Page 33 of Nobody's Hero
‘I need hardware.’
‘A gun?’
‘Guns,’ Koenig confirmed. ‘Plural. And I’m a cash buyer.’
‘Guns are illegal in this country.’
‘Which is why I’m not shopping at Walmart.’
‘Walmart isdefinitelyillegal in this country.’
‘Can you help, or do I need to go elsewhere?’
One-Eye paused. Narrowed his eye until it was a slit. ‘You don’t look like filth,’ he said.
‘I have a wash every Sunday,’ Koenig said. ‘Even if I’m not dirty.’
‘Notfilthy. Filth. A pig. Five-O, as you fucking Yanks say.’ He inclined his head towards Danielle. ‘She stinks of bacon, though. Stinks of bacon so much she’s making me hungry.’
‘We’re not cops,’ Koenig said.
‘You sure? Cos you know you have to tell me if you are. Otherwise, it’s entrapment.’
‘We’re not cops,’ Koenig repeated.
‘Let her answer,’ the brawler said. ‘That way it’s all nice and legal.’
‘I’m not, and never have been, a cop,’ Danielle said without missing a beat.
She said it so convincingly even Koenig believed her. He reckoned she’d been undercover before. Lying like your life depended on it became second nature when you wore two hats. And it was surprising how many idiots believed the entrapment thing. Of course undercover cops were allowed to lie about not being cops.
‘Something isn’t adding up, though,’ One-Eye said. ‘My Spidey senses are tingling.’
Koenig sighed. Convincing a bunch of lowlifes to sell guns to a stranger was never the plan. Not in a gun-phobic country like the UK. Men like this were stupid, but they had animal-like cunning. If it were a choice between making a thousand bucks or going down for twenty years, well, that was no choice at all. Koenig knew that. Just like he knew that the men playing cards had stopped playing. They had gone from playing three-card brag to whispering excitedly. He’d said he was a cash buyer. It was possible they thought they had someone to rob. An easy mark for guys like them. Take the money, leave him in the gutter, bleeding. Do the same to the woman. Equal opportunity assholes.
But it could have been something else. One of the men at the table, a man with a pockmarked face and hair that stuck up like a toilet brush, was staring at Koenig, but trying to make it look like he wasn’t. He then tapped something into his cell phone. Koenig heard a whoosh as he pressed send.
A fraction of a second later, One-Eye’s phone beeped. Koenig didn’t carry a cell phone, but he knew what an incoming SMS alert sounded like. A bunch of 1s and 0s had gone from the pockmarked guy’s phone to One-Eye’s phone. Unless it was a coincidence. Koenig knew coincidences happened all the time. Mark Twain’s birth and death dates coincided with Halley’s Comet. Without any planning, the first and last British soldiers to die in the First World War were buried next to each other. But Koenig had been a federal agent. Coincidences were a lazy explanation. He reached behind and lifted his jacket free of his Fairbairn–Sykes.
One-Eye glanced at the screen, then frowned. He then looked at Koenig. His expression changed. Went from suspicious to welcoming. Which was the most suspicious thing he could have done. Koenig readied himself.
‘My name’s Stan,’ he said. ‘SteeleyeStan.’
He said it like he was James Bond, then waited. Clearly, Koenig was supposed to ask a question. Koenig didn’t.
‘For obvious reasons,’ Stan added.
‘Oh, you have a ball bearing instead of an eye,’ Koenig said. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
Chapter 31
‘OK, let’s do some business,’ Steeleye said. ‘What do you need?’
‘What can you get?’ Koenig replied.
‘Most things.’
‘I want a Lawgiver Mk II. Two DL-44s. And, if you can get one, a Westinghouse M-27.’