Killing Zone by Rex Burns

Author:Rex Burns [Burns, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4795-2
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

The telephone was already ringing when Wager reached the Homicide section.

“Wager? This is Captain Van Velson. I just had a call from Councilman Albro.”

Van Velson was one of the captains in the administrative division, another of the recent promotions that would add to the number of chiefs and reduce the number of Indians. As a junior captain, he pulled duty on Saturdays and Sundays, and some of the more cynical said that that was the reason for all the promotions: so senior officers could have weekends off. “I just had an interview with Albro.”

“I know that. He said you were in his office trying to dig up some kind of dirt on the City Council. The man was so pissed I could hardly understand what he was saying.”

“Dirt? I asked about Councilman Green and his activities as committee chairman.”

“Asked what, for God’s sake?”

“The usual routine questions any homicide raises—any enemies, any causes somebody might have for killing him, that kind of thing.”

Van Velson mulled that over. “I still have to make a report on this, Wager.”

“You do what you have to, Captain. Just like I do.”

“Right. As long as you know what’s coming down.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

Wager held down the telephone’s off switch and then dialed a number and waited while the bartender called Fat Willy to the phone.

“You got this crap settled yet, Wager?”

“A long way from it, Willy. Come up with anything?”

“Yeah—you sit there drinking coffee and want me to do your work, that right?”

“You got it. What’ve you heard?”

“A lot of heat, my man. A lot of angry people out on those hot streets. And tonight they’ll be even hotter.” He added slyly, “I even hear somebody say they going to take down a pig.”

“Who’s saying that?”

“What’s new on my two people?”

“Nothing. You haven’t given me anything to work with.”

“Well, goddamn, this ought to be worth something!”

“I’ll call Papadopoulos. How’s that?”

“Shitty. Just like you. What good’s that do?”

“I’ll talk to the man again, Willy. That’s all I can do. Now what do you have?”

“One of these punk gangs come here from L.A. The Uhuru Warriors, they call themselves. Sort of advertising what badasses they be. They say they going to shut down the plantation.”

“Time? Place?”

“Well, they didn’t send invitations, Wager! They just put the word on the street. You starting to sweat a little?”

No cop took lightly a threat to kill policemen; cops lived on the edge of that threat every time they put on the uniform that made them both authorities and targets. “What about Green—anything on him?”

“Nothing more than I told you already. He’s clean.”

“Is he?”

“What’s that mean? You say it that way, what you mean by it?”

“It means there’s things I want you to look into, Willy. His car, for one. It’s missing. A black Lincoln Continental, license—”

“I know what his car looks like, Wager. Everybody knows what that car looks like.”

“Then somebody should be able to spot it, if it’s still around. Alleys, driveways, parking lots, wherever. Second, see if you can find out where he ate supper last night.

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