Free Angle of Attack by Rex Burns Page B

office building that gazed through the trees of the state capitol grounds toward the gold dome. Wager and Axton, following the Bulldog’s suggestion, stood outside a small pane of Plexiglas at the second-floor landing. Security person Gutierrez remembered Wager by name and smiled widely as she pushed the loud buzzer that unlocked the door. “They’re all in conference, Detective Wager, but they’ll be out in ten minutes or so. If you gentlemen want to wait in the interview room, I can get you some coffee.”
    “Thanks. I’ll say hello to Suzy first.”
    “Oh, do! She’ll be so glad to see you.”
    Wager led Axton past the desks jammed into a warren of open cubicles to the corner that had been his. On the whole, the place was the same; but here and there, in small details such as a new wall chart or a different arrangement of office furniture, changes had been made. Wager felt that curious mixture of familiarity and distance, as if he remembered the location better than the location remembered him, and it brought home the fact that he was no longer an O.C.U. agent but just another visitor from an outside unit.
    “Gabe! I mean, Detective Wager!” Suzy, whose plainness was one thing that would never change, looked up from her typewriter. “I heard you were coming by.”
    She shook hands and he introduced her to Axton. “Is Ed in conference, too?”
    “Sure—same old Wednesday routine. It looks like your new job really agrees with you! You’re looking just fine.”
    “You do, too. I heard the unit was re-funded—that’s real good.”
    She held up a thumb and forefinger, a quarter of an inch apart. “Gee, it was that close, but Inspector Sonnenberg really put on a good budget presentation. He really deserves a lot of credit.”
    “That’s real good,” said Wager again, because there wasn’t much else to say, and all the words he’d used so far seemed awkward and strained. Odd, how things that seemed vital when he worked here weren’t worth talking about after he left. He glanced at the three desks, empty at the moment, lining the wall beside the old, square window. His had been the middle one and he had kept its surface clean. Now it was littered with a wad of papers and had somebody’s family album propped at one corner; on the other corner, beside the window, grew a potted marijuana plant with a small sign: “Keep Off the Grass.”
    Suzy followed his glance. “That’s Detective Beasley’s desk. He’s real funny—he uses the plant for lectures to junior high kids.”
    It made no difference to Wager whose desk it was any more or how messed up he let it get. “Do you know if anybody’s working on the Scorvellis?”
    “I’m sure someone must be, but no one ever tells me anything.”
    That wasn’t entirely true, but Suzy knew how to keep her mouth shut. That was how she kept her job, and Wager didn’t hold it against her. “Can we wait in Ed’s office for him?”
    “Sure. I’ll get you another chair. Gee, it’s good to see you again!”
    When they had been settled in the unit sergeant’s cubicle with a third chair and the usual cups of coffee, Axton murmured, “I think you’ve got a girl friend there, Gabe.”
    “Suzy?” It was hard to imagine her as anyone’s girl friend, let alone his. “She’s a real nice girl. Like a kid sister.” More like somebody else’s kid sister, because Wager’s was a real bitch who still blamed him for his divorce.
    “Ah,” said Axton.
    “She takes pictures in her spare time. Photography.”
    “Ah.”
    They sat in silence while Wager wondered what the hell Axton meant by “Ah.” The cubicle’s plywood partitions were covered with the familiar pale-green paint and various framed awards and certificates that marked the points of achievement in Ed’s professional life. Through the rapid thump of Suzy’s typewriter and the pop of transmissions from radios scattered around the old building’s second floor, Wager picked out the raw squeak of the