Farnsworth Score (14 page)

“What Louis? There’s three or four Louises around. Paddy-O’s a dude come in six, eight months ago. He’s small shit. He ain’t handling nothing but a little grass. He’s one of these guys that thinks he’s bigger than he is, you know?”

“I know.”

“Ritchie—I know a couple Ritchies, too, but none tied in with coke.”

“Do you have phone numbers for your Louises or Ritchies?”

“Yeah, a couple. You want them? Hang on.”

Doc’s voice came back, “Here’s the Louises: 394-7198, 727-6365. Ritchie’s is 355-3735.”

“That second one, what Louis is that?”

“That’s Louis Sloane. But he ain’t much of nothing, neither.”

Sloane, Louis. Wager now remembered the small-time hustler: white male, mid-thirties, a little dope, a stable of a couple of whores, a habit to support. “No sudden spending? No wheeling around?”

“Sloane? Shit, no! He’s hustling anything he can get a line on, and he’s so goddam hungry it’s even funny to watch him boogie. Naw, he ain’t into anything big. Hell, he uses almost everything he gets. That’s why he can’t get ahead.”

“One more thing, Doc.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Don’t tell anyone I’ve been asking. Keep it just between you and me.”

“Not even Hansen?”

“No one.”

“That sounds like something heavy going down.”

“It could be. If you hear anything about coke in the last four months, give me a call at the O.C.D. It’s a lot of coke—if you’re in on it, you can make yourself a bundle. But it’s got to be with me only.”

“Hey, baby, cool, and I hear you.”

Wager tried several more numbers from the little book of informants’ coded addresses. The answers were the same: there was more cocaine around, but none of the C.I.s knew anyone who had recently unloaded a large quantity of it. A mysterious dealer may be handling it—this Mr. Taco—but the C.I.s did not know much more about him than the name.

Wager sat at his desk in silence and stared across the shallow bowl of the city toward the distant ranges of peaks. Apparently, Rietman hadn’t sold off the stuff in big lots. And he had not made any trips, either. And he wasn’t spending. Neither were his snitches—though Wager would like to see for himself just to be sure. The cocaine that was on the street didn’t seem to come from him. So it must be stashed somewhere, Rietman just forgetting about it until it was absolutely safe to bring it out. And why not? It was as good as money in the bank— better, in fact, since its value went up with inflation instead of down. And that would fit with what Wager was beginning to see as Rietman’s character: self-controlled, methodical, far-sighted, patient. He could have been a God damned good cop.

Suzy stood at his elbow and cleared her throat. Wager, pulled out of thought, looked up with surprise.

“Would you—ah—think you might want to see some of my shots?”

“Shots?” It took a moment or two before he remembered. “Photographs! Sure,
por supuesto
, Suzy. You have some here?”

She placed an official manila folder on his desk and opened it. “There are a few I took.” Her voice was shy. “They’re not, you know, great, but I like them.”

Wager looked through the black-and-white pictures. Half a dozen were of birds (“That’s my parakeet”) and dogs (“That’s my dog, Herman”), and the rest were street scenes: corners with a single blurred figure striding quickly out of sight, bus stops with three or four people slouching apart and staring blankly away from each other, a streetlamp showing an empty pool of gray light against solid black. They all said “lonely,” and Wager did not want to see what they said. Loneliness was the sea everyone swam in; he did not need these pictures to tell him that. And it was depressing to see one so young as Suzy already learning it. Somehow it seemed she should have been spared that knowledge for a while. “Those are real nice pictures, Suzy. You’ve got a real talent.”

Her face reddened as she quickly gathered the photographs together. “It’s fun—it’s something to do.”

“Well, they really are nice.”

Sergeant Johnston strode from the inspector’s office. “Gabe? On those snitches we were talking about, the inspector says absolutely not. We lay off until you-know-who is in the bag.”

Wager stretched and pushed away from his desk. “Then I guess I’d better get back up to Nederland.”

F
OR A WEEK
, Wager’s hints and nudges were ignored by Farnsworth; Chandler had burned the man shy of dealing with anyone new, even with Gabriel Villanueva.

“I have this amigo,” Gabe told Ramona, “who can get a pilot and an airplane any time we need it. And the guy’s flown the border half a dozen times.”

