by Bruce Most
I steadied my eyes on him. “Homicide won’t have a problem if they don’t know.”
Perdue put his hands up in mock surrender. “They won’t hear anything from my lips. I said nothing the last time we worked together, and I won’t now.”
“Good. You do and I’ll toss your body in the South Platte and tell Hawkins that aliens sucked you up into one of their flying cigars.”
Though to be fair, the South Platte was a far cry from New York City’s East River for disposing of bodies. It was so damn shallow you couldn’t drown a dog in it, let alone a man.
Perdue lit another cig and we rode in silence for a while before he said, “I was at your partner’s funeral. A lot of officers were there.”
“Yeah,” I said low-voiced.
“Is it true, what I hear about him?”
“I doubt it.”
“No, I mean his being squeaky clean. A saint, isn’t that what guys called him? I never met him but that’s what I heard.”
“He was a good cop.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, Joe. It’s terrible what happened. It’s just . . . ”
“Just what?”
“ . . . guys are saying stuff, that’s all.”
“Saying what?”
“You know, the circumstances of his death.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“They don’t understand why he was in that pawnshop without his gun drawn or how the spic got the drop on him like that.”
I didn’t understand either. I also didn’t understand how Perdue learned that.
“Where did you hear that?”
He shrugged. “Around. Did you see him draw his weapon before he entered?”
“No. I was heading around front.”
“And this radio you guys found in the alley, was that—”
“What is this, the third degree? You sound like Detective Bock.”
“Just curious, Joe. I’m hearing talk, that’s all.”
Maybe Perdue was spying for Detective Bock. Looking for a promotion.
“Didn’t I tell you the first day on the job to never trust what you hear from other cops?” I said. “They’re less reliable than a strung-out snitch. What you’re hearing is nonsense. Benedict was a good cop in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Perdue turned his attention to the sky with his binoculars, so I asked the question bothering me since Sergeant Hawkins assigned us. “The sarge said you volunteered to partner with me.”
“Yeah, I wanted to work the street again,” he replied. “I was doing too much desk work in Morals. It was boring. This slot came up and I jumped at it. I thought it’d be fun working with you again.”
“Fun? It’s fucking dangerous riding with me. You of all people oughta know that.”
“I survived before.”
Christ, two years later and the kid was still a rookie.
Half an hour later, during a bar check, a hooker provided a possible location for Hector Diaz, a dump of an apartment building over on west Forty-first and Tejon. Out of our precinct. We drove over anyway.
The place was easy to spot: two white columns and a fake southern facade as out of place as a white-trash Yankee at a New Orleans cotillion. The apartment manager was a heavyset man whose greasy slick-backed pompadour reflected his vain attempt to remain above the social strata of his tenants. He claimed he hadn’t seen Hector Diaz in days. Said the man dropped out of sight minutes after his release. Scared, was the rumor.
“Scared of what?” I said.
“Dunno. I ain’t talked to him since homicide dragged his raunchy ass in for questioning. He really ice that cop? Your guys tore the shit out of his room, just so you know. You might wanna pass that on to your boss. You wanna see the goddamn mess they left? I ain’t touched it. Thinkin’ ’bout suing the department.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Maybe you can get ’em to at least fix the dresser their goons busted.”
“You got no idea where Diaz mighta gone?” I pressed. “Relatives, friends?”
“See, that’s the problem with you cops. All you do is want sumthin’. Never willing to give sumthin’ back.”
The distant squawk of our car radio filtered through the open window of the manager’s first-floor apartment.
“Go check,” I told Perdue. As he headed for the car, I shoved the manager against the wall. “I’ll give you something back. Tell me where I can find Diaz or you’re gonna need more than a cheap dresser repaired.”
“All right, all right. You don’t gotta play rough. Jesus, you guys are all alike.”
“Where do I find him?”
“He’s got a cousin named Nunez. Guadalupe, I think. Find him, you can find Diaz.”
