''You know where to get it?''
''I know a guy. He's a problem, but we can work something out. We'd need Sandy.
And we'd have to get moving.''
''All right.'' LaChaise started toward the bathroom; halfway down the hall, he stopped and looked at Harp's record collection and said, ''Jesus Christ, what happened to the records?''
''You got pissed off and broke them up.''
''Christ, I must've been fucked.'' LaChaise bent and picked up half a record.
Sketches of Spain, by Miles Davis. ''Some kind of spic music,'' he said. He yawned again and flipped the broken record into the room, on top of all the other fragments, and went on down to the bathroom.
• • •
SANDY WAS DRESSED, WRAPPED IN THE PARKA, WHEN LaChaise came to the door.
''Let's go,'' he said, rapping once.
''Where?''
''You gotta do something for us.''
LACHAISE DROVE, WHILE MARTIN GAVE DIRECTIONS from memory, out this street and down that highway, turn at the lumber store with the red sign. They were somewhere west of the city, around a lake. Dozens of ice-fishing shacks were scattered over the frozen surface of the lake, and pickups and snowmobiles were parked beside some of the shacks.
''The thing is,'' Martin said, ''is that half his business is illegal, 'cause he don't believe in gun controls… but I do believe he'd shoot us down like dogs if he had a chance. If he seen us coming.'' He looked at Sandy. ''So you walk up to his front door and ring the bell. I'll be right there, next to the stoop.''
''That's… I couldn't pull it off,'' Sandy said.
''Sure you can,'' Martin said. She remembered the night before, his eyes over the sights of the pistol.
THE HOUSE WAS A BROWN-SHINGLED RAMBLER ON A quiet, curving street. Lights showed from a front window and the back of the house; the car clock said 7:30. Still dark enough.
''Door latches on the right,'' Martin said. They continued past the house, did a
U-turn, dropped Martin and waited as he walked away in the dark. After a minute or so, they started back toward the house. ''Quick beep, all the lights, then just run up to the house with the bag in your hand,'' LaChaise said.
They'd picked up a newspaper at a coin-op box, andwrapped it in a plastic grocery bag they found in the backseat. ''Don't fuck it up.''
Sandy held on: just this thing, they said.
''Now,'' said LaChaise.
They pulled up to the house, stopped in the middle of the driveway. Sandy gave the horn a light beep, then hopped out of the car, carrying in the paper. At the same moment, Martin duck-walked down the front of the house, until he was directly beneath the stoop, on the right side of the door under the latch, but pressed to the side of the house.
Sandy saw a white-haired man come to what must be a kitchen window as she hurried up the driveway, shivering from the cold. The man was holding a mug of coffee, his forehead wrinkling at the sight of her. She hurried up the stoop and rang the doorbell. Martin's face was just beside her right pant leg, a. 45 in his hand. The door opened, and the white-haired man pushed the storm door open a crack and said, ''Yes?''
Sandy pulled the door open another foot, and Martin stood up and pushed his pistol at the man inside. ''Don't move, Frank. Don't even think about moving.''
''Oh, boy,'' the man said. He had a surprisingly soft, cultured voice, Sandy thought, for a gun dealer. He backed up, his hands in front of him. LaChaise was out of the car, and Martin pushed Frank into the house, Sandy following, and
LaChaise coming up behind.
Inside, Martin said, ''He'll have a three-fifty-seven under his sweater, back on his hip, Dick, if you want to get that…''
LaChaise patted the man, found the gun.
Martin went on, ''And he might have an ankle piece…'' LaChaise dropped to his knees, and the man said, ''Left ankle,'' and LaChaise found a hammerless revolver.
''You dress like this to have coffee, I'd hate to see yougetting ready for trouble,'' LaChaise said, grinning at the man.
The man looked at him for a moment, then turned back to Martin. ''What do you want?''
''Couple of special AKs, out of that safe in the basement. A couple of vests.''
''You boys are dead, you know that?''
Martin nodded. ''Yeah. Which is why maybe you shouldn't fight us. There's no percentage in it, 'cause we just don't give a fuck anymore.''
The man nodded and said, ''Down this way.''
FRANK HAD THREE GUN SAFES IN THE BASEMENT, aligned along a wall with a workbench and a separate reloading bench. He reached for the combination dial on the middle safe, but Martin stopped him, made him recite the combination, and ordered Sandy to open it. He pressed his pistol to the back of the man's neck:
''If anything happens-if there's a bang or a siren, or a phone line, you'll be dead.''
''There's nothing,'' Frank said.
Martin said to LaChaise, ''He's probably got a hand piece stashed behind something down here, where he can get it quick. Keep your gun pointed at him.''
And to Frank, he said, ''I'm sorry about this, but you know what our problem is.''
Sandy finished the combination, grasped the handle on the safe, turned her head away and tugged. The safe door opened easily; Martin said, ''All right.'' Sandy almost didn't hear him: she'd seen the obsolete black dial telephone on the gun bench.
''You got him?'' Martin asked LaChaise.
LaChaise moved a little sideways to Frank, and kept the gun pointed at his ear.
Martin brushed past Sandy, reached into the safe and took out an AR-15. ''All right,'' he said, finding the custom selector switch. He quickly field-strippedit, found nothing wrong, put it together. There were three guns in the safe, and two dozen boxes of ammo. Martin took it all, stuffing the ammo boxes in his coat pockets until they were full, handing the rest to Sandy.
''And the vests,'' Martin said.
''Over in the corner closet,'' Frank said.
Martin walked across the basement to a closet with a sliding door, pushed it back, found a row of Kevlar vests in plastic sacks. He selected two of them, then glanced at Sandy, and took a third.
''I'm really sorry about this,'' Martin said. He handed the vests to Sandy, put his gun on Frank and prodded him toward the stairs. LaChaise went up ahead of them, so they could keep the white-haired man covered around corners.
Sandy fumbled one of the boxes of ammo, then another one. They hit the floor, and shells spewed out. ''Oh, shit,'' she said.
''Goddamnit,'' Martin growled. ''Get those…''
Sandy stooped, and began picking up the cartridges, stuffing them into her pockets, as the men climbed the stairs.
When they reached the top, and had started down the hall, Sandy darted to the telephone and dialed 911. The operator answered a second later, and she said,
''This is Sandy Darling calling for Chief Davenport. We're here buying guns.
They're gonna attack someplace. I'll leave the phone off the hook and try to keep them here…''
She placed the phone sideways across the top of the receiver and hurried up the stairs after LaChaise and Martin.
TWENTY
LUCAS AND DEL WERE WAKING UP WITH DAY-OLD DANISH and plastic foam cups of fake cappuccino when Dispatch called.
''Woman called for you and identified herself as Sandy Darling,'' the dispatcher said without preamble, excitement under her steady voice. ''Said they were buying guns and they're gonna attack something, but she didn't say what or when.
She left the phone off the hook. We've got Minnetonka started that way, but they've got almost nobody around: it'll be a few minutes.''
''Well, Jesus…'' Lucas jumped up and grabbed his coat as he spoke into the phone: ''How long ago did she call?''