She curled her legs up on the cowhide couch and sipped at a cup of coffee. In the cabin’s steamy bathroom, Peter splashed and wheezed a rubber duck.

“So now you can have your own business?”

“I wish it was that easy. This kind of deal takes a hell of a lot more bread than I got. He’s not going to fly unless it’s really worth his time.”

“Like how much?”

“A lot of K’s. The pilot wants insurance in case he goes down—he wants fifty thousand in escrow, and then you have to add the cost of the dope and the operation to that.”

“That could go as high as a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand!”

“Well, the fifty comes back after the flight. But it’s still a hell of a lot bigger than I can handle by myself.”

Farnsworth kicked open the door and dumped a load of firewood in the corner. “Goddam—the frost is on the pumpkin tonight!” He held his red fingers to the shimmering Franklin stove. “Did Gabe tell you about the airplane?”

“He’s telling me.
¿Que piensas tú
?”

“How’s our cash reserve?”

“We could handle it O.K.,” said Ramona. “But I don’t know if we should. Maybe after we’ve seen this pilot make a run.

Farnsworth combed a flake of bark out of his wiry hair and flipped it at the dog stretched behind the stove. “Yeah. After that Chandler thing, I’d just as soon keep a low profile.”

“
¡Ya lo creo!
” Wager said. “But it’s a real good deal, and once I turned over my share of the load and opened a new cash flow, I’d take the other stuff off your hands. You wouldn’t have to tie up your money for more than a week or so.”

Ramona sipped her coffee; Farnsworth kneaded his fingers together and popped open a bottle of Tecate beer. “It sounds good”—he shook his head—“but things have been cool so far. Maybe it’s better if I just stick to what I’m doing.”

“Sure,” said Wager. “It was just an idea.” The son of a bitch.

“Maybe Baca and Flint will go in with you. Ask Manny when he gets here.”

“Flint’s hot to buy his art store in Taos; he won’t want to risk nothing now. And Baca won’t have enough by himself. Hell, there’s no rush—that airplane’s good any time. If you change your mind, just let me know.”

“I don’t think I want any of it, Gabe. But thanks for the offer, man—I mean that.” He cocked an ear toward the door. “That sounds like Manny’s van now.” The dog grunted awake and plodded to the door, nails scratching on the wooden floor. From the distance came the grinding lurch of a vehicle threading the rutted road. In a few minutes, a metal door clapped to and the dog slowly wagged his tail.

“
¡Manolo! ¿Que tal?
” Farnsworth held open the inner door.

“
Bien—hace mucho frio
. You think we’ll get a little
nieve
? Hi, Ramona—Gabe.” He unwrapped from his sheepskin coat and leaned toward the stove. “Those your new wheels out there? And hey, dig those new shit-kickers! Man, you’re coming on like a real
chulo
!”

Wager smiled and stretched the new tooled boots in front of him. They fit even worse than the old ones, but he was supposed to be making money. “Business has been good.”

“What’d the car set you back?”

“Three and a half. But if you can’t enjoy the profits, what good’s the capitalist system?”

“Right on,
hermano
.” Baca stepped aside to let Ramona haul Pedro from the bath to a place near the dry heat of the stove where she rubbed him pink with a large towel.

“Say, you guys read about that son of a bitch down in Brownsville shooting them
braceros
?”

Manny’s van flew the red-and-black Aztec eagle flag of the United Farmworkers’ Union; Wager had often wondered if Baca ever met a bracero.

“The law won’t hassle that bastard,” said Farnsworth. “His taxes pay that sheriff. And the braceros don’t make enough to pay taxes.”

Baca snorted. “I bet I couldn’t take a piss in that county without getting busted for littering. Goddam pigs! What do you think, Gabe?”

“Goddam pigs.”

“I’d like to plant a
bomba
under that son of a bitch. He wouldn’t shoot no more of the brothers!”

It promised to be another full evening of sparkling political analysis. Wager hoisted Peter to his shoulders and bounced the child around the living room before tossing him giggling onto the bed where Ramona tucked him in. When the light was out, Wager poured himself a beer and settled down for Baca’s lecture. Tonight it was the endurance of La Raza, because their blood was pure and their hearts were clean and God and gravity were on their side, and all Chicanos were brothers in the movement, and if the law had to be violated why shouldn’t it be, because that law had been used against the people instead of for them.

