Authors: Rex Burns
Bunch and Chris got to the office around eleven. They had a cup of coffee as they went over the plan one more time.
Chris was nervous and tried to hide it with chatter. “You were right, Dev. Visser’s been all over me—trying to pump me about who my supplier is and where the stuff comes from.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Just what you said to. That you were my contact and that you made trips to Phoenix. That’s all.”
Bunch gathered up the keys to the rented Lincoln Continental that was part of tonight’s charade. “Is Visser worried?”
“He’s thinking narc, that’s for sure. You could tell by some of the questions he was asking me: Where’d I work before I came here? How old was I really? He’s been around, so he’s acting real cagey.”
“Chris told me he’s an ex-con,” Kirk added.
“Well, that’s what Atencio said. He does seem kind of … guarded, you know? Like he thinks somebody’s watching him all the time.”
“I let Reznick know about the meet. He’s happy something’s finally going down.”
Bunch was glad Devlin was the one to deal with guys like Reznick. “Screw him. If he knew his ass from a teakettle, he’d know how tricky this kind of work is.”
Devlin didn’t feed the big man’s disgust. “What about Martin, Chris? What’s he like?”
“Doesn’t say much at all. Mostly stays in the background. Johnny’s an ex-boxer—Golden Gloves, I think. And like I say, Visser’s been around a lot. But Martin just seems to follow along.” He tried to recall anything telling that Martin had done. But the only picture he could bring up was of the man’s brown eyes watching over cupped fingers that pinched a cigarette.
Devlin checked his regulation .38 and Bunch pulled his Python magnum from the safe. Both were licensed to carry, but seldom did. Bunch did have a strap holster riveted under the dash of his Bronco where the Python sometimes rode. But neither man wanted to use a gun except as a last resort.
Chris eyed the long barrel of the Python, and the shadows in the corner of the office suddenly grew darker. “You think you’ll need those?”
Kirk shook his head. “They’re just for show.”
Bunch tucked the weapon in his belt and draped his jacket over it. “Visser’ll expect us to come armed. No sense disappointing him.”
The time had been set for one o’clock in the morning. The place was the north end of the railroad yards, which weren’t too far from the office. There was plenty of visibility in all directions against the night lights of the city and the traffic glare from I-25. Any approaching vehicle would be either cops or criminals, and could be seen a long way off. Yawning wide enough to crack his jaws, Bunch guided the fat tires of the Lincoln through the gravel and broken glass and searched the level darkness for the outline of Chris’s van.
The procedure, agreed to by both parties, was that Chris would guide Visser’s car to the meet early. As a main pusher, Devlin wasn’t about to tell some stranger where he’d be waiting. Bunch had told Chris to take a roundabout way, doubling back as if checking for tails, and generally convince Visser that Devlin wasn’t eager to make his presence known, and that he wasn’t about to take Visser’s word for anything just because he seemed like such a nice guy.
Kirk peered through the scattering of red and green gleams that untangled the snarl of tracks for those who knew what the lights meant. The weeds rose knee-high, thick in some places, thin in others. Here and there jumbled shadows marked piles of old railroad ties, dumped as high as a team of men could toss them. “Is that them?”
Bunch shaded his eyes against the city’s glow, then turned the heavy car toward the dim shape of a van. It was the one Kirk and Associates had leased for Chris, and behind it was another car. A head and shoulders were dimly silhouetted in the second car. Two figures huddled out of the cold breeze against the van’s side. Bunch flicked off the lights and coasted the Lincoln to a spongy halt. Devlin gave it a long minute before getting out—a little drama never hurt your entry—and the figures pushed away from the shelter of the van. One snubbed out a cigarette.
There were no handshakes. “This is the guy I told you about,” Chris said to Kirk.
“Kept us waiting fucking long enough.” Visser was a bit under six feet and built like a swizzle stick. He bent and jabbed a finger toward the Lincoln. “Who’s in the car?”
“My driver.” Kirk nodded to the other sedan where the blur of a face aimed at them. “Your driver, right?”
“Call him that.” Visser stared at the Lincoln again, trying to see where Bunch’s hands were and if they were empty. “You got a piece?” he asked Kirk. “If you got a gun, lay it on the hood of the car.”
Devlin glanced at Chris.
“I checked him out,” said Newman. “He’s not carrying.”
