Endangered Species (25 page)

Wager’s mind was on a vision of Rocky Flats, and at first he didn’t hear Max’s comment. “What?”

“Rosener. He’s making it OK.”

“That’s good—fine.” It had been a while since Wager had thought of Floyd or the Blue Moon, and the rage he’d felt earlier at the shooting of two officers was now just a cold disgust and a settled understanding that something would be done.

Max tried again. “Are you getting close to your suspect?”

The elevator doors opened to the chill, exhaust-tainted air of the underground garage, and Wager followed his partner to the car. “Not as close as I’d like to. There’s a chance he might be holed up somewhere in District One.”

“You put out a notice to the patrol division?”

“Yes.” But if King and Simon were there, they wouldn’t be walking the streets. They’d go out only when necessary, probably at night, and—to judge from the lack of reports on King’s car—probably on foot. MVD had listed a Chevrolet Blazer belonging to Simon, but in the few hours since Wager had put out an alert, no one had spotted that vehicle, either.

Max grunted. “If he’s around, he’ll turn up sooner or later.”

Sooner, Wager thought. It better be sooner.

The address where Arnie wanted to meet them turned out to be one of the dumpy little bars scattered around the industrial and trucking area of Denver’s north edge. A grimy cloth sign was tacked on the blank outside wall under a row of high, cramped windows:
FRESH MENUDO EVERY NOON
. Wager had passed the small, warehouse-like building dozens of times but never stopped. Never wanted to, either, and, from what he saw as they entered the dark and stale-smelling place, was glad he hadn’t. Old-fashioned wooden booths lined one wall, and a long bar lined the other. The bartender looked up, toothpick at the corner of his mouth, and nodded hello, then went back to his paper. A vacant pool table filled the space in the center of the room, but no one was playing. Not many were drinking, either. Two men wearing denim jackets and perched on barstools stopped talking to each other and looked up suspiciously; the first five booths were empty, and the last held only Arnie. He nodded and sucked at a glass of beer as Wager sat beside him. Max filled the facing bench. The heavy bartender, breathing loudly through half-open and thick lips, folded the paper and came over to take their orders.

“Beer,” said Wager. Max nodded.

“Bottle or glass?”

Bottles were safer than glasses. A few minutes later, the man thumped down a pair of Coors and collected his money. Arnie sat silent until all the preliminaries were over. The two men in denim began talking again, head-to-head, in a low murmur.

“All right, Arnie. What do you have?”

“I got a line on Flaco, but this person who tipped me, they can’t get, you know, involved when you people pick him up.”

“No problem,” said Max. “We don’t have to tell him who tipped us.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t that easy. What I hear is, Flaco’s living in this person’s house who didn’t know anything about him. Took him in, you know? Do the
cabrón
a favor. Now this person can’t get rid of him. He don’t go nowhere. People want to see him, they come there. Flaco’s
compadre
, this Sol Atilano, he takes them there. They talk, then they leave. But Flaco don’t come outside.”

Max nodded. “That explains why we haven’t had a sighting of him.”

And the information fit what they’d learned from Roy Quintana. “But this person’s willing to have us pick up Flaco?” Wager asked.

“Only if she don’t get in trouble—not with the police, with Flaco. He’s
un tipo
, you know?
Loco
. She’s afraid if he finds out, he’ll do something to her to get even. And she’s afraid the cops’ll bust her for taking the fucker in.”

“Does she know anything about Ray Moralez getting shot?”

Arnie shook his head. “No. Nothing about none of it.” He hunched lower over his glass and glanced at the two men sitting at the bar. “Look, she’s one of my cousins, you know? Second cousin or third cousin, but still
familia
, you know?”

“Your cousin? And she’s shacked up with a Gallo?”

“Hey, I told you she don’t know shit about the gangs. This
pendejo
Flaco, he give her some line of shit about hiding from
la migra
—tells her he’s
un espalda mojada
, you know?”

Wager knew: a wetback. Most of the Chicano community saw no crime in sheltering illegals. In fact, many of the illegals were relatives of one kind or another and had claim to family hospitality and protection. “So what happened?”

“
Carajo!
First couple days he’s smooth, you know? Polite. Then he starts getting mean—wants this, wants that. My cousin tells him to get the fuck out, and he shoves a gun under her nose. Tells her she does what he says or he blows her away, man.
Un chiflado
, man.”

