by Rex Burns
He sawed into the cheese and shredded lettuce covering his Number 2 Special. God knew he did not like the idea of going under, but the inspector wanted him to and that was all there was to it.
Billy ordered two more Coors. “You want me to talk to any of our people who were on the case?”
“Not now. I’d just as soon keep it quiet that I’m involved at all. Like you say, I’m pretty well known.”
“Farnsworth’s just waiting for somebody else to come after him.”
“¡Por supuesto! What dealer isn’t?”
“I guess that’s true enough.”
He tapped the stack of sheets, “Your agent—Chandler—his report just covers the deal in Boulder. Does Farnsworth live there now?”
“Naw—up in Nederland. You know the place?”
It was a small mountain town about twenty miles west of Boulder, a collection of half a dozen bars, stores, tourist shops surrounded by vacation cabins and isolated houses scattered among the pines. In the summer, it was crowded with flatlanders and outsiders, the town trying in three short months to make enough tourist dollars to stretch through the winter. When the season ended, a new face would be a stranger there for a long time. “That will be a tough place to get into.”
“That’s why our people were so pissed when that asshole Rietman blew it. Six months it took Chandler to get solid up there.”
“Any possibilities inside?”
“From all I heard, Farnsworth doesn’t deal unless he’s God damned sure of you. Most of the time he’ll steer a buyer to somebody he supplies, and he supplies just the people he knows. They mostly supply just the people they know, and so on down to street level. That way, the street dealers take all the chances. But it doesn’t do a damn bit of good to bust them.”
It sounded very familiar. And very difficult. “How’d he get stung by Rietman and Chandler?”
“You’d better ask them. I wasn’t in on it.”
Wager nodded; he could guess anyway—a lot of time sitting, drinking, talking; a lot of small deals here and there; a lot of pure bullshit to have the people swallow Chandler’s rap. And then Rietman is brought in for a buy that only Farnsworth can match. “Does your office have files on these people?”
“I’m sure we do. I’ll get copies for you.”
They finished, each trying to pay before the other could grab the check. Billy dropped him off at his car. “You sure you want to do this?”
“It’s part of the job.”
“Yeah. Well, take it easy, amigo.”
He watched Billy’s gray Maverick disappear in the light traffic of a hot afternoon; then he sat for a few minutes in his own car and weighed the good and bad of talking to some of the Confidential Informants in his stable. Best not to, unless it was really necessary; he wanted to keep his name as far away as possible from anything to do with Farnsworth. If he did use C.I.s, they would have to be some other detective’s. His own could guess too much, and he could not trust them to keep their mouths shut; there would be enough worry without that gnawing at the back of his mind.
Clothes—there was a little time before he met Rietman; enough time to get his costume together. Driving down Fourteenth to Larimer, he parked on one of the sun-softened asphalt lots that appeared whenever Urban Renewal tore down another building. Soon the featureless asphalt would be replaced by featureless concrete and glass; and in thirty years the area would have to be “renewed” again. Already he could hear the future slogans, “A New Denver for a New Century.” And then they would try once more to make it look like half a dozen other cities back East.
A midsummer afternoon in Larimer Square: scattered groups of tourists in sunglasses jaywalking from boutique to shoppe, an occasional couple ducking out of a restaurant or swinging into a bar. At the glassed-in corner of the Royal Platte River Yacht Club, a handful of regulars leaned on wooden tables to sip beer and watch cars and tourists swirl past. Wager cut through a short arcade to a clothing store that was mercifully empty at the moment.
He told the girl clerk “Just looking,” and began to browse the racks. Denim shirts with stitched patterns—a couple; maybe one or two of these T-shirts with names written on them: bicycle brands and tennis-shoe labels were in now. And a hat.
“How much is this one?”
She looked at the tag on the broad leather brim. Slightly shorter than his own five feet eight, she was in her early twenties, had the usual straight long hair and no make-up. She seemed very, very young. “Thirty-two fifty. We have some less expensive hats over here—the same model.”
Wager looked at them, vaguely wondering what it was about him that always made clerks say they had something cheaper. “I like the first one better.”
