The Alvarez Journal: A Gabe Wager Novel

by Rex Burns

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you. You were supposed to call last week.”

  “For Christ’s sake, let me get a drink first.”

  Wager ordered a bourbon and water for him. “What’d you buy?”

  “Jesus Christ, you pigs are all alike!” The drink came and he shoved his mouth at the glass. “I didn’t make a buy. I just ran across the name.”

  From the small kitchen window a voice called “Number three,” and Rosy trotted up to carry away the plate of burritos and refried beans. “Who’d you hear it from?”

  Leonard didn’t bother to answer. “He used to handle grass, but he don’t no more.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since he quit! Jesus, you want me to fix up a calendar now?”

  “I don’t want you pulling me through the grease, friend. I want facts I can check out. Since when!”

  “Since I don’t know when. Maybe a year, maybe more. The street says he used to deal a little and a year or so ago he stopped delivering. That’s all.”

  That would explain the confusion from the Seattle tip; it could be that this Eddie Hart, whoever he was, had spilled his guts about everything he ever heard—every whisper, every rumor—in an effort to lighten the sentence or to help him score as an informer. Rumors, facts, lies, inventions, all mixed up in a scared mind trying frantically to wheedle the best deal—a thousand miles away from the facts. “How little’s a little?”

  “A little!”

  “Twenty pounds a week? Fifty?”

  “I don’t know—I swear to God I don’t know how little’s a little! It wasn’t a lot, that’s all.” He thumped the heavy-bottomed glass on the bar and beckoned to Rosy for another.

  “Jesus, my stomach! You’re killing me, Wager, and I hope to fuck you get yours someday.”

  Wager smiled. “A cada capillita se le llega su fiestacita.”

  “What the fuck’s that mean?”

  “You wouldn’t understand it in English, either. Who’d he sell to?”

  “The street—anybody who wanted it. Baggies, lids; I guess he wasn’t in it long enough to get a route. He could of built up if he stayed, maybe—it was good stuff: Mazatlán gold, Acapulco red. But he quit.”

  A Mexican connection; relatives, maybe, or contacts among the braceros he worked with. The marijuana flown in or driven over the border five or six hundred pounds at a time and spread out to half a dozen middlemen, who in turn supplied their street men. Wager could trace the network in red, green, and yellow lines with key airfields and ports of entry underlined on the customs map framed on the wall of his office. “Who supplied him?”

  “Come on, Wager, you know better than that.”

  “Names, Leonard, did you hear any names? Who’d he run with?”

  “Nobody said and I wasn’t about to ask. It was a long time ago.”

  “Why’d he quit?”

  “How the hell do I know? Maybe there was too much competition—it’s a pretty crowded business, you know. You guys just can’t keep up with it, can you?” Leonard smiled, an ugly sight Wager hadn’t seen in the three years since he first busted the pusher. “What are you looking at?”

  “Leonardo, sometimes I almost like you. Almost.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Never mind. Here.” He slipped a five-dollar bill on the bar and stood up. “Pay for the drinks out of that.”

  “Five? What the shit, Wager, you said this was worth something!”

  “What have you given me, my friend?”

  “Well, you said it was worth something!”

  “It’s worth something if you give me something. I handed you forty bucks last time for nothing. All you tell me is that he’s not dealing in grass any more; I can’t get any convictions on that.”

  “Goddam you, Wager. I stuck my neck out asking questions—I mean some people really wanted to know why I was asking questions!”

  “Like who?”

  “Never mind.” Leonard turned back to the drink.

  “If Alvarez isn’t dealing, then you didn’t stick your neck out. If you find something, you get paid; no information, no money.”

  Silence.

  “You get me some information about Alvarez. He’s up to something and I want you to find out what it is.”

  “Goddam you, Wager, I told you all I could find out.” He rubbed at his stomach and spit part of the drink back in the glass. “Goddam!”

  “I’m betting you can find out something more, Leonard.”

  “Get somebody else; leave me out of it.”

