Endangered Species (26 page)

Max leaned forward. “If you don’t, you might not have a barrio.”

“What’s that mean?”

Wager told him, and the young man’s black eyes widened until they were ringed with white. Wager added, “The Tapatíos are looking too.”

“Those
cagadillos?
They in this?”

“We’re all in it,” said Max.

“Shit, man, those fuckers can’t find their asses with both hands! Why you want to ask them?”

“Because I got to find these two. Fast. You think the Gallos can find them before Tapatíos do?”

“Aw, man …! That’s our turf—we know those streets, man. We own them!”

“So show me,” said Wager.

The plan was for Wager and Max to be in position before Roy made the call to Sol Atilano. They told Roy what time to dial and exactly what to say and how to say it—“Remember, you’re excited, Roy. You just heard from your
compadre
. You can’t wait to get the word to Sol”—then they drove across west Denver to the address Arnie Trujillo had given them.

It was in the Westwood neighborhood, where the diagonal artery of Morrison Road cut through the grid of north-south streets and made intersections of odd-size triangles. Jouncing across the dips that served as both rain gutters and speed bumps, they raced through residential streets until they neared Dakota.

“Should be the next block,” warned Max.

Wager slowed and turned onto Osceola at the beginning of the block. He pulled to the curb near the intersection. The two men got out and crossed the quiet street to the south side of Dakota, eyeing the homes that sat back behind shallow lawns. Most of the boxy structures were one-story and sheathed in that kind of Masonite siding that was used so much in the fifties.

“There it is. Arnie said it has blue shutters.”

It was almost halfway down the block, and they walked past casually in the failing light of dusk. From behind a pulled blind, a single window showed the dim glow of a lamp and the irregular colored flickers of a television.

“Somebody’s inside,” said Wager.

“Yeah.” Max glanced at his watch. “Seven-ten. Roy should call in five minutes.”

Wager nodded, and they turned at the corner of Perry. The weedy gravel of an alley, marked by telephone poles, garbage cans, and garage doors, ran between a variety of backyard fences. “I’ll take the back. Click me when you’re set to go.”

“Will do.”

Max turned back up Dakota; Wager headed down the alley.

He’d counted the houses and, at the eighth, gingerly lifted the rusty latch that fastened the yard’s gate. Despite Arnie’s assurance, Wager waited for the frantic rush and snarl of a dog, but the only barking came from across the lane and down a couple of garages—something big and nervous and excited to hear a stranger’s footsteps in the gravel. The back of the house, too, had blue shutters; but the windows on this side were dark, and it was hard to tell if anyone was looking out into the unkempt backyard, where a clothesline sagged between metal poles and a large ash tree made the gloom darker. A pitted and narrow strip of old sidewalk ran from the gate and through the browning spikes of an iris bed; it touched the door of the garage and then angled to the porch stairs. The porch was a screened addition tacked on a long time ago and beginning to sag now. The rusty screen blocked any view of the house’s back door. Wager’s watch told him that Roy would be dialing any second, and Wager tried to spot a place where he could crouch out of sight. The radio pack on his belt clicked three times; Max was ready. The only place in the yard itself was behind the tree, and he sprinted to it, pistol drawn, and answered with two jabs on the transmit button.

The barking dog down the alley had finally quieted, and in the silence Wager heard a telephone bell jangle inside the house. It rang once, twice. The third ring was broken as someone picked up the receiver. Then more silence. Then, down the strip of yard leading around the side of the house, came the loud rap of heavy knuckles on the front door.

The thud of heels pounded somewhere inside, and a moment later Wager heard the back door rattle. The porch’s screen door slapped open, and a dim figure sprinted down the steps two at a time: their little ruse had worked. The man cut across the yard toward the back gate, a figure about Wager’s size, his head tucked low as if he was trying to hide even while he ran. Both hands seemed to be empty of weapons, but in the dim light it was hard to tell, and the man’s dark jacket covered the waistband of his pants.

Wager leaned out from the tree, arm level and Star PD tracking the running figure. “Hold it, Flaco—Denver police—you’re under arrest!”

