Farnsworth Score

by Rex Burns

  “Outside, Bruce, or I’ll break your fucking fingers.”

  “Oww! Hey, man, that’s not cool!” The sunburned faces at the neighboring table swung toward them again. Wager let go of his fingers. “Man, you’re coming on like a fucking narc. Maybe you’re the fucking narc.”

  “Bruce—listen good, you cross-eyed son of a bitch.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You say that one more time and I’ll waste you.”

  “Hey, man, I was only joking.”

  “You don’t joke about shit like that.”

  “Sure, Gabe! It was just a joke. You mad? Don’t be mad; it ain’t cool.”

  “If I hear you call me a narc again, you’re dead.”

  “Sure, Gabe!”

  “Here.” He pushed the beer over to Bruce and signaled for another pitcher. “Drink up—it’s all yours. But no more jokes.”

  “Right. No more jokes. But Jesus, you really hurt my fingers.”

  It was usually a forty-minute run down the canyon. Wager made it in twenty-five, halting the hot car beside a phone booth on the west edge of Boulder where a half-dozen motels tried to hide beneath low trees. Sergeant Johnston’s wife answered and said, “Just a minute.” In the brief wait, he heard the television quack something fatuous about the pro score roundup.

  “Detective Sergeant Johnston here.”

  “Ed, I want a suspect picked up as soon as possible, by plainclothes officers who have no ties with any narc units.” He gave the sergeant a description of Bruce the Juice.

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Hell, I don’t know—jaywalking, polluting the landscape, loud and smelly breathing. Just get him off the streets fast.”

  “We got to have a charge, Gabe.”

  “Well goddamn it think of one—you’re a sergeant! Arrest the bastard on suspicion of being a bastard.”

  “Say, is something wrong?”

  “Bruce the Juice just told Farnsworth that there’s a narc up in Nederland and that a raid’s planned soon. Is somebody else working up there? Is there another goddam agent fucking around up there?”

  “Not that I know of. There’s not supposed to be, but it could happen. Where did this Bruce get his information?”

  “I don’t know. He’s too stoned to come across. And I can’t goddamned well look too interested, can I?” He’d already risked too much with Bruce. Best just to bury him until after tomorrow.

  “Right, Gabe, right—we’ll get him on suspicion of burglary. Hell, we can hold him seventy-two hours on a felony charge. Say, it’s still on for tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “So far. Unless Bruce scares them away. We’ll find out in the morning. Can you bust him real quiet? He’s got to disappear without making any more waves.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “One more thing, Ed—if there’s no other agency involved up there, where do you think Bruce got his information?”

  The television music in the background rose to a familiar theme, brass and drums thumping out a call to football. “We had to inform the Nederland and Boulder authorities. Maybe one of them leaked.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe not.”

  “How many people know you’re up there?”

  “One too goddam many.” He hung up.

  Since it was Sunday, Rietman, with his seniority, did not work weekends. Wager had to wait until the next morning to talk with him.

  “It’ll only take a minute, Rietman.”

  “All right.” He radioed his dispatcher the code for officer busy and not on radio. “What’s so important now?”

  The street was filled with bundled Christmas shoppers and the insistent clangor of a Salvation Army bell. “Let’s go around the corner.” He led the officer to an unused doorway drifted with blown trash. “Somebody put out the word that there’s a narc up in Nederland.”

  “So?”

  “We got somebody up there. That somebody could get blown away because of the leak. You’re one of the few people who knew we were going after Farnsworth again.”

  “Just a fucking minute, Wager. I didn’t blow nobody’s cover!”

  Wager looked into the angry eyes. “If I find out it was you, the word goes out about it. I won’t waste time with no S.I.B. shit.”

  No investigation, no hearing, no fair trial, no plea—just Wager quietly telling Rietman’s fellow officers that the patrolman had tipped a criminal about an agent’s cover.

  “Wager—Gabe—I swear to God I didn’t do it!”

  “We’ll find out.”

  “It was somebody else!”

