بخش 05 - فصل 16

16 Pete picks up on the second ring. “Partner!” he shouts exuberantly. There’s a babble

of voices in the background, and Hodges’s first thought is that Pete’s in a bar somewhere, half-shot and on his way to totally smashed. “Pete, I need to talk to you about–” “Yeah, yeah, I’ll eat all the crow you want, just not right now. Who called you? Izzy?” “Huntley!” someone shouts. “Chief’s here in five! With

press! Where’s the goddam PIO?” PIO, Public Information Officer. Pete’s not in a bar and not drunk, Hodges thinks. He’s just over-the-moon fucking happy. “No one called me, Pete. What’s going on?” “You don’t know?” Pete laughs. “Just the biggest armaments bust in this city’s

history. Maybe the biggest in the history of the USA. Hundreds of M2 and HK91 machine guns, rocket launchers, fucking laser cannons, crates of Lahti L-35s in mint condition, Russian AN-9s still in grease . . . there’s enough stuff here to stock two dozen East European militias. And the ammo! Christ! It’s stacked two stories high! If the fucking

pawnshop had caught on fire, all of Lowtown would have gone up!” Sirens. He hears sirens. More shouts. Someone is bawling for someone else to get those sawhorses up. “What pawnshop?” “King Virtue Pawn & Loan, south of MLK. You know the place?” “Yeah . . .”

“And guess who owns it?” But Pete is far too excited to give him a chance to guess. “Alonzo Moretti! Get it?” Hodges doesn’t. “Moretti is Fabrizio Abbascia’s grandson, Bill! Fabby the Nose! Is it starting to come into focus now?” At first it still doesn’t, because when Pete and Isabelle questioned him, Hodges

simply plucked Abbascia’s name out of his mental file of old cases where someone might bear him animus . . . and there have been several hundred of those over the years. “Pete, King Virtue’s blackowned. All the businesses down there are.” “The fuck it is. Bertonne Lawrence’s name is on the sign, but the shop’s a lease,

Lawrence is a front, and he’s spilling his guts. You know the best part? We own part of the bust, because a couple of patrol cops kicked it off a week or so before the ATF was gonna roll these guys up. Every detective in the department is down here. The Chief’s on his way, and he’s got a press caravan bigger than the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with

him. No way are the feds gonna hog this one! No way!” This time his laugh is positively loonlike. Every detective in the department, Hodges thinks. Which leaves what for Mr. Mercedes? Bupkes is what. “Bill, I gotta go. This . . . man, this is amazing.” “Sure, but first tell me what it has to do with me.”

“What you said. The car-

bomb was revenge. Moretti

trying to pay off his

grandfather’s blood debt. In

addition to the rifles, machine

guns, grenades, pistols, and

other assorted hardware, there’s

at least four dozen crates of

Hendricks

Chemicals

Detasheet. Do you know what

that is?”

“Rubberized explosive.” Now it’s coming into focus. “Yeah. You set it off with lead azide detonators, and we know already that was the kind that was used to blow the stuff in your car. We haven’t got a chem analysis on the explosive itself, but when we do, it’ll turn out to be Detasheet. You can count on it. You’re one lucky old sonofabitch, Bill.”

“That’s right,” Hodges says. “I am.” He can picture the scene outside King Virtue: cops and ATF agents everywhere (probably arguing over jurisdiction already), and more coming all the time. Lowbriar closed off, probably MLK Avenue, too. Crowds of lookieloos gathering. The Chief of Police and other assorted big

boys on their way. The mayor won’t miss the chance to make a speech. Plus all those reporters, TV crews, and live broadcast vans. Pete is bullshit with excitement, and is Hodges going to launch into a long and complicated story about the City Center Massacre, and a computer chatroom called Debbie’s Blue Umbrella, and a dead mommy

who probably drank herself to death, and a fugitive computer repairman? No, he decides, I am not. What he does is wish Pete good luck and push END.