Hunter's Trail

“I saw them. They’re glorified pocketknives.”

“But they’re all legal,” she said solicitously.

Jesse felt his expression harden. His voice too. “Cut the shit, Tommy. I’m not suggesting you’re a secret arms dealer. But you must have stuff you keep off the sales floor.”

“Jesse, man,” Noah said under his breath, “what are you doing?”

Jesse ignored his brother and kept his eyes on Tommy Vrapman, who shook her head, her expression a little smug. “Sorry, officer.”

“Detective, now. And you’re way out of my jurisdiction,” Jesse said coolly. “As long as you’re not handing out live grenades with every purchase, I couldn’t care less what you do.”

Tommy just shrugged, still smiling. Jesse took a step closer. Fuck it, he thought. The anger was building again, and he didn’t have time for this crap. “I have friends in the West bureau, though,” he said softly. “Young cops, like me. Always looking to make an impression with their supervisors, you know? Looking for a bust?”

Tommy’s eyes widened a little. “Hey!” Noah said sharply, and it reminded him of Scarlett, the way she’d sounded shocked when he’d talked to Will. He was sick of both of them trying to rein him in when he was doing his job. The job Dashiell had more or less forced on him.

“Stay out of it, hermano,” Jesse said coolly. “Tommy gets where I’m coming from, don’t you, Tommy?”

Her expression was flat. “Oh, I know exactly where you’re coming from. You think you’re the first cop to come in here?”

“No,” Jesse replied, his voice hard. “But I can promise you that I’m the most motivated. And the least charmed by your punk princess bullshit. You’re a little girl playing dress up, and I’d bet money that you’re doing something stupid just for the thrill of it.” Tommy flinched away from him and then squared her shoulders, annoyed that he’d seen her react.

“Jesse!” Noah yelped, but neither Jesse nor Tommy looked at him.

Tommy glared for a long moment, and then her expression softened. “Noah used to say you were the sweet one, you know,” she said quietly.

Jesse shrugged. “Things change.”

Tommy nodded curtly, her face closed now. She stalked over to the front door and flipped the dead bolt, pulling a chain cord that turned off the neon Open sign. Then she looked back at Noah and Jesse and jerked her head. “Noah, wait here. Detective Cruz, follow me.”

Noah opened his mouth to object again, but Jesse shook his head sharply. He was working now.

Tommy led Jesse toward a door behind the counter and into a long back room that was lined on either wall with cheap metal shelving. She had managed to make the narrow room seem even smaller by adding an additional row of shelves going down the middle. Jesse had to turn slightly sideways to make it through the aisle comfortably, and his brother would have had to crab-walk just to get in the room, but Tommy glided through the narrow space easily. The merchandise piled on these shelves was mostly grimy, broken, or extremely expensive—too nice to keep out front, in case of a robbery. There was a whole stack of video game consoles in perfect-looking condition, and one shelf filled with nothing but small boxes with the Rolex logo on them. “Those fall off a truck?” Jesse asked sarcastically, but Tommy didn’t bother to answer. She just stopped in the back left corner of the room. The three-level shelf on this wall was full of weapons.

“Those are all from prop houses,” Tommy said immediately, pointing to the bottom shelf, which was piled haphazardly with guns. “The firing pins have been disabled.”

Jesse shrugged. “Don’t care.” There were knives on the middle shelf, at waist height. Some were encased in leather or vinyl sheaths, and some were bare, but they were all spread out on a clean gray cloth, arranged in order of blade length. The shortest blade was fixed to a set of brass knuckles. The longest was a samurai sword that looked authentic to Jesse, though he didn’t know anything about them.

He picked up a couple of knives, choosing one in a leather sheath, asking, “Do you have any silver knives?”

She shook her head. “It’s not a real practical metal, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said wryly. “Do you have anything made out of silver?”

Tommy chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second, eyeing the shelf of knives, and then went up on tiptoes to pick up a small, unlabeled box the size of her hand from the top shelf. “You could say that.”

Jesse opened the box. “You’re kidding.” Tommy just shook her head. Not kidding.

The box held homemade silver-plated bullets for a nine-millimeter pistol. “Where did you get these?” he asked Tommy in amazement.

“I’ve got a dealer in the Valley who makes them. He’s a friend, so I always keep one box here. They sell okay, actually, especially in the last few months.” She shrugged one tattooed shoulder. “Kitsch value is alive and well in LA.”

Jesse almost chortled. Kitsch value. There were probably a couple of customers who liked the novelty of owning actual silver bullets, but he was betting that someone from the Old World had found a place to buy them after Jesse and Scarlett had stopped Jared Hess. Tommy, the girl who liked to flirt with danger, had no idea what she had.

“I’ll take them,” he told her. Jesse carried a .45-caliber Beretta for work, but like most cops he kept a spare gun at home, and that one was a nine-millimeter. They went back up to the cash register, where Jesse paid cash for the bullets and a knife. Tommy didn’t speak during the transaction. Noah didn’t say anything either, but he scrutinized both their faces, trying to figure out what had just happened. As Tommy handed Jesse the bag, she spoke to Noah. “Don’t call me again.”