“I think he sings for fags, Olly. You like him?”
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“I bet you sing his songs in the shower don’t you, Olly? Bet you like that other song, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, don’t you, Olly?”
The truth was, Olly did like that song, though he’d never admit it now.
“How do you know his songs?” he said, in a weak attempt at defense.
“I’m not a fag, Olly. So I can listen to his music.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Uh, okay,” she said. “So, I got to go find this Deon guy, ask him some questions, nobody else out here? What was the shooting scene like? Where were they, the guys with all the heavy metal?”
Olly pointed. “That storefront there. Two machine guns, shooting 5.56. Couple hundred casings on the floor in there. Oh, and if there’s any question about it being pros -- no prints on any of the links or cases. And then over there in the parking lot, there were some casings, 7.62 from a heavy machine gun, links also, same for prints. Probably from a truck, but you know, you want to shoot somebody, shoot them in a parking lot, you can’t handle that scene, everything’s contaminated and everything blows in. So we don’t got much. No witnesses to speak of, this is a dead part of town, and when it kicked off everybody ducked for cover. Nothing for nothing.”
Nina looked at the angles of fire, how they intersected and overlapped on the burnt hulks of the vehicles. Pros for sure. Interlocking fields of fire, but not into each other. Somebody who knew how to do this and had done it before.
And somebody who knew Jimmy mixed up in all this.
Interesting.
***
Deon hung up his cell phone. “My lawyer. The cops want me to come down, make a statement.”
“You going?” Marcus said.
“Soon enough. Let them wait a bit.”
Joe flipped through a comic book. The Punisher. “This guy Innis gets the guns right, you ever notice that?”
Marcus laughed.
***
She was gone. She’d insisted on going alone, and for once, Jimmy didn’t argue with her. Let her do what she wanted, he respected that. Something watched over her, and it wasn’t just him.
Her absence filled the room with memories. Her tea cup, the bag neatly folded around a spoon set on the edge of a saucer beside a half-full cup. The carefully folded damp towels in the bathroom after her shower, a hint of lilac from the soap she brought with her. Her smell in the bedroom. The rumpled sheets.
He took his time in the shower, let the hot water run over him. Changed into clean jeans, a soft cotton oxford, rolled the sleeves up. Left his holster, tucked his Glock into his waistband beneath a light cotton pull over against the evening chill, checked his look in the mirror. Like a yuppie.
Young urban pistol packing independent entrepreneur.
Well, maybe not so young.
Everything else, though.
He jumped in his FJ Cruiser, drove slowly downtown, went through the drive through at Starbucks and got a large mocha. Pulled into the parking lot at Moby’s, in the employee slots at the very back of the lot, right next to the service door entrance. In the cool dark of the bar, Thieu and Morgan, her bar back, stacked cases of beer and refreshed the ice in the sink. There were several plastic trays full of fresh limes and oranges set beside a cutting board with a small black handled knife where Thieu had been cutting garnishes for the night.
“Hey, Thieu,” Jimmy said. “Morgan.”
“Hello, Jimmy,” Thieu said. “You early tonight.”
“I’m looking for Deon. He come in?”
“Not yet. You hungry?”
“Yeah. Starving.”
“You want noodle soup?”
“No. How about some egg rolls, not spring rolls, crushed rice and pork?”
“You want iced coffee?”
“No. I got this mocha already. Thanks, Thieu. How you doing, Morgan?”
Morgan was young, maybe 24, quiet and withdrawn, his head concealed beneath a baseball cap he wore 24/7, inside and out, a faded denim shirt and levis, with a Leatherman tool sheathed at his side, battered cowboy boots.
“Good, Jimmy.”
Jimmy studied the younger man with amusement. “You don’t say much, do you, Morgan?”
Morgan shrugged.
“I like that about you.”
Morgan shrugged again.
Jimmy took his coffee to a corner table, sat himself down with a good view of the empty room and the door, sipped his mocha. Took out his cell phone, scrolled through the numbers till he found Deon’s, hit the speed dial.
“Hey, oke,” Deon answered.
“How’d it go?”
“Down to a T, oke. Just like you said it would. Everybody’s down except for Mr. K’s better half, and a few of her domestics. We were thinking a service call out to the farm might be in order.”
Jimmy stared into the distance.
“That just might be in order,” he said. “Let me think about it.”
Chapter Thirty Five
“You’re a friend of Jimmy’s, right?” Nina said to Deon. He’d come down to Sex Crimes to see her.
“I’ve seen you in Moby’s with Jimmy,” Deon said. “He’s a mate of mine.”
“That’s an interesting accent,” Nina said. “Sounds almost British.”
“Don’t tell an Afrikaaner that…we went to war with the Brits.”
“No offense.”
“None taken.”
“So what do you make of what happened down at your store today?”
“Thank God for insurance. That’s what I pay those big premiums for.”
“Do you have any idea why somebody would be down there shooting up your shop?”
“From what the police told me, it’s not certain that they were there to shoot up my shop, just that they were shooting in front of my shop, and my shop got some rounds. Looks like they mixed it up with some very bad people.”
