“On whose authority…?” Gill said.
“It’s already been cleared with Superintendent Walker of the Homicide Unit. Let’s hear you, Dante.”
Dante looked at Gill, who gave a short nod.
“Tomás Gomez came in and bought a gun a while ago,” said Dante.
“You know it was him?” asked Rooble.
“He didn’t exactly show me his ID, but I’ve seen pictures from the security camera on the TV news and yeah, it was him all right. He bought an M24 with telescopic sights and the whole shebang.”
“Including this holster?” Rooble Isack asked. He held up a photo.
“Yes.”
“Keep going.”
Dante shrugged. “There’s isn’t a lot more to tell. He didn’t say much. In fact, he didn’t say a single word. Just pointed to what he wanted, paid and left.”
“Had you seen him before?”
“How do I know? The guy was wearing sunglasses and a hoodie.”
There was silence in the room.
Rooble leaned forward to Gill.
“Explain to your client that this isn’t worth what we’re offering to pay. And tell him I agree with you, Gill: if we drop the deal and have him sent to jail then he’ll be a sitting duck for Gomez’s gang.”
“Now listen, Detective Isack—” the lawyer began, but was interrupted by Dante.
“Okay, okay. Like I said, I’m not certain who Tomás Gomez is, but he reminds me of a guy who disappeared a long time ago and no one knew what happened to him. A cold-blooded, brutal killing machine. They called him Lobo. I sold an Uzi to him a long, long time ago. Must have been back in the eighties.”
“I remember people talking about a guy called Lobo when I was in Homicide,” said Rooble. “It was before my time, but I understood that he was either dead or had gone back south of the border again.”
“What you mean is, you never found him, right?” Dante laughed bitterly. “So, I’m not saying this was Lobo, I’m just saying this Gomez guy looked like him. And he had the same tattoo on the back of his hand. One of those five-pointed stars drawn with just one line.”
Rooble exchanged a look with his colleague and leaned closer. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, he had the same like…scars on his face. But…” Dante seemed to be searching for the right words but couldn’t find them.
“But what?” Rooble said impatiently.
“But Lobo had this, like…this very expressive face. This guy here, his face was dead. He was like a walking dead man, if you get my meaning. And then his hands…”
“You already told us about the tattoo.”
“Yeah yeah, but that wasn’t all.”
—
Kay was walking along the rough trail. The trees had taken on the colors of fall, but still clung on to their leaves. She stopped at a decaying sign which related that the forest around her was a so-called white cedar forest, and that some of the trees were over 250 years old. The place was also home to unique fauna. Here, she read, one could encounter the red-shouldered hawk, the redheaded woodpecker, coyotes, badgers and deer. Depending on the season one might also see bison, black bears and wolves. Kay shuddered, hoped it wasn’t the season for any of them, and continued along the trail. Gradually it began to narrow, the trees on both sides grew thicker, and she noticed that the wild sound of birdsong that had accompanied her walk so far had now stopped, the way sound stops when a stranger enters a local bar. Or, she thought, when those living in an area watch in tense excitement as someone walks toward a danger that only they can see.
She pushed aside the branches that dangled across the path and hindered her view, then heard a rustling sound that told her she was approaching a stream. Another sound carried from deep in the forest, like a machine gun. That’s the type of association you get from growing up in Englewood, she thought, and concluded it was probably a woodpecker. Suddenly the trail ended. Orrather, it divided at a T intersection, with the two forks turning left and right and following the stream in front of her. A mailbox had been lashed with wire to the top of a rusty iron pole driven into the ground. It was difficult to imagine a mailman making his way all the way out here, but at least the box had a name on it in white paint: RT CLUB. Across the nine-foot-wide murky-green stream she saw planks that had once formed a primitive bridge that was now broken in the middle. Mrs. Holte had explained that the house lay a few hundred yards away once you crossed the stream, but the forest was too thick for Kay to see anything. She glanced down at her shoes. Sneakers. Made for city walking. New and expensive and dazzling white. She edged her way out along the planks, jumped, making it with her right but not her left foot, which sank splashing into the revolting, squelching bed of the stream before she was able to pull herself up and reach the other side.
The path ahead was now almost invisible, but in a while she saw the outlines of a house through the trees. It was so quiet she could hear her own heart beating, and the thick foliage above her blocked most of the sunlight. She came to a stop where the path ended. In front of her was a meadow of long grass with a single-story red wooden building behind it. Though there was no access road and the building lay in the middle of a forest her first thought was that it looked like some kind of garage or warehouse. The tall grass, the paint that was flaking off the wood and the lack of any well-trodden path leading up to it all suggested that the place had not seen visitors for several years. Kay pulled out her gun and held it in front of her as she stepped out into the open. Moving quickly to avoid being an easy target, all senses alert, she saw no visible sign of movement, heard no sound. She saw something fastened above the door. It looked almost like the kind of crest families in stately homes have hanging above the entrance. Kay had to move closer to confirm that it really was what she thought it was.
A squirrel holding a deer-hunting rifle.
