Angle of Attack by Rex Burns

electric clock’s hand as it lunged ahead each minute. It used to be a sound as persistent and steady as the pulse in his own ears, and he had grown just as unconscious of it in the hours and days and months spent at that desk beside the window. Now the noise was new again, and it irritated.
    Ed finally came in, his sloping shoulders and neck as stooped as ever, his pale red hair a strand or two thinner in its sweep back from his forehead to cover the balding spot on his crown. As tall as Axton, he weighed half as much, and Wager thought again that Ed looked less like a detective than a rawboned dirt farmer broken by the hard prairie and bent under the weight of mortgages. As usual, Ed went through five minutes of preliminaries to find out briefly how Wager was doing, and to tell them at length how he was doing, the O.C.U. was doing, the inspector was doing, and finally to ask for a pat on the back for getting the unit re-funded all by himself. “Well, me and Sonnenberg worked hard on that budget presentation, Gabe. I did the pencil work and the inspector presented it. He’s the senior man, so I guess it’s the thing to do. And I guess they liked it. We’re still suited up, anyway, but I tell you it was a long fourth-and-ten.”
    At last the sergeant asked, “What can I do for you?” and Wager told him.
    “The Scorvellis?”
    The wrinkle between Ed’s sandy eyebrows told him that the question had poked at a sensitive area. Wager said, “We’re still looking into the murder of Marco. We think there may be some connection with a homicide that happened last weekend.”
    “Well, sure, we’re scouting the Scorvellis—we always are. The whole game plan’s to keep the pressure on, you know. But I don’t see that I can give you much that you don’t already have.”
    “I haven’t heard a thing since I left a year ago, Ed. Max and I would like to be brought up to date.”
    “Right, sure! Has it really been that long? My, my.”
    “Let’s start with what happened to the organization after Marco was killed.”
    “Wager, I’m not starting anywhere! This Scorvelli family’s a very touchy issue around here, and I’m not about to be called offsides on it.”
    “Ed, we’re on the same side. I used to work here, remember?”
    “Then you ought to remember the inspector’s security regulations. Sure, we’re working on the Scorvellis—I’ll tell you that much. But I’m not about to tell you what it is or what we know. Period.”
    “If I have to, I can take this right up to the D.A., Ed. You know that. And you know Doyle over in homicide, too. If I tell him that you’ve refused to cooperate in a legitimate investigation run by his department, he will raise such a stink you’ll have to fumigate this place. Think about that when funding time comes around again.”
    The stoop-shouldered man ran a hand up his narrow forehead and across the wedge of thin red hair, then patted it back down. “Maybe you’d better talk to Sonnenberg.”
    “Maybe we had.”
    The unit chief, Inspector Sonnenberg, was lighting a fresh maduro from one of the long kitchen matches he kept in a glass at the very edge of his almost vacant desk. Wager and Axton each were issued one of his rare smiles with their handshake, then Sonnenberg sat back down in his dark-green swivel chair. “I take it you’re after something that Ed won’t give you. What is it?”
    Wager was just as direct. “We want to know what the Scorvelli organization’s done since Marco was killed. It may have some bearing on another homicide that happened last weekend.”
    Sonnenberg swiveled so that they could see only his angled profile. He rolled the cigar between pursed lips and held it just off his mouth; out of its wet end a tendril of brown smoke curled like a small question mark. “I haven’t heard of their involvement in any recent homicide. What is it exactly that you’re looking for?”
    It would have been a lot easier if they had questions on specific