  “You want bread, you give information.”

  “There ain’t no information!”

  Wager leaned down and murmured toward the ear nestled in bushing sideburns, “I hear he’s heavy in heroin.”

  Leonard’s soft face jerked back, dark eyes wide. “You didn’t hear that from me!”

  “I should have, amigocito.”

  The eyes blinked twice, three times. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Think about it—you say people knew you were asking questions. I can put out the word I heard it from you.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Or I can give you some cover.”

  “You set me up!”

  “You’re goddam right I did. And if you don’t produce, you are dead. Cold dead. You check in with me in three days with some solid information or the word goes out about our meet tonight.” He left Leonard staring at the cloudy ice cubes in his drink, a sour expression on his face, from his stomach or from Wager or from both.

  Wager had over two hours before meeting Denby for the bust on Pat and Mike; he drove down Thirty-seventh Street and into the alley behind the Rare Things. Alvarez’s car sat by itself in the dim twilight, and he turned right and right again to slip into a parking place down the street from the store. Scattered neon signs glowed here and there: small, functional, probably turned off as soon as the shop closed. Only the bar at the other end of the block would glow all night. Wager couldn’t see the bar itself, because it was set back from the sidewalk, but glaring light from its sign and porch fell across the pavement in a patch of cold yellow. Slumping down in his seat, he turned the volume of the radio pack down to a murmur and watched. Nothing: no one going in, no one coming out; no Anthony in his hot Mach-1; no Texas plates that might be a link to the Mexican connection. If there was a Mexican connection. Heroin came in from a lot of different directions: California, New York, Canada, the Gulf Coast. And Mexico. He flipped through the notebook and keyed his microphone for DPD: “Can you check customs and immigration for this license number: Texas, CVM 389.”

  “Roger. Wait out.”

  The dusk slowly changed to a night that was slightly chill with the first hints of coming autumn, but still warm enough to bring out strolling couples and clumps of hooting, laughing kids, full of supper, excited by the lateness of the daylight, moving, always going someplace where the action was supposed to be—somebody’s big brother buying a six-pack, and then around a corner to get higher on excitement than the beer could ever lift you. And then moving again to wherever the action was by now. Because it was always just ahead of you. He, Rafael, and so many others like the kids who now walked, laughing and loud, past the car. What had happened? Where did they go? Except for Rafael, the others were ghosts; and Wager, too, often felt like a ghost. How did young Rafael end up a dealer? How did Wager end up a cop? And why in the quiet moments did the past seem more real than the present?

  “Two-one-two.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “They both said to call back in the morning.”

  “Ten-four.” He should have known: regular hours for nonessential personnel. He gave the store a few more minutes but it was quiet; then once more through the alley and a quick meal before locating Denby at the office.

  “Where’s the meet?”

  Denby was in his Levis and denim shirt and smelled of patchouli oil. He looked up from the report he was drafting. “Over on the east side. You know that parking lot in
front of the zoo?”

  “That’s wide open; it’s going to be hard to bottle them up.”

  “I’ve got some help.”

  “Billington and Masters?”

  “Masters and somebody else. Billy’s on loan out of the county.”

  “Just those two?”

  “That’s all I could get.”

  Wager shook his head, “It’s a lousy place. Well, let’s get set up early.”

  “Masters and his partner are on their way. We’ll meet them there.”

  Denby and Wager cruised across the deserted black asphalt of the zoo parking lot, under the scattered arc lights. Concrete planters filled with low shrubs divided the area into long empty rows and separated the lot from the boulevard running between the black of the golf course and the bulging shadows of the zoo grounds. From the darkness of the zoo came the grunting cough of some large cat and an occasional wailing squawk.

  “Jesus, what’s that?”

  “I think it’s a peacock.”

  “It sounds like Helen yelling at the kids.” Denby keyed the radio. “Two-one-nine, you set?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Two-one-ten?”

  “All set.”

  Denby sighed with nervousness and blew his nose. “Now we wait awhile. Jesus, that golf course must be full of ragweed.”