  Back in his car, Wager watched Rietman’s blue-and-white cruiser head slowly through the Christmas traffic toward Colfax. Maybe Rietman did it, maybe he didn’t. If so, this should scare him into silence at least until after tonight. If not, Wager could apologize later. Right now, it was Gabe’s own ass, and he worried about that first.

  There was one more possibility and he wanted to take care of it. At the O.C.D. office, Hansen’s name was logged in under “On Pager.” He told Suzy to page him. Hansen telephoned in five minutes.

  “Rog? This is Gabe. Somebody spilled information about our man up in the hills. If it was that whoreson Larry, he’d better learn to keep his mouth closed or I’m coming down on him. Can you get that word to him?”

  “I can tell him. I don’t think it was, though. He knows how to keep quiet.”

  “Just tell him what I said, Rog. And tell him so he believes it; I’ll find out if it was him.”

  “Sure, Gabe.” There was a note of weariness in Hansen’s voice, but that was too damned bad.

  Then he called Farnsworth. Little Pedro said “Hello,” and called his father.

  “How do you feel about it, Dick?”

  “I guess it’s O.K.—we haven’t heard of anything going down, but nobody seems to know where the hell Bruce got to. Manny and me’ve been looking all over for him. Even Jo-Jo don’t know where he is.”

  “He’s probably somewhere stoned. He can’t leave that shit alone any more.”

  “Yeah. I sure as hell don’t like dealers who get hooked; they’re too easy to turn. Well, come on up—I’ll take you out to the place and see what you think of it.”

  “See you at three.”

  The rest of the morning dragged like a snake with a hernia. Wager did what paperwork had collected on his desk and dumped it on Suzy to polish up. Sergeant Johnston popped in to say something about moving into the last period of play as he and Sonnenberg left for the Federal Center and the armory. Ashcroft whipped through in a flurry of affidavits to give Wager a “long time no see”; Hansen did not come back to the office. At around eleven, Wager went for an early lunch at the Frontier, where Rosie did not recognize him until he spoke. Finally, he was back in his apartment trying to read a paperback history of the British commandos in World War II. The picture on the cover was more exciting than the story, which was filled with places, dates, the names of battles and roads, and the names of captains and majors and colonels. He wondered if British enlisted men ever did anything but also serve gallantly.

  Giving up, he strode from one side of the room to the other, at last stopping to survey the empty plaster wall behind the two canvas chairs. It did need something to give it life; Billy had been right. And Wager had just the thing. Though it wasn’t that pretty picture of the Maroon Belles, maybe it was as good. Rummaging through his closet, he found it and wiped off the dust with a soft rag, weighing its balance, whipping it through a series of maneuvers, which his arm surprised him by remembering: his N.C.O.’s sword. It’s black-and-gold handle was chipped here and there and missing an occasional screw, but the straight, dagger like blade still held its chrome finish, and the scabbard’s scratches only made it look more efficient. Etched down the blade were the interlaced letters “United States Marines,” and in a blank spot near the hilt “G. V. Wager.” He’d always wanted to hang it somewhere, though Lorraine said she couldn’t find the right spot. Now, by God, right sma
ck in the middle of that long, empty wall. Not that he cared much about the Marine Corps any more, but he did like swords and pistols. He took his time, measuring, taping, first here, then there, finally driving the small nails and bending them up to clamp the blade and scabbard. Billy would like to see that.

  He had also told Billy he was going to Nederland.

  Shit, no! You didn’t even think something like that! Billy was his friend; Billy was his ex-partner!

  He stepped back and concentrated on the sword, trying to drive the ugly thought away.

  But Billington was someone else who knew, and Wager was a cop, and he couldn’t help thinking like one. Billy just wouldn’t do it. That was all.

  The wall still looked a little empty, the sword a little dwarfed by the expanse of vacant plaster. Not Billy. It was wrong even to think that, and Wager knew it absolutely. And Wager hated the son of a bitch who had done it, not because it threatened to ruin the Farnsworth case or because it might mean Wager’s life, but because it made him think things like that about someone like Billy. His ex-partner had covered his back too many times; he knew Billy wouldn’t do it.

