{Dick is Lory Kohn's 1996 detective novel set in Denver.} 

Excerpt from Dick

5  The Alamo 

The Alamo stands in Curtis Park, a historic district near the new Coors Field. Originally built as an armory in 1896, the Mission Revival-style building has seen a century of nostalgic incarnations. Jack Dempsey is said to have trained and fought there during its long and glorious stint as the Olympic Boxing Hall. Bat Masterson ran the Olympic Boxing Club and managed many of its fighters. 

The Alamo gets its nickname from the fort-like exterior and crumbling parapets that mimic the famous site Crockett and company defended against the Mexican army in 1836. The similarities don't end there. In 1996, a modern day Mexican army, whose cavalry consists of low riders equipped for demoralizing boombox warfare, surrounds its outskirts. In place of the rogue Texans and brawling frontiersmen who defended the original Alamo, Denver's outpost is manned by outlaw fringes of homo Americanus dedicated to white-power rock, heavy metal, death metal, speed metal, rap, punk, and alternative grunge. In its own warped way, the Alamo is a veritable Julliard of the West. 

The Curtis Park district is notable on two accounts. First and foremost, it is a world-class bastion of Victorian homes, the renowned "painted ladies" that were constructed in the heyday of the silver boom. With money readily available, heated competition took place to see who could outdo who in the Queen Anne style, an eclectic mix of shingles, leaded lights, swags, turrets, bargeboarding and gingerbreading. Denver’s fin de siècle craftsmen fashioned some of the most creative Victoriana that can be found anywhere. 

Trees were saplings then. Streets were made of cobblestones. A hundred years ago, women wearing hoop skirts, lavish hats, and loads of costume jewelry perambulated past these domiciles. It was customary for ladies to carry parasols on their excursions. 

Presently, the trees had matured, the streets were paved, and the occasional pedestrian strolled by blandly garbed in the branded merchandise of the day. But those pedestrians were carrying accessories that packed a little more wallop than parasols. They had to, to maximize their chances of surviving the trek from point A to point B. That could be traced to our second notable point: in 1996, the Curtis Park district led the city in drive-by shootings. Its proximity to the gang-dominated Five Points neighborhood could have had some influence on the inordinate amount of drive-bys. After all, sometimes the joy ride's just begun and the trigger fingers are already itchy. 

Like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Sam Houston before me, I was Alamo-bound. It was ironic that my first assignment would take place in Curtis Park; I wouldn't be working Homicide if all those drive-bys hadn't been overtaxing the Division. To get a feel for the place, I cruised the neighborhood in my unmarked unit. Ford LTDs weren't as effective as Klingon cloaking devices. Every dick drove one. Might as well write "Undercover Cop" on the door. I parked my unit down the block, using the rear-view mirror for last-minute weave adjustments. Satisfied, I approached the fortress. 

Huge truck bays were wide open, so I walked right in. The main floor of the former arena would have been perfect for the intimacy and immediacy of "the manly art of self defense." It was half the size of a football field. The ceiling was fifty feet above the floor. Tremendous wood beams supported the roof. I'd never seen vigas that big. A balcony overlooked the arena. That's where the press and bigwigs must have soaked up the proceedings. 

Something was going on with the atmosphere inside the building. It was thick with a supernatural jambalaya consisting of dust, ether, motes, carbon monoxide, rust, detritus, dehydrated ghosts, and Jack Dempsey's sweat evaporated on the rafters—vestiges of all the eras the structure had stood through. The past superimposed on the present. I could see the fight crowd—guys in straw hats, starched shirts and bow ties, smoking stogies and washing them down with plenty of suds, yelling themselves hoarse as Jack hammered another stiff into oblivion. It was as if the building had memories and those memories were rendered visible. 

Tinctured traces from the Alamo's days as an auto-body shop and a printing shop had also survived the onslaught of time. A fresher force was present — telltale signs of the recent rave, exemplified by the same types of wall paintings I saw at the Stadium Lofts building. Neglect hung heavy over the structure. 

