Angle of Attack Read Online Free

didn’t have no enemies!”
    “Alice …” The woman with short hair put an arm around Mrs. Covino’s curved and shaking shoulders. She, too, glared at the detectives; in her case, Wager felt, not because they were cops but because they were men, and men—sons, lovers, husbands—were the cause of the grief of womankind.
    “I’m all right.” Mrs. Covino dabbed at her eyes. “Frankie was the youngest. First Gerry, then Gracie, then him—Frankie. He had lots of friends. Everybody liked Frankie. Tell them about Frankie going to college, Gracie. Tell them about how he was studying electricity.”
    The young woman nodded. “At Metropolitan College downtown. He was a work-study student.”
    “Did he have any other jobs, Miss Covino?”
    “At Aztec Liquors, over on Federal.”
    “Tell them what Mr. Rosenbaum said, Gracie, about Frankie being such a good worker that he could own his own store someday. But he wanted to study electricity.”
    “Did he work days or nights?”
    “Afternoons,” said the young woman. “Sometimes nights or weekends, but Mama didn’t like that. She was afraid he’d get hurt in a holdup.”
    “Cream or sugar?” The woman from the kitchen held a tray of guest china out to them.
    “Neither, ma’am.” Wager took the flowered, fragile cup; his finger did not quite go through the small handle. Beside him, he heard Axton rattling the china softly, trying to figure out a way to pick up the cup politely in his large fingers.
    “Can you give us some names of his friends, ma’am?” asked Wager.
    Mrs. Covino let her daughter name eight or ten while she nodded and said, more to herself than to Wager, “I forget all his friends. He had so many friends.”
    Wager listed names and some addresses in his little green notebook. There were three that the mother said were her son’s best friends, so he penciled boxes around those.
    “Did Frank happen to tell you where he was going last night?”
    Again Mrs. Covino spoke to her daughter, as if otherwise she would not be able to speak at all. “To a movie with friends. He ate supper and he phoned one of his friends, didn’t he, Gracie? And then he just went out the front door like any other time .… He said, ‘Don’t wait up, Mom,’ and went out like always. And I didn’t wait up—God forgive me. Maybe if I’d waited up …”
    “Alice, it’s not your fault.”
    They sipped their coffee and studied their shoes until the wet, muffled explosions stopped, and then Wager asked, “Do you know who he might have gone with? Which movie he went to?”
    “No. It was on the phone. I didn’t listen,” she said weakly. “Oh, God, what could I do? What could I do?”
    “Is there a photograph that we could have to show people?” Axton asked the daughter. “We’ll copy it and get it right back to you, ma’am.”
    “There.” Mrs. Covino’s puffy eyes looked hungrily at the shelf of family pictures lined up against the dark wall near the madonna. “Gracie …”
    The girl brought it quickly, not looking at the high school graduation face that smiled out through the glass; with tight lips, she thrust it at Wager.
    “Did Frank have a car, ma’am?” he asked the girl.
    She described it, the mother adding, “He loved that car. Always, he bought something for it. Maybe that’s why! Maybe somebody wanted that car!”
    “That could be, ma’am,” said Wager. “We haven’t found it yet.” He tried to make the next question sound equally routine. “Did your son ever talk of knowing a Marco Scorvelli?”
    “God, no! Tell him, Gracie—I know who that is, and tell him that Frankie never knew that kind of man!”
    “My brother was good! Why do you want to say these things that aren’t true? It’s bad enough what you cops did to Gerry!”
    Axton leaned slightly forward, the dark, thickly padded chair creaking under his weight. “Would that be Gerald Edward Covino, miss? The one in Cañon City?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Gracie,