Personal

The guy who had driven us turned off the motor and climbed out, and he opened Casey Nice’s door for her, either because of some old-world Balkan courtesy, or because he was impatient. Nice got out, and I got out on my side, and I stepped over tools and air hoses into clear space at the rear of the car. The guy who had closed the roller door came back, and two more guys came out of a boxed-off room, and we ended up in an informal little cluster, outnumbered four to two. They were all of a kind, not young, not old, all dark and unshaven, all a useful size, all silent and wary. There were no mechanics at work. No men with wrenches, in oil-stained overalls. Sent away, I guessed, temporarily, while the secret business was done.

One of the two from the boxed-off room seemed to be the main man. He looked us up and down, and said, ‘We need to know who you are.’

Casey Nice said, ‘We’re Americans, with money, who want to buy something from you.’

‘How much money do you have?’

‘Enough, I’m sure.’

‘You’re very trusting,’ the guy said. ‘To come here, I mean. We could take your money from you for nothing.’

‘You could try.’

‘Are you wearing wires?’

‘No.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘You want me to take my shirt off? Because that ain’t going to happen.’

The guy said nothing in reply to that, but his mouth got a little wet and mobile, as if he thought making her take her shirt off would be an excellent idea. I said, ‘You can take a look at our passports, and you can figure out how likely it is that the British authorities would employ foreign citizens for an undercover sting, and then you can take a look at the money, and then we’ll take a look at the merchandise. That’s how it’s going to go.’

‘Is it?’ the guy said.

‘Pretty much,’ I said.

He looked at me, hard, and I looked right back at him. The first staring contest of his day, probably, but one he was destined to lose. Staring isn’t difficult. I can do it all day long. Without blinking, if I want to, which is sometimes painful, but always useful. The trick is to not really look at them, but to focus ten yards beyond, on nothing, which produces a glassy effect, which makes them worry, mostly about what’s going on behind your empty eyes.

The guy said, ‘OK, show me your passports.’

I went first, with my stiff blue booklet, very new, but indisputably genuine. The guy flicked back and forth through it, and felt the paper, and checked the photograph. And the printed data too, apparently, because he looked up at me and said, ‘You weren’t born in America.’

I said, ‘Only technically. Children of serving military are considered born in America for all legal and constitutional purposes.’

‘Serving military?’

‘You remember us, I’m sure. We came and kicked your ass in Kosovo.’

The guy paused a beat, and said, ‘And now you’re a bodyguard?’

I nodded.

I said, ‘You better believe it.’

He handed my passport back. He didn’t look at Casey Nice’s. One was enough. He said, ‘Come in the room and we’ll talk.’

The room was a semi-tight fifteen-by-fifteen space, walled off from the workshop many decades previously, in a fairly arbitrary position, to do with power lines, possibly. The walls looked like single-skin brick, plastered smooth and painted with shiny institutional paint, dull green in colour, like pea soup. There was a window with a metal frame, with a desk under it, and three armchairs. No gun cabinets. No closets. Just a place for doing business, like a salesman’s office behind a lot full of ten-year-old cars.

The guy said, ‘Please take a seat,’ and when we didn’t he took one himself, going first, perhaps as an example, or a reassurance.

We took a seat.

The guy said, ‘What are you looking for?’

I said, ‘What have you got?’

‘Handgun?’

‘Two. We both carry. People don’t expect that.’

‘What do you like?’

‘Anything that works. And that you’ve got ammunition for.’

‘Mostly we have nine-millimetre. It’s easy to get in Europe.’

‘Works for me.’

‘You like Glock?’

‘Is that what you’ve got?’

‘It’s what we’ve got most of. Glock 17s, brand new, if you want a matching pair.’

‘And a hundred rounds each.’

The guy paused a beat, and then he nodded, and he said, ‘I’ll go get you a price.’

He got up out of his chair, and stepped out of the room.

He closed the door behind him.

And locked it.

THIRTY-TWO

FOR A SECOND I took the snick of the lock to be normal, somehow consistent with the whole cloak-and-dagger drama-queen bullshit we had seen since the beginning, starting with the gnome behind the pawn-shop counter. Exaggerated lock-and-key precautions at the warehouse end of the operation might be seen as authentic, by some buyers, and maybe exciting, somehow suggestive of other locks and keys, perhaps to whole storerooms stacked with boxes, each one full of weapons still dewy with oil.

Then in the second second I dismissed that theory, because it was a lock too far. At that point we were still equal parties to a negotiation, both sides on best behaviour, properly wary and sceptical, for sure, like buying a used car, but at least polite.