Get Blank (Fill in the Blank) (14 page)

Mina looked at the camera in another shot, giving the camera the smile I had nicknamed the “I’ve Got a Secret.” She used it whenever she was hired for a traditionally male-oriented product. Made her look like she had something she wanted to tell you and only you. In that case, she had. I had taken the picture, and because of that, she considered it to be of us as a couple. Only I wasn’t technically in it, unless you were Agent Cooper and somehow picked out my face in her eyes. I kissed my fingers and touched her face, almost immediately feeling like an idiot.

I took a shower. Mina was a big believer in baths and, as such, had managed that uniquely female trait of not owning any actual soap. I cleaned up with something I hoped was soaplike—despite being a thin liquid that smelled like coconut and looked like, well, I’m not going to say what it looked like because I’m a gentleman—and used Mina’s deodorant. I went into her closet and grabbed a change of clothes. I didn’t come here often, what with my LA paranoia, but I had an outfit or two readily available anyway. I cleaned up my various cuts and refreshed the bandages on my nose in time to enjoy the coffee. I drank it in her living room, staring at her vintage noir movie posters.

With a silent goodbye, I locked Mina’s place up and went to my next stop. Conveniently, it was also in Silver Lake, not even a mile away. Farther up in the hills, it was a beautifully maintained mid-century modern home perched amongst a bunch of eucalyptus trees. I knocked on the spotless white door.

The man who answered probably wouldn’t have been singled out from amongst Silver Lake’s large gay population. He was fit and clean-shaven, his silver hair in a conservative, almost military cut. He was in his sixties, still in good outdoorsman shape. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Hank. It’s me.”

His clear blue eyes narrowed, looking past the duckbill and to my face. “Dave?”

I nodded.

“What happened to your nose?”

“Tried to spite my face.”

“I take it you’re here for a purchase? Well, come on in. Rey’s downstairs.”

I followed Hank inside. The whole place was clean, spare, and elegant. Every single thing, just a few clocks, paintings, and knickknacks, made the place look like something out of an article on how to tastefully decorate a house. Even the photos—Hank in his fatigues, posing with fellow grunts on the shore of the Mekong, Rey with his extended family down in El Salvador—gave it exactly enough of a personal touch to keep it from being forbidding.

“It’s been a long time,” Hank said.

“How’ve you been?”

He led me down a set of wooden stairs. The walls were that kind of white that never stopped smelling faintly of paint, maybe because Hank repainted as soon as they got the slightest blemish. I knew that the stairs were leading into the earth of the hill, into the house’s basement. Basements were rare in California. Hank had dug this one himself.

“I’ve been better.” I heard the eyeroll in his voice. “Big Brother sent another audit. I swear, it’s like they never learn.”

“Well, maybe if you paid like, one tax. Once.”

“Oh, don’t you start. Taxes are theft. I maintain my property. Hell, I maintain the neighborhood. I fixed a goddamn crack in the reservoir and killed a couple coyotes that were eating neighborhood cats. The government should be paying
me
.”

“You should tell them that.”

“Don’t think I didn’t.”

The door set into the wall was like a vault. No idea where Hank got it, or how he got it into his basement. He twirled his finger to indicate that I should turn around, which I did. He punched in the code, and with the sound of a whale taking a breath, the massive vault door swung open.

The room was covered in guns. It was like stepping into the loading program of the Matrix. Racks of weapons, sleek black murder machines hanging on the wall, tables of them, and cases under that packed with more. The central table was a workstation where Rey sat, oiling the manifold parts of an extremely illegal People’s Liberation squad weapon. He was thirty years younger than Hank, and because he had long ago lost the ability to give a fuck, was wearing a hot pink tank top, tied up to show off some impressive washboard abs. Gun oil streaked both the shirt and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. He topped it off with Errol Flynn’s mustache and Desi Arnaz’s hair. Hank and Rey weren’t connected to the Information Underground. They were just your garden-variety arms dealers with impeccable taste.

“Rey, look who’s here. It’s Dave.” Hank added the last probably because of the bandage.

Rey looked up, a smile exploding across his face, quickly replaced by theatrical horror. “Honey, what happened to your nose?”

