Farnsworth Score (4 page)

“Listen, Doc—I’m going out of town for a while. You’ll be working with Detective Hansen.”

“Who? What’s his first name?”

“Hansen. Roger Hansen.”

“I got it. It’s really big, man. Too bad you’re gonna miss it.”

“Right, I’m all broken up, too. But listen, now, don’t give Hansen bad hype.”

“Naw, naw. I wouldn’t shit him any more than I would you. Tell him to call me as soon as he can, you hear?”

“Sure will, Doc.” Wager hung up and jotted both numbers on a page torn from the small notebook. He slipped it on Hansen’s desk. “Willy’s not happy about the switch, but he’ll come around. Doc wants you to call him right away, but don’t waste too much time on him.”

“He’s not reliable?”

“Sometimes he comes up with something solid, but he’s not consistent. Still, make him think you’re with him. He really eats that crap up.”

“I know the type,” said Hansen. The younger detective fingered the page with the numbers. “You really think Rietman just fucked up?”

Wager stared at him, “What?”

“Well, Rietman could of—well—if he was the type, I mean, he could of maybe switched.”

Wager looked at Hansen as if seeing him for the first time: light brown hair long and curling down his neck and over the tops of his ears, eyes gray against the tanned face, mustache also slightly curly and turned down below the corners of his mouth to end in tiny clumps of wild hair. “Reitman’s a cop.”

“Well I was just …”

“If you got evidence, you take it to Sonnenberg or the Staff Investigation Bureau. If you don’t, you shut up.
¿Comprendes tú?
”

“It happens, Wager!” Hansen’s tan darkened. “Rietman may be a cop, but it does happen sometimes.”

That was true. But you didn’t go around saying something like that, especially about anyone in your own unit. A cop is a cop until it’s
proved
he’s not. “Rietman’s a cop,” he said again, and turned back to his desk.

The Detroit call came through at 3:27, and Wager was given three telephone numbers where Agent Chandler might be found. “Say,” the Detroit D.E.A. man finished, “what happened out there, anyway?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Wager, and hung up. The first number just rang; the second was answered by a woman, and from the way she said hello Wager pictured a housewife who did not want her husband’s business invading his home life. “Can I talk to Agent Chandler, please?”

“Well, he’s asleep right now.”

“This is Detective Wager in Denver, Colorado, and it’s very important, ma’am.”

“Well, just a minute, then.”

A groggy voice eventually sighed, “Chandler.”

“This is Detective Wager with the Denver Police Department. I’d like some more information on the Farnsworth case.”

“Jesus—Farnsworth! You people out there have my reports.”

“Just a few things your report didn’t cover that might help us out.”

“Yeah—you people need all the help you can get. All right.” The voice pulled away from the mouthpiece to say, “Get me some coffee, honey.”

Wager poured himself another cup from the thermos. “Can you give me the vitals on Ramona Alcala—if that’s her name—Charles Flint, and John Lewis?”

“It’s Alcala; around twenty-three, five two, a hundred and ten, dark hair and eyes. She’s a greaser. She’s got a big birthmark near her elbow on her right arm. Charlie Flint’s a little older, white, around twenty-seven, five ten, one sixty-five; his face is full of red beard. I didn’t see any scars or marks. He’s an art freak—wants to get enough bread to set up a gallery in Aspen or Taos or wherever. He’s full of sh—uh—hot air, always using fancy words. Lewis’s alias is Jo-Jo. He’s kind of weird; I had my eye on him to flip him. He still might if he’s squeezed, but you got to watch him and he’s not really one of the top operators, anyway. He makes it as a middler. Penny-a-pound stuff. He’s white, about twenty-one, five eleven, a hundred and forty. Light-brown Afro-style hair, hazel eyes. He tries to be a political activist. That’s the thing with a lot of them now—support radical movements, start a commune, that kind of crap.”

Wager finished his line of unorthodox shorthand in the little notebook. “Any other known associates?”

“The whole damn town.”

“They’re
all
dealing?”

“Well, I tell you. Out of a population of maybe five hundred, I could touch a hundred small-timers. But most of them were just divvying their own stash. The real core is about ten people, and Farnsworth seems to be the main source for all of them.”

