Rattlesnake Rodeo by Nick Kolakowski

Author:Nick Kolakowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

18

Frankie’s SUV had a hidden compartment beneath the floor in the back. It was deep and wide enough for a UMP, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and a McMillan TAC-338, a sniper rifle with enough stopping power to kill effectively at a thousand meters.

“Did you know,” Frankie said, pointing to the boxes of ammunition lined up beside the weapons, “that the TAC is responsible for three of the top five sniper kills? Some dude used one to kill an ISIS fighter at three thousand feet or whatever. Crazy.”

“Why in the everloving fuck are you driving around with that?” I had fired the TAC-338 a few times in Iraq. It had a lot of kick. The box magazines held five .338 rounds, but if you were good at marksmanship, you only needed one.

“Client wanted one for hunting. I asked him why, and he said it’s the gun that Bradley Cooper used in American Sniper. I was like, dude, that’s a dumbass reason, you got to respect hardware like this.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then I didn’t sell it to him. Told him it was too much gun.” Closing the compartment, she returned the carpet to its previous position, then placed the first aid kit and a cheap windbreaker on top.

We had parked on West State Street, in front of a small white house with blue trim and a wide porch. The rest of the block was surrendering, house by house, to the overwhelming power of money. I remembered that the far corner had once featured a gas station, now replaced by a construction site surrounded by bright orange mesh and a wall of cheap plywood. On that wall, the developers had posted an architectural drawing of a three-story condo, all smooth concrete and glass.

“California,” I told Frankie, who laughed.

Frankie led the way up the walk to the small house. We were nearly to the porch when the front door opened and a wizened old man with a thin, wrinkled neck walked into the sunlight. “We don’t want no cops around,” he informed us in a gravelly voice.

“Excuse me?” Frankie asked.

“No cops,” the man said. “We talked to you people enough.”

Frankie and I were dressed in jeans and plain T-shirts, no holsters, no badges or lanyards. Nothing about us screamed “police” except maybe our sunglasses. “We’re not cops,” Frankie said.

“Or private detectives. Some of those folks been around, too.” The man’s cheeks reddened, and he spoke louder, his hand slapping the air for emphasis.

“We’re none of the above,” Frankie said. “We just want to talk about Karen.”

The man’s brows furrowed. “Who?”

I said: “Karen Baker, the former prosecutor, you know her?” If the kid lived here, as Frankie assumed, then this man must have been his grandfather. And the old man talked about cops as if they swung by the house on a regular basis.

“Karen…” The man took a step backward, toward his door. “Who are you people?”

“It’s about your grandson,” I said. “We think Karen has some kind of interest in him.”

“I got no grandson,” the man said.

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