“Where do I find this cousin?”
“Pounds the ivory at one of them holy roller places. Church of the Holy something or other.”
I knew the place. Storefront on Larimer Street’s skid row.
I let go of his shirt and walked to the car. The manager yelled a reminder about the busted dresser.
Back in the patrol car, Perdue said the dispatch call was the El Sótano again. A drunken woman creating a disturbance. I hate drunk-women calls. The El Sótano was a popular, tough Mexican bar on Larimer Street. We’d already been to the place once tonight. Drop in unannounced we usually could pinch someone with wants or warrants on them. A fun place.
“So what’s our next move to find Diaz?” Perdue asked on the way.
“Let’s drop it. You’re right, I shouldn’t be looking for him. If I catch up with him, I’ll do something stupid.”
If Perdue was keeping tabs on me for the department or Bock, maybe they’d take the hint and leave me alone.
I stared out on the dark streets as I struggled to regain control of myself after slamming the manager into the wall. I’d worked hard these last two years putting my life and my marriage and my career back in order. Now I felt it slipping away, felt myself getting sucked into another off-the-books investigation and the nightmares that come with it. Yeah, my ass was on the line, along with Benedict’s. Still, why the hell couldn’t I leave well enough alone?
Chapter 7
Early the next afternoon, I went searching for Guadalupe Nunez before my shift. My excuse to Paula for going in early to work was a follow-up with the detectives working Benedict’s case. A plausible lie I sensed she bought.
Before hitting Larimer Street for Nunez, however, I tried again to reach the employee at the telephone company who owed me a favor. This time I got through to him from a pay phone and told him I needed the name attached to an unlisted phone number. He hesitated. Legally, they required a warrant, he reminded me. His wife might like to know about his hiring a hooker, I reminded him. He wrote down the unlisted number and the pay phone number and said he’d call back in a few minutes. When he did, I could tell by his voice he was more than curious how the hell I’d dredged up this particular unlisted number attached to this particular name. As I scribbled down name that belonged to the initials M.R. in Benedict’s notebook, I understood his curiosity.
Marcus Raschke.
Raschke had been in the headlines for months. He’d taught as a professor of economics at the Denver extension of the University of Colorado. Paula, in fact, was taking one of his classes when none other than Senator Joseph McCarthy publicly fingered Raschke as a commie agent, resulting in the quick dismissal from his teaching post. Considering the local public firestorm that ensued, it was no surprise Raschke unlisted his phone number.
The question was, why the hell did my dead partner have the phone number of an alleged commie agent?
The Church of the Holy Spirit occupied a street-level storefront on Larimer Street, formerly a haberdashery whose owner gratefully gave me a fedora after I’d nailed the guy who’d burglarized his place. Maybe the Church of the Holy Spirit would give me a free path out of my mess.
I took my chances Nunez would be there. It wasn’t your standard Sunday-morning church. It admini
stered its Angel Food mostly to the derelicts, alkies, and other lost souls who inhabited lower downtown, so it kept long, irregular hours during the day and evenings. I had no idea where it got money to operate. The church belonged to no denomination as far as I could determine. Doctrine was whatever came into the preacher’s head that day.
At least a few souls were inside. Dispirited singing drifted into the street. I entered the front door under a large black-lettered sign announcing the Church of the Holy Spirit. A light rain was falling, so more souls than usual scrunched into the small room, fifteen or so. Mostly men in shabby clothes, but one was a young woman nursing a baby. Everyone but the mother held battered hymnals and sang as if attending a funeral instead of praising the Lord. The young woman swayed to the music, the baby hanging on to the teat for dear life.
Wary faces eyed my uniform as I shut the door. Leading the motley congregation from behind a crude pulpit was a bone-thin woman, her reedy voice piercing the room as her skinny arms and arthritic gnarled hands flailed the air. Mother Emma, I knew her by. She wore a dirty white robe. Her iron-gray stringy hair and emaciated face reminded me of the dirt-farmer wives who trudged past my family’s Iowa farm during the Depression.
