Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“A Monitor, you say?” asked the new voice.

“That’s right.”

“Baby Face Nelson’s Monitor?”

“That’s right.”

“Verifiably?”

“I believe elsewhere in the notes it is admitted that Lebman sold Jimmie Smith, a well-known Nelson fake name, a Monitor for four thousand dollars. My grandfather, whose employment in the FBI we can now verify, never claims that it’s Baby Face’s, but the other guns in the cache would almost certainly further verify it. Two Thompsons, a Remington riot gun, a .38 Super, and, not in this cache but from the same source, a .45 automatic that can be verified as the gun that killed Dillinger. Maybe some other assorted Baby Face Nelson handguns that can be verified.”

“All of it untouched since nineteen-when?”

“Nineteen thirty-four, when all this was the news.”

“Well,” said the voice, “on the open market, it might be problematical to move the automatic weapons. The NFA act of course means that all guns had to be registered by 1984, and new ones couldn’t be added. But—”

“But what? Come on, tell me, dammit, Marty.”

“Well…” This Marty seemed suddenly reticent.

“Did he say where this shit was?” asked Braxton, during the pause, and Rawley nodded, scribbled a note, and handed it over.

“He said he figured the map out. The building is a hunting cabin his grandfather owned, his father owned, and he guesses he now owns, in the Ouachita Mountains.”

Braxton nodded.

“Look, without my testimony, you’re in prison,” Swagger said, “and your little scam is the talk of the industry. You’re professionally dead. Plus, you’re getting fucked every night by the Pagan Animals M.C. So I’m thinking, you owe me.”

“All right, all right, Swagger. Well, the thing most people brokering this discovery would do is try and find a museum that would take them so they could be appreciated for their historical significance. It would be a magnificent gesture, earning endless goodwill, and also, assuming the paperwork was carefully handled, a legal one. I’m not sure of the tax ramifications, but I believe a clever accountant could take a substantial deduction for the effort.”

“But that’s small-time and you know it. An operator like you wouldn’t never let a chance to make big bucks go to waste.”

“You’re so critical of me,” said Marty. “You’re so judgmental.”

“Get on with it.”

“Well, there are offshore collectors. Some in South America, some in the Middle East, some in Russia. Men of great wealth and greed with very little interest in trivial legalities.”

“So if you had the guns and the verification, you could do a deal with somebody somewhere — an oil billionaire, a cartel boss, a Russian mobster. How much?”

“I am confident those guns as described, verifiable, untouched since 1934, would be worth in toto no less than three million dollars. The Monitor is the queen of the collection. It would be an amazing addition to anyone’s collection. Three million, cash on the barrelhead. Fast, clean, no records. They’re very liquid. The problem would only be laundering the money, but an astute financial operator could handle it easily. The man in charge would need a rare combination of attributes — contacts, and a reputation in the fine-gun world, where the prices are getting astronomical, plus financial acumen: experience in moving sums around to disguise their origin and at the same time avoid the tax bite. I could name some people if you gave me a few days.”

“Yeah, Marty, get busy on that, will you?”

“I will. Thanks, by the way, for testifying on my behalf.”

“You’d steal the gold from your mother’s teeth on her deathbed, but I never thought for a second you’d be capable of taking part in a murder plot.”

“So harsh,” said Marty. “So harsh.”

With that Swagger broke contact, then called Memphis. It was a short call, just an announcement of his triumph and his plans to recover the treasure, would Nick care to come along?

“You just want me along to do the digging,” said Nick.

“Damned right,” said Swagger. “You got a back that still works.”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

“I can do Tuesday.”

“Hmm, Tuesday, November third, 2038?”

“I’ll write it down,” said Swagger.

“Maybe you ought to contact Treasury first,” said Nick.

“I’ll call my lawyer for advice, I guess. If he says we can put them in a bonded warehouse, or I can get Arkansas State Police to take temporary custodianship, that might work. But I don’t know if they’re there, I want to get that out of the way, and then we’ll see where we are.”

“Good, good.”

“I got to get up there, I figure Jake Vincent and his kids or one of the other Vincents can help me. I got to get a three-wheeler. I can find the place. It ain’t far from Hard Bargain Valley.”

“I do remember Hard Bargain Valley,” said Nick.

“I’ll bet you do. Anyway, this’ll take a little time. I’m aiming for, say, a week from now to get it all set up, the three-wheeler bought, borrowed, or rented, some picks and shovels, maybe a wagon to load the shit on behind the three-wheeler.”

“That would be the fifth,” said Nick.

“Yeah, that’s it. The fifth, write it down. Just for the security, I’ll go and dig the stuff up after dark. Can you go ahead and start talks with the historian? See if the Bureau is interested?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, talk to you later. Got some calls still to make.”

“Congratulations. Maybe the guns will tell us the story of how it all turned out.”

“If it’s worth telling.”

Braxton and Rawley waited, but Swagger evidently decided to put off calling his lawyer until the morning. When the eavesdropping phone relayed the sound of the even breathing of sleep, they disconnected.

“We got it,” said Braxton.

Rawley nodded. They shook hands, and hugged, and then a wolfish smile came across Braxton’s face. He got his own iPhone out and fingered a number.

“I just figured how to smoke a few more bucks out of our fat cat,” he said.

A few rings and the phone was answered.

“Yes? Oh, Christ, it’s late. You woke me up,” said Leon Kaye, from his bedroom in Little Rock.

“You’re about to be very glad I called,” said Braxton.

“Give me a second… Uh, oh, okay, let me get out of the bedroom… Okay, now I’m okay… You have some news?”

“Have I ever!” said Braxton, who then laid out what he had just learned.

At the end of it, Kaye said, “Marion ‘Marty’ Adams, he’s the dealer Swagger called. He plays his game very close to the edