He drove back over to the station.
Liam was watching Billie Garcia through the one-way glass.
“Has he said or done anything?” Dallas asked.
“He tried to take the table apart. Maybe he thought he could skewer himself with a leg, I don’t know. He gave the guards hell when they got him into dry clothes. He doesn’t have a belt or shoelaces or anything, so we’re pretty sure he can’t hurt himself. For the past fifteen minutes he’s just been sitting there as if he’s catatonic. But there’s nothing wrong with him.”
Dallas nodded. “Thanks.”
He walked into the room and sat down across from Billie, who looked back at him warily. Dallas smiled. Then he leaned forward. “Want to talk?”
“I have absolutely nothing to say to you,” Billie said.
Dallas shrugged. “You might as well talk to me. Your cousin has already fingered you for enough crimes that we can put you away for years.”
Dallas knew instantly that word of Martin being picked up by the cops hadn’t reached Billie yet. He paled to the color of ash.
“Martin is a sniveling liar,” he said.
Dallas shrugged. “Maybe, but Martin will probably live.”
“Martin is already a walking dead man,” Billie told him.
“We can protect you.”
“No one can protect anyone from the Wolf. He has eyes everywhere.”
“The Wolf is a man—just a man. And he only has power because he keeps secrets and convinces other people to keep them, too. People start telling those secrets and he won’t have any more power. We’ll pick you off, you know, one by one. And we’ll get to the heart of Los Lobos. We’ll get to the Wolf.”
“Fuck you! I’m not saying nothing.”
“That’s a double negative, but whatever.” Dallas smiled again and said icily, “You are responsible for the death of my friend Jose, Blade. You led him straight into an ambush. Now, you can help me, or I’ll do one of two things. I’ll let you out on the street and make sure the newspapers print something about you being a snitch—”
“I’m not a snitch!”
“Ah, but will the Wolf believe that?” Dallas mused. “Or I’ll see to it that you spend years and years—the rest of your life—in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, at the very least. What I won’t do is let you die easily. You’ll help me now, and if you don’t, you’ll spend every minute wondering how and when the Wolf will get to you. I know the way he works, and it won’t be pretty, I can promise you that much.”
14
“You’re going to learn how to fire a gun,” Kelsey told Hannah.
“I don’t own a gun,” Hannah said.
“And I’m not giving you one—not right now, anyway. But you need to learn how to use one in case there’s ever a need.”
Once, Hannah thought, she would have argued. She’d never been fond of guns—not even spear guns. She dived for pleasure, to see fish, not shoot them. Not that she didn’t like to eat them, too; she just wanted them on her plate, a nice filet, or maybe some sushi.
“All right,” she agreed.
“This is my service weapon,” Kelsey told her, placing her gun on the table. “It’s a Glock 19. It uses a magazine. Right now it’s loaded, but I’m going to unload it. To do that, you push the little button right here, on the side, by the handle.” She demonstrated. The magazine fell into her hand. “Okay, you can’t be certain at this stage that there isn’t a round still in it—that it’s really unloaded—so you bring the slide back. With the magazine out, you should be able to look in the hole and see clear through the gun—unless there’s a round in it. If there is a round, once you hit the slide, it will empty. It’s crucial that you always make sure.” Kelsey demonstrated, and the bullet emerged. “Okay, my mags have fifteen rounds. That’s a new one, and I want you to put it back in the gun. That notch goes forward. The number on the back goes to the rear. Now you take it.”
“Wait. Where’s the safety on this thing? Shouldn’t I check that first?” Hannah asked, tucking her hands behind her back to avoid taking the weapon.
“It doesn’t have a safety.”
“What?”
“Not all guns have a safety, per se. But this one does have a safe trigger. You could throw this gun across the room and it wouldn’t go off. It can only fire when the trigger is fully depressed—that’s the ‘safety’ on this model.” Kelsey pointed. “There’s the trigger, now see that little piece in the middle? The gun can’t fire if you aren’t squeezing the trigger firmly. If it’s nudged on top, no. If it falls, no.”
She held out the Glock again, and this time Hannah took it.
It felt funny to handle the gun. It wasn’t that she hadn’t touched firearms before. It was just that they were usually harmless flintlock reproductions that were used for Key West’s famous Pirate Days.