Farnsworth Score (12 page)

Farnsworth took the slip of paper from his wallet and filled in the blank lines on the back. He held it out to Lewis. “Take it, Jo-Jo, and let’s have a drink. Hell, we should have got all this straight before.”

Jo-Jo had difficulty taking his eyes off Wager; he snatched the ownership and walked stiffly to the door. “All right, fuckers. But I got ripped and I ain’t forgetting.” The eyes came back to Wager. “I ain’t forgetting you!” He slammed the door behind him. They heard the tinny clank of the van’s inside panels tossed onto the vehicle’s floor and then the angry rush of the engine as Jo-Jo ground through the gears turning around in the front yard. The engine faded away in the darkness.

Farnsworth said gently, “That van cost us two thousand dollars, honey.”

“If it’s in his name, it can’t be tied to us if he’s busted on the next trip,” she said.

Flint’s red beard gapped in a short “Haw! ’Mona, you are sharp!”

“Wowee,” breathed Bones. “For a minute there, I thought it was going to be the O.K. Corral around here. I didn’t know old Jo-Jo carried iron.”

“He don’t. It’s a hunting knife. I knew the son of a bitch was crazy, but I never thought he’d try and use it.” Baca glanced at Wager. “Do you tote a piece?”

Wager did not miss the new note of respect in Baca’s voice; machismo was the willingness to fight, or, in Baca’s case, to plant bombs in parked cars. “Everybody down home carries one.” Wager drew the stubby Bauer .25 from its holster where it rested on his kidney; the small square handle felt toylike in his palm. He preferred his larger gun, the Star .44, but that was too professional for what he was supposed to be.

“You ever use that thing?”

“Not unless somebody makes me,” he said honestly.

“Wowee,” said Bones again. “Let’s all have a drink—to good ol’ Jo-Jo!”

After the marijuana was divided and the others had gone, Farnsworth led Gabe back into the warmth of the living room. Ramona had gone to bed; Farnsworth tossed another log onto the low fire in the Franklin stove. The German shepherd blinked bloodshot eyes at the sound and flopped back sleepily in the corner behind the stove.

“I don’t like to see that heavy stuff, Gabe.”

“Sometimes there’s no choice. Sometimes it’s part of the job.”

Farnsworth filled his pipe and passed the bottle to Wager, who splashed a couple of fingers of Wild Turkey into a glass. “Well, maybe Ramona and me have been lucky so far. We haven’t had any of the heavy crap around here yet. I suppose if it comes, we’ll move on.”

And leave their mess to be cleaned up by someone else. “You must have enough money to quit. The kid’s gonna start noticing things soon.”

Farnsworth fiddled with the pipe, bobbing the yellow fire of the match up and down with his breath. “Yeah, we got some money stashed. But we could always use more. Ramona’s got it figured that in two years, the way things are going, we’ll have enough to quit and be comfortable for a long time.”

“She makes the decisions?”

“Well, she’s smart. Like giving Jo-Jo the van—I never would of thought of unloading that thing on him. Hell, if you really want to know, she’s the one who’s figured out this whole setup.” He wagged his head, the loose springs of hair bobbing. “Hell, if it wasn’t for her, I’d still be nickel-and-diming on the street. And little Pedro—he’s going to be just as sharp. You know he’s just turned five and already he’s starting to read? That little son of a gun picked it up from ‘Sesame Street.’”

“That’s something,” said Wager.

“He’s a good kid. A little more money and we’ll be able to give him a real good start.”

Paid for by people whose start was stolen by an army of users dumping shit into their blood. “That’s fine,” said Wager.

“You know, this crap should be legalized. I mean coke and pot—hell, nobody gets hooked on that. And even the other stuff, people are going to get it anyway. Look what they’re willing to pay now! It would wipe me out overnight if they legalized the shit; the bottom would fall right out of the market. But think of the money the government would save. I mean, people are going to do it anyway, you know? Like Ramona says, all we do is give people what they want, and they want it enough to pay what we charge. Just like Prohibition. Hell, I got a buddy whose old man made it big running rum during Prohibition, and when you think about it, that’s all this is. It’s the same goddam thing. You know up in Aspen no jury’ll convict a dealer? The fuzz files all their cases down in Denver because nobody up there thinks it’s a crime to be in this line of work. And it’ll be that way in the rest of the country, too: first the legalization of marijuana, then the other stuff. It’s coming because it’s what the people want. We’re just a little bit ahead of our time is all, and I hope legalization holds off just long enough for me to make my score.”