Behind her sat the piano player I hoped was Guadalupe Nunez. He wasn’t difficult to spot considering the amount of space he occupied. His upper body blocked much of my view of the upright he was pounding. His ass spilled over the tiny round piano stool like warm bread dough over the side of a bowl. His whole body jiggled as he banged out a spiritual I didn’t recognize, his head rolling loosely around a thick ring of neck fat. The singing subsided as he shifted to a gentle version of “Deep River,” his sausage-thick fingers surprisingly light and easy on the keys.
Mother Emma stepped forward and began to preach over his music. The piano player stopped after a few more bars, rose with difficulty, and waddled into a back room. I sidled my way around the edge of the congregation, their guarded eyes tracking me.
I entered the back room without knocking. “You Guadalupe Nunez?”
The large man crushed a small spongy bed in a tiny windowless room that smelled of unwashed sheets, Musterole, piss, and a rancid odor I couldn’t quite place. He was light skinned for a Mexican, with a lumpy face, a wisp of black mustache, and a potato nose riddled with broken veins. He set aside a small St. James Bible and nodded.
“You got a cousin named Hector Diaz,” I said. “He’s not at his apartment. Where can I find him?”
Dark, half-lidded eyes swiveled behind thick folds of flesh. “Dunno. Why you lookin’?” he said in a voice that was almost feminine. He didn’t appear impressed by my uniform.
“To give him a good citizen award. He got a job someplace?”
“Hector?” he said as if I were as funny as Bob Hope.
“No idea? Family who might know? Shitbirds he hangs out with?”
He shook his head and coughed something wet and phlegmy.
“You’re aware your cousin is suspect numero uno in the murder of a cop?” I said.
The fat man shrugged, as if to say what else was new with Jailbait?
I stepped farther into the room, avoiding a slop jar with newspaper covering the top. “Someone tipped the dicks on Diaz. Boasted that he killed the cop while stealing watches from the pawnshop. That anonymous caller wouldn’t have been you, would it?”
The flesh of his cheeks wobbled as he shook his head. “Hell, no. He’s my cousin. I wouldn’t do that.”
“When did you last see him?”
He shrugged.
“Answer my questions or I’ll spread the word you’re the one who tipped off homicide.”
Panic came into his brown eyes. “A few days ago, at my mother’s over in Peter Town.”
Peter Town was a collection of shanties on the other side of the Platte river, built on land owned by some guy named Peter T. No electrical or running water, and a single outhouse. Better than a cardboard box on Larimer Street, but not much.
“Before or after the cop was murdered?” I asked.
“After.”
“He boast that he took out a cop?”
“No. Hector can be mean, but he wouldn’t do no cop.”
“Then why disappear? Word on the street is he’s running scared. Of what? Taking the big sleep in the electric chair?”
Nunez coughed again, harder this time. When he caught his breath, he said, “No, scared cops’ll kill him for murdering one of their own. Which he didn’t. Is that why you’re looking for him? To kill him?”
“I’m trying to keep him alive. Your cousin carry a big knife?”
His eyes turned away and he said nothing.
“He’s going to use one on you when he learns you gave up his name,” I said.
His eyes grew big. “Okay, okay. He carried a knife. But he didn’t kill no cop with it. He said somebody stole the knife the week before it all happened.”
“Yeah, likely story. I assume he didn’t report it stolen?”
Nunez shrugged.
Of course Diaz didn’t. Parolees aren’t allowed to carry pig stickers. “What did the knife look like?”
“Black—even the blade was black. Kind of a ringed handle thing. Mean-lookin’. Hector said it was a World War Two British commando dagger.”
The identical knife sticking out of Benedict’s chest. “Where the hell did he come up with a British commando dagger?”
