by Rex Burns
“Could you see his clothes? Did he have a hat? Has he been here before?”
“Well, I’m new here—I don’t know if he’s a regular. He didn’t have a hat, though. … He had a lot of gray hair. In that light, it’s hard to tell, but I think it had a lot of gray. I remember thinking he’d be a winner or a loser.” She explained, “Old guys, they either tip real good or real bad.”
Wager led her through it a couple more times, but she came up with nothing more. In fact, she began to wonder if it really was Doc she saw in the first place.
“Did you see either man leave?”
“No. It was a busy night and we don’t run up tabs anymore. Too many men go out the door without paying for their drinks, so I spend a lot of time making change.”
Wager thanked her and gave her a business card and asked her to call him if the man came in again—it could be very important. She smiled and left, the rear of her shorts riding up to show little crescents of pale, soft flesh.
“Okay—you happy now? Is that it?” Berg shoved back from his desk to let Wager out.
“Do you know who the man might have been?”
“A guy with gray hair? Do you know how many guys with gray hair come in here?”
“I had the feeling you might know. I had the feeling you wanted the girl to shut up.”
“You got the feeling of indigestion or something. I didn’t see either one of them. I don’t know either one of them. Now can I get on with running my business that pays the taxes that pay your salary?”
He made one more stop, this one in the parking lot of the White Castle where Moffett and Nolan liked to survey the scene at this, the busiest end of the strip. Their unadorned sedan sat nosed toward the street and, as he went past, Wager caught their eyes. He parked his car behind the grimy stucco building and walked over to the two Vice detectives; there was no percentage in having his Trans Am sit fender to fender with a police car that everyone on Colfax recognized.
“Quiet night?” asked Nolan. Moffett, wordless, settled a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the dash and fumbled for a cigarette.
“So far.” Wager unfolded the drawing of Doc and handed it to the two men in the front seat. “You were on last night?”
“Ain’t we always,” said Nolan. He looked at the sketch with practiced eyes.
“He’s a homicide victim,” Wager explained. “Lewis Rowe—Doc.”
Moffett took his turn, then handed it back without a word and stared moodily at the passing crowd. Nolan asked, “Was this the one you pulled out of a dumpster?”
“Right.”
Nolan shook his head, then glanced at Wager. “Could it be somebody special?”
“Why?”
“Ross and Devereaux, they’ve already inquired.”
“He was one of my snitches.”
Wager wanted to let it go at that, but Nolan didn’t. “Was he involved in something?” Meaning: something the Vice detectives should have a hand in, something that crossed lines into their territory.
“No,” lied Wager. “But he was pretty good. And I knew him a long time.”
Nolan shook his head again. “You can’t let it get to you. It happens, that’s all.”
Moffett suddenly jabbed out the long cigarette butt. “The shit it does! And the shit it can’t get to you!”
Wager raised his eyebrows.
Nolan gave a little shake of his head and he, too, gazed out at the traffic that was growing heavier as closing time neared. It gave his partner a private moment to stifle the unprofessional burst of anger. “We just had a really crummy one,” Nolan explained to Wager. “This juvenile—a kid ten years old—prostituting down on Sod Circle. It took us half-a-dozen tries before we could arrest him. You know why?”
Wager did not know why.
“Because every time he got out of one car, another one would pick him up before we could make contact. Ten seconds—twenty seconds, and another faggot was already grabbing him.”
Moffett, his voice now sounding bored and flat, added, “Faggots—they put out all this crap about the rights of consenting adults. About how they’re not chicken hawks. All that crap. Pure crap.” He spat out the window. “Ten years old. It was like feeding time at the zoo.”
“We transported the juvenile over to Denver Gen,” said Nolan. “He was bleeding from the anus. It took sixteen stitches to close up his anus.” He, too, spat out the window.
“It happens,” repeated Wager. It was the cop’s litany for all that humanity could think of doing to itself.