I waved it off, not having the energy to make up another response so quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Well, come here,” he said, getting up. He was wearing a pair of cutoffs that Tobias Funke would have loved. Rey brought me in for a hug. We weren’t close or anything; as near as I could tell, Rey had only two settings: hugging, and shooting you in the face for trampling on his Constitutional rights. He pulled back to look me over. “Somebody’s getting laid.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’ve lost weight, you’re dressing better, and you don’t smell like fried ass.”

“I have a girlfriend, yes.”

Rey let me go. “She’s good for you, clearly.”

“Did she make you cut the hair? I liked your hair,” Hank said.

Of course Hank liked the Reagan hair. “Yeah,” I said.

“I barely recognized you without it. You should grow it back.”

“Not gonna happen. She’s a registered Democrat.”

“Sorry to hear it. So what can we get you?”

“Dragunov with a folding stock and an H&K USP Compact.”

Hank clucked his tongue.

Rey said, “What do you want that Russkie Euro shit for? We’ve got some lovely Colts. Nobody ever went wrong with a classic 1911 .45 and I think we just got a shipment of M24 SMS. Honey, check the box by your right leg.”

I stopped Hank before he looked. “It’s not for me. It’s for...” I wasn’t going to say who, because who would believe me if I said “a washed-up teen starlet who’s apparently now a hitter for a cult.”

Hank cut me off with a raised hand. “None of my business who gets the weapon. Soon as we monitor that, Uncle Sam could get their hands on it, and then we’re in a police state.”

Rey nodded sagely, showing off his wedding band. The matching one was on Hank’s finger. “First they come for your marriage, then they come for your guns.”

I love Libertarians. They’re adorable in their childlike belief that once you do away with government, absolutely nothing bad will fill the void.

“I’m still single,” I said.

“Not for long, sweetie. Not if you’re smart.”

Hank tapped the air, counting through his merchandise. “Here we go. And here.” He said this as he produced a foam case with the disassembled rifle inside, then found the pistol in a rack along the wall. “Baby, could you get a box of .357 SIGs and 762s?”

Rey went under the table and a moment later put two down with a thunk. I paid the guys and thanked them. Rey gave me another hug and returned to his machine gun.

 “Don’t be a stranger,” Hank said as he walked me out.

“Have a good one.”

 I put Heather’s guns in the trunk, careful to keep them away from the Genesis Flail. They wouldn’t be in there long enough to grow any moonrock, but there was no reason to take a chance. I checked my watch and found I had some time to do what I’d come down to: solve Neil’s murder to solve and get Mina out of jail. I didn’t want her spending a second longer inside than she had to. That meant talking to someone who might know what was going on and a trip to the Masonic Temple in Burbank.

The temple was a nondescript building in the midst of a bunch of nondescript buildings, because this was Burbank, and character was against the Burbank town charter and nearly all of their zoning laws. I went inside, where a security guy stood up, ready to bounce me right back out onto Olive Ave.

“It’s me. Colin Reznick.”

The guard looked me over and muttered something into his wrist. “Stay here,” he said. I nodded.

The antechamber of the Masonic Temple was the perfect match to the fading glory of the Freemasons. There was a time when these guys put together an apocalyptic plan involving a moon landing, a presidential assassination, and a nuclear bomb. These days, they were lucky if they could put together money for a beer run. The floor was scuffed linoleum and the bulletin board plastered with local flyers and a few coded want ads made it feel like a community center.

After a moment, the black curtain leading into the temple itself parted and Stan Brizendine stepped out into the antechamber. The guy had not changed a bit. He still had the perfect gray coif, the Ron Swanson mustache, and the unmistakable air of an off-duty cop.

“Brother Reznick?” he asked, plainly unsure.

“It’s me, sir.”

The head of the local Freemasons, Stan was the kind of person who thought he had more power than he actually did, mostly because the people who came before him did. He was slow to react to changing situations, including the internet and women wearing pants. I don’t think he even noticed the bandage on my face except as an impediment to recognizing me.

“I didn’t expect to see you after the business with the Genesis Stone.”

I had exposed the Genesis Stone that had been in his vault as a solid gold fake. Long story.

“Yeah. I needed a little time off. I heard about Neil. I wanted to check in.”