“Sure!” She hid her surprise and smiled when he put it on. “It makes you look a lot younger. Like a gaucho.”
Sure it made him look younger. Like a goddam gaucho. In the trio of mirrors, his tired face peered back under the flat leather hat and stabbed him again with the thought of how much more make-believe was coming: light brown skin and dark eyes from his mother (may the earth rest lightly on her); his father’s curling hair, black and still without gray. His father’s square chin, too; but the lines around the eyes and mouth and the drooping mustache were his own. He replaced his sunglasses; he would have to bury that face, change it so that the mirror of the other people’s eyes wouldn’t see what he was. That hat was only the beginning. More face hair would complete it—a goatee, maybe, and let the sideburns grow longer. “Wrap it up.”
“Sure.”
The rest of the costume: worn Levis, he had; cowboy boots—if he was from Texas, he would need cowboy boots. They would be over three blocks at Western Wear. This time the clerk was male and he made a point of calling Wager “sir” and brought out several pairs of multicolored, hand-tooled boots, with flowers, horse heads, birds—everything except a mariachi band—carved on them.
“I want something plain enough to work in. Rough side out.” They would look older, quicker. And were more comfortable; he hated the damned things anyway, and there was no sense suffering any more than he had to. He pried on three different sizes and took the largest.
“Anything else, sir?”
A wide leather belt and a big brass buckle with a steer’s head on it. And a cheap straw cowboy hat to hang on the truck’s rifle rack. He would do without the plastic Madonna for the dash or the little fringe of cotton balls over the front window; he was supposed to be a plasterer, not a bracero. But he would need a roll of toilet paper. West Texans always had a roll of toilet paper sitting up in the back window. He could think of a lot of reasons why.
At his car in the scorched parking lot, he locked the packages in the trunk and walked the block and a half to the Frontier. It was already starting to fill up with thirsty men just off work and a few broads with orange or platinum hair and high-pitched laughter who were probably just going to work. Wager said hello to Red, and the bartender flicked a busy hand in return. Some tourists who looked out of place were crammed into his favorite booth; Wager took a small open table near the kitchen’s serving window and enjoyed the unease of the tourists in his booth.
Rosie hustled a load of burritos from the tiny shelf of the kitchen window and called over, “Be right with you, Gabe.”
“No rush.”
He was halfway through his second beer when Rietman wandered back through the now filled tables and the smoke and noise, face barely visible in the dim light from the wagon-wheel chandeliers. Wager raised a hand and caught his eye.
“What’ll you have?”
“Gin and tonic.”
A few minutes later, Rosie, sweating now and showing her forty years, rushed past to the serving window and threw them a quick smile. “Be right with you.” If she kept it up, she’d get a heart attack, Wager knew. But maybe that’s what—so deep inside it was hidden even from herself—she really wanted. When she was dead, she wouldn’t have to worry any more about three kids and no alimony.
“So what do you want?” Rietman wore a sport shirt and slacks, but he still moved as if he were in uniform—deliberate with the weight of authority. His face, round chin protruding almost as far as the tip of his narrow nose, was a mask before Wager’s gaze.
“Tell me about Farnsworth.”
“I already told Johnston and Sonnenberg about it.”
“I don’t want to know about the bust; I want to know about Farnsworth. What’s he like, how does he deal, how’d you get to him?”
Wager waited; Rietman was halfway through his drink before he started to talk. “I was number-two man, the buyer, so most of what I know’s secondhand.” He finished the drink and Wager motioned for another. “Farnsworth’s been up in Nederland three, maybe four years. He comes from somewhere back East. New Jersey, I think. His old man’s a doctor or lawyer or something like that. I think he went to college out here somewhere and maybe graduated, maybe not. A real deprived childhood. Anyway, he’s got to be the biggest of the dealers up there.”
“Are they organized?”
“Not so’s you can tell. It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of. The D.E.A. agent, Chandler, called them ‘the big ten.’ They all know each other, and if one’s short, then he just calls and has a friend handle it. Otherwise they make their own deals.”
