When they were dry, she touched them, ran her fingers along the soles. No feeling, but no blood, either. She put on her socks and lay back. If she were quiet...
Wait. She got on her hands and knees, crawled around the perimeter of the room, and found a hot air register. Open, closed? There was no heat coming out. She looked at the light, decided to risk it. She turned it on, just for a second, looked at the register-closed-and turned it off. Went back to the register, in the dark, and opened it as wide as the adjustment level allowed. Still no heat. The furnace wasn't running at the moment.
What else? The lock. She stepped to the window, twisted the lock, pulled the shade. The window ledge and fire escape would have footprints: nothing she could do about it. Hope for some wind.
She dropped back on the bed, wrapped herself in her parka, and tried to feel her feet. And tried to stave off the disappointment. Twenty feet... maybe she should have gone for it. Twenty feet.
NUDE EXCEPT FOR THE WHITE TAPE WRAP ON HIS wound, LaChaise walked out to the living room, looked at the TV, yawned, scratched himself and said, ``What's on?''
Martin wouldn't look at him. He said, ``That Weather woman was interviewed in the hotel. Didn't say where she was inside, but they got cops all over the place, with shotguns. Vests. Gas. Inside and outside, on the roof.''
``Trying to scare us,'' LaChaise said.
Martin half-laughed and said, ``Well, it's working.'' Still he wouldn't look, and LaChaise stepped over to the window and pulled the blind back an inch or two. Six o'clock in the morning and still dark.
``Sandy sleeping?''
``Yeah,'' Martin said. ``You scared the shit out of her last night.''
``Yeah?'' He didn't care.
``We're gonna need some heavier gear if we're gonna keep going,'' Martin said, staring at the TV.
``What've you got in mind?''
``We can't get the hotel, and they're crazy if any of them are staying at home. We can't just hang out on the street, looking for them, 'cause they know what we look like...''
``Not with the hair.'' LaChaise touched his gray hair and beard.
``Well, we couldn't hang long-they're checking everybody.''
``So where?''
``The hospital where Capslock's old lady is, and that other cop, Franklin.''
``How do you know they're at the same place?''
``Saw it on TV.''
``Goddamn. Glad I didn't kick it in,'' LaChaise said.
``Yeah. So we need some heavier gear.''
``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?''
``Thirty-five seconds.''
``Warn Minnetonka about the guns. Don't let some guy be a hero, just seal off the streets around the address and bring in a team, or whatever they do out there... If they need aid, get Lester and see if we can ship some of our ERU guys out, or maybe Hennepin County guys.''
``Marie is doing that now, most of it. Are you going?''
``Yeah. Gimme the address...''
He scribbled it down and said, ``Direct us in there: we'll be on the air in one minute.''
He slammed the phone down and Del said, ``What?'' and Lucas said, ``Darling called. She said they're buying guns and she left the phone off the hook.'' They were already running down the hallway.
LACHAISE AND MARTIN HAD ROLLED THE RIFLES UNDER their coats, and when Sandy came up from the basement, Martin asked, ``Get it all?''
``I got most of it,'' she said, rattling the shells in her pockets. She felt herself flushing, and thought, Oh my God; Martin would figure it out. She said, ``There's a lot more ammo down there. I think we missed most of it...''
``Forget it,'' Martin said. He turned away and said to Frank, ``Here.'' He handed the white-haired man a wad of cash.
``This is not exactly a purchase,'' Frank said, tightly.
``Take the fuckin' money,'' Martin said impatiently. ``I feel bad enough anyway. The cash comes off a drug dealer downtown, there's no tracing it, it's all clean. It'll more than cover the cost of the stuff.''
``Still not right,'' Frank said. He took the money.
``I know,'' Martin said, almost gently. ``But there's no help for it. Now walk us out to the car so you can wave goodbye.''
They were in the car, rolling, and Frank went back to the house with his hands in his pockets. They turned the corner, headed down another side street, then out to the highway. As they sat at the intersection, waiting for the light, a dark sedan crossed the highway against the light, and flashed past, heading into the welter of streets they'd just left.
``Asshole,'' LaChaise muttered.
Sandy closed her eyes.
