Farnsworth Score (2 page)

“Too goddam bad Farnsworth doesn’t have to buy American-made cocaine. Make it a little Chevy pickup. A used one and nothing fancy on it.” He thought a minute or two. “No radio jack; Denver plates. And put a rifle rack across the rear window.”

“I’ll get the garage on it now.”

He gazed at the skeleton of his new identity lying on the spread wings of the folder. He would be issued a driver’s license in Villanueva’s name, a new Social Security card, Villaneuva’s vehicle registration. On paper, it would be as complete as possible. But still the burden of fleshing out that skeleton weighed on him. Clothes. He’d have to get something convincing there, too. “What about contacts in Boulder? Who do I work with up there?”

“The inspector’s making those arrangements. It’ll be somebody in the sheriff’s office.”

“O.K.” He bent the stiff folder closed. “Let me think things over. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

He sat at his desk and poured another cup of coffee from the tan thermos pitcher whose insides had gradually stained darker than the outer shell. And made the coffee taste stained, too. The folder, open again, gazed back at him; he let his mind pick here and there at the little pieces of flesh that would be molded into Gabriel Villanueva: dealer on the make, ex-Texas ranch hand, ex-plasterer, ex-husband; ex-cop, too, but that had to be buried very, very deep. He closed his eyes and pictured Villanueva, his clothes, his words, his manners. It was like pulling on a sweater that was too small, one that fit here and there but all too often caught at his freedom of motion and reminded him how tightly it bound. But it was he, and not the sweater, that had to adjust. It took a young excitement and eagerness to make that adjustment—eagerness, excitement, and youth that he no longer felt.

Suzy called to him, her hand across the telephone’s mouthpiece: “Are you in? It’s Agent Billington from D.E.A. He said you were expecting his call.”

“Yes.” He picked up his extension. “What do you have, Billy?”

“A half-inch pile of reports. Do you want me to send them over, or do you want to pick them up?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Billy was at his desk, a large figure sloping over the littered surface, lank blond hair dangling down to the coat collar that hitched up the back of his neck. He looked around as Wager came in.

“Hey, you tamale-rolling son of a bitch! Long time!”

“Up yours, too, gringo.” Wager pumped his hand. It had been a long time.

“Here.” Billy handed him a wad of legal-sized Xerox sheets. One group was labeled “
SURVEILLANCE
,” the other “
SPECIAL AGENTS REPORTS
.” “You want some lunch? You got time for that beer?”

“You’re buying.”

The state legislature was still in session; every restaurant around Capitol Hill would be jammed—the clerks and secretaries in the cheaper ones, lawmakers and lobbyists in the more expensive ones. “I know a great little Mexican place out on East Colfax. You like Mexican food?”

“You’ve never had any real Mexican food, white-eye.”

“Wait’ll you taste this chili pecosa, you phony wetback.”

Billington drove; Wager studied the stack of s.a. reports. When they were seated at the small teetering table with its checkered oilcloth cover, Billington finally broke the silence. “Is Sonnenberg going after Farnsworth?”

“He is.”

He poured a Coors. “Where do you fit?”

Wager couldn’t help another sigh. “He wants me to make the contacts.”

Billy whistled slightly. “You’ve been in the O.C.D. a long time. You’re pretty well known.”

Wager’s shoulders bobbed. “Sonnenberg wants a solid case on him.”

“Yeah, I see his point. Still.” Billy sucked at the head on the beer. “Gabe, I’d be scared shitless if it was me. They ought to bring in a young guy, somebody from outside.”

“That costs money. And I’m not a desk sergeant; it’s part of the job.”

“Still …” Then he, too, shrugged and buried what he was going to say in a mouthful of smoking rice. Wager could see Billy’s thought: Gabe had been around; Gabe would know whether he could handle it or not; it was Gabe’s business and nobody else’s. Wager still liked the way his ex-partner thought.

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.”