“Does he run it himself?”

“He’s made some trips to Colombia and Venezuela, him and Ramona. But I think he’s got his own mules now who bring it in through California and sometimes Canada. That’s all guesswork, though, and he trades a lot of coke for other stuff.”

“What about the other four hundred?”

“They’re either rednecks or clean freaks, and they hate each other’s guts. We almost had us a vigilante war between the straights and the hips. I used to think Detroit was the nut house of the universe, but you people have some real winners out there.”

Wager spoke as softly as possible but could not keep the heavier accent from his voice. “It’s the altitude—thin air and x-rays. Farnsworth’s operation—maybe you can tell me something about it?”

“Boy, it’s a joy to behold. That son of a gun just sits up there and makes money hand over fist. I could have spent ten kilo a day if I had it, and Farns would have gotten a cut of it all. Coke, acid, grass, hash, magic mushroom—you name it, Farns can get it. They’ve got a kind of co-op; the big ten cover for each other and so far everybody’s happy. All the top ones, anyway. Farnsworth’s not laying it all over everybody that he’s the heavy. Honor among pushers, you know.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Naw, me neither until I saw that operation. But it’s true. If one’s short, he’ll steer you to somebody who can handle it. Maybe they have a set of books to keep it all straight; maybe they just remember. I don’t know. I think they’re just making so much that they can afford not to be greedy.”

“Any places they’re known to frequent?”

“There aren’t many places up there. The Timber Line Tavern’s where everybody hangs out. It’s in colorful downtown Nederland—you can’t miss it. If you did, you’d end up in the lake.”

“Do buyers come up there?”

“A lot do. That was my cover. Like I say, there’s maybe a hundred small dealers that get supplied by the big ten. Most of them go to Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, and all over Jefferson County. Up to Estes Park, too, but there’s a lot of competition up there from people who bring their own stuff from both coasts and up from Texas. I couldn’t check it all out—hell, I had ten primary targets and it was all I could do to handle them.”

“Can you give me a list?”

“Look, why don’t I just send you a copy of what I’ve got? I don’t have all my notes at home.”

“Just one more question. What happened on the bust?”

“That’s a good question—Rietman ran the reagent test and gave the signal for the bust. Neither one of them were worth a damn.”

“Did you watch him test it?”

“No, I was in Farnsworth’s car with the front money. Rietman and Goldberg were in the government vehicle. That was the deal: I went with the money, Goldberg went with the dope until it was checked out. Then we were supposed to leave the money and the dope and walk back to our cars and drive away. You know how an exchange is set up.”

“You and Rietman were in separate cars—him and Goldberg, you and Farnsworth?” Maybe the question wasn’t his to ask, but he was a cop. And despite what he had said to Hansen, an ugly thought began to lie restless in his mind.

“Yeah.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, we told them it was a bust and covered them, and neither one tried anything. They were cool—they knew when they were took. Rietman had the radio and called in the surveillance, and then we all went to Denver.”

“Who drove what?”

“I drove Farnsworth’s car and Rietman drove his.”

“His was the government vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah, the suspects were put in custody of the surveillance team—they had more people to secure the prisoners—and they transported them to headquarters.”

“Did you all go straight to D.P.D?”

Chandler gave a short laugh. “Yeah, it looked like a god-darned parade.”

“What time did you get there?”

“Oh, between ten and eleven. An hour or so after the meet.”

“What about the dope?”

“What about it?”

“Did it stay in Rietman’s possession or go with you or with the surveillance team?”

The long-distance line hummed and clicked faintly. Finally Chandler said, “Rietman kept it.”

And logged it into the police locker at—Wager looked in his notebook—10:38
P.M.

“Say, Wager, are you with D.P.D.’s internal security?”

“No, I’m just trying to get some facts straight, Chandler.”

A guarded note had come into Chandler’s voice; it wasn’t worry—he was just putting distance between himself and trouble. “Well, I wasn’t with Rietman that much, you know, but he seemed O.K. And God knows it wouldn’t be the first time somebody ran a bad color test.”

“I’m glad to hear that. And I’d appreciate having copies of your documents on the case as soon as possible,” Wager said.

