You run things how you like down here. We maintain a mutual level of respect. If you were to broker a hit against a member of my family, and I were to find out about it . . . I would consider that an act of aggression.”
Zimmer takes another pull off his vape. His relaxed posture hasn’t changed. But I can see a new alertness in his eyes and a tension in his muscles. His face is still, but there’s a gleam of anger in his eyes.
“I would consider it aggressive,” he hisses, “if you came into my house and threatened me.”
The silence stretches between Cal and Zimmer for several minutes. I’m not planning to say a goddamned word. Cal knows this guy, I don’t—but I am watching everyone else in the room, out of the corner of my eye. Keeping track of the big bouncer who’s standing off on our right-hand side, close enough to be summoned at a moment’s notice, and the rest of Zimmer’s people, too, who might be fucking around on Call of Duty, but are no doubt armed—every single one of them.
Finally, Cal says, “I have a piece of information in trade. I know a boxcar full of Rugers went missing from the Norfolk rail yard a couple weeks ago. One hundred and fourteen guns spread out across the city. Mostly here on the south side.”
Zimmer’s face remains impassive. I can tell this isn’t news to him at all.
Cal goes on. “They picked up three of the men involved last night. Bryson, England, and Dawes. Two of them kept their mouths shut. But the third seems to think he can link you to the robbery. He’s making a deal with the DA as we speak. I guess you fucked his girlfriend a couple months back, and he’s holding a grudge about it. He seems to think that, unlike your usual hands-off approach, with this particular shipment you tested one of the guns. The same one used to rob the liquor store on Langley. Remember that? The one where the clerk got shot? Dawes says he knows where that particular Ruger is. He says it should still have your prints on it, along with the prints of the idiot who shot the clerk.”
As Cal speaks, Zimmer sits perfectly still. But his face gets paler, until it looks as gray as the smoke still seeping from his nostrils.
“I could tell you where they’re holding Dawes,” Cal says quietly. “So you can shut his mouth for him, before he says too much. But I need to know who hired that hit on Riona.”
Zimmer lets out the last remaining smoke from his lungs.
“Alright,” he hisses quietly. “Alright.”
He sits up straighter on the couch, leaning forward on his knees and speaking so low that I can barely hear him.
“I didn’t broker the hit myself. But I heard about it.”
“Tell me what you know,” Cal says.
This is the first time Cal’s voice loses its casualness. There’s an edge to his tone now, and I see the stiffness in his shoulders. He’s angry, hearing it confirmed that someone dared hire a killer to attack his sister.
“I heard there was a hit happening, and nobody could know about it. It had to look like an accident.”
Cal gives a small, almost imperceptible nod. That’s what we guessed.
“It was expensive. They hired this guy they call the Djinn.”
“The Djinn?” Cal says, frowning like he doesn’t believe Zimmer. “What the fuck is that?”
“That’s his name,” Zimmer says defensively. “I don’t know his real name. Nobody does. You call him up—and he makes people disappear.”
“Fine,” Cal says, cutting to the point he cares about more than the identity of this hitman. “I don’t give a shit. I want to know who hired him.”
“I don’t know!” Zimmer says. “I don’t. When hits are hired, it’s a double-blind system. The client doesn’t know the hitman, and the hitman doesn’t know the client. It’s all anonymized. That way nobody can rat.”
Cal scowls, obviously wishing he’d implemented a similar system between him and Dawes.
“So where’s the snitch?” Zimmer demands.
“They’re holding him in MCC,” Cal says. “D Block.”
Zimmer nods.
Cal gets up from the couch, our business with Zimmer obviously concluded.
The hefty bouncer follows us all the way to the door, where we retrieve our guns.
“Don’t come back,” he grunts as he cracks the door for us once more.
Cal turns and fixes him with a cold stare.
“Don’t give me a reason to,” he says.
Even the air of the run-down rail yard tastes fresh