“No leader? No lieutenants?”
“No. They got a thing against organizations and heavies. What did Farnsworth call it? Classical anarchism—whatever the hell that means. Anyway, it’s all very loose and polite. Like they wanted to handle shit but not get their fingers smelly, if you know what I mean.”
Wager ordered another round. “Who was your lead to Farnsworth?”
“Chandler. D.E.A. brought him in from Detroit.”
“How’d he get solid with them?”
Rietman took another long drink. “Chandler gave them a lot of shit about being on the make as a dealer. Farnsworth really liked the guy. Chandler had a good rap and Farnsworth couldn’t believe it when the bust came and there was Chandler. Hell, the whole town liked him.”
“Did Chandler live up there?”
“Yeah. He rented a cabin just west of town. It took him a few months, but he got in with this guy Goldberg, who’s a buddy of Farnsworth’s. Then he started buying, and after a few more months he was able to call me in for a deal big enough so that only Farnsworth could cover it.”
Wager sipped his beer. He’d have to come up with something different; Farnsworth wouldn’t buy the same package twice. “What about known associates?”
“He’s shacked up with this Chicano cunt. Ramona. I think her last name’s Alcala or Alka-Seltzer or some shit like that. And, let’s see, there’s Goldberg and Charlie Flint and Johnny Lewis and a couple others whose first names I heard, but that’s all. Chandler can fill you in better than me. Why don’t you talk to him?”
“I will,” said Wager. “What’s Farnsworth’s supply?”
Rietman shook his head and finished the drink; Wager ordered another. “I don’t know. But we only had to wait a day for a couple pounds, so he must either have one hell of a stash or some goddam good connections.”
“Goldberg, Flint, and Lewis—they’re the bagmen?”
“Naw, Gabe. Like I said, they don’t have an organization. Those dudes will handle up to half a kilo. Anything bigger, they turn over to Farnsworth. That’s how Chandler got to him, anyway.”
“I see.” He sipped at his now warm beer. “What’s your story of the bust?”
Rietman cracked an ice cube between his teeth. “It was a good fucking test. I know it was a good test. But do you think that son of a bitch Sonnenberg listened to me?”
“Why?”
Two little white spots appeared at the sides of Rietman’s narrow nose. “Why? Ask him—how the hell do I know! I told him I’d take a fucking lie-detector test, and the son of a bitch said it wouldn’t mean a thing.”
The tourists were looking nervously at Rietman. Wager motioned to Rosie for the check.
“Sonnenberg don’t think the case is closed or he wouldn’t be interested.”
“Well, fuck him. It’s closed as far as I’m concerned, and so’s Sonnenberg and the whole goddam division.”
“Everybody gets shit on sometime, Mark. You wait awhile and pretty soon you’re on top again.”
“Yeah! I’m not everybody.” He set the glass down slowly. “I’ll bet Sonnenberg sent you down here to try and trip me up.”
“He sent me down to find out about Farnsworth.”
“I’ll bet!”
Wager smiled slightly to hide his disgust. “Believe what you want to, Rietman.” He stood and covered the check with a bill. “We’ll see you later.”
“Like hell you will.”
CHAPTER 2
IT TOOK WAGER until noon the next day to find out that Chandler had been transferred by D.E.A. back to Detroit.
“Well, Detective Wager,” said the slow voice at the other end of the line, “there wasn’t no need for him to stay, now, was there? What all did you want with him?”
“Inspector Sonnenberg’s looking into the Rietman thing.”
“I reckon he should. Your man spilled a lot of our time and money.”
He let it pass. “Do you have a number in Detroit where Chandler can be reached?”
“Hold on a minute.” The voice came back: “This here’s the regional office: area 313 494-9062. They can put you in touch with him.”
