Joanne Fitzpatrick’s eyes locked with mine as I lumbered up to her. “Hey, Jo.” I looked around for effect. “What’re you doing here?”
She smiled. “I thought you would be happy to see a friendly face.”
She didn’t have one of the cases that most of people in the room carried. “You don’t shoot?”
“No.”
“Me either.” She laughed, and the smile was an exact replica of the one that was in the horseback photo in Cady’s office. I took one of the bottled waters from the bar and glanced back over my shoulder, but the tiny man was gone. “Do you know that guy I was just dancing with?”
“Who?”
“The little guy?”
“No.”
I nodded my head at the tall man at center. “Is that Osgood?” She nodded slightly. “He doesn’t seem real broke up about his buddy Devon.”
She leaned in. “No, he doesn’t.”
About that time, Osgood unloaded his 9 mm into the paper target at the center of the firing range. The kid was pretty good. There was a smattering of applause as he turned and took a perfunctory bow, taking just an extra moment to glance at me.
I turned back to Jo. “C’mon, I’ll teach you how to shoot.”
Tomko handed me a tray with a box of. 45 ACPs and a questioning look until I patted the small of my back. By the time I made my way to the other side of the room, Osgood was openly watching me. I gave him a tight-lipped smile and a nod, but he didn’t respond.
I set Jo up at range 7 along the wall in hopes that numerology would be on our side. “I’ve never done this before.”
I unsnapped the thumb strap from the Colt at my back, pulled it, and placed it on the counter with the slide group locked in the open position and the magazine removed. “That’s what they all say.” I palmed the seven-shot clip in my hand, dropped it to my side, and told her to pick up the. 45.
“It looks old.”
“Older than you.” After getting her acquainted with the particularities of the weapon, she adopted a wide stance with her arms extended; we both now wore the hearing protectors that had been hanging in the stall.
She squeezed the trigger as instructed, and the big Colt jumped in her hands; it was pointed at the ceiling, but I caught her shoulder. She peered at the paper target but could see no effect, unaware that the gun hadn’t fired. I pulled one of her ear cups back. “You flinched.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I cocked the empty. 45. “Try it again, but make sure you keep your eyes open this time.” I put her ear cup back, and she imitated the exact same motion, but this time the automatic stayed steady.
She turned and looked at me. “It didn’t fire.”
“It didn’t last time, either.” I showed her the clip in my hand. “The involuntary response is pretty common. You think the gun’s going to jump, so you make it jump.” I took the Colt, popped the mag into place, cocked the slide, and placed her hands around the gun, aimed toward the target. “Don’t worry about blinking; a lot of people do it.”
She spoke out of the side of her mouth. “Do you?”
I looked at the target. “No.”
She doubled her attentions on the silhouette and squeezed, all her efforts going into not blinking. The. 45 blew her back and, from her expression, there was no doubt in her mind that it had fired this time. We both peered at the target; there was a perforation at his left kidney on the line between the four and five score. “Much better.”
She smiled and pulled the ear cup back again. “Do they all kick like that?”
I smiled back. “No. This one’s just an antique, heavy, hard to aim, slow rate of fire…” Her smile faded quickly as she looked over my right shoulder, past the barrier, and I figured I had accomplished what I’d set out to do.
She handed me the automatic and pulled her ear protectors all the way off. “Hello, Oz.”
I didn’t turn but lowered the hammer on the Colt and pushed the safety. His voice wasn’t what I’d expected; it was higher-pitched and discordant.
“I thought I’d come over here and see who was shooting the howitzer.” It was silent, except for the music and a few conversations that were still going on a little ways away. “Who’s your friend?”
Her face remained still. “This is Walt Longmire, Cady’s father.”
“Oh, my God.” He was as tall as me, mid-thirties, with an athletic build, a receding hairline, and the ubiquitous goatee. “I am so sorry about your daughter.”
I placed the Colt on the counter. “Thank you.”
He switched the Glock to his other hand, and I noticed the clip was in and the safety was off. He extended his right. “Vince Osgood. They call me Oz.” I nodded, and he continued. “I was a friend of Cady’s.”
I noticed he used the past tense, which made me want to grab his throat. “You were also a friend of Devon Conliffe?”
His eyes were steady. “I was…Did you know Devon?”
I pointed at the Glock in his left hand. “Would you mind securing that weapon before we talk?”
He froze up for a second. “It’s got a safe-action feature…”
I did my best ol’ boy routine. “I’m just a little nervous around unsecured firearms.”
He reached down and pushed the button, the image of allocated grace. “Sure. I’m around these things so much that they just become second nature.”
“I was able to meet Devon just before the accident.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” He leaned against the stall, and I could smell his aftershave. “You and I should talk.”
I nodded and glanced at Joanne. “I agree. You might be in a position to give me a better insight as to what’s going on.”
He puckered his lips and looked down at his four-hundred-dollar shoes, the picture of the all-knowing assistant DA, if suspended, there to assist his rustic cousin. “I think I can do that.” His head came back up. “Where will you be later tonight?”
I thought about Lena. “I’ve got a dinner date this evening, but I could meet you after for a beer. You know a place called Paddy O’Neil’s on Race?”
He watched me for just a second too long. “Near the bridge?”
I pulled out my pocket watch. “Ten-thirty?” He nodded, and I gestured toward the Glock 34. “You’re pretty good with that thing.”
“Goes with the job.”
I wondered about lawyering in Philadelphia and picked up my Colt. “You gonna shoot again?”
“Oh, yeah, how about you?”
I let him watch as I reloaded and replaced the. 45 in the pancake holster at my back. “No, thanks.”
He smiled and bobbed his head. “I guess you’re pretty good, too, huh?”
Good enough to know I was cocked and locked with a full clip and one in the pipe; good enough to know he was empty.
9
“Alphonse, if you don’t turn the tourist music down, we’re going somewhere else.”
The restaurant had been closed, but Lena had unlocked and marched through the back door as if she owned the place. She deposited me in a small booth by the kitchen and called up the steps to Alphonse, threatening him with brimstone if he didn’t come down and fix us dinner.
Alphonse, the uncle, was Victor Moretti’s brother, and his restaurant was quintessential Italian Market, from the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths to the battered, raffia-covered Chianti bottle with a tapered candle flickering in its throat. The booths were high-backed and worn, with the many layers of varnish making their surfaces glisten, but it was Alphonse who made Alphonse’s. Alphonse Moretti must have weighed as much as I did, no mean feat since he only stood about five foot six.
“You want me to create, I have to have music.” He blew through the kitchen door with a fresh bottle of wine and an assortment of water glasses, pulled the cork with his hands, and slid onto the bench with me, singing along with Frank Sinatra in a soulful duet of “The Lady Is a Tramp.” He wore glasses but, like everything else on his face, they looked as if they were being swallowed by flesh. The only part that seemed up to the fight was his mustache, a salt and pepper affair that drooped past the corners of his mouth. It would have looked dour on any other man, but it gave Alphonse the look of a painter who had stuffed a brush in his mouth and had forgotten about it. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”