Blood Line (12 page)

D
ETECTIVE
F
ULLERTON WAS
the only Gang Unit officer available. Wager stifled a groan and tried to look happy to see him as he entered the warren of cubicles and desks that made up the Gang Unit offices. He needed information and Fullerton might have it; that’s what Wager would have to remind himself when the detective launched into one of his bullshit sociological theories about what he called the structures of alternative cultures.

“Heyo, Gabe—coffee?”

He nodded and waited as Fullerton rinsed somebody’s mug and filled it from the bulb of steaming black liquid. There was no coffee-fund jar here; headquarters units had made their caffeine fix a line item in their budgets. They also made their coffee so bitter that no one would pay to drink it.

“I pulled the file on Hastings.” Forehead wrinkling with the seriousness of the issue, he tapped the cover of a thin manila folder but held it just out of Wager’s reach. “We don’t have much on him so far, but he’s definitely a player.”

“He’s active?”

“One of the OGs—Old Gangsters. You know what that means?”

“I know, Norm.”

“Right. Well, my information—and this is confidential, Gabe, you understand?”

“I understand.”

“My confidential information is that he’s a main connection between the local CMG Bloods and the parent CMG group in LA. The local group’s in the process of developing from a collectivity to a gang, and Hastings is one of the second-level organizers.”

“He’s some kind of leader?”

“Well, yes and no. ‘Leader’ is kind of an oversimplification because he’s not an everyday figure in the nuclear structure. He’s more of a resource and liaison figure. An adviser, you know what I mean?”

“No.”

Fullerton’s wiry eyebrows pulled together with the intensity of his effort to explain it. “He’s a connection with the LA bunch—they’re a bona fide organization, way beyond a collectivity and a lot more centralized and structured than a gang. They got a lot to teach our local people, and it’s a way for the LA bunch to set up a satellite-type organizational structure. So Hastings tells the locals how to lay out a neighborhood crack distribution system, how to protect their territory, what to charge, law evasion techniques, the whole bit. Maybe even bankrolls them at first to get them set up. Then he acts as a liaison with the wholesaler, the LA organization.” The frown turned into a happy smile of discovered analogy. “Think of him as a kind of a franchise consultant: helps set up a local business with advice, supply, and start-up funds.”

“He makes money himself from it?”

“Oh, yeah—he gets his slice of the markup between the LA source and the local price. That’s SOP. Maybe even a piece of the local action, if the Denver people go along with it.”

Wager asked the question that had troubled him on the drive over from the District Two station. “Then why’s he working out at DIA for minimum wage? It must be pocket change compared to what he gets off dope sales.”

Fullerton frowned and thought, thought and frowned. “Cover? Maybe he needs some visible means of support. Maybe V and N has him under surveillance and he knows it. Have you checked with them?”

“Not yet.”

“That’s what you want to do, then, Gabe. Classic maneuver for OGs: get a low-paying job to explain their income, maintain a low profile, avoid attention so they can operate without interference.” He nodded again, “You check with V and N. I bet they corroborate that.”

“I’ll do that, Norm. Thanks.” He paused at the door, thinking of something else. “What about protection? Do the OGs provide that as part of their franchise?”

“What do you mean?”

Wager spelled it out. “Suppose another LA organization wants to set up a franchise with a different local gang, but in the same territory claimed by the CMG Bloods. A Crips gang, for instance. Would Hastings help the local Bloods hold on to their territory?”

“Oh, yeah! It varies though, with the specific situation. Sometimes it’s just advice or tactics. Sometimes even negotiations—divvying up a territory, maybe. I’ve even heard of organizations sending in weapons and muscle if a local runs into something it can’t handle by itself. You find all sorts of variables.” He fished for something in one of the bottom drawers of his desk. “The Asian gangs are big on sending out enforcers all over the country. I just got a new publication on Vietnamese and Laotian gangs if you want to read it.”

“Some other time, Norm. But thanks.”

It was late afternoon by the time he got back to his desk, and the ceaseless river of officialdom had washed some more papers into his pigeonhole. Among them was a memo saying that Attorney Dewing had called. Please call back. “We have bad news, Gabe.”