“Yeah,” Nina said. “Some very bad people.”
“I don’t know anything, really, Sergeant Capushek. I was at home, sleeping. I like to sleep in, the pleasures of self-employment. Several friends dropped by, and we went out to get some breakfast, ended up talking the morning away.”
“These friends still around?”
“Sure. At my home. You’re more than welcome to drop by and speak to them if you like, or you could call them, whatever is easier for you.”
“I may do that. Everybody says you run a straight up gun business, is that right?”
“Yes. I am very strict in obeying the law, Sergeant. I’ve always been that way. It’s especially important for someone with a green card and citizenship in progress to keep a clean nose, not that I need that threat hanging over me to keep me on the straight and narrow. I believe in the law.”
“Any body might have a grudge against you, any enemies, anybody might have some reason to be looking at your shop?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay, Deon. Thanks for coming by.”
“No worries, Detective. Would it be against the law to buy you a drink at Moby’s some time?”
Nina grinned. “I’m an expensive date. And I can buy my own drinks.”
“Just thought I’d ask. Ah, well. I notice your gear…you’re well set up. If you’re ever interested, I have a private range at my store. Small, only 15 meters. But plenty for combat work with pistols. We do a little bit of IDPA shooting there as well. You’d be welcome any time. We’re always looking for another shooter.”
“I just might do that.”
“You’d be welcome.”
“All right then. Thanks again for coming by.”
“My pleasure, Detective,” Deon said. He got up and shambled away, languid and loose limbed.
Nina watched him go. LT Fabruzzi came out of his office, watched him, then came to Nina.
“So? What you got for me, hot shot? What that guy give you?”
“I think he’s our guy
,” Nina said. “He’s going to take some looking into.”
***
Lizzy smoothed cream into her face, worked it into the corners of her eyes, down her cheeks, beneath her neck.
Studied her face in the mirror at her dressing room table.
Worked more cream beneath her eyes, at the hint of blue there in her pale skin.
Touched both hands to her face, leaned forward, and wondered what it was that Jimmy Wylde saw when he looked into her face.
Smiled.
Thought of the night they’d spent together. They’d crossed a bridge, a big bridge. She wondered how he would take it. The time she spent with Jimmy felt so often as she was poised on a delicate bridge, spanning two countries, over a deep and dark abyss. And sometimes, she wondered, if the delicacy of what was between them was the most precious thing, and that crossing to one side or the other might take that away.
Lizzy rose from the table, wrapped her lilac robe tight, went into her little nook off the kitchen where she kept her Apple MacBook Pro. She went to the I-Tunes website and scrolled through the latest dance tunes. She didn’t care for most trance, though she had several routines choreographed to some. American pop was her favorite for the club, old classics from the 80s like Madonna. She looked at her playlists, pondered.
Sean Paul had a new tune out. She listened to a clip, then purchased it, wove it into the new play list she was working on. She clicked on the play list, turned it up and went into the front room, listened for a while, tapping her foot, then began to move through the early movements of a new routine. Walked the length of the floor as though it were her runway, then back, mimed the motions on the pole.
Lost in her music.
Almost.
Warmed up now, she stretched, going through a series of ballet movements, then the asanas from yoga class, followed by a short session of body weight exercises and a routine with her light dumb bells and an elastic band.
Then back to her routine, the rhythm infusing her motion, her head Jimmy’s face next to hers, sleeping, when she woke in the night to look at him and she strutted now, barefoot, remembered to go and get her high heels and slip into them, kicking her legs and moving smoothly back and forth across the floor Jimmy, how he stared into her eyes when he came, gripping her face so fiercely getting warm now, really warm, the sweat starting to bead her skin and she visualized the stage area around the pole, worked on her approach how he sat and just looked at her, liked to just look at her, but he looked into her eyes first, always and thought about how she’d work the perimeter of the stage, change things up a little, play to her regular clients some more, because she was feeling really good today and Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, I liked being in your bed…
And turned off the music, body aquiver with the music, a glow to her skin, a sheen to her flesh.
Jimmy.
***
I liked watching Deon come into the bar. He always shambled in, as though he were lost in thought, but he always completely scanned the place: deep, then close, wide and narrow, clocking who was there and who wasn’t, always stopped at the bar for the first drink of the night to chat with Thieu for a few minutes, then come to his table, look for me, settle down and grin and say, “How are you, oke?”
I had to think about that for a minute. Sipped my Dark Lady.
“I’m…good. Had a big night. How about you?”
Deon looked off to one side with a sly grin. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that, oke.”
“Where’s Batman and Robin?”
“Working through my beer stash and flipping around 250 cable channels looking for porn.”
“What else?”
“Had an interesting talk with your girlfriend Detective Capushek.”
That got my attention. I set my beer down.
“Really? How did that go?”
Deon drummed his fingers on the worn table top. “Well enough. She’s got me in her sights. They don’t have anything, but she’ll keep looking. I expect her to come rolling in here. They know it’s about guns. What, they’re not sure, though it’s not too hard to put something together. I think I’ll wait a little bit, then take a trip out of town.”