“Thanks.” He hung up and dialed the WATS operator, giving her the number. She told him she did not know how long it would take to place the call. Wager poured another cup of bitter coffee from the thermos pitcher and turned to copies of the D.E.A. files that Billy had sent over that morning. There were two Xerox pages on Farnsworth and Goldberg, but no sheets on the other names mentioned by Rietman. He called D.P.D. for any information they might have on Farnsworth, Richard Allen; Alacala, Ramona; Goldberg, Jacob Meyer; Flint, Charles (x), a.k.a. Charlie; Lewis, John (x). The person in records said she would call back.
“All set on the truck, Gabe.” He looked up to see Johnston smiling at him. “It’s in your name over at the Larimer Street garage.” The sergeant waited.
“That’s fine, Ed.”
“I—ah—had them do something special.”
Wager did not like people doing something special unless he told them to do something special. “Like what?”
“You’ll see. You’ll like it.”
He did not enjoy surprises, either. “Like what, Ed?”
“It’s a little extra touch, a little more—you know—realism, like I used to do when I went under. Hey, I kind of wish it was me coming off the bench instead of you. It’s been a long time.”
That’s all he needed: surprises from a nostalgia freak. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
The sergeant laughed and slapped a hand on Wager’s shoulder. “There can be good times, if you follow the right game plan!”
“I’ll try to do that.”
“Haw! Good old Gabe!”
The telephone rang; Suzy called to him, “It’s D.P.D. on some makes you requested. Are you in?”
“Yes.” He picked up his receiver. “This is Detective Wager.”
The brisk female voice from records said, “We have nothing on Farnsworth, Richard Allen; we do have one notation on Alcala, Ramona, arrested in 1965 for shoplifting, guilty plea with suspended sentence. No further arrests. Goldberg, Jacob Meyer, is a negative; Flint, Charles, has three moving violations—two for speeding, one for careless driving. Last entry, June, 1974. We have four Lewis, John, Johnnys, or Jonathans. Do you know his age or place of birth?”
“Probably early to mid-twenties.”
“Then we have two. One has a long record, mostly crimes against persons; the other has one entry for possession of less than an ounce.”
On a hunch, he asked, “How old was Alcala when she was arrested?”
A slight delay. “Birth date, 21 February 1927.”
That made
her forty-nine—too old for his suspect. “And Flint?”
“Born 17 August 1950.”
“Thanks. Could I get copies of the Flint and both Lewis jackets?”
“I’ll send them over. Do you want us to query the Crime Information Center?”
“Let me get better descriptions of the suspects. I’ll be back to you later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sounds like you’re getting in there, Gabe. Keep driving for that goal line.” Johnston gave a little punch in the air, and Wager wished the Broncos had never come to Denver.
“Has Sonnenberg contacted the Boulder sheriff’s office yet?”
“I don’t know—I’ll find out.”
“Suzy,” he said as soon as the sergeant was out of sight, “I’m going over to the custodian’s office. If Detroit D.E.A. calls, I’m trying to get in touch with Agent Chandler, who was just out here on special assignment. Find out how I can reach him as soon as possible.”
He ducked down the pale green corridor and through the door whose buzzer rattled loudly whenever it was opened. On the tiny landing, Mrs. Gutierrez, unit security person, smiled out at him through the Plexiglas window, her voice muffled by the baffles mounted over the window’s speak hole. “Have a good day, Detective Wager.”
He waved at her smile and graying hair and thumped down the worn stairs before Johnston could call him back for another pep talk.
The D.P.D. custodian’s office was in the rear of the Main Police Headquarters, a concrete building just south of the convention complex. It stood foursquare, four stories, and was crowned with a large red-and-white antenna; the new justice complex, which should have been completed by now, was several blocks away, a cluster of raw concrete pillars sprouting reinforcing rods. Meanwhile, D.P.D. made do—as usual— with overcrowded space and a parking lot so jammed with official vehicles and unmarked cars that he had to wait ten minutes before a patrol car bounced through the gate and gave him space to park.
The property locker of the custodian’s office was run by a civilian Caucasian female, mid-twenties, brown eyes, dark hair longer than allowed for non-civilian personnel and serving to draw attention to a face that was passably good-looking. The identification card clipped above a nice full breast read, Miller, Elizabeth M. Wager rested his own I.D. on the shelf of the half-door.