Lawyers always used the first-person plural when they had bad news for a client. If it was good news, they took credit with the first-person singular. Wager wondered if it was a marketing technique they were taught in law school. “What is it?”

“Judge Coleman says he won’t grant a motion for dismissal.”

“Why not?”

“He says the plaintiff’s charges are weighty enough to be heard.” Dewing’s voice paused for a moment. “Is there anything at all you haven’t told me about the Neeley incident?”

“Why?”

“Heisterman—that’s Neeley’s attorney—is acting like the cat that swallowed the canary. And I know he had a meeting with Judge Coleman this morning. Even before I could ask him about the possibility of a dismissal.”

“Everything’s in the shooting report. I told it just like it happened.”

“All right. We’ll go with that, then. I’ll be in touch.”

Wager tried to push out of his mind the disgust he felt about having a trial. But he found that he was reading the routine paperwork twice—once when his mind was on what Dewing had said about Neeley’s lawyer and then again when he forced it back to the page he held. So it was taking him a lot longer to get through the garbage, and when the telephone rang he answered it with a feeling of relief.

That was short-lived.

“This is Gargan of the
Post
, Wager. Tell me more about these charges I hear somebody brought against you. Some guy suing you for false arrest?”

“You’ll find it in the court records, Gargan. Do your own work.”

“So it’s true? We got Wagergate now?”

“The charges are not true.”

“‘The charges are not true.’“ Apparently Gargan had to repeat things aloud when he wrote them down. “Want to add anything to that?”

“Just good-bye.”

“I’ll remind my readers that you’re innocent until proven guilty. Then they can celebrate.”

“All three of them will appreciate that.”

This time it was Gargan who slammed down the receiver.

The next telephone call was more interesting. “You the policeman’s been asking about, you know, that John Erle kid? One got shot?”

“What do you have?”

The muffled voice was silent for a moment or two, and Wager heard a bus or truck accelerate in the background. A pay phone near a traffic light. “Might have something. Ain’t nothing I want to talk about on the phone, though.”

“I’ll meet you.”

Another pause. “Corner of Dahlia and Thirtieth. Eleven tonight.” The line clicked dead.

Wager wrote the date, time, and place in the little green notebook that always rode in the vest pocket of his jacket. Sometimes it was for memory’s sake, other times out of habit—a clue in case some future homicide detective needed to trace out Wager’s last day. Then he turned back to the waiting paperwork.

He was at home when Dewing called again. The pace of electioneering had been increasing as the days grew shorter; one of Elizabeth’s meetings for this evening was a potluck dinner at a neighborhood social club, and she wasn’t certain how late it would run. So Wager had gone to his own apartment and rummaged through the refrigerator to dig out a frozen Salisbury steak. He had just settled down to unpeel the plastic sheet from the smoking wad that filled the middle compartment of the little tray when the phone rang. He had been spending so much time at Elizabeth’s home that his apartment had a slightly musty, unlived-in feel to it, as if the air was seldom stirred, and even the ring of the bell seemed to echo a little. In fact, the sound surprised him—not many people had his home number. “Hello?”

“Detective Wager? That you?”

He recognized her voice. “It’s me.”

“I’m glad I found you. I tried that other number you gave me and left a message on the recorder, so you can disregard it when you get to it.”

That would be at Elizabeth’s. “OK. What’s up?”

“What can you tell me about Nelda Stinney?”

“Who?”

Dewing repeated the name. “She’s Heisterman’s ace in the hole, Wager. Remember, I told you I thought he was acting like he had something up his sleeve? He does: a witness. Claims that Neeley tried to surrender before you shot him.”

For a numb long moment, Wager stared at the wall. “That’s bullshit, Counselor. Neeley said ‘Don’t shoot’ and then brought out a sawed-off shotgun.”

“The shooting report says you fired first.”

“I fired when his intent was clear. Our weapons went off at just about the same time.”

“Just like it says in the shooting report.”

“Just like that.”

“The witness says Neeley fired from the floor after he was hit. That he shot back in self-defense after he had put the gun down and raised his hands, and after you shot and wounded him.”

“That’s a goddamned lie! And just where was this witness standing when everything was happening?”