  “You have the money?”

  “Oh, yeah. Here.” He handed Wager an envelope thick with soiled, marked bills.

  “How much is it for?”

  “Four ounces. I said you were in from the Western Slope.”

  Wager counted the bills—$1,000—and initialed the transfer form. Then, for the next half-hour, they sat wordless but alert, studying the occasional car that sped down the boulevard, listening for footsteps, waiting for the radio to click its warning. Finally, Denby looked at his watch again. “It’s about that time. I wish we knew where Annie was sitting.”

  “We’ll probably find out soon enough.”

  “No shit—that’s what worries me!” Denby drove once through the parking lot, then turned around in the boulevard and came back to the entrance. They stopped near the glare of one of the tall lights and waited; Denby turned down the radio volume. “She said eleven. It’s quarter after now.”

  “They’re probably checking us out.”

  “I better let her see me.” He strolled in front of the car, pausing at the thick shadow of low shrubs in one of the dividers.

  Wager heard a crunch in the gravel; a slender figure came toward them from the boulevard. They must have come across the golf course. Annie would be covering them with the pistol or Labelle wouldn’t be coming in. He clicked the transmitter three times, then turned it off. Denby went toward the figure, paused, beckoned to Wager.

  “This dude says you want to buy.” Labelle’s eyes were narrow with suspicion.

  “I’m ready to deal.”

  “How’s things in Pueblo?”

  “I’m in from Steamboat.”

  “I thought Fred here said you’s from Pueblo.”

  “Steamboat. You want to deal or not?” He looked around at a passing car whose headlights flashed across them. His nervousness was real: Annie was probably in the shadow of that spruce tree by the entrance, and in the light Labelle just might remember his face from six years ago.

  “How much you want?”

  “Four.”

  “I got more if you want it.” She patted the woven purse at her hip.

  Wager said, “I got money for four. Maybe more next time.”

  “I thought you said he was a heavy.”

  Denby shrugged. “That’s what he told me.”

  “You don’t want all that I got in here?”

  “I only got money for four this time.”

  Labelle’s teeth flashed white. “Good thing you answered right. I be back in a minute.” She disappeared behind a screen of shrubbery. Denby and Wager stood in silence until she came back, a small white paper sack in one hand.

  “Let’s see the merchandise.”

  “It’s good.”

  “So’s my money.” He opened the bag and unfolded a paper to check the color and taste. “You’re right—it’s good. Here’s the bread.” He waited until she began counting it. “All right, sweetheart, it’s a bust. We’re on to Annie, too, so don’t make things worse.”

  The woman’s eyes whitened and she leaned back holding the half-counted wad of money away from her. “You fucking pig!”

  “Don’t do it, Labelle—we’re on to you!” He flashed his chrome-plated .45 and held the evidence out of her reach.

  “You pig! You ofay pig!”

  Wager yanked the handcuffs from his belt and twisted the squirming arm up behind her back. “Pick up the money, Fred. Get over here, you bitch!”

  “You motherfuck, you finked on me—you set me up! I’m gonna kill you, motherfuck!”

  Wager spun her toward the car and pushed her across the hood, rapidly slapping at her body for weapons while the skin on his back puckered and he hunched against the expected shot. “Come on, come on!” He hustled the woman into the safety of the car and sighed involuntarily.

  “Don’t blame Freddy, Labelle. It was him or you.” He called into the transmitter, “Two-one-two—suspect in custody.”

  “We got Halsam.”

  “Glad to hear it. See you downtown.” He sighed again and locked the car doors. “Come on, Freddy, I’ll give you a ride downtown.”

  The car was silent until they neared Capitol Hill. When Wager pulled over to let Denby out on a corner near unit headquarters, Labelle leaned forward, shoulders pinched by her handcuffed arms. “Freddy, I’m gonna remember you. I’m gonna remember you good, baby.”

  Denby said nothing.