I found the rehearsal spaces downstairs, where the locker rooms must have been. Where Jack shadowboxed before a bout and unwound after unleashing his fury. There were at least a dozen doors hanging off a series of hallways. Each door was covered with graffiti, posters, or Xeroxed handouts advertising the musical cults within. Cloaked skeletons holding scythes were a popular motif, as was just about any hardcore incubus depicting those lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Inquisition. 

I was taking all this in when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I twitched. 

"Can I help you?" 

"Uh, yeah. I was just having a look around. I see that Los Lecheros rehearses here." 

"Half of them do—the half that didn't just OD. I guess they’ve had to postpone their northern New Mexico tour. They have a big following in Espanada. I imagine they'll be auditioning for new members soon." 

Auditioning for new members. Hmm. Then it hit me—I couldn't just knock on these doors like some retarded Jehovah's Witness. There was only one way I was going to infiltrate this scene—rent a room myself. What a great cover! 

"Are you looking for space?" 

"Rehearsing here on earth would work for me." 

"What's your name?" 

"They call me The Man Who Could Not Be Named." 

That was the name of the bass player on a record I saw in a cutout bin from a bunch of hard-working Americans doing business as Gonorrhea. 

"That's great—as long you're The Man Who Can Be Billed. I'm Geoff Graham. I run the place. How long do you need it for?" 

"Probably two or three months, until we go out on the road." 

"What kind of music do you play?" 

"Waltz music." 

"No, really. Are you into death metal?" 

"What's death metal?" 

"You know, it's music for people who want to die." 

"Sure. We're into that." 

"A band called Death Row rehearsed here. They played death metal. You look kinda like one of the guys in that band, or should I say, one of the guys who was in that band." 

"Seems like you've got a fairly high casualty rate here, Geoff." 

"You know what they say: live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Maybe I should sell life insurance on the side. Does your band have a name?" 

"The Suck." 

It came to me on the spur of the moment. 

"Oh. You'll fit right in." 

"We're signed to a major label. I have top-flight management and the budget to recruit a backup band. We have fantastic prospects," I heard myself intone with a great deal of bravado. "Who else rehearses here?" 

"Psycho Sis, Lucy Fur, Ma Mausoleum, Chaos Variation. Some of them play out. Some of them just play here." 

I was about to inquire about the recent rave when the creepy catacombs were plunged into blackness. 

"Motherfucker. There goes another fuse." Geoff clicked his lighter and led the way to the wiring center. 

No wonder. The wiring was straight from the Spanish American War. It was hard to believe five or six high-voltage bands could practice at the same time without blowing the circuits. Geoff produced a fuse from his back pocket and inserted it into place. Lights. Camera. Action. 

"Have no fear. We're getting that wiring beefed up with 400-amp service. It won't be a problem, I assure you. Want to see the rooms?" 

"Let's do it." 

It's too bad Officer Clark wasn't with me on this field trip, because I presumed from the propaganda pushpinned to their door that the bunker we were about to enter housed the happy-go-lucky members of The Bund. Geoff used a master key. He switched on the lights. From a quick appraisal of their tasteful, neo-Nazi decor, I'd guess the Bund's list of hijinks began with ethnic cleansing and took off from there. Resplendent iconography honoring their forebears in the Third Reich was everywhere. A sprinkling of photos and newspaper clippings covering the Bund's appearance at a recent hate rally in the wilds of Michigan was also prominently displayed. This skinhead crew pretty much defined the ethos of white-power rock. Springtime for Hitler, indeed. 

I was also afforded a peek inside the lair of Lucy Fur. I didn't have to imagine what sort of lads comprised their demonic lineup. Lucy Fur was working hard on an up-tempo number. I believe it was entitled "Hot God on Nun." No one would mistake the members of Lucy Fur for ROTC cadets. But their appearance was neither here nor there. What really made an impression was that never in my life had I heard so many decibels bombarding so few square feet. Subjecting my hearing to this sonic Armageddon on a daily basis could present a real downside to my hastily conceived plan. But something told me to stay committed. Any time you go undercover, occupational hazards come with the territory. 

