Collision(56)
“Oh, man, that’s brilliant. The Sneeze and Hide. Let me borrow that technique.”
Ben felt his face redden.
Pilgrim, leaning down with a wince, opened the lock, not with a key— he didn’t keep one on him—but with the silvery needle of a lockpick. Ben stood fidgeting behind him, hoping no one would come into the hallway. Pilgrim stepped inside the unit and flicked on the light and Ben followed him, shutting the door behind them.
The unit held metal boxes. Pilgrim opened each one: an assortment of pistols and matching ammunition, a cache of identity papers: drivers’ licenses, passports. A laptop computer of recent manufacture. Thick bricks of American dollars.
Ben gaped at the armaments and the money. “My God. Where did you get all this?”
“Leftovers from Cellar jobs. Teach doesn’t know I have it. I thought it wise to have a stash in case I needed to run and hide someday.” Pilgrim opened and closed each container. “I don’t have a water gun, for you, Ben. Do you prefer a Glock or a Beretta?”
“I don’t want a gun.”
Pilgrim laughed and then winced at the pain in his shoulder. “You understand we’re in pretty goddamned dire straits, Ben. We are going to war with these people.”
“I’ve been thinking . . .”
“I thought I heard a clicking sound.” Pilgrim opened a pistol, eyed its innards.
“We get proof of whoever hired the gunmen, whoever hired Nicky Lynch, we give it to the police and we’re done.”
“You’ll be done. I won’t be.” Pilgrim inspected, cleaned, and oiled the guns, then showed Ben how to load, check, and unload each weapon. “Most important advice. Count your bullets. Always know how many you have in the clip.”
“I don’t plan on using large numbers of bullets. I patched you up, I’m not phoning the cops, I’m telling you what I know. But I’m not shooting anybody. I really don’t like guns very much.”
“I’ll make sure that’s mentioned in your eulogy next week.”
“No, I mean . . . I don’t want to.”
“You pointed a gun at me just last night.”
“I was in shock. I know I can’t shoot another human being.”
“I suspect you have stretches of your soul you’ve never really explored, Ben. Could you kill the person who killed your wife?”
Ben put the gun he was awkwardly holding—a Beretta 92 pistol—back in its case. “I kill him, I’m no better than he is.”
“I would think you’d consider the person who killed your wife to be pretty goddamned bad,” Pilgrim said. “True?”
“Yes.”
“I’d say he was absolute pond scum. But you, Saint Ben, you won’t lean down from your golden saddle on your moral high horse and kill him. News flash: We’re going to be dealing with people who are probably even less scummy but just as dangerous as your wife’s murderer is. I guess you’re planning to spare all the interesting people we’re gonna go meet. Golly fucking jeepers, Beaver, I feel better with you watching my back.”
Ben started to speak, stopped. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Pilgrim shrugged. “It’s what you said. Be honest with yourself, Ben: Do you have a spine? I deserve to know before we get in any deeper.”
Ben picked up the Beretta, set it down. “There are a lot of ways I can help you without being something I’m not.”
Pilgrim took the Beretta from Ben, loaded it, tucked it into his own waistband under his jacket. “We take money and the guns.” He turned away from Ben, and Ben knew he’d failed on a test, that Pilgrim thought him more an anchor than an asset. And that, Ben realized, was a very dangerous position.
19
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Vochek folded her ID into its wallet. “Please accept my sympathies.”
“Thanks. Kind of you,” Delia Moon said, and the clear anger on her face seemed to retreat behind an expression of neutrality. She opened her front door wide, and Vochek stepped inside the cool of the foyer. The home was big, newly built, in a development in the booming suburb of Frisco. The surrounding lots were either empty, under construction, or had “FOR SALE” signs in their yard.
“I understand my supervisor at Homeland asked you to not speak with the media or discuss Adam’s case . . .”
Delia was taller than Vochek; she wore her thick dark hair pulled back in a hefty ponytail. She wore a batik print blouse of browns and blues and greens, faded jeans, sandals with turquoise stones on the straps. A night of tears had left her eyes puffed and red-lined. She had a gentle face; it wore anger awkwardly. “She so kindly broke news of Adam’s death to me. I barely slept last night. Would you like coffee while I yell at you?”