The Alvarez Journal: A Gabe Wager Novel

by Rex Burns

  “Don’t do it, Wager—they’ll be after me for sure! Fifty bucks ain’t enough to run nowhere!”

  “It’s all you’re worth.”

  “I been tipping you! I been giving you information for two years—don’t do it to me.” He lunged forward, knocking the bottle over, and grabbed Wager’s coat.

  The raw whiskey smell spread over the stench of the room as Wager pushed the dumpy body back into the widening puddle. “I have to work too hard to get information out of you, Leonardo. I’m getting too old to work so hard; I got to think of my health. Now, I’m giving you a chance to skip before I talk to Martinez. I should just let Alvarez scrub you—you’re a wart, a walking insult to Hispanos. Get the fuck off me before I call Alvarez myself.”

  “Don’t do it, Wager. For God’s sake don’t. I’ll work for you! I’ll really work. I’ll call you every week, really! I’ll get good stuff for you!”

  “I’ve heard it before.”

  “I mean it, goddam it! Don’t tell Frankie—if he knows I told you, he’ll come after me himself!”

  He was tempted; Leonard still had some usefulness and Wager had found another lever to squeeze him with. But alive he was no good for getting to Alvarez—and no good dead for getting to Frankie. Best if he just disappeared. “All right, you slimy wad of shit, come on.”

  “Where to?”

  “Out of town.”

  “I don’t want to leave. Just give me a place to hole up in until it’s over.”

  “If Alvarez didn’t find you first, you’d asphyxiate yourself. And right now you’re worth more alive than dead.”

  “Come on, Wager. I live here—I don’t know anyplace else!”

  “The world is waiting for your entrance.”

  “I gotta have money, Wager. You owe me. …”

  “I owe you zilch, amigo. But I’ll do this much just to get rid of you: a free one-way ticket and a little extra sugar. That’s all. Now, if you want the deal, come on. Right now, and leave all this crap here—I don’t want anybody to know you’re not coming back. Or else stay here and be wasted.”

  “Wait a minute, I’m coming!” He fumbled for two or three things in the back of his dresser and jammed them into the grime-rimmed pockets of his coat, then yanked it on and stumbled after Wager, who was already at the stairwell. “Wait, goddam it—you gotta stay close to me!”

  At his office, Wager set Leonard on a chair next to the open window and went in to see Johnston.

  “How far do you want to send him?”

  Wager shrugged. “Far enough so he’ll stay alive for a few months.”

  “LA? New York? Texas?”

  “New York. Alvarez probably won’t have connections there.”

  “Gotham City it is.” The sergeant filled out a chit and called the bus depot for the fare and time. He scribbled in the amount and added a hundred for expenses, then counted out the cash as Wager initialed the receipt.

  “Come on Leonard, you’ve got twenty minutes.”

  Wager drove him to the bus depot and ushered him through the small lobby to the ticket window.

  “Where the shit are you sending me?”

  “New York. It’s an express bus and makes eight stops, and I’m calling ahead to make sure you stay on the bus. If you get off between here and New York, I’ll know when and where, and I’ll make that phone call to Alvarez.”

  “Hey, I don’t want to go to New York!”

  Wager bought the ticket and then clamped his hand around Leonard’s arm hard enough to make him wince. “Don’t give me any more crap. I’m putting you on that bus. Then I’m going to lean on your boyfriend. Here”—he stuffed the roll of bills in Leonard’s coat pocket—”it’s more than you ever earned.”

  Leonard seemed to lose air, shriveling up inside the grimy suit that was too big to start with, until he looked half the size he was. “Wager, I don’t want to go. I don’t even know anybody there. I’m gonna die there, I know it.”

  “You’re dead if you stay here, and I don’t want your carcass in my territory.”

