Angle of Attack by Rex Burns Read Free Book Online Page A

home was gone, and in place of the rows of small brick houses there now sprawled two- and three-story buildings that looked vaguely like factories. He recognized the large block of blue tile and white brick that was the defunct Tivoli Brewery and, near it, the freshly painted yellow and gray plaster of old San Cajetano’s bell towers, empty of everything except bird droppings. But these and the abandoned red stone synagogue were the only buildings left that he recognized—churches and breweries being prime targets for historic landmarks—and the very pattern of streets had changed, too. Some were gone completely beneath the new campus’s grass and malls and buildings; others were blocked off by steel pipe and chains. The location was just half a dozen blocks from main headquarters, but since it had its own security force, the D.P.D. detectives had few calls to the area. Except for the bomb squad: several times a year they were alerted by anonymous threats to destroy that symbol of an evil society, the university. “Let’s try the campus security office. It’s supposed to be over on Seventh Street.”
    They were helped by a blue-uniformed sergeant whose brightly colored shoulder patch said “Auraria Campus Police.” She had shoulder-length black hair and said “sir” at the end of every sentence.
    “How’d you get in police work, Sergeant?” asked Max.
    “I was a philosophy major, sir.” That seemed to explain it for her; she showed them on the map where the Metro State student aid office was located and then aimed them out the door in the right direction. Past a building that looked as if it were made of flattened tin cans and was labeled the Learning Resources Center—Wager had always thought books were kept in a library—they rounded a corner to see the granite blocks of St. Elizabeth’s church. Somewhere near here, beneath the Vibram soles of the students in jeans and down parkas who streamed in and out of that Learning Resources Center, was the spot where Wager had lived when he was a kid. Maybe he and Axton were even now walking over the old basement where his father and his mother’s brothers made their wine every year, mashing the grapes in the smoothly worn wooden tub—never a metal washtub like some used—and sending Wager and his cousins scouting through the autumn streets for empty jugs and bottles, tinted glass only, because too much light wouldn’t be good for the wine. Wager could still remember the heavy, dizzying smell trapped between the basement ceiling’s joists, where drops of resin had long ago aged to amber beads and glinted in the motey light of the single basement bulb like the eyes of a hundred spiders. And he could still feel the cold, spongy glide of grapes popping beneath his treading feet; and he remembered, too, the dark-red stain halfway up his shins that wouldn’t wash off but had to wear away while other kids at school, whose fathers didn’t make their own, would ask him what kind of socks he was wearing. His father had always given one of the first bottles to Mr. Ojala; you could never tell when someone in the family might need Tony-O’s help. That was—Jesus!—twenty-five, almost thirty years ago.
    “Here we are, Gabe.”
    It was an office with thin, movable walls and unpainted concrete beams and pillars. Wager had heard the design described as “functional modular,” but that was just another name for cheap. He hoped the new justice center which they were to move into someday would not be as ugly. The dark-eyed girl in jeans who sat poking two fingers at an electric typewriter seemed surprised to see Wager and Axton, their ties and sports coats, the slacks and shiny shoes. “You need some help?”
    Axton showed his badge. “We’re trying to get some information about Frank Covino, miss. I understand he had a job here?”
    “Oh, wasn’t that terrible—he really was a nice guy.”
    “Did you know him?” Wager quickly asked.
    “He was in and out of the