“O.K.—ah, I’ll send them to our office in Denver and you can pick them up there.” That would be a little more distance for Chandler.

“Fine. Send them in care of Agent Billington.”

“Billington. Will do.”

Wager sat staring at the cradled receiver, not really hearing the bustle and jingle of the warren of offices around him. Outside, west of the sprawling city and beyond the occasional skeleton of new offices or apartment towers that were beginning to erupt here and there, loomed the mountains. In the late-afternoon light their colors were blurred by the fall of shadows, the tan and green and white of timberline and snow- field turning into ridges of dusty gray lifting one behind the other. It was summer in the hills and he was missing it again. In the hills, he could be alone and washed clean by white sunlight and that cold high-altitude wind. Maybe. Farnsworth was in the hills, too. The Farnsworths were everywhere now. And Wager wasn’t in the hills. He was in an ugly avocado-green office sitting at a gray metal desk and vaguely hearing Hansen’s voice behind him setting up a meet with Doc.

He poured another cup of coffee and leafed through the small notebook. Rietman could have done it—run the test, called for the bust, loaded up the suspects, and then just reached under the front seat of his own car and pulled out a package of lactose and wrapped it in the original cover. He’d know beforehand how much lactose he’d need; he wouldn’t have known how easy the switch would be. But he could gamble on that. For a quick profit of anywhere between $85,000 in bulk and a million in street sales for the two and a half pounds, Rietman could have gambled. And that would sure cushion the hassle of running a bad test. Except that Rietman claimed it was a good test. Still, what else could he claim? And how else could he act? And what the hell did he, Wager, do now?

His coffee was cold; he poured it back into the thermos and wandered without seeing back through the labyrinth of partitions and jutting desks to the coffee machine for a hot refill. It could have been an honest mistake. Officers had made mistakes before, especially on their first big buy like this one, when they tended to see what they wanted to see. Maybe the reagent kit hadn’t been cleaned—the lab report showed a trace of cocaine; maybe Rietman really did see some color and thought the suspect material had been cut to, say, 30 percent from the original 70, and that explained the color’s thinness. Because Rietman was a cop, god damn it, and cops didn’t—shouldn’t —do things like that! And you didn’t go walking into Sonnenberg’s office with an accusation against a fellow officer unless you had a hell of a lot more than guesswork or even circumstantial evidence. You didn’t even whisper those things or bring them up like Hansen did, because that eroded the vital trust an officer had to have in his companions.

But it was possible.

And Wager knew how alone and unknown, finally, every cop was.

Johnston called to him from his cubicle, “Have you picked up the truck yet, Gabe?”

Wager broke his stare at Rietman’s empty desk. “I haven’t had a chance, Ed.”

“Oh.” A faint tinge of disappointment. “Well, I have some expense money for you. Do you want to sign for it now?”

“Sure.” In Johnston’s little office, he counted the worn twenties and tens and filled in the blank on the form for receipt of official funds.

“You think two thousand will get you started?”

“Sure. I don’t want to come on too strong at first.”

“Something wrong?”

“Why?”

“You seem down.”

“No. I’m just thinking.”

“Well … go get ’em.”

“Right, Ed.” He folded the money and shoved it into the pocket of his sport coat; then he sat again at his desk without really doing anything. Finally, he mumbled “
Mierda
” and pushed away from the yellow manila folders that seemed to be looking back at him. “Suzy, I’m going over to the garage.”

“Do you have any calls pending?”

“Nothing.”

The Larimer Street garage was almost empty this late in the afternoon; on the busy street the homebound traffic roared past in a river of gray-brown exhaust and treeless heat. Inside the large building the sun’s weight was lifted by shadow. In the rear, from a long workbench dark with oil and dirt, a radio pushed thin music into the garage’s silence. Wager wandered around until he found a corner of the building partitioned off by bare plywood sheets. The officer on duty was reading
Sports Afield
.

“I’m Detective Wager from the O.C.D. Sergeant Johnston said you people had a truck for me.”

“Wager?” The blue-uniformed figure stood and lifted down a set of keys from a row of small hooks. “Yes, sir, Detective Wager. Would you like to look it over?”

“Yes.”

The officer led him out a side door and into the compound behind the building. “I think the boys done a real good job.”