Kirk lifted his weapon from its shoulder holster and set it on the Lincoln’s long hood.
“All right,” said Visser. “Let’s go on the other side of the truck.” He motioned to Chris. “You stay here.”
Kirk followed the jumpy man out of Bunch’s sight. “You wanted a meet. Let’s get to business.”
“How do I know you’re not wired?”
Kirk raised his hands, and Visser’s fingers brushed knowledgeably across those places where a weapon or body transmitter might be taped. Then he started to lift Devlin’s wallet from his pocket.
“What the hell you think you’re doing?”
“Hey, man, chill out. I’m going to check you over, okay? I don’t know you, do I?”
Visser paused and, when Kirk didn’t answer, tugged the wallet out gently. Tilting the driver’s license to the sky glow, he squinted through the dimness to read it. Kirk knew what it said: Bernard DiAngelo and an address in Phoenix. The address was a motel whose manager was a friend of his uncle Wyn. The DiAngelo name wasn’t unknown to the Phoenix police as well as to certain Las Vegas figures who had low profiles and high insurance premiums.
“Since when do narcs sell stuff?” Kirk asked.
“Shit happens, man.”
He took his wallet back. “Don’t it. Now it’s your turn. Man.” He patted Visser down, finding a slender switchblade tucked in his belt at the back of his pants. “You think you’re going to use this?”
“No, man. It’s just I always carry it.”
He tossed the knife back to Visser. “You can try to use it right now if you want.”
Visser dropped it into a pocket and shook his head. “Like I said, I just carry it around. I forgot it was there. No offense, okay?”
“Right.” Kirk took his time leafing through the man’s wallet. It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know from the company personnel file. “Okay.” Kirk pretended to relax. “It looks like we can do business.”
“I want to find out a little more, first. Like where you get your stuff.”
“I’m going to tell you that?” Kirk snorted. “Man, if you want to do business, fine. But we ought to act like gentlemen about this. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand, sure. But it’s, you know, important we trust each other. We know a little bit more about each other, we trust each other, you know?”
“It’s good stuff. You can check it out. Good and consistent.”
“The kid says you’re up from Phoenix.”
“The kid’s right.”
“You know Mike Turley down there?”
“It’s a big town. I don’t know everybody. You in the market or not?”
“Take it easy, man. What’s your going rate?”
Devlin told him. “The kid give you a taste?”
“Yeah. It’s okay.”
“It’s more than okay. It’s prime. Ninety percent.” Devlin looked at his watch. “I got other business, man, so if you’re interested … .”
Visser, suddenly more nervous, backed off a step or two. His hand edged toward his pocket. “Listen, man, I don’t want to buy. Sorry about that. I’m here to give you a message is all.”
“What kind of shit is this?”
“The message is, find yourself another place to peddle. That factory’s our turf.”
“Bullshit.”
“Our territory, man. We see that kid reach out a hand, he’s pulling back a stump.”
“That the way it is?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“No. I’ll tell you how it is. We’re moving in. We’ve got prime stuff and we can undersell you for the next five years if we have to. So here’s your message: Either move out or split the territory with us. You tell your boss that—half of something or all of nothing.”
“I’m the boss.”
“Like hell you are, pimp. You tell him this is chickenshit crap he’s pulling. He wants war, he’s got one. He wants to work together, we can do that, too.” Kirk smiled. “We’re not greedy. But we’re building outlets in Denver. Like we’ve got them in Dallas and Kansas City.” He let that sink in. Nothing moved in either city without the mob’s okay. Even the Kansas City Haitians had to buy their territory from the mob.
“You’re full of shit.”
“Three days. You run back and tell your boss you got three days. Then we do what we have to.” Kirk backed into the view of Bunch and Chris, and Visser followed, frowning.
“You’re asking for trouble, man.”
“The kid’s like my ambassador. You talk with him. Understand?”
“You’re so full of shit. You guys are really full of shit, you know?” Visser turned and walked away with the stiff haste of anger, fear, and bravado. His car started before he reached it, and Devlin quickly picked up his pistol from the Lincoln’s hood. But the sedan only wheeled sharply across the rattle of tracks to become another cold gleam moving through lights made brittle by the chill silence of early morning.