  CHAPTER 10

  “HOLY CHRIST AND the Blessed Stigmata—all those goddam guns! My back is killing me.”

  “I didn’t know you were a Catholic,” said Wager.

  “I’m not,” said Sergeant Johnston. “My father was. How’d you know?”

  “I’m still a detective.”

  “Oh.” Johnston geared down the sluggish truck for a series of jolting railroad tracks, then slowly picked up speed again. “You know, you’re a funny guy, Gabe. Kind of like a split end way out there by yourself. I mean you’re part of the team—don’t get me wrong—but you take Ashcroft or Hansen, they’re all lined up over the ball. You’re out there by yourself.”

  If Wager wanted to go to confession, he’d find a priest. “Are the surveillance teams still there?”

  “What? Oh.” Johnston craned around to study the rear-view mirrors. “Yeah. God, I hope nothing goes wrong. We’ll all end up in Leavenworth.”

  “We’d have good company—governors, Cabinet members, judges.”

  “But we’d be locked up a hell of a lot longer than them.”

  True enough; he and Ed weren’t governors, Cabinet members, judges. Wager glanced again at his watch; they had an hour to get through the tail end of the quitting-time traffic that still clogged Kipling Street with lines of brake lights flashing in the murky winter evening. He had met Farnsworth in mid-afternoon, handing him the small Christmas package. “For Pedrocito. He can open it early if he wants to.”

  “Hey, Gabe, that’s real nice. The little guy’s really hyped about Christmas this year.”

  “You’d better enjoy it. Kids don’t stay that way very long.”

  “I know.” He casually tossed the red-and-green package onto the cowhide couch. “The sergeant’s all set? I’m getting high about this deal. You know, this is really big-time shit if we pull it off.”

  “He’s loading the truck now, I guess.”

  “Great. Let’s go look at the meet. See if you think it’s all right.”

  It was an hour’s ride down through Boulder and along the Foothills Highway, with its inevitable stretches of wind-drifted snow mashed into sheet ice. At Golden, Farnsworth turned east on Forty-fourth Avenue past the concrete blocks of the Coors factory and the string of box and tank cars that always stood waiting. “It’s just up here—this storage lot.” A narrow dirt road led to a side entry in a high slat fence. The compound inside was littered with rusting pipe, large cable spools, stacks of snowy two-by-fours warping slowly.

  “What about security patrols?”

  “It’s a private system; the watchman’s a friend of mine. That’s how I know about this place. He won’t check it until after midnight.”

  “What about our own security?”

  “We meet the sergeant in the middle where it’s open. You tell him to park right there. Baca’ll be sitting over there in our truck. You and me, we check out the merchandise; if it’s O.K., Baca brings out the dope.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  Farnsworth stared at Wager. “You said you grooved on this dude, Gabe.”

  “I do. But we’re talking just in case.”

  “O.K. Just in case he’s selling us a wolf ticket, Baca’s carrying iron. If that son of a bitch tries anything, he’s had the cock.”

  “I think he’s straight.”

  “Just make sure he comes alone.”

  He and Johnston were alone in the truck, anyway. The two cars with the inspector and the surveillance teams trailed a hundred yards back as they turned west on 1-70 and Wager pressed his transmit key. “Two-one, this is two-one-two.”

  “Go ahead.” The inspector’s voice was slightly muffled; he was probably lighting another maduro.

  “We’re about a half-mile from the place. Ten seventy-seven in twenty minutes.”

  “Ten-four. Make your turn; we’ll double back.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Johnston steered the spongy truck down the long curve of freeway. “You think they’ll try to rip me off?”

  The thought had entered Wager’s head. “What choice do we have?”

  Johnston pondered. “Yeah.”

  “They didn’t talk rip-off to me. Just go through with it like we planned.”

  “O.K. The way we planned.”

  The truck edged into the line of cars creeping off the freeway at the Ward Road interchange.

  “They really need a traffic light here.”

  “File a complaint with the traffic division.”

