Page 30 of Nobody's Hero
‘Whereexactlywould you start looking?’
‘Not in the cities themselves. The guy you’re looking for will only sell to select clients. People he knows. The odd referral. He won’t live in the city because he won’t have to. But he’ll have to live nearby. Somewhere rural or semirural. He won’t want to make drops in an urban area. I think you plan to find someone with a gun and hit him until he tells you where he bought it. Then work your way up the food chain until you get to the big dog’s kennel.’
Koenig shared another glance with Draper. She nodded.
‘Did I pass?’ Danielle asked.
‘You did,’ Koenig said. ‘I was going to find a street dealer tonight. Start there. Would that work?’
‘It might,’ she said. ‘But if I were you, I’d skip a couple of the lower rungs by finding the right bar or club. The kind of place that sells punishment beatings. That type of place.’
‘You know anywhere like that?’
‘I used to work for Greater Manchester Police. I haven’t been back in almost ten years, but I still have contacts. By the time we get to where we’re going, I’ll have a name. Somewhere to start.’
‘You don’t need to check in with anyone?’ Koenig asked. ‘We may be a couple of days and I’m sure chief superintendents are kept busy in London.’
‘I’m on leave. Compassionate. Took it the moment Bernice collected you at Heathrow. Sick uncle.’
‘And your driver?’
‘Won’t say anything.’
‘He’s not coming?’
‘Heisneeded back in London. I’ll get a lift with you guys. Reduce my carbon footprint. I’m good to go.’
‘You don’t have an overnight bag in the trunk?’
‘If I need something, I’ll buy it.’
Koenig slipped the Jag into first and eased back onto the M6. ‘Let’s go and crack some skulls then.’
‘You know I’m a cop, right?’ Danielle said. ‘No one is cracking skulls.’
‘Figure of speech,’ Koenig said. ‘And, just so you know, that whole personal-carbon-footprint thing is nothing but propaganda. The product of a one-hundred-million-dollar marketing campaign. BP wanted to deflect responsibility for climate change away from them and onto the individual. It’s one of the most deceptive PR campaigns there has ever been.’
Draper sighed. ‘Welcome to my world, Danielle,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to put up with this since we left New York.’
Chapter 28
In the States, Big City Nights would have needed a lick of paint to get called a dive bar. In the UK, it was called a spit-and-sawdust pub. Or a shithole. Or, with the Brit tendency to understate things, ‘a bit rough’. The kind of place that if you left with the same number of teeth you had entered with, you hadn’t been enjoying yourself properly.
It was in Hulme, an inner-city area in Manchester. Danielle said ‘Hulme’ was derived from the Old Norse word for a small island. Which was weird. As far as Koenig could tell, the only thing that surrounded this part of Manchester was more Manchester. They drove past tower blocks and derelict factories and rows and rows of public housing to get there. Danielle noticed Koenig looking at the gang tags painted on the walls and bridges and shuttered shop windows.
‘It used to be really bad around here,’ she explained. ‘It may not look it, but it’s a rapidly improving area. People want to live here now as it’s so close to the city centre. Lots of money being pumped into its regeneration.’
Koenig, who’d switched his attention to a man walking a three-legged dog, said nothing.
Big City Nights was sandwiched between a bookmaker’s that was full and a doughnut shop that wasn’t. Koenig wasn’t surprised. It only had one doughnut for sale and that was priced at five pounds. Six and a half bucks for a ring doughnut. Looked like it had been there for weeks. Koenig reckoned they should be honest and call the doughnut shop what it really was: a money-laundering outfit. It was so blatant it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Koenig turned off the engine. He arranged the rearview mirror so he could see Big City Nights without turning his head. It looked shut. That meant nothing, though. Almost every business on the road looked shut. He watched the bar until a skinny guy lurched outside. He vomited on the road, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then staggered back inside.
Danielle had called in a favour to get the name of a bar that might sell weapons. And although Koenig knew this wasn’t the kind of place a COP .357 could be bought, he reckoned the people inside would know the name of a guy. Maybe that guy was the guy they wanted, or maybe he’d know the name of another guy. District attorneys called it flipping. Over here it was called turning Queen’s evidence. PossiblyKing’sevidence, now Charles had been promoted. It was the lure of the carrot. Much-reduced prison sentences for useful intelligence. That was abigcarrot. Nice and orange and sweet and nutritious.
Koenig didn’t have a carrot. But he did have a stick. A really pointy one.
‘Let’s do it,’ he said, unbuckling his seat belt and opening the door.