  Leonard stared at Wager and started to speak. Then stopped. Then blurted, “I used to think maybe it was almost a game between you and me. You know, we bad-mouth each other and then you say you’re not going to give me any bread and I say I’m not going to give you any information, and we both know we’ll deal in the end. It was a kind of game.” He paused and picked with dirty fingernails at a thread on his cuff. “Christ, Wager, I don’t know nobody in New York. Please don’t send me there.”

  “There’s the bus. It’s loading now.”

  “It never was a game with you, was it? I mean the way it was for me?”

  Wager said nothing; he pulled the man after him toward the open door of the bus where a gray-uniformed driver stood checking tickets and helping an old lady reach the first step.

  “Wager, of all the people I know, and I know some bad dudes, you’re the worst. You are a real bastard.”

  “You want a kiss good-bye, Leonardo-baby?”

  The brown suit bunched through the doorway in silence. Wager stood in the shadow of the concrete awning and surveyed the boarding passengers following Leonard on. They all looked straight; he recognized none of them. Leonard, an invisible shape behind the tinted windows, stayed on the bus. The driver finally locked the luggage compartment and climbed to his seat, then pumped the metal door shut and cranked the engine into a cloud of black smoke. A few moments later, the bus was around the corner and lost in late-afternoon traffic.

  In his car, Wager radioed to Suzy, “Any word from New Mexico yet on Martinez?”

  CHAPTER 8

  IT TOOK TWO more days before Wager could get out to the Clarkson address where Labelle had her meet. It was a one-way street jammed with two lanes of cars squeezing past bumper-to-bumper parking; at this end, tunneling beneath diseased elms soon to be stripped and burned, it led uphill toward the capitol building. Some of the big, old houses were still private residences, some had apartment-to-rent signs—all were a comfortable distance back from the traffic. Wager, as he walked across the lawn to the screen door of 1712, felt the tension sag from his shoulders in the same way that the buildings themselves showed a comfortable sagging line here and there. It was nice to find an area that lacked the raw rigidity of so many of the newer parts of Denver—an area that had trees big enough to shade the second story, that had large deep screened porches wrapped around the old-fashioned square windows, that had peeling white garages distant from the house across broad back yards, with here and there a tire swinging gently beneath a thick limb. It was the kind of neighborhood he had sneaked into as a boy and wished he could live in, a neighborhood that, despite the traffic and threat of blight, still breathed space and comfort and order.

  On the surface.

  But beneath—under the bark of the elm trees, in the shadows of the porches, behind the curtained windows, in the basement apartments crammed with five and sometimes ten runaway kids camping in filth, in the night’s blackness that filled the alleys and creaking empty garages—lay what brought him here now. And the tension began to come back as he pressed the button in the center of the rusting metal flower surrounding the doorbell.

  A small Chicano opened the door and stared silently at him.

  “Is your mama home, son?”

  The wide black eyes peered a moment more; then the boy wheeled from the door and screamed, “Mama!” A moment or two later, his mother came: mid-twenties, beginning to spread from children and starchy diet, early prettiness already fading beneath the suspicion that was becoming a permanent frown on her face.

  Wager showed his identification. “I’m running a state security check on a person who gave this address as a former place of residence. Would you mind answering a question or two about him?”

  “Do I have to?”

  Wager paused for effect. “Not right now, ma’am. But if we subpoena you we’ll have to ask you to appear in court. That’ll take more time.”

  “Oh. Well, I
’m busy enough as it is. What you want to know?”

  “Can I have your name, please?”

  “Lucille Trujillo. Who you looking for?”

  “I’m not looking for anyone, Mrs. Trujillo; it’s a state security check on an applicant for a sensitive position. How long have you lived here, please?”

  “Since 1969. What’s the name of the guy you’re after?”

  “Raymond Billington.” Billy wouldn’t mind if he didn’t find out. “Did he live at this residence in 1967?”

  “How do I know? I just told you we came here in 1969. The people who we bought it from were named Parker. They lived here a long time. I don’t know this Billington.”

  “Maybe he rented an apartment?”

  She shrugged. “They told us they didn’t rent. That’s why they moved: too many people were renting and a lot of transients were coming in.” She grinned. “Like us.”