LUCAS PUSHED THE EXPLORER OUT I-394, HIS FOOT TO the floor, the car banging and creaking with the speed, Del braced in the passenger seat, cursing with every slip and bump. Dispatch said the owner of the phone was a guy named Frank Winter, no priors anywhere, but he was a registered federal firearms dealer.
``So she knew what she was talking about,'' Del said.
Ten minutes after they left City Hall, they found a phalanx of City of Minnetonka and Hennepin County cars blocking access to the subdivision. Lucas hung his badge out the window and a cop pointed at a group of men, some in uniform and some in plainclothes. Lucas parked and he and Del walked over.
The command cops looked up and one of them, in plainclothes, said, ``Lucas,'' and Lucas nodded and said, ``Gene, what's happening?''
``We got a couple of guys in the house across the street,'' the cop said. ``There're lights on, but there's no cars out front. There's a set of tracks going up into the driveway, and then backing out. Pretty fresh. We've had this off-and-on snow and the guys say the tracks are crisp.''
``Might have come and gone,'' a uniformed cop said.
``The question is, do we call ahead? Or do we just take the place?''
Lucas shrugged and grinned at him. ``You da man.''
``Yeah, right,'' the plainclothes cop said sourly. Then, ``Fuck it. He's a firearms dealer, so he could have all kinds of shit in there... If we go bustin' in, we could have a fight. If we call ahead, what can they do? Can't get out.''
He was thinking out loud. One of the Hennepin cops said,``He can't flush the evidence down the toilet.''
``Huh. All right. Let's call.''
FRANK WINTER CAME OUT OF THE HOUSE WITH HIS hands over his head, and stood that way in the driveway, until an armored cop directed him down the middle of the street to a blocking car. Winter said on the phone that LaChaise, Martin and Darling had been there-had left only fifteen minutes earlier-but the house was now empty. When he got to the blocking car, where Lucas and Del were waiting with a group of uniformed cops, one of the uniforms turned Winter around and patted him down.
``He's wearing a vest,'' one of the cops said.
``Why the vest?'' Del asked.
``In case one of you officers decided to shoot me,'' Winter said simply. ``The woman called you in, didn't she?''
``What woman?''
``The one with Martin and his friend,'' Winter said. Then, ``Do I need a lawyer?''
``Better give him his rights,'' Lucas said, and one of the cops recited the code. ``You want one?''
``Yeah, I better,'' Winter said. ``I was sitting there, thinking about calling you, when you called me.''
``Why didn't you?'' Lucas asked.
``Because I figured Martin would kill me, or LaChaise.''
``What'd they get from you?'' Del asked.
``A couple of pistols, an accurized seven-mil-Magnum Model 70 and a box of handloads and a whole bunch of AR-15 ammo. Martin's an Armalite freak: he's always reworking them. I'd be careful. I'd bet they've got modified with them.''
``This Model 70,'' Lucas said. ``Got a scope?''
``Yeah. A Leupold Vari-X III in 3.5 10.''
``A sniper rifle.''
``A varminter,'' said Winter.
``Yeah, if elk are varmints,'' Lucas said.
AN ENTRY TEAM SWEPT THE HOUSE. THE BASEMENT WAS an arsenal, but, as one of the cops said cheerfully, ``Nothin' illegal about that.''
Lucas was looking at a Model 70, a gray synthetic-stocked Winchester.300 Magnum with a Pentax scope. He turned the eyepiece down to two-power and sighted across the basement at a crosshairs target. Winter had opened the gun safes so the weapons could be inventoried, and they'd found fifty handguns, two dozen rifles and as many shotguns. Del was playing with a derringer, snapping it at a wall target, and Lucas was looking at the butt of the Model 70, when a plainclothes cop came halfway down th
e stairs and said, ``We're sending Winter downtown. You got anything else you want to ask him?''
``Naw. I kind of think he's telling the truth,'' Lucas said.
``So do I, but he should have called us,'' the cop said. He grinned and said, ``Now he claims he tried to call out, but his phone was screwed up and he was afraid to go out. Says he didn't know the phone was off the hook down here, just that it didn't work.''
``Not bad, if he sticks to it,'' Lucas said.