Max caught Wager’s eye. “Think it’s the same pistol he used on Ray?”

“I don’t know, man. She don’t, neither.” Arnie’s head wagged in disgust. “She called her mother late last night—whispering, you know? Scared the shit out of her, so her mother called mine. Thinks maybe I can do something. But fuck, man, I can’t figure how to get in that place without a lot of shooting!”

“When was this?”

“This afternoon.
Mi madre
called me at work.”

It could be the same weapon. Flaco seemed dumb enough and arrogant enough not to get rid of the murder weapon. If they could get the man and the gun, they might have a good case. Wager asked, “You think he’d use her as a hostage?”

Arnie’s frown clenched dark eyebrows above a nose that had been flattened at one time or another. “Yeah. Crazy fucker’d do something like that. Especially he finds out she got a cousin who’s a Tapatío. Hell, he might waste her just for that!”

“What’s the house like?”

He described his cousin’s home and said no, she didn’t have a dog.

“All right. Give us the address. We’ll work it out so Flaco won’t know how we got to him.”

The man pushed a slip of paper across the table. It held a street address on the city’s west side, in an area Wager wasn’t too familiar with. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of photographs and shoved them across the table toward Trujillo. “We’re looking for these people too—they might be over in Sunnyside or Chaffee Park. Maybe Zuni Park.”

Trujillo glanced at the pictures and shrugged as he flicked them back with his fingertips. “I don’t know them.”

“I know you don’t know them, Arnie. I want you to look for them.”

“Come on, man—I’m no goddamn snitch. I give you Flaco, OK—that’s one thing. But don’t make me into no goddamn snitch!”

“And don’t give me shit, Arnie. You want Flaco out of your cousin’s house and you don’t want to do it yourself. That’s why you dropped the dime. Fine, we’ll get him. But these people are important too. What you do is get the word out to all the Tapatíos, tell them to look everywhere. Ask everybody in the barrio if they’ve seen these people.” He turned the photographs over to show some writing. “Or these license plates. I want them, and I want them yesterday.”

Trujillo looked up from the numbers to study Wager. “What they do?”

“They’re homicide suspects.”

Trujillo’s shoulders rose and dropped. “They didn’t kill nobody I know.” He shook his head. “It ain’t worth the rap, man. I mean, I want you to help my cousin and all, but like you keep reminding me, I got a daughter now. I don’t want her to be no snitch’s orphan.”

Wager nodded. “There’s something else, Arnie, and I’m thinking of your daughter. Yours and everybody else’s.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know Rocky Flats?”

“That atomic bomb plant up north?”

Wager had been thinking of that circled date on Simon’s calendar, and of some way to get help without tipping the fugitives. “These people—and don’t go yelling this around, Arnie—these people might try to blow it up.”

Max stopped swallowing his beer. “Holy shit!”

And Trujillo stared at Wager, jaw loose.

“If they do, it’ll take half of Denver with it,” said Wager.

His eyes rounded. “No shit, man?”

“No shit, Arnie.” Wager smiled. “Your cousin won’t have to worry about getting rid of Flaco if that happens. And if your daughter does grow up, she might have two-headed babies.”

Slowly, the man’s tattooed hand reached out for the photographs. He studied them. “These guys Anglos?”

“Yeah. This one made a call to a pay phone near Thirty-eighth and Pecos a few days ago. We think he was calling this one. That’s the last we heard of them.”

“Jesus. What they want to blow up the atomic bomb plant for? What kind of crazy fucks are they?”

Wager couldn’t answer either question. “We need to find them as soon as possible, Arnie. We need them now.”

The man rubbed a chipped and grimy thumbnail in the sparse hairs of his black mustache. “Tell you what, man—some of those
babosos
in the gang, they wouldn’t give a shit if Rocky Flats did blow up. Just be a big show for them, you know?”

“What are you telling me, Arnie?”

A shrug. “Vickie Salazar’s been shooting off her mouth about the Tapatíos not doing nothing about Ray Moralez.”

“You mean we’ve got to get Flaco before they’ll look for these guys?”

Another shrug. “
Peor es nada
. Flaco’s big on their mind. If I can bring them some good news about that
cagón
, they’ll feel better about looking for these
locos
. They’ll, you know, owe us, man.”