“Sunny Africa?”
“I’m thinking that would be good. Or maybe down to Peru, see my friends in the biz down there. Been wanting to go see Machu Picchu, haven’t been.”
I nodded. “And the dynamic duo?”
“Oh, they have plenty to do. Up north Montana way. They’ll just stick around till we see this through, then fade away. The other brothers are holed up in my safe place.”
“That leaves a vacuum. Nature doesn’t like a vacuum. Either does the street. Who’s going to tend to business?”
“I’m thinking of visiting the Widow Komorov and having a discussion about joining forces.”
That took some balls, I thought.
“I don’t know the woman,” I said. “But I don’t have the feeling that she is going to take well to that idea.”
“She can’t work alone,” Deon said reasonably. “Hard enough now that her organization is in shreds, her husband is dead, and everybody on the street is going to see her as a weak target, meat on the table. She’s got product to move, and she needs somebody to help her move it.”
“Just a straight up business offer, huh?”
“Yes, oke. Straight up business offer.”
Now that would be a match made in hell. Irina Komorov and the Pale Lord of Death on top of the thriving gun biz in little old Lake City. Their children would be raised on gunfire and reek of brimstone, and probably burst out of the womb fully grown and packing heat.
But it made a certain sort of twisted sense.
We sat in silence and drank. Deon had that look I was familiar with, the post adrenaline rush let-down, the bonelessness that came on you when you were done, had lived through it all, ridden the adrenaline speed train through the tunnel and out into the light…and then had enough breathing space, a safe enough place, to just sit down, and think about what you had just done. Laugh a little, laugh a lot. Drink a beer, have a meal, a woman…revel in the flesh. Celebrate being alive again.
I felt as though I’d been in the tunnel for a long, long time.
And last night, with Lizzy, I felt as though I had come out into the light. What would she think about that? Somewhere, deep inside the labyrinth of her heart, she already knew something about me that I didn’t know, something she saw in me that I couldn’t see, something that it was her job to bring out.
Had already brought out.
Deon closed his eyes and slowly sipped his beer, savoring it.
I savored my memory of Lizzy.
“So, oke,” Deon said, interrupting my reverie. “What do you think about my proposal?”
“Visiting the farm to finish things, or visiting the widow?”
“Both.”
“The one precedes the other,” I said. “The question is which one comes first. Like the chicken and the egg.”
He nodded. “Need to make a decision, oke. There’s a window of chaos there to exploit. Leave it too long and somebody else will step into the void, make order of it. And then you’ll have to return and deal with it. Whole new players, whole new game. They might make a move on you, then.”
“Well, this was always the plan, right?” I said. “Clean the slate, rewrite it the way you want it.”
“Yep. Dat be da troof, as our late friend Mr. Ride would have said.”
I laughed at that. “Dat be da troof. My call? My advice to you is to go strong to the Widow Komorov. Like now. Show of force. Then strike your deal from a position of wanting to protect her. Play it like that, show her you got resources.”
“She’s not stupid. She’s going to see that organization and figure where it came from and what it did.”
“Then call it as you see it, Deon. I’m just an ‘advisor’ here, remember?”
“Damn good advice you give, oke. That’s why I ask for it.”
“You could
always go in low and slow and under the radar,” I said. “More risk and exposure…she’s going to be trigger happy and a real mess. She just lost her husband, her business is a wreck and she’s got people gunning for her.”
“I like that approach. Besides, she may desire comforting.”
“You’ve got to deal with that death wish you’ve confused with sex drive, old friend. It’s going to get you killed.”
Deon laughed and slammed the flat of his hand against the table. “Sex and death? I love it all, oke!”
We both laughed. Crazy? Crazy doesn’t begin to describe it. But then, that’s the nature of friendship, at least in my world. One for all, all for one. Deon had been there for me too many times, since I’d left my other world in a flaming ruin on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan.
But then, I didn’t like to think about that.
Blood brothers. Brothers in blood, brothers in arms.
I studied Deon’s face and felt a swelling of affection, something I’d probably never describe as love. Though maybe, just maybe, now that something had happened last night with Lizzy, maybe there was a crack in that door that would let me fully express what I felt about those brothers in arms.
All of those gone.
Chapter Thirty Six
“We’ve been out to talk to the Mrs. Komorov,” Olly said. “She don’t say nothing for nothing.”
“Probably because you were staring at her tits, Olly,” Nina said. “I’ll go talk to her myself.”
“Suit yourself. She ain’t saying nothing to anybody, got her mouth piece out there, and bunch of heavies walking security. Nobody’s rolling in there hard on her.”
“That’s what everybody thought about Sergey, too, and he’s stinking up the coroner’s office.”
Olly shrugged. “We got an eye on things, too.”
“I think I need a drink.”
“Want some company?”
“Yeah.”
“Where…”
“Not you, Olly. Company. Later.”
Nina walked off, stopped and threw him a look over her shoulder, walked on.
“Bitch,” Olly muttered.
“That’s right!” Nina shouted. “I heard you think it!”
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