“Got it years ago from an uncle in the war. Real proud of it. Kept it hidden in a black leather case.”
“Detectives talk to you?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Figures. The dicks could only find Nunez through the street, and they always lost touch with the street when they get kicked up to the bureau. Which means they weren’t aware of Hector’s knife. He would have denied owning one assuming they’d asked.
Nunez coughed more violently and reached for a five-gallon lard can sitting on a varnished nightstand next to a small white statue of Christ and the Virgin Mary. He gripped the can with both hands and coughed up gobs of dark red sticky blood.
I stepped back to the door. “You got TB?”
He coughed harder, his whole body rippling in spasms.
“You shouldn’t be playing the piano around all those people like that, friend, not with TB. You oughta be in a fuckin’ clinic.”
He caught his breath. “Mother Emma says it’s okay. Mother Emma says God’ll protect everyone and He’ll cure me.”
Mother Emma’s Holy Joe voice pierced the door. “Screw God and Mother Emma,” I said. “You’re a menace to people. Hell, you might as well go around shooting ’em with a gun.”
He tucked his head down and coughed more into the lard can.
Common sense told me to leave immediately, but I needed more answers. When he finished coughing, I said, “Your cousin ever say anything about dirty cops?”
That brought up the piano player’s head. “What dirty cops?”
“Crooked cops, cops burglarizing stores. He ever say he worked with crooked cops?”
“He tole me he fenced for some cops. Bragged it up. Said it was the safest fucking job in the world. Who better to work for than cops? I figured he was bullshitting. Hector bullshits ’bout a lot of things he don’t know nothin’ ’bout.”
“He mention names of these cops?”
Nunez shook his head.
That could explain why Diaz went to ground. Fencing for cops might be the safest illegal job in the city, but once he was made the number one suspect for killing a cop, he’d become a liability. Too big a risk he’d trade their names for a reduced murder sentence. That could get you killed.
I turned to leave, eager to escape the fat man’s deadly cough, but Nunez called after me. “Hector didn’t kill no cop,” he said with conviction. “He be in trouble since he was a kid, and he don’t follow our Lord Jesus. But he wouldn’t kill no cop. He helped me out since I got sick. He helped out my mother.”
“I’ll be sure to recommend Hector
for a presidential commendation.”
“Ask his parole officer. He wouldn’t let Hector kill nobody.”
“Who’s his PO?”
“A guy named Fitch. A real hard-ass from what Hector said. Hector always bitchin’ about the guy ’cause he was always ridin’ him, but he was ridin’ him so Hector don’t get into no trouble again. Hector wouldn’t cross the guy. Maybe he knows where you can find Hector.”
He might, but asking the PO the whereabouts of Jailbait was not something I was eager to do. Too much risk word would get to homicide that I was nosing into their case. Yet I needed to find Diaz before homicide rearrested him—or some dirty cops decided he was expandable.
“See a doctor about that fuckin’ TB, friend,” I admonished Nunez one last time, and hurried out of the tiny room and past the ear-banging Mother Emma into the wet, fresh air.
Chapter 8
Saturday afternoon I took the family car to run several errands, leaving Paula and Olivia home. The one errand I didn’t mention was a stop at a library. I picked a branch farther away than the one nearest our house and began digging through back issues of the newspapers to bone up on Professor Marcus T. Raschke. Age forty-six, Raschke had worked not only as a professor of economics, but the author of several controversial books on economics and politics. He’d served as an administrator of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, and later as a deputy administrator at the Granada War Relocation Center, commonly called Camp Amache, a World War Two Japanese-American internment camp stuck in a desolate corner of southeastern Colorado.
Raschke’s commie troubles surfaced several months ago in a national publication called Counterattack, devoted to exposing communist activity in the United States. Citing its sources as members of the “Loyal American Underground,” the publication claimed Raschke was a card-carrying member of the U.S. Communist party (Party card No. 47171 issued in 1945).