  Wager smiled back. “Do you rent apartments?”

  “Sure—we got one in the basement. We can’t afford not to.”

  “Can you give me the renter’s name? Maybe he knew Mr. Billington.”

  “John Quintero.” She shrugged again. “He won’t know this Billington—he only moved in nine months ago.”

  “Is he home now?”

  “Asleep, probably. He works nights at a parking garage downtown somewhere. Sometimes we don’t see him for a week. He has his own door on the side.”

  “Does he live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he have many visitors?”

  The frown of suspicion came back again. “Who you after, this sensitive guy or Quintero?”

  “I’m supposed to find out as much as I can, ma’am.”

  “Well, he has some visitors every week or so, that’s all. We don’t see much of him except when he pays the rent. Most of the time, you’d never know he was there. Like I say, he works nights.”

  “When is his rent due again?”

  “Today—first of the month. Listen, anything else you want to know about Mr. Quintero, you ask him. I never heard of this other guy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much.”

  He drove a couple of blocks away before calling for a check on the name; by the time he reached the office parking lot, the reply came back: “We have seven John Quinteros or Juan Quinteros, but none at that address. You have a description of the suspect?”

  “No, just the name.”

  “That doesn’t help much. You want all this material?”

  “No. Thanks, anyway.” He should have guessed—it was probably a false name anyhow. And now he had one more place to keep an eye on, when he was spread so thin already.

  Suzy looked up when he came in. “I’ve been waiting for you—New Mexico came through with a make on Francisco Xavier Martinez. He did eighteen months in Santa Fe on a vacated suspension—possession of narcotics.”

  “Why was it vacated?”

  “Second conviction of possession. Marijuana.”

  “Any prison reports on him?”

  “None that Farmington had. They said he had time off for good behavior, so there’s probably not much.”

  “Right, good going. Anything from Denby yet?”

  “No. I thought he’d be back yesterday afternoon, but he’s still up in Boulder.”

  Wager nodded his disgust and sat down to begin an affidavit for phone taps on the Alvarez residence and place of business. Chances were against getting them: the alternative means of surveillance had not been thoroughly exhausted, and there was only circumstantial evidence of a crime in progress. A lot would depend on which judge it went to. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to get started on the preliminary. He began with the first blank in the lines of ritual phrases: “I, Gabriel Wager, being first duly sworn, upon oath depose and state as follows: That I am presently a detective assigned to the Special Narcotics Section of the Denver Police Department, Denver, Colorado, and that in the course of my duties I have obtained information concerning …” The first section dealt with information obtained from informants, and he did not have much for that. The second listed the results of surveillance, and there wasn’t much there either. The third section was the result of routine investigative procedures—Jesus, he almost let that one slip by! “Suzy, make out a duces tecum to Mountain Bell Telephone Company for records on—” he looked up the Rare Things’ number and Alvarez’s home—”632-6081 and 724-0553. Have them signed as soon as they’re done.” Other routine investigative procedures … He was combing through the pages of the Alvarez journal, trying to pump a little more significance into the evidence, when Denby came in looking subdued.

  “Don’t tell me—let me guess: you lost them.”

  “Got a cup of coffee, Suzy?”

  “You lost them because the evidence was inadmissible.”

  “Thanks, Suzy.” He blew across the steaming black liquid, which he held under his baggy eyes. “I think I’m getting allergic to coffee.”

  “Or else the most you could get them on was possession. If the guys ran from you, they didn’t intend to sell it.”

  “Possession. First conviction. Suspended sentence. What a shitty waste!”

  “So they’re back on the street and dealing right now.”

  “I guess so. Who the hell cares?”

  “OK, so we win a few and lose a lot. Don’t waste time crying. I’ve got the go-ahead on Alvarez, and Johnston says you’re to work with me on him.”

  Denby sipped the coffee and breathed heavily before shaking himself like a tired fighter. “We might win a few. Sometime. I can’t get very excited about anything right now.”