  “You son of a bitch!” she screamed. “I’m gonna see you again, Freddy, you son of a bitch!”

  The younger detective shut the door. “Have a good evening, mama.”

  At DPD, Wager saw Charlie Masters completing his file on Halsam. “Any trouble with Annie?”

  The black detective’s hard eyes studied Labelle’s face and body. “Naw, we got her before she could scratch her ass.” He pointed to a tagged .38 Smith & Wesson. “She had it but she didn’t want to use it.”

  “Where’d you put her?”

  “Room three—see you in a while.”

  Wager tagged Labelle’s pistol for evidence and set it beside Annie’s. “His and hers! Hey, Labelle, honey, which one’s his?”

  “Fuck you, pig.”

  Wager had the grinning property man count and sign for the thousand dollars. “OK, let’s go talk.”

  “Fuck you, pig.”

  “Don’t take it so hard, honey; we’ll put you in a woman’s prison—all the pussy you want.” Wager set her on one of the hard, upright chairs in room 2 and flipped on the lamp. “You want the cuffs off?”

  Silent; eyes full of hatred shadowed by wiry hair.

  Wager adjusted the lamp so it was in her face and unlocked the handcuffs. “Here’s your rights, Labelle.” He spoke the familiar litany from memory and then sat across the empty table from her. “It’s a felony charge—three to five, maybe five to ten.” He smiled. “In a different prison from Annie.” He let it sink in. “But you do me a favor and I’ll do you one.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like telling me who your supplier is.”

  “What supplier?”

  “You haven’t left town in weeks, Labelle. Somebody’s bringing it to you. Who is it?”

  “Ain’t nobody brought me nothing.”

  “If I don’t get a break, you don’t get a break.”

  “Yeah! Fuck off.”

  “You don’t owe nobody. Why cover for anybody?”

  “I don’t owe you.”

  “You owe yourself, baby. You’ll be in a long time, and little Annie will be outside all by her lonesome.”

  Silence.

  “Annie’s not going to wait around for five years. Nobody would.”

  “You moth
erfucking pig!”

  “It’s up to you. We’ll find out sooner or later. You want to get something out of it while you got the chance.”

  “I don’t want shit from you.”

  He felt someone come in behind him and stand in the shadows: one of the uniformed officers bored with night watch and dropping by to see what was going on in interrogation. “We’ve got all night.”

  No answer. Her sullenness grew in the glare of the desk light, and Wager studied the deep lines of her face—lines not from laughter but from weariness, worry, and age. Not so long ago, she, too, had been young, a little girl with bony knees and pigtails and big dreams, and what had happened to her? And why? He stretched and stood; there wasn’t time for answers to such questions—not even time to ask them. She wasn’t a little girl any more; she was a criminal and a tough one.

  Behind him, the officer scratched a light for a cigarette and watched with bored curiosity.

  “I need some coffee—keep an eye on her for a minute, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  In the hall, Gargan, the police reporter, stopped him. “What’d you pick up, Gabe?”

  “Just a routine buy and bust. Nothing big.”

  “Like what?”

  “Four ounces of cut stuff. Nothing big.”

  Gargan scratched somewhere beneath the collar of the turtleneck shirt he always wore. “Anything lined up?”

  “Nope. We’re always trying, but we don’t have anything big yet.”

  “Let me know if something breaks?”

  “Will do.”

  He filled a porcelain mug at the coffee urn and stopped by room 3, where Annie sat framed in light, her back to the door, a small ring of officers standing or sitting in the shadows around her. “Anything?”

  Masters shook his head. “She claims Labelle handled everything. Says she never even saw the stuff.”

  “Crap.”

  “Sure it’s crap. But we do not wish to violate her Constitutional rights as a pusher. Besides, she didn’t have a thing on her except the weapon. How about you?”

  “Not a thing. Labelle’s tough.”

  “I bet she is!” The big man stepped into the hall and yawned and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I think Annie’s a possible if they’re kept apart.”

  “The matron can handle that.”

  “We can turn her around in a while.”