Their Fur-nishings were more influenced by Satanism than Nazism. Several symbolic trappings really stood out, like the crossed truncheons lurking behind an Ampeg bass stack. Hooded robes hung by a sacrificial altar. Medieval manacles and torture implements were proudly mounted a handy distance away. But the most striking sight inside their burrow was the drum kit built around a Harley hog. This brainstorm was quite an accomplishment, for in addition to the anticonformity message broadcast by the hog, it served Satan as a drum stool. Imaginative, practical, and quite the centerpiece for this society of psychopaths. 

The tour continued with a quick peek inside Ma Mausoleum's chamber. Their sepulcher was a little more upbeat. In addition to worshiping the Lord of Darkness, Ma Mausoleum's membership found room in their hearts to revere the airbrushed female form. Refreshing. Even though no one was in there, a swamp cooler hummed in a corner—one more thing to overload the electrical circuits. 

"Is this about what you're looking for?" 

Right-o. It was my life's ambition to wile away my youth in a vapor cave. 

"I was looking for something with a view, but I can work with it." 

"I've got fifteen of these rooms rented out. There's only one left. Want to check it out?" 

What I really wanted to see was the Los Lecheros room. I wasn't sure how that request would be interpreted, so I didn't push it. I settled for seeing the vacant room. The sixteenth rehearsal room was the biggest and most expensive in the Alamo. Just the place for a band going places, like The Suck. 

"Rent's $180 a month. Can you handle that?" 

"Would $450 for three months cover it?" 

"Done," Geoff said, extending his hand to seal the deal. "But I'll need that ASAP. Like I said, it's the last room left. Do you play billiards?" 

Inventing the Suck with its "fantastic prospects" and "top-flight management" got me in tight with my new landlord. Geoff led the way to a large suite on the mezzanine level. The suite included an architect's office and an oversized game room. Geoff was the architect. Conceptual drawings for the Alamo’s restoration were spread out on drafting tables. 

"This was Bat Masterson's office when he ran the Olympic Boxing Club." 

I learned all about the Alamo and Geoff's plans for it as we cracked open a few cold ones and he taught me the intricacies of a billiards game called Golf. His plans included financing an Alamo facelift by holding special events on the main floor — like the rave that was busted before it got off the ground. Geoff had gotten as far as transforming the downstairs into rehearsal rooms. Except for the industrial-strength layer of dust, you could see that the building could come back if enough bucks were pumped into it. He was very talkative. I probably could have pressed Geoff for more information about Los Lecheros and Death Row, but thought it best to tread lightly. If everything went according to plan, opportunities would present themselves to do all the sniffing around I needed. 

Geoff and I had recent divorces in common. Downing brewskies, playing billiards, and trashing our ex-wives made the time fly by. Afternoon turned into evening. I would have been perfectly happy hanging around the Alamo all night. Musicians and their hangers-on were straggling in. I was getting used to the long runs of felt and the multiple-carom bank shots. The more I drank, the more I felt like I might even break through and win a game. I didn't have anything to do. Or did I? I looked at my watch. Duh. It was 8:30. That meant Lila had been waiting at Cliff Young's for a half hour. I was blowing it big time. 

So the Ice Man shows up at Cliff Young's forty-five minutes late. The maitre d' looks at me and swallows hard. Lila’s waiting for me at a romantic table by the piano bar. She gives me a big smile. What have I brought her? Not flowers. Not tokens of affection. Just pathetic excuses and lukewarm apologies. But Lila acts like there's nothing to forgive. Doesn't bust my chops. Asks me how the Ice Man look went over. She probably reads books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and knows it pays to let boys be boys. Dinner goes real well. 

Back at the Sonya, do I accept her invitation to come in for a nightcap, maybe smooch a little bit? No. Of course not. Instead, I retreat to my own fortress, my fortress of solitude, turn on ESPN, and nod out as an intent young thing flexes her gluteus maximus during a women's bodybuilding competition. 

I really need to have my head examined.