Stan nodded sadly. “A tragedy. It speaks well of you that you’re still concerned about him. Considering what happened.”

“How do you mean?”

“The rude woman you brought here. Her dropping you for Neil. I can’t imagine that was good for the old ego.”

I kept a poker face. Vinnie Cha would have been proud. “No, sir, it wasn’t.”

Stan nodded. “Speaks well of you.” He considered what he was going to say next for at least three seconds, which for Stan might have been a record. “It’s fortunate that you came by.”

“Oh?”

“Neil was a member in good standing, and a vital part of our group.”
And a turncoat funneling information to the Satanists, but you apparently don’t know that.
“That woman murdered him. We can’t let that stand.”

“And you want me to do something?”

“I thought you would jump at the chance. She
did
betray you with another man. Now you have a chance to get your revenge.”

“Good. I was hoping you’d say that.” So Stan knew precisely nothing and had so little power he would send an absentee member to assassinate someone in custody. I listened to his pitch, nodded, smiled, and pretty much did everything I could to get out of there in a hurry.

I drove back to Javier. He handed over Heather’s new ID. “Don’t suppose you’ll tell me if you gave my message to Oana.”

Javier didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Okay, good.”

It was creeping up on two-thirty. I grabbed a burrito from a food truck, ate it while driving, and headed over to the hotel and possibly my immediate murder. Normally—and it worries me that this is a normal thing for me—if I get my hands on a gun I’m worried will be turned on me, I take out the firing pin. Why not the clip? The weight can be noticeable to the kind of nutbag who habitually points guns at people, which includes most hitters. A missing firing pin, on the other hand, isn’t going to be noticed by anyone who doesn’t take the weapon apart.

Problem is, any hitter worth their weight who has the time takes a gun apart and puts it back together before using it. To them, it’s like greeting a new pet, only with creepy undertones that made me hope Heather never owned a cat. So when she took the gun apart and saw I had monkeyed with it, the best-case scenario was she’d think I’m incompetent and I get in even more trouble with Regina.

The firing pins would have to stay.

This all probably makes me sound like a gun nut. I’m not. I’ve absorbed the information by being around a lot of truly scary individuals who not only believe the old chestnut “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” but really want to be the ones doing all that killing.

I’d gotten the email at the end of a long day doing all those weird errands I used to do. It was from the Brotherhood of the Magic Bullet, and all told, it was pretty straightforward stuff: go to a location, pick up the car that would be waiting there, drive it to a place where it would be crushed into a ten-by-ten metal cube. The only indication that anything was off was a single line that I was to empty the trunk into a shed that would be on the property. I picked up the car, which was a nightmarish forest green Chevy Malibu, and drove that boat all the way out into the deep Valley where this guy had a junkyard set up that looked almost exactly like the oil refinery base in
Road Warrior.
He seemed to be expecting me, pointing me toward a shack that looked to be held up solely by wishful thinking. I opened up the trunk and had to stare, amazed, at what I found.

Guns.

All the guns.

I was younger then, and not quite as world-weary as I would later become. It seemed like every gun in existence, all in the trunk of that Malibu. Sure, the back end had dragged a little, but I figured (naive, remember) that it was loaded with books or bricks or something. There were pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, and even one of those four-barreled rocket launchers that seemed to only exist in ’80s action movies. I stared for a good five or ten minutes before beginning the task of lugging all of it into the shed. Which, other than a presently empty rat’s nest, was bare. By the end, I was hot and miserable, but I was finished.

Wasn’t until later I figured out what had happened, when they brought in the lone assassin of Assistant District Attorney Eduardo Guerra. Seems this guy, some empty-eyed nobody named Francis Michael Harden, decided to kill Guerra—and this was the official motive ascribed to the killing, so don’t laugh—because he wanted to be on
American Idol
. Needless to say, this did not help his chances.

Anyway, I figured out the connection because Harden had supposedly shot Guerra two hundred and sixty-nine times with small arms before hitting his house with the rocket. All by his lonesome. And in less than two minutes from the beginning of the attack to the ending. Now, I could probably have found out who Guerra pissed off just by checking his caseload, but this was back before I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong. You know, before I retired.