Shocked eyes and mouth made dark circles in a blur of pale flesh as Flaco’s head jerked toward Wager. But the man didn’t stop. He didn’t slow. Instead, his legs stretched longer and he hunkered even lower. An arm disappeared inside the dark coat, and then the shape became dim in the dusk. Wager called once more, and the answer was an explosion and the hot flash of a weapon as the blurry figure sprinted for the gate and started to roll over it. Wager squeezed off a round, the flash of his own weapon blinding him, then a second round, lower, at the vague shadow of movement near the ground. The dog down the alley was barking again, frantically now, joined by animals in the surrounding blocks, and Wager’s ears rang with the smack of his own pistol and the even louder report of Flaco’s weapon. Blinking the glare from his eyes, he peeked around the tree trunk and saw a jerking tangle of darkness collapsed at the base of the fence.

“Throw the weapon over here, Flaco! Throw it out where I can see it!”

“Goddamn!” The word was a grunting cough, scarcely audible.

“Gabe—you OK?” Max’s voice called from two places: behind the corner of the house and through Wager’s holstered radio pack. “Where’s Flaco?”

“He’s down. Stay there. He’s still got a weapon.”

“You hit?” The voice came quieter now and solely through the radio, and Wager could see the dark line of a pistol barrel angled up against the pale corner of the house.

Wager, too, used the radio. “No, but he is. I don’t know how bad.” He called again to the grunting man. “Throw it out, Flaco—the pistol. Throw it where I can see it.”

“Goddamn ….”

“You’re going to bleed to death, you dumb son of a bitch. Throw it out!”

Lights flicked on in neighboring houses and made the dusk turn to black, and now Wager could see nothing of the crumpled figure against the dark ground.

“Max—go back to the car and get a flashlight.”

“Will do. You stay put, partner.”

He did, listening to the rhythmic grunts from the dark. The dogs kept up their mindless yapping, and from the distance came the first wail of a siren. Patrols out of District Four, Wager guessed, cutting through the evening traffic as they came from the station at Federal and West Florida. He switched his radio to the district channel and called his code number. The dispatcher answered immediately, her voice calm, almost bored: “Go ahead.”

“Suspect down on an arrest. Need an ambulance.” Wager gave her the street number and added, “Come down the alley, but do not approach until I give permission. Suspect is still armed.”

“Shots were fired?”

“That’s affirmative.” And it meant the department shooting investigation team would be coming to survey the scene and then interview Wager and Max. In his mind’s eye he could see the official forms and reports beginning to stack up mountain high. You fired a round in one second, and then you spent the next week explaining why you did it. Damn Flaco anyway.

“Do you need backup, sir?”

“Just whoever’s in the neighborhood.”

Another voice eagerly broke into the net with its call numbers. “I’ll take it—I’m about five blocks away.”

“Right,” said Wager. “Come into the backyard from the street side of the house.”

Another voice broke in without identifying itself: “Gabe, did you get him?”

It sounded like Sergeant Davis, but all Wager said was: “He’s down. I don’t know how bad. He still has his weapon.”

A second unidentified voice said happily, “All right—that’s one for us! Let the fucker bleed to death!”

“Keep the net clear, people,” said Wager. But he could understand the savage joy that came when a fellow cop nailed one of the bastards who’d tried to shoot a policeman. It was a joy intensified by the lingering soreness of the sniper attack behind the Blue Moon Bar. And with that thought, Wager remembered to pull his badge from its case and clip it to the vest pocket of his dark sport coat. Regulations said he should wear the badge conspicuously whenever an arrest was to be made. And of course he would tell the shooting investigation team that the badge had been dangling there the whole time, like a shiny target over his heart.

“Flaco—an ambulance is on the way. Throw the pistol out!”

Feet pounded the earth behind Wager, and a moment later, Max’s huge shadow loomed through the dark and his voice whispered hoarsely, “He still there?”

“Yeah. Keep behind the tree, Max.” Wager held the long flashlight an arm’s length away from his body and aimed the bright beam toward sounds whose rhythm had become shorter and more intense. In the circle of white light, Martínez lay half on his side, legs tangled beneath him and an arm twisted under his torso. The tangled black hair of his head jerked a time or two as the light played over him. His other arm, hand spread wide to show it was empty, wagged in the glare.

“Keep the light on him,” said Max. He swung in a wide arc through the darkness toward the man.