Wager tried to hide his yawn as he nodded agreement; he had heard it, he had heard it all. And there was some truth in it. But when the honest things that people felt were said by Baca’s mouth, those things grew dirty; Baca’s speeches rode on real hurts like an insult on pain.

The lecture lasted until past midnight, Ramona as usual listening instead of talking; Farnsworth agreeing more and more vehemently with every beer; Manny Baca’s voice building up into a familiar rhythm that made Wager suspect that he was using the three of them as a practice audience.

“You tell me, Gabe, if you and some Anglo go for the same job, you know who’ll get it, right?”

“White skin, step right in,” said Wager.

“That’s right! And qualifications don’t mean nothing!”

Wager knew these things that Baca fouled with his words; he had seen them a hell of a lot longer than this kid, had lived them, too: the obvious ones of lowest pay and first fired; the less obvious ones of sudden embarrassed smiles and quick silences; of unconsidered phrases, “Why don’t you handle it, Gabe? You’re their kind—you know them better than we do.” And Wager had passed the sergeant’s examination; but so had a lot of Anglos, and many of them went up while he was still a detective. If he let himself, he could find a label for it. But what counted most for him was not how the Anglo world or the Hispano world looked at him, but how he looked at himself. It was the job he did and knew he did well that was worth more than righting the ancient wrongs against Aztlan or wallowing in the complaints of pimply-faced kids who had not yet lived long enough to know what real pain was. A man did his job to his own standards without blaming Anglos or Chicanos or Spaniards or anybody else if he couldn’t do the work.

“Those Spaniards, they came and conquered our civilization—they killed off the old gods and brought a new one that demanded the sacrifice not of just one man but the whole people. They brought death and famine where we had peace and plenty; they made slaves out of princes!”

Wager smiled at the thought of Manny the Aztec prince. Crap. Manny would have been just like Wager, another Aztec peon, cow dung in his ears and his forehead kissing the dirt whenever a real prince went by. But Manny would never see that. Manny was a deposed prince. Manny was his people’s savior. Let my people go—I, Manuel Baca, tell you this, world! Wager forced his neck to bend agreement.

“And then the Anglos! What they couldn’t steal, they cheated us out of. And they’re still doing it. If you don’t believe it, just try to borrow money, just try to get a job that’s got some responsibility to it, man! They want cheap labor because cheap sweat means more profit—and that’s the only prayer their gods know: profit! The Anglos brought their own gods, Pepsicoatl and Cocacoatl, and their prayer is profit!”

Farnsworth laughed. “That’s good—Pepsicoatl and Cocacoatl.”

Wager had thought it was funny the first time he heard it, too.

“Manolo—
hermano
—you know I’m as much La Raza as you or Gabe. In spirit, anyway. And there’s a lot of us. It’s time, man; it’s time to do things!”

“That’s what I keep telling people, but nobody listens. The time is now, and if we don’t get our act together and do it, there ain’t nobody going to do it for us.”

“Well, we got money. And in this shitty country when you got money you got power. We can do something!”

Baca gazed through the cabin wall at some grand vision. “By God, we could set up a deal!”

“Like what?”

“Like, I know this hombre in the People’s Labor Party. And he’ll pay two, three times the price for guns delivered in Mexico.”

“What kind?”

“Pistols, rifles—large-caliber stuff. Military stuff. Hell, down south, everybody wants guns. It’s like they’re getting ready for a war.”

“Everybody?”

“Sure—you got the
bandidos
who want guns so they can move in on the big dope honchos. The big guys want guns so they can keep the
bandidos
from moving in. Both of them want guns against the
federales
and the army. The growers got to protect their fields, the transporters got to guard the stashes and the convoys. They’re just hungry for weapons and there’s not enough to go around.”

“What side’s this People’s Labor Party on?”

“That’s a whole different trip. They’re politicos. They got people on both sides of the border, and they work with the braceros who come across. They make sure nobody gets ripped off, that kind of thing. They’re all right—real caballeros.”

“What do they want guns for?”

“Power! From the end of a gun, man. Suppose that son of a bitch in Brownsville was shooting at some of the People’s Labor Party. Well, they get guns, they come back and wipe that mother out, and nobody around there fucks no more with the people, man!”