukebox. Out on the slightly quieter street, Tony-O paused again, eyes swinging over the surging crowds of men, some of whom howled out the long, broken ay-yi-yi’s of a song, while others argued loudly over which bar was next and who had the right to buy this time. Then he strolled slowly down the second block to the sudden blank end where Little Juarez washed up against the windowless concrete of a new office building’s ground floor; crossing the street to Wager’s side, he moved with dignity back through the swirl of laughing groups or wordless, restless individuals. He recrossed the street toward his front porch, where George now sat bouncing gently. And then stopped. Wager saw him turn around to stare his way; then his arm made a quick beckoning gesture. Wager did not move, and the arm jerked again, commandingly. There was no one else Tony-O was looking at; Wager, trying not to feel as if his hand was still in the cookie jar, went forward.

  “You’ve been following me all night, Wager.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you put that guy on me this afternoon? The short, fat one?”

  That would be Jesus, and it meant that at least Tony-O hadn’t noticed him this morning. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m still looking for this Bernie Chavez. Because I have the feeling you didn’t tell me everything about him. I want like hell to talk to him, Tony-O.”

  In the sliding glow of moving headlights, the old man’s face seemed to double its wrinkles, and the gliding shadows masked his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at the silent, bouncing George, and then said in a resigned voice, “All right. Let’s go someplace quiet.”

  He led Wager around the corner and down a dark block to Twenty-eighth Avenue and a tiny brick building with a single white Budweiser sign lit over the door. Inside, the bar was a small L in one corner, and the floor was crowded with round tables and chairs; all but three were empty, and even the air smelled empty of the odor of stale beer. The middle-aged woman tending bar was glad to see someone come through the door.

  “Quiet place,” said Wager when they had their beers.

  “Like a coffin. I don’t know how they keep going.”

  Wager sipped.

  “It sure ain’t the Frontier,” continued Tony-O. “I’m sorry they closed that place.”

  “Me, too.”

  “A lot of changes I’ve seen. Lately, more and more. Most of them’s no good.”

  Wager sipped again.

  “You’ve changed, Wager. I never thought you’d tail me. Not the old jefe. “

  “How else do I get to Bernie Chavez?”

  “You go to L.A., where he’s at, goddamn it!”

  “We tried that, Tony-O. We tried the L.A. police and they couldn’t help us.”

  “So that’s my fault? So you let somebody like Scorvelli go and you give me the heat?”

  Wager placed his glass on the table and spoke to it as much as to the old man. “Tony-O, here’s what I’ve got so far: I’m sure Marco was killed by Gerald Covino, not by Frank. And I’m sure that Gerald was killed because Dominick got worried about his reliability. It looks like Gerald called Dominick to ask about his brother’s death, or maybe even to make a threat, and Dominick—thinking Gerald might blow up—sent somebody down to talk to him, to tell him that Dominick had nothing to do with killing Frank, to tell Gerald that they were going to get him out soon. And just incidentally to arrange for Gerald’s death.” He glanced at the old man. “You still with me?”

  “I am. I’m not as dumb as you think, Wager.”

  Wager tried to push the weariness from his tone. “I know you’re not, Tony-O. But I think that Gerald believed Scorvelli about not k
illing Frank. And I do, too—because Dominick had nothing to gain from it. In fact, until Frank was killed, things were going fine for the organization. And even afterwards, things might have stayed cool except for one thing—you told me about a link between Covino and Scorvelli. You were the one who aimed me at him, Tony-O. And the one who told you was this Bernie Chavez. Maybe Chavez didn’t have the whole story, and maybe he didn’t have it all straight, but he had a part of it—some of what he told you fits, Tony. Now I want to find out where he got that part, and I have the feeling you haven’t told me everything about him. Come on, Tony-O—the man’s important.”

  “So important you think I’d lie to you?”

  “Too important to take that chance.”

  “I don’t lie, Wager,” he said quickly. “I was a jefe—I don’t lie.” The old man drank deeply, attacking the beer, then his stiff back bent a shade and he set the glass down, to watch the bubbles rise through the pale-yellow liquid; he, too, spoke more to the glass than to his companion, and in the sepulchral stillness of the bar, it sounded like a murmured prayer. “You ever notice how the bubbles come up from one spot like there’s a little hole in the glass? Out of nowhere. They just keep coming—same distance apart, same size. The string just keeps coming and you can lean your glass this way or that, and they still keep coming from that same spot like nothing’s ever going to stop them. Until the glass is empty.” He stared in silence, then spoke again. “Things get that way, Gabe. And you twist and turn and wiggle and it makes no difference—they just keep coming.”

  “What things, Tony-O?”

  “You, for one thing. You just don’t let up.” He sipped at the foam. “You know I got a granddaughter?”

  “Oh?” This was new. The man’s eyes remained fixed on the tall glass; beneath the folds of thin flesh at the corners, which made them look both sleepy and sad, they were worried. “Is this Ray’s daughter?” asked Wager.

  “Yeah. Right.”

  Some time back, Tony-O’s son had been given the choice between being sent to Buena Vista or joining the Marine Corps; Wager had talked to the D.A. about it, and the D.A. had agreed. Two years after that, Ray was one of the first American advisers killed in Vietnam. Tony-O had shown Wager the medal, a Purple Heart.