  Wager ignored Denby’s slump and told him about Leonard, Martinez, and the Clarkson Street address.

  “Do you want me to deal with Martinez?”

  “I better work on him. I’d like you to keep an eye on the Clarkson address—this Quintero’s due to pay his rent today. No busts, just surveillance. And swing by this location, too.” He wrote down the Kalamath Street number of Henry Alvarez and Diana Lucero. “Oh, yeah, in your spare time I want you to check Ma Bell’s records for a couple of numbers. Suzy’s finishing up a duces tecum subpoena now.”

  “Jesus. Anything else?”

  “I’ll see what I can think of. Did Billington come down from Boulder with you?”

  “I dropped him at his office.”

  Wager dialed the DEA agent’s number; the secretary called him to the phone. “I wondered how soon you’d call,” he said. “Denby told you we blew it?”

  “He didn’t have to—I knew you would when I heard about the arrest procedure. I don’t know why you even took them to court.”

  “Yeah. Well. Crap. Well, what’s this you’ve got me on now?”

  “Alvarez—do you remember him? He’s big in heroin now.”

  “I know the name, but I never had anything to do with him.”

  “Want to meet him?”

  “Why not? I got an interest in criminal types; I want to write a detective story.”

  “You better learn how to read first. I’ll be by your place in a few minutes.”

  It was like the old times when Billy was his partner. It made Wager feel good to know he’d be working with him again, and Denby must have seen it; his face shifted from gloom to sullenness as he listened. Wager almost smiled at him. “I’m showing Billy the territory; I’ll check with you later tonight.”

  “How long do you want me on these addresses?”

  “You have something planned?”

  “There’s this movie the wife wanted to see. …”

  “I’ll meet you on Clarkson Street about six.”

  “Right.”

  Billington was quiet on the way to the Rare Things, the only reference to the lost case being a terse “Crap” when Wager asked about it. Wager sketched in the new case for the DEA agent as he pulled into a parking place down the block from the store. Billington studied the concrete front. “That it? Seems pretty quiet.”

  “His customers
are mostly at night. Late.”

  “Cash and carry?”

  “Cash, anyway. The carry’s probably somewhere else. Want to do some shopping?”

  “I’m with you.”

  The bell jingled as they entered the showroom, which was crowded with the same decorations and souvenirs and coated with a film of old dust. Even the air in the room felt slightly stale. The nephew, Anthony, came through the bead curtain from the back room. He slowed to a stop as he recognized Wager, and his eyes went darker with caution and anger.

  “Hello, Anthony. Is Uncle Rafael around?”

  “No.”

  “When’ll he be back?”

  “I don’t know.” Anthony lit a cigarette, and the flame threw a glow onto his guarded face.

  “Where is he?” Wager pushed past the stiff youth to open the bead curtain. The office, empty, still had the feeling of being a well-used living room in a not too well-kept home.

  “I told you he ain’t here, Wager.”

  “Did I say I didn’t believe you? Where is he?”

  “Out of town. On business.”

  “This is Detective Billington. He’s from the Drug Enforcement Agency. He wants to know where Rafael is, too.”

  A mixture of fright and defiance crossed Anthony’s face for a second. “He’s still out of town.”

  “Where out of town?”

  “None of your goddamned business, vendido!”

  “Watch your manners, young man. Your uncle would be disappointed to hear his sister’s boy use such language.”

  Anthony took a final puff on the cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray. “What you want with him? You got a warrant on him?”

  “We just came to talk to him. When’s he coming back?”

  “I don’t know. I really do not know. I will be very happy to tell him you and your friend came to call.”

  “Good boy, Anthony! Much better—muy sofisticado.” He glanced at the rows of souvenirs in the glass case; they stood unchanged from the last visit. In fact, nothing seemed changed, except that the TV set glowed a football game instead of a baseball game. “How’s the mail-order business?”

  “Business is real good.”

  “That’s what we hear.”