“All right. Tell them we’ll get Flaco tonight, Arnie. And you tell the Tapatíos we need these people tonight too.”

“Yeah. OK.” He drained his beer and started to stand. “And my cousin?”

It was Wager’s turn to shrug. “All we want is Flaco.”

“Can I have these pictures?”

9/25

1742

M
AX DROVE, BUT
his mind wasn’t on the rush hour traffic that clogged the bumpy, truck-damaged streets. “Gabe, that Rocky Flats story … I mean, that’s all it was, right? A story to get Arnie’s cooperation?”

Wager glanced at his partner. “You think I’d lie about something like that?”

Max chewed on his lower lip. “You mean it’s true?”

“It’s true.”

“But there’s no way … That place is like a fort. Nobody could get into it!”

“You know it and I know it. That doesn’t mean they know it.”

“Yeah.” Then, “The people who ought to hear about it have been told, right?”

“The FBI’s on it.”

Max whistled a brief little tune. “Why don’t I feel overjoyed at that news?”

“There’s not much I can do except go after King, Max. The FBI knows, Rocky Flats security knows. They’ve been alerted.”

“Yeah. I hear what you’re saying. But it’s our asses too—we live here. Us, our families. …”

So did Arnie and the Gallos and the Tapatíos. All the names and faces Wager had run across in the last couple of days. All going about their business, with no idea how fast the clock was running. Even Flaco and Floyd the bartender, though Wager didn’t think they would be missed by anyone.

They rode for a while in silence, the magnitude of what could happen capturing both their minds. Finally, Max said, “We better go after this King, Gabe. To hell with Flaco. I mean, we should have the whole damn department going door-to-door for King!”

“If they did, it’d probably start a goddamn panic.”

“But you just told Arnie about it—and he’s going to pass the word to all the Tapatíos!”

“But they’re not going to talk about it all over the city, Max. And even when the word does get around, it’ll just be a rumor, a whisper. If we came in knocking on doors, it would be official, and Christ only knows what would happen.” He added, “Besides, if King and Simon are in the area, we could scare them off or push them into doing it sooner. But a bunch of street punks wandering up and down don’t mean a thing to them.”

Max thought it over. “Yeah—I guess that makes sense. About as much as anything else anyway.” He added, “Some of that district is Gallos turf. Maybe that’s another thing we should talk to Roy Quintana about.”

Wager agreed. “Let’s see if maybe the scum bags can do something useful for a change.”

Roy Quintana wasn’t happy to open his door to them. He wore the same muscle shirt, and the same sharp odor of unwashed body filled the small apartment. The hot plate had been moved from the windowsill to the stained coffee table in front of the television, and a can of chili, lid tilted back for a handle, sat warming on it.

“You a pretty good cook, Roy?”

The youth stirred the can with a plastic spoon. “Why—you hungry?”

Wager grinned. “Not anymore. Eat up—we got things to do.”

“What things?”

“Things like picking up Flaco.”

He licked the spoon and pointed it at Max. “This one, he told me you couldn’t get no tap planted on Sol’s telephone, and I sure ain’t going to let you follow me to wherever the hell Flaco’s holed up. Fucker’d kill me quicker’n he’d kill you.”

“We know where he is.”

The black eyes stared at Wager. “Then you don’t need me!”

“Yeah, we do. We need Sol for one thing, and we need you for something else.”

The spoon paused in its scraping. “Like what?”

Wager told him what they had in mind for Flaco.

“You want me to call Sol and tell him you people know where Flaco is?”

“Tell him we’re on our way to pick Flaco up. Tell Sol one of your
compadres
heard some people talking while he was being booked down at Cherokee Street. Tell him this
compadre
made his one phone call to you, and you’re doing Flaco a favor.”

Roy scratched his tattooed shoulder and studied the problem from all sides. “I guess I can do that. I don’t see how Flaco could blame me for telling Sol you people are coming after him. I mean, man, that’s what you’ll be doing, right?”

“You got it,” said Max.

Wager took copies of the two photographs from his jacket pocket. “Here’s what else you do.” He told Quintana he wanted the Gallos to look for Simon and King.

The youth gazed at the photographs. “Yeah,
por supuesto
—we can find them if they’re around the barrio. But why should we, man?”