“It certainly does.”
“You’re on your own time right now?” asked Moffett. He lit a fresh cigarette.
“That’s right.” He knew what that question meant, too.
“Okay. We’ll ask around about Doc.”
“Thanks.” And though Wager did not ask them to funnel the information to him alone, he knew they would; the reason cops so often told each other that it didn’t pay to get personally involved in a case was that they did so anyway. And a lot of cops stretched the limits of procedure a little bit to help somebody who had enough personal interest to work a case on his own time.
CHAPTER 11
IT SEEMED TO Wager that his real work took place in his time off, while those hours he spent earning his pay were eaten away by various routines. He did not like the day shift. Not for the same reason Max disliked it; his partner preferred the midnight-to-eight because it gave him the afternoon and evening with his family. He often got home in time to see the kids off to school and then woke up for supper with his family and a few hours together before it was their bedtime. But Wager liked the night shift because that was when most of the action took place. With sundown, the streets came alive, especially on the long summer days when the light lingered until nine, and the cooling sidewalks sucked people out of their stuffy apartments and homes to small front porches or grimy steps, to tiny strips of lawn, to littered sidewalks and curbs where they stood and talked or gazed and were gazed at. In a way, Wager thought, the street was his family. Max spent time with his kids, Wager spent time on the street; and they both found that it gave them a reason to get through the other stuff—the paperwork and routine garbage of the day shift.
Now, conspicuous in the tie and jacket he had worn to the funeral home, Wager strolled through the swirls and eddies of the crowd drifting along Colfax. His clothes, his assured walk, his aura of casual purpose screamed Cop to those around him, but he was not uncomfortable. He knew what was in the minds behind eyes that always seemed to be looking away and faces closed in expressionless innocence. A bit of fear, a bit of hatred, a lot of unease. Just like, Wager smiled to himself, a real family. It was the same family Doc had, though none of them would go to Doc’s funeral. Or to Wager’s.
The viewing of Doc’s body had begun at six, and it probably ended at six-fifteen, when Wager left Rosalyn Shiddel sitting alone among the row of chairs and the brown couch arranged with muted lamps and coffee tables to look like a living room that just happened to have a corpse in it.
“I didn’t think nobody would come,” she said. A Kleenex lost bits and pieces on the soft beige carpet, and the air conditioner, turned up high and placed strategically near the casket stand, made a soft, rushing sound that cushioned the silence.
“I read the announcement in the paper.”
She nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t know the names of any of his friends.” Her puffy eyes wandered back to the figure who lay looking stranger in a suit than he did in death. His head was turned slightly toward the room to seem more natural and to hide the hole at the back of his skull; the mortician had managed a slight smile on the dyed lips but the pale silk casket lining glimmered oddly among the stiff back hair. “He looks so peaceful, don’t he?”
“Yes.” It crossed Wager’s mind that more people might have paid respects if the funeral home had installed a telephone. “Do you need any help? Is there something I can do?”
She shook her head. “I called th
e legal aid people like you said. They gave me a list of lawyers, but I don’t think I’ll bother. The rent’s paid through the month, and after that I think I’ll go out to California. That’s where my family is,” she explained. “They won’t be happy to see me, but family’s still family, ain’t it?”
“I suppose so.” There wasn’t much to say after that. Wager sat for a few more minutes in the cool, hushed room, breathing the faint odor of chrysanthemums drifting from the wicker stands at each end of the casket. It wasn’t Doc anymore, and that feeling of something lost wasn’t for the corpse lying there, but for himself, Wager realized. And if he wasn’t going to feel sorry for Doc, he could spend his time better than feeling sorry for himself. After a silence, he said, “I’d better be going, Miss Shiddel.”
“Yes—thanks for coming by. Doc would appreciate it.” She stood, too. “The funeral’s at nine in the morning.”
“I’ll be on duty,” he said.