The three met back at the office. Chris was still wiping sweat from his forehead with a large yellow bandanna. All he’d had to do was stand there and hear the murmur of voices tossed on the wind. But he felt as if he’d been running full speed for the whole ten minutes. “Wow—do you ever get used to that? My pulse is still about two hundred rpm.”
Bunch pressed the coffeepot down on the hot plate to make it boil faster. “Sure you do. Matter of fact, I was about asleep there before Dev and the toothpick came back.”
“Really?”
He yawned widely and nodded. “Just another night at the office, Chris.” He poured a cup and handed it to Devlin. “Did he buy it?”
“Enough to check out my name and address.” Which would be all right. Oscar, Uncle Wyn’s buddy at the Phoenix motel, knew what to tell anyone who called to ask about Bernard DiAngelo. “But I don’t know how convincing I was as a Mafia lieutenant.”
“Not very—you ain’t a wop. But that wimp wouldn’t know mob from Girl Scouts.”
“You think they’re going to roll over and play dead?” Newman took a cup from Bunch and sipped gingerly at the hot coffee. It seemed a lot like the times when he was a kid and stayed up to listen while the cowboys drank coffee and told tall tales around the fire.
“If they’re nickel-and-dimers, they will,” said Devlin. “If they don’t, that means they’ve got muscle behind them somewhere.” He saw Newman’s look and added, “If we find that out, we’ll pull you and let them have their laugh.”
“I can handle it—you don’t have to pull me out of it.”
“It’s not a question of whether you can handle it. It’s a question of wasting Reznick’s money.”
“Yeah,” grunted Bunch. “If it falls through, we go after them some other way.”
“What do we do now?”
Kirk shrugged. “My guess is Visser’ll go back to his boss and tell him what he learned. They’ll want to check out DiAngelo, maybe have a council.”
“You really don’t think Visser’s the boss?”
Kirk shook his head. “He has to be getting his stuff from somewhere. Either inside or outside the plant. Dope dealing’s a distribution system—his boss is whoever delivers to him to sell.” He remembered something. “Did you recognize the one driving Visser’s car?”
Newman shook his head. “I couldn’t see him too well, but it wasn’t Johnny or Scott. I’d have recognized them.”
Bunch stretched, his chair creaking and popping. “This is the toughest part—waiting.” He drained his cup. “Back to the sack for me. I got to get up early and baby-sit.”
D
ESPITE ASSURANCES THAT
no one was following him, Humphries still wanted protection. His check to that end was waiting in the mail when Devlin got to the office late the next morning. He’d found it was best to bill certain clients by the week unless they were a big enough corporation to stand the shock of a grand total at the end of a job. Moreover, a little working capital was always welcome. Devlin walked the check down to the bank to deposit it. He’d also discovered it was good to find out early if a man’s paper was really rubber.
His midday was spent down the street from Zell’s house. It was a split-level in a neighborhood of similar designs and located on the kind of curving avenue that a million other suburbs had. The lawn was getting shaggy, and Zell might discover enough physical ability to mow it one of these days. Armed with the cameras and lenses and a book to skim between snoops, Kirk slid the Subaru into a parking space just in sight of the yard and waited for something to happen. It seldom did, and today was no different. The lawn still hadn’t been mowed, and the hedge running down the property line from the street to the back fence was growing leggy and ragged. The afternoon sun slid toward the mountains and filled the car with drowsy warmth, and he could feel the drag of last night’s late hours pull at his eyelids. Yawning, struggling against sleep, Kirk finally gave up; it was time to move on. He wouldn’t do anyone any good dozing off when he should be watching.
The office telephone answerer gave its familiar red wink for Message Waiting, and far down the tape Kirk found a raspy voice that identified itself as Oscar: “Some guy called me to talk to Bernard DiAngelo, Dev. I give him what you told me— you know, DiAngelo’s out of town but I could hold his messages. This guy didn’t have no message. Thought you’d want to know.” And that reminded Devlin to check out Eddie Visser’s police record.
Sergeant Lewellen preferred to do favors for Bunch—they had gone through police training together and shared a squad car for almost a year. But he condescended to help Devlin because he was Bunch’s partner, because Devlin wasn’t asking for much, and possibly because of the expensive Christmas gifts Kirk and Associates provided each year. “Hang on, Kirk. I’ll see what I can punch up.”