  “Hell of a lot of good it would do.” Ed finally saw an opening to swing the truck toward West Forty-fourth Avenue and out beyond Mount Olivet Cemetery. They rode without speaking; the heavy truck squeaked with the ripples of the two-lane asphalt.

  Wager squinted into the darkness against the glare of oncoming traffic. “Slow down; we’re getting close.” Past the advertisement for the railroad museum, he saw the landmark. “There—we turn at that white sign.”

  “The white sign.”

  Wager keyed the radio: “Here we go.”

  “Ten-four” came Sonnenberg’s lazy voice.

  “Here we go,” echoed Ed, and swerved the wheel. Wager saw the two unmarked cars flash by as the string of urgent traffic pent up by the truck sped past.

  “We’re a little early.”

  “They won’t mind,” said Wager.

  The rocking headlights picked out the fence, with its boards bending out here and there away from the wire mesh.

  “There’s the gate. Hold up, I’ll open it.”

  Gabe hopped out into the icy wind that funneled down between North and South Table Mountains, bringing little ice crystals that melted like mist on his face. He fumbled at the metal latch with stinging fingers; then, with a creak, the heavy gates swung in. He held one back while the truck ground by, then quickly climbed back into the cab.

  “Jesus, it’s cold! Pull the truck right over there—that open area.”

  “Did you see anybody?” Johnston set the brake and turned off the lights, leaving the motor running for heat.

  “No.”

  Silence. The wind thumped against the truck’s sides and jiggled it slightly.

  “I’ll bet those guys on surveillance are freezing their balls off.”

  They should be moving along the outside of the fence by now. And they would be cold. “Yes.”

  “Something bugging you? You think something’s wrong?”

  Billy wouldn’t do it. “No.”

  “They’re late.”

  He knew Billy wouldn’t do it. “Yes.”

  More silence; more wind. His eyes slowly grew accustomed to the darkness and he could see the wisps of dry snow smoke across the ground in the wind. Best not to think of Billy. Right now, everything was right here. It was Farnsworth only. Right now.

  “Is that them?” Slits of light moved through the boards as headlig
hts glided down the fence. Wager didn’t bother to answer; they would know soon enough.

  The creak of the gate was barely audible over the wind; the headlights swung in, paused, the gate clanged shut, then the rented truck moved past Wager’s side, Farnsworth’s face pale in the dash light’s reflection. Wager clicked his transmit button three times, then hid the radio pack inside his parka.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Over by the spools. Baca will cover the deal from there.”

  “Oh. Yeah. You said.” Johnston cracked his knuckles. “Blessed baby Jesus, I hope everything goes O.K.”

  “Kill the engine; let’s go say hello.”

  Farnsworth met them halfway between the trucks. He held a flashlight in one hand and shined it briefly on Johnston and Wager. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine. Come on, it’s fucking cold.”

  They turned to Johnston’s truck and clambered into the back; their breath frosted in the flashlight’s beam, but at least the truck walls blocked the wind.

  “Goddam—they’re all in boxes!”

  “What’d you expect?” asked Johnston. “They always come that way. They’re packed for transport.”

  “Let’s see them. I want to see what I’m getting for all that dope.”

  Johnston began twisting the butterfly nuts off the lid of an olive-drab box. “Where’s the stuff?”

  “It’s in my truck. Let me see these babies; then we’ll go over.” Farnsworth raised the lid and shined the light over six M-l rifles nested butt to muzzle in the narrow pine box. “Beautiful. Dy-no-mite! Where’s the rocket launchers?”

  “Over here.” Johnston pointed at the folded tubes of painted alloy. “They twist together like this.”

  “Beautiful. The M-16’s? The pistols?”

  “In here.” He tapped two stacks of shorter, fatter boxes and shifted with cold as Farnsworth opened one and peered in.

  “Come on, Dick, it’s getting cold.”

  “Man! It makes me feel ten feet tall just to look at this stuff! I got to have one of these for myself!”

  Gabe jabbed an elbow into the silent sergeant’s ribs. “Oh,” he said. “I want to see the dope. Then we move the guns.”