“Oh, sure. Well, thanks for everything.” A plump and moist hand shook his.
“You’re welcome.”
In the low, hard sunlight of late afternoon, the brightly painted sign for the Cinnamon Club turned faded and uneven. The early show had started—the music was carried to the doorway through a small speaker that was supposed to tantalize passersby, but no one was passing by yet. The resident winos who usually hung around the doorway like a brace of flies hovered alone and edgy just across the property line and pretended to inspect the window of a secondhand bookstore. Astrology. Wager headed for them.
The taller of the two caught his outline reflected in the glass; he turned and started to shove an upturned palm at him, then quickly changed his mind, giving the other a quick elbow. They began to ease away.
“I’d like to ask you two gentlemen a couple questions.” Wager held out his badge case.
The tall one, white bristles in all directions over the seams in a lean face, gazed around the empty sidewalk. “Us?”
Wager nodded and showed them the drawing of Doc. “Two nights ago, about midnight. Did you see this man come out of the Cinnamon Club?” Before they could say no, he added, “He’s a homicide victim. He might have left here with someone.”
The short one had black hair that lankly covered a sun-darkened pate; he, too, needed a shave, but his whiskers were patchier, like an unhealthy animal’s, and darkened only his jowls. Whenever he spoke, he lifted his chin to stretch his neck and gargle slightly. “We maybe did. Two nights ago, though, that’s a long time.”
The tall one gave a sheepish grin. “Long time without a drink, anyway.”
Wager had a five-dollar bill ready. He rolled it over the fingers of his other hand. Two pairs of eyes followed it. “Five bucks is yours either way. Just tell me the truth. Did you see this man?”
The short one gargled. “Yeah. He gave us five dollars, too.”
“This man did? Five dollars?”
“Yeah.” Both men leaned slightly toward the bill, but Wager kept it tightly folded in his fingers.
“What time was that?”
“Maybe twelve-thirty, one. We get here maybe an hour or two before the place closes. Then until closing’s the best time if that son of a bitch don’t run you off.”
“Who? The bouncer?”
“Yeah. That son of a bitch.”
“Was this man with anyone? Did he come out with anyone?”
They glanced at each other and then at the bill. Then the short one gargled again. “It looked like it. They didn’t say nothing, but it looked like they was together.”
“What did the other one look like?”
“Not too tall. Big, but not too tall.”
“Did he have gray hair?”
The older one shook his head. “Blond. Almost white, you know, like an albino. But he wasn’t one—just real blond.”
“Have you ever seen him before? Do you know him?”
“I’ve seen him around, yeah. But I don’t know him.”
“Does he come to this club a lot?”
“Not much. Some.”
“Has he been around again?”
“No.”
“Which way did they go when they came out?”
“That way. Around the corner.”
“Would you know the blond man if you saw him again?”
The tall one licked his lips. “Mister, we’re awful thirsty. All this talking—”
“Would you know him again?”
“I don’t know—maybe. I just don’t know.”
Wager handed the bill to the tall one, whose blue eyes, pale and wet-looking, widened happily. Without another word, the two lurched down the sidewalk toward the liquor store in the next block.
Doc had given the two panhandlers five dollars. He had tipped the waitress nothing, but he had come out and given those two enough money that they remembered him. Doc had been with the blond man; he had been worried and frightened, and rightfully so. He had given those bums a big tip in case somebody had to come asking for him. Doc’s last tip. If he weren’t so cynical, Wager might almost believe another of his mother’s favorite sayings: Everything happens for the best. But somehow he didn’t think Doc would go along with that.
The inside of the Cinnamon Club seemed even darker after the lingering sunlight; despite the faint echoing sound that told his ears the room was almost empty, the cooled air was no less thick with cigarette smoke. On the runway, a thin brunette smiled and twisted through a slow number. The routine was made up of her hands sliding up and down her wiry body and occasionally patting out the music’s rhythm with tiny slaps. The bouncer wasn’t on duty yet, and Wager guessed that Berg had not arrived either, because the Vietnamese bartender, looking at him, shuffled first one way and then another, like a chicken seeking a place to hide.