“She says she was looking through a crack in the door of a neighboring room. She says she heard someone shouting and opened her door to peek out. She saw Neeley set the gun down and stand up with his hands raised. Then she heard a shot. She couldn’t see where it came from but she did see Neeley go down wounded. And while he was on the floor, he grabbed the shotgun and fired off a round. Then she closed the door and crawled under the bed.”

“The witness is lying.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“People lie to themselves and even to God, Wager, let alone attorneys.” She waited another moment. “You never heard of or saw this person?”

“No. And if she saw anything like that, why didn’t she come forward earlier?”

“That’s something else to ask, isn’t it? For me to ask, Wager. In court. You stay the hell away from this witness, you understand? Any hint of witness tampering will get your badge faster than pissing on the mayor’s shoe.” She waited until he acknowledged that he’d heard her. “Do you have any witnesses that heard the shots? That can testify how closely together they were fired?”

“No. The shooting team’s supposed to interview witnesses.”

“Their report doesn’t say anything at all about witnesses.”

“Then they didn’t find any. Including this Nelda whosis.”

“Stinney,” the attorney said. “Think they could have missed her?”

“No. Because she didn’t see what she says. It didn’t happen that way.”

“I’ve looked over the shooting report, Wager. There’s not a thing in it that conflicts with her story.”

“Except my by-God statement about what happened!”

“That’s right—nothing except your word. Against hers.”

Dewing was right. The report’s evidence was physical—the place where the wounded man was found, the location of the shotgun, the location of bullet holes and bloodstains. There were no corroborating statements from anyone else. Wager found himself looking at his NCO’s sword hanging on the blank wall of his apartment. “She’s lying, Counselor.”

“All right But it would be nice to have some proof of that. Admissible proof.”

“I’ll talk to Lieutenant Maholtz.” He was from the Boulder PD and had headed the regional team that had been called in to assess the shooting. “Maybe he’ll remember a name—somebody he didn’t think was worth including in the report.”

“No, you won’t talk to Lieutenant Maholtz. I will. You may not like it, Detective Wager, but you have to stay out of this and let me do my job. OK?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Elizabeth had said she would call sometime during the evening, and if they both weren’t too exhausted, maybe they could meet for a drink after her last meeting. That gave Wager time to drive back over to the headquarters building and drop into the Vice and Narcotics section. It wasn’t that he liked the place that much, but it was a hell of a lot better than sitting in his silent apartment and getting angry thinking about one Nelda Stinney. By this time of night, the section’s officers had reported in, and most of them had been assigned to their evening’s patrols and raids, the younger ones bustling out into the streets with that brisk eagerness of people looking for excitement. But Wesloski, catching up on the paperwork, was waiting for him.

“Coffee?”

Wager, learning caution this late in the day, took only half a cup. “Did you come up with anything on the local CMG Bloods and Roderick Hastings?”

“Funny you should mention that.” The man was thin with a triangular face, hair brushed straight back in a high cliff above his forehead, and a bushy mustache that drooped at the corners of his mouth. From across the desk with its litter of papers on top of the glass and photographs under it, Wager could smell the odor of stale cigarette smoke from Wesloski’s clothes. He was glad he wasn’t spending eight hours on stakeout in a closed car with the man. “We’ve run across a couple of new faces lately in the crack raids—they’ve turned out to be CMGs. It’s the first time we’ve contacted some of those lads.”

“Fullerton says they’re tied in with the LA group.”

Wesloski nodded. “I got his memo on that. I think he’s right for a change, and that’s all we need’s another goddamn pipeline to the Coast. But I haven’t turned up any leads on this Hastings dude.”

Wager showed him a copy of the photograph from Hastings’s jacket.

Wesloski studied it and shook his head. “Never seen him around. Wouldn’t forget that nose.” He added, “But that don’t mean anything—if he is the CMG tie to LA, he’s not going to work the streets, so we’d be less likely to contact him.”

“What do you have on Big Ron Tipton?”

He ran a hand up the pompadour of hair and down the back of his neck, the gesture sending out another puff of nicotine. “I’ve been hearing a few rumors lately about him and some goddamn gang war coming down. Walt Adamo was asking around about that yesterday, in fact. But I haven’t run across anything to back it up.”