Endangered Species by Rex Burns Read Free Book Online

the column headed OUT OF OFFICE. It told the civilian secretary that they were gone but on duty and she could contact them on the radio if necessary. “The Brothers?”
    My Brother’s Bar was across the river bottom from lower downtown; the noon crowd would be gone by now, and Wager thought the aching memories associated with it and Jo Fabrizio had finally gone too. Still, when they entered the cool dimness of the corner bar, he couldn’t help a glance at the back tables, where he and Jo had spent a lot of time talking. It wasn’t a place where he brought Elizabeth, not because it was some kind of shrine but because it was a different period of his life—different people in it and perhaps even a different self living it—and he did not feel right about mixing them. Jo was dead, having literally disappeared into that emptiness we all go into sooner or later, her body still not found. It was that, Wager had finally come to realize, which made things worse: without a grave, grief had no focus, and the tiny voice of unstifled hope that said “Maybe she is still alive” was more of a cruelty than a solace. That observation had been Elizabeth’s, made when Wager had finally loosened up enough to tell her about Jo. Her words had been true, though they weren’t things that Wager would have admitted aloud, even to himself. And in fact, he still remembered the effort it had been to admit to Elizabeth that she was right. After that, they had made love for the first time.
    Max led the way into the adjoining larger room and the heavy wooden tables and benches that the big man liked because they could hold his weight. The large sandwich menus painted on the wall hadn’t changed over the years, and neither had Max’s order—two Moisheburgers.
    “Fullerton did say there could be some trouble at the Holy Name Church fiesta.” Max talked through a mouthful of sandwich.
    “When’s that?”
    “Tonight. What are they celebrating?”
    Wager was “ethnic”—that was the latest buzzword. He was supposed to know all the Hispanic festivals. Some people said his minority status was the only reason he’d made it to Homicide. Others said he was put on Homicide because he was too much of a pain in the butt to work with anyone but Axton.
    “I don’t know. Maybe they just feel like having a party.” He caught Max’s raised eyebrows. “Hey, I’m only half Hispanic. I only know half the fiesta days.”
    “Oh.” The rest of Max’s sandwich disappeared from his fingers and reappeared as a lump in his cheek. “Anyway, Fullerton thinks there might be gang trouble. The parish includes the turf of the Gallos on the north side and the Tapatíos on the east.”
    Gallos meant “roosters,” and a lot of the neighborhood’s graffiti featured a stylized crowing bird; a tapatío was someone from the Mexican state of Jalisco, though Wager didn’t think any of the punks in that gang could even find Jalisco on the map, let alone claim to be from there. “The dance is going to be at the church, right?”
    Max nodded.
    “Then it’s the priest’s problem.” Nothing new about that. For many of Denver’s Latino immigrants and even a lot of the second-generation Chicanos, the church was their social as well as religious center. Which, of course, the priests did their best to further with dances, fiestas, and neighborhood celebrations. A small band, a keg of beer at a dollar a glass, a potluck table, and they were in business. And the priest always deputized a small cadre of hefty men—some of whom were ex-gang members—to keep things under control.
    “Fullerton also said he heard Flaco was trying to make a deal with the Gallos. Which,” Max added, “could explain why he shot Moralez.”
    “A dope deal?” The jostling between gangs for power was always restless, Wager knew, and if Flaco could offer the Gallos an edge over the Tapatíos, they might take it. Depending on what Flaco promised and what he wanted in return.
    Max shrugged.