Dante pulled a face. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Nope. You threw up your breakfast. Some kind of pasta, right?’
Dante blinked.
Bob pulled his chair closer. Someone from Assault could come barging in at any moment.
‘I think a gang is after you, Dante. You fallen out with any of them recently?’
‘I don’t know nothing about any gangs.’
‘No? Not supplied X-11 with any weapons?’
‘I’ve no idea what X—’
‘Don’t bother, Dante. We know you supply them with cheap guns in return for them letting you sell your hardware on their territory.’ Bob had called the MPD’s Weapons Unit who knew Marco Dante’s name but could neither confirm nor rule out any link to X-11.
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Dante and yawned loudly. ‘I run a car repair business in Jordan. Jordan isn’t X-11 territory, it’s Black Wolves. Don’t you know your gang map, Detective?’
‘As far as I know X-11 operate wherever they please. Speaking of weapons, you recognise this?’
Bob held up his phone again, this time displaying a photo he’d taken in Gomez’s apartment.
‘No.’
‘That’s funny, because according to Weapons Unit this is a case for an M24. Now I don’t know much about weapons, but even I know this is a classic sniper’s rifle. One of my colleagues checked the weapons register and it says there that you recently purchased a gun like that.’
‘So maybe it also says there that I reported it stolen.’
‘Yes. Maybe you should be a little more careful about how you keep your weapons. In the last twelve months alone you’ve reported weapons stolen from you six times. Altogether twelve rifles and sixteen revolvers.’
A thin smile appeared between the narrow black strips of hair on the gun dealer’s face. ‘What can I tell you? I live in a very rough area. So as long as the MPD refuses to patrol there then I’m thinking the break-ins will just keep on happening.’
Bob nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I guess they will.’
He heard voices outside in the corridor. Time to get out of there.
‘Well, thanks for your help, Dante.’
‘It’s nothing... what you say your name was?’
‘And get well soon,’ said Bob Oz. He pushed open the door and headed out into the corridor.
‘Hey, Bob!’ It was Rooble Isack. Bob knew Isack from when he was the new guy in the Homicide Unit. Rooble had come from Mogadishu as a thirteen-year-old, part of a family that clung on tenaciously to Somali traditions. His father dyed his beard orange and his mother worked in a henna store in the Somali shopping mall on 29th and Pillsbury. Rooble was one of these young and ambitious immigrants, so naive in their faith in the promise of a country with equal opportunities for all, and so energetic in their pursuit of a better life for themselves and their families. So it was well deserved when, after two years with Homicide, he was offered a detective posting in Aggravated Assault.
‘Hey, Rooble.’
‘What are you doing here, Bob?’
‘Murder case. We’ve got a gun we can connect to Dante. I’m guessing you’re here in connection with the assault?’
‘Yes.’ Rooble nodded to his partner, a boy who blushed when he introduced himself and whose name Bob had forgotten by the next time he breathed in.
‘This is Bob Oz, the man who taught me everything I didn’t know about being a detective,’ said Rooble to the boy, who was trying to look interested. ‘A living legend.’
‘I think you learned quicker than I could teach.’ Bob looked at his watch.
‘How’s Alice?’
Bob’s face stiffened into a smile. ‘She’s fine.’
Rooble showed no noticeable reaction to the reply. ‘It’s been a while. Wasn’t it that barbecue with Homicide, in your backyard?’
‘Could well be,’ said Bob as he tried to convey in body language that he didn’t have time to engage in the local custom known as the Long Goodbye.
‘Holy buckets, all those pork chops we cooked.’ Rooble laughed. ‘Me and Hani brought our own barbecue, remember?’
‘Yes. Listen, I have to go. Say hello to Hani.’
‘Sure will. Actually she’s pregnant again.’
‘Wow, good work. See you.’
‘See you.’
But Bob stayed where he was.
‘Something?’ said Rooble.
‘Hey, I just remembered, Hani was pregnant that time too. You went home early and left your barbecue at my place. I put it in the basement.’
‘Oh, sorry, I forgot. Want me to come and fetch it?’
‘No, no, I’ll bring it over. Tomorrow.’
Bob noticed Rooble’s look of surprise. ‘Thanks, Bob, but that isn’t necessary.’
‘I insist.’
Rooble frowned. ‘It was just one of those cheap ones — we’ve got a gas barbecue now.’
‘You never know when you might need two,’ said Bob with a broad smile. He waved and hurried off down the corridor.
9
Cry, October 2016
I was on high, I had perspective. But no gun this time, this time I was just an observer.
I was lying in bed and watching TV. Switched between news broadcasts on KSTP, WCCO and KARE and the internet on my phone. I didn’t get it. I could see why the murder of a gun dealer in Jordan would get less coverage than the killing of some rich white guy out in Dellwood; what I didn’t get is why it didn’t even rate a mention. After all, Minneapolis isn’t Chicago where they have two or three murders every day. I closed my eyes. They hurt from staring at the screen. My ears were exhausted from all the cackling and the brutal sound effects used by advertisers to attract attention. What I wanted was peace. Rest. I heard a child crying somewhere. I knew there were no children here. I know it was just her.
Then it came. A short item on KARE. And I realised why it hadn’t made the headlines. The anchor reported a shooting incident in Jordan in the morning in which the victim had been shot in the stomach outside his own home. Badly injured. Not killed. A person injured in a shooting is everyday stuff in Minneapolis — it hardly rates a mention on the news. The images used to illustrate the ten seconds of the report weren’t even from the blocks but from somewhere else in Jordan, on a grey day, and the only connection with the place were the pictures of the police crime scene tape, stock footage from some previous report.
Badly injured.
Not dead.
Not yet.
Bob parked some distance away from the house in the quiet street in Cooper. Retraced familiar steps he’d walked so many times before. Past that row of small houses on a slope, with steps up to the verandas and the front doors. Small but charming middle-class houses. Cooper was regarded as inexpensive, but it still felt like a bold investment back when he and Alice had bought the detached house with its three rooms and kitchen, him with his modest policeman’s income and her a young psychologist just starting out in her own practice. But they really did need more space. And they wanted to live somewhere central, not end up in those anaemic suburbs. Maybe Cooper wasn’t all that fancy, but it was safe, and it had character. And had its characters too, like Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler turned governor who’d grown up round here. Fewer knew that the area was named after James Fenimore Cooper, writer of a whole heap of thrilling stories about Indians. Bob had come across these in his grandparents’ bookshelves, and even though the depictions were sympathetic they still reflected contemporary attitudes toward Native Americans. Maybe that was why Cooper’s community of liberals preferred not to dwell on the origins of the name. Whatever, Cooper was a place where you could live, there was room to breathe, and you could raise a family there. And since their purchase, house prices in the area had doubled, at least.