Wager aimed the silhouette of his pistol’s sights against the figure. From somewhere behind them in the house, a woman’s voice called out, “Is he dead? Officer—is he dead?” A siren shrilled loudly and then began to die to a growl as the squeal of tires sounded from the street in front.

Max’s voice spoke from the blackness surrounding the flashlight glare. “Put your other hand out, Flaco. Let’s see it.”

“Goddamn—I can’t. I can’t move it.”

“Roll over, then.”

“I can’t, man!” It sounded to Wager as if Flaco was crying now. “I can’t—it hurts like shit, man!”

Max’s figure came into the edge of the light, crouched, intent on the man on the ground. One large hand made his cocked pistol look like a toy, the other reached for the grunting man’s hidden arm. “Don’t move, Flaco. Not one fucking move, or you’re buzzard meat.” A moment later, Max stood and stepped back, the glint of something in his other hand. “I got it, Gabe.”

Wager sighed, surprised to become aware he had been holding his breath. Behind him, he heard another sigh. A uniformed officer added his flashlight to the scene and half-laughed. “Jesus. I think I’d’ve pumped another round into him before I tried that!”

Wager was right about the paperwork. A formal hearing would be held in a few days, and there were forms to fill out immediately, diagrams to draw, indicating where each round went, statements of justification to be worded in the safest way. He sat at his desk in the deserted homicide office and half-heard the scratch of his ballpoint pen and the distant squawk of a television down by the duty clerk’s desk. Flaco’s weapon, a chrome-plated .45, was upstairs in the ballistics laboratory, waiting for proof of recent firing. Then they would test a slug against the one found in Ray Moralez. Wager put money on its being the same pistol—it wasn’t a Saturday-night throwaway but a trophy weapon, something shiny and impressive, to wave around in front of people and brag about. It was also a pistol that fired a bullet a hell of a lot heavier than that allowed the Denver police. They were authorized to use .38 caliber or 9-mm bullets no heavier than 147 grains; the bad guys, of course, could use .45’s or magnum loads or even bazookas if they had them. When bazookas were licensed, only the criminals would have bazookas. Public safety versus firepower was an unending argument—you wanted a bullet that wouldn’t go through a wall or a perp and hit an innocent bystander, but you also wanted one that would do the job with a single round. Just last week, an officer trying to serve a no-knock warrant had to use six bullets to stop a Doberman. Six, just for a damned dog; they had been the official size. Wager rubbed his eyes and stretched back against the creak of his chair before turning to the next section of this form: Describe Options Other Than Confrontation Available to Officer at the Time.

Flaco had still been alive when the ambulance carried him away to Denver General. One of the uniformed officers had gone inside the house to take a long statement from Arnie’s cousin. The other man had interviewed the neighbors to record what they heard and saw. The duty homicide officer had arrived, called out by the shooting; it was Ross, and Wager heard him tell Max that if he and Wager were members of the police union, the union’s lawyer would be out here right now, setting up their defense. Max had said he would think about joining; Wager hadn’t bothered saying anything.

“Well, partner, got that finished up?” Max, drained of energy, came in with a clutch of papers in one hand and a tepid cup of coffee in the other.

Wager thought about noting, under “Options,” Use of Sweet Reason, but instead wrote “None,” signed the last page, and clamped the pile of sheets together with a spring clip. He, too, had felt the adrenaline ebb from his body and mind as the tension of the shooting faded and the routine of paperwork replaced it. “Why don’t you call it a day? Francine must think you’ve started another shift.”

“I phoned her a while ago—she knows where I am. What about you?”

Wager dug the heels of his hands into the dry and crinkly flesh of tired eyes. Elizabeth wasn’t home, but Wager had left a message on her telephone answerer, saying he was hung up on a case. “I thought I’d cruise the barrio. Flash some pictures of King and Simon, see what Arnie and Ray have come up with.”

Max nodded. “That’s what I told Francine we’d be doing. I told her I owed you.”

9/25

2244

A
FTERWARD, THEY’D ARGUE
over who got the credit for coming up with the idea. Wager guessed they’d both thought of it at the same time, and probably for the same reasons: the need for comic relief from the Flaco bust, the lack of luck with King and Simon, the chance to get around the bureaucratic rules that let Floyd attack cops. What they would later both agree on was that the results were a hell of a lot more spectacular than either of them expected.