“Me, too,” said Wager.

The late-evening wind creaked the timbers of the cabin and crackled through the wooden shingles on the low roof. The flames hidden in the Franklin stove gave muffled flaps and died back. Wager sipped at the bourbon and felt again the motion build up in the room: the wind around its walls, the steady creak of the rocking chair where Farnsworth sat, the waggle of the tufts of hair. “What happened with the narc you were telling me about—Chandler?”

“What? Oh—yeah. I was telling you about that, wasn’t I? Well, he set me up. I trusted the son of a bitch and he set me up for a buy and bust.” Again the shake of the head. “He even fooled Ramona—she thought he was O.K.”

“What happened at the bust?”

“Now there’s a question.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, we went with the deal and then the buyer—Rietman was his name—blew the whistle, and the next thing I know I’m asshole-to-asshole with a big forty-four, and my old buddy Chandler’s saying, ‘Surprise, I’m a narc.’”

“But the bust didn’t stick?”

“No, and that’s what I can’t figure”—Farnsworth aimed the pipe stem at Gabe—“because there I am in the cage thinking, Shit, I just blew five years, and wondering what little Pedro would look like in 1980, when my lawyer comes in to tell me there’s no case. He says the stuff I sold them was lactose.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Hell, no, it wasn’t! Man, I lost almost forty thousand dollars’ worth of coke on that deal, and all I could do was smile at that lawyer and say, ‘How about that?’”

All the motion in the room froze and Wager felt himself freezing with it. “You sold Rietman the real thing?”

“Yeah, I did—I’m an honest dealer, man. You know what I bet?”

Wager knew. He knew exactly what Farnsworth bet, because he bet the same thing. But he made himself say, “What?”

“I bet either Chandler or Rietman or both of them switched it. I bet those sons of bitches just picked up that brick and rode off into the sunset with it. You and me, we’re just giving the people what they want; but those sons of bitches are cheats, man! They just ain’t honest!”

I
T WAS ONE
of those late-autumn periods along the Front Range when clouds settled in for long, drizzly days. Above eight thousand feet, the mountains were getting a wet snow that would pack solidly for the winter; in Denver it rained steadily—not heavy, not light, just steady. Wager listened to the faint crackle of drops on the wide lip of the balcony outside his apartment. Down below, the normally busy street held a Sunday stillness. On this kind of wet and muffled afternoon, he wished for a fireplace or wished that Lorraine … He turned from the rain-speckled glass of the balcony door and clicked on the television; the excited voice of a football announcer faded into the glare of cheering voices as someone scored a Sunday-afternoon touchdown somewhere. Wager left the noise on and went into the kitchen to heat the skillet. Ed Johnston would be watching the game. He’d have to talk to Ed Johnston. And then to Sonnenberg. Best to wait until the game was over before calling. He cracked a couple of eggs onto the hot iron skillet and scraped a patty of hash browns from the half of potato wrapped in tinfoil and still generally fresh. A spoon or two of green chili as the eggs came off; toast, the pot of coffee that never tasted exactly right until it had chilled and been reheated. And the rain. His wife—ex-wife—had liked the rain: walking in it, listening to it; the dampness made her skin feel soft, she said. She had liked fireplaces, too. She did not like a cop’s hours. But he had been a cop in the uniformed division when she married him, and there hadn’t been any Sunday mornings at all then; Saturday night was always one long hassle, and the paperwork was never finished until well into Sunday. “I don’t mind,” she said at first; but she did mind, and pretty soon she couldn’t hide it any more.

But before they were married, he had told her what a cop’s life would be like.

Well, tried to. Maybe he hadn’t told her enough. Maybe way down deep he had thought that she would get used to it and then he could have both. Maybe with himself and her, he had only been playing games. He knew for a fact he had not told her enough about the new O.C.D. job. But she had been so pretty—she still was. And there had been times when they both forgot he was a cop. A few times; and then fewer. And then none at all. And in these quiet, inward-gazing times, he could see through the surprise and shock of Lorraine’s leaving to know that there were no games left to play.