“Hello, Nguyen,” Wager smiled.
The man’s gold-streaked teeth answered automatically and his head bobbed. “Drink? On the house?” It was a kowtow Wager had seen in the villages and along the country roads of Vietnam—the recognition of police authority, a placating of those who carried life and death in the pistol on their hip.
“No thanks,” he said, then repeated it in Vietnamese: “Khong.”
Nguyen’s glittering smile stayed wide, but his eyes did not. “You were in Vietnam?”
“Up near Hue. Third Marine Division.”
“Ah—marines.” A minor note of respect. “I am from Saigon. Much army and air force. Not too much marines in the south.” The head bobbed again. “The marines were good fighters, yes?” He shrugged, “But …”
Wager nodded. The thing to remember was that you fought well. And that it was over. He put the drawing on the bar. “Two nights ago, this man was in here.”
Without glancing at it, Nguyen smiled and shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Very busy, not like now. So I don’t see.”
“He walked out of here between twelve-thirty and one. Right here. Right past the bar. There was a man with him. Do you remember?”
The smile disappeared.
“The man had white hair—blond. Hard to miss, even in this light. And he’s been here before.” Wager leaned across the bar toward the Vietnamese and caught the faint smell of garlic on his breath. “Do you remember?”
“No!” The bartender’s head wagged. “No—I don’t see him!”
“The police, Nguyen. Sooner or later, the police find things out. And I’ll find out if you’re lying to me.”
“No! It’s true—I don’t see him!”
“If you lie to me,” Wager folded the sketch away, “I’ll remember you. You and every one of your family, Nguyen.”
He gave the man another moment to say something, but the Vietnamese, mouth puckered with worry, only stared at him like a bird at a snake. Wager handed him a business card with his home telephone number penciled on the back. “If your memory gets better, give me a call.”
The man stood mute and rigid, and the business card lay untouched on the bar, a smudge of white.
It was stil
l early, but Wager called anyway. Fat Willy’s answering service, a bartender whose voice was now familiar, said the usual, “I see if he’s here.” A couple minutes later Fat Willy’s lurching breath sounded at Wager’s ear.
“We got to stop meeting like this, Wager. And I mean it, man.”
“How’d things go last night? What’d you find out?”
“You know,” he sighed, “some of the bro’s swear you ain’t a man until you had some white pussy. But it don’t do a thing for me. Funny, a foxy mama—now that turns me on. But that white meat, it’s just like looking at a dog or a horse, you know? Nothing.”
“Did you hear anything about Annette Sheldon? Or Doc?”
“They’s some deals going down. Shit, where ain’t they? Your good friend Little Ray was twitching around worse than them honky asses on stage. But I didn’t get a whisper about that Doc.”
“What about a blond-haired man—almost an albino. He left the club with Doc the night he was killed.”
“A real whitey?” From behind Willy came the clack of a cue ball breaking rack, followed by a squeal of high-pitched laughter.
“Have you run across him?”
“No. … I ain’t seen him.”
“But you’ve heard something about him? Come on, Willy!”
“I hear about a lot of people, Wager. My business is hearing.” In the silence between the big man’s slow, heavy breathing, a background voice wailed, “Shit, man, you call that a shot?”
“If you’re thinking price, Willy, this isn’t the time. I want that man.”
The figure on the other end of the line made up his mind about something, and it wasn’t in Wager’s favor. “I’ll let you know if I run across him.”
Sure he would—after whatever deal he was thinking about went down. “I want that man, Willy. No shuckin’, no jivin’—I want him.”
Heartiness came back to the rumbling voice. “Whoo! You talking like a real bro’! Everybody got their want, and some people even get their gets—I’ll tell you if I see him.”