He shoved his toast through the last of the chili and eggs and rinsed the dishes, then stood gazing once more through the rain-splattered balcony doors at the grayness that masked the mountains west of the city. A wet autumn promising lots of snow, bringing lots of run-off in the spring, and with it poor fishing until late in the season. Not that it made any difference to him any more; despite all the leave he had built up over the last three or four years, he knew he wouldn’t take it. The mountains held quiet spells like this one, times that trapped him with echoes and memories, times when his mind kept jumping from one painful thing to another. It was better not to take leave. Better to be able to sleep through these Sundays. Best of all if he didn’t have to call Johnston.

He waited until the game ended and the sports announcer was explaining the holes in the Bronco pass defense to another sports expert, who kept saying, “Yes, Don, but you have to give credit to …” He turned it off and telephoned Johnston.

“Hello?” Behind the sergeant’s voice, he heard, “Yes, Don, and you have to give credit to …”

“This is Gabe, Ed.”

“What’s the problem?” There had to be a problem; Wager never called him at home unless there was one.

“It’s the Rietman bust. Last night Farnsworth told me he sold Rietman the real stuff.”

In the background, the sports expert had begun to tell Don about next week’s match against Oakland. “Jesus Christ.”

Wager waited.

“Jesus goddamn Christ!”

“I guess you want a report in writing?”

“Yes—no! Have you told anybody else? S.I.B?”

“Hell, no.”

“O.K., Gabe—don’t get pissed. Just let me think a minute.”

He knew what the results of Ed’s thought would be.

“I better call the inspector. I’ll get back to you. You at home?”

“Yes.”

The gray became darker. Wager left the lights off and sat and read through his small notebook until it became too dim to see. At some point, evening slid into night before the telephone rang again. It was Sonnenberg himself. “Can you come down to the office, Gabe?”

“Yes, sir.”

He lived closer than either Ed or the inspector; only the stairway light and the duty watch’s room glowed from the windows in the painted brick wall that faced the O.C.D. parking lot. He sat at his desk and waited. In a little while, the door warning rattled loudly and Wager recognized the inspector’s steady stride thumping the bare wooden floor.

“Let’s wait in my office. Ed will be here in a few minutes.”

Sonnenberg was in the middle of his ritual of lighting a cigar when the door buzzed again and Ed’s hurrying footsteps echoed through the empty desks and partitions. The duty watch finally roused and poked his head around a corner to see who was making all the commotion. “Oh, hi, Sergeant Johnston.”

“Evening, Tom.”

Ed rapped at the doorframe and came in, closing the door after him.

“So Farnsworth claims he sold cocaine and not lactose,” said Sonnenberg as soon as the sergeant sat down.

“Yes, sir.”

“Could he be leading you on?”

“I don’t think so. I hope not. If he was, it means he thinks I’m a narc or a snitch. I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”

“Maybe he was just drawing the long bow.”

Wager blinked; he hadn’t heard that phrase in years. Every now and then, Sonnenberg came up with something like that. “He didn’t seem to be, sir.”

Johnston—rocking first on one ham, then on the other as the wooden captain’s chair grew harder against his thin body—asked Wager, “Any chance of his trying to frame Rietman and Chandler for revenge, maybe?”

“Only if he thinks I’m a narc or a snitch. Only if he thinks I’ll carry his story to authorities, Ed.”

“Oh, yeah. You said.”

“Possibly he’s just testing you with a false story?” asked Sonnenberg.

“That could be.” But Wager didn’t think so. Farnsworth’s surprise and wry humor seemed genuine. “He’d sure know where the story came from if word ever got out about Rietman.”

One, two, three heavy yellow smoke rings bounced gently off the green blotter on Sonnenberg’s desk and drew into a quivering column over the desk lamp. “Yes,” said the inspector slowly, “yes, he would know for certain. And we don’t know for certain that Rietman was alone in this. We don’t know if he’s working with someone else in this unit or in D.P.D.”

“Jesus,” said Johnston, “if the guys in the department start looking out of the corners of their eyes at each other, we might as well hang up our jocks.”

One more smoke ring. “And we’ve invested an awful lot of time and money on Farnsworth. Too much to risk it now. All right, what we do is this: we sit on the Rietman thing until we nail Farnsworth. We don’t move on Rietman at all.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe it was Chandler,” said Johnston. “Maybe I should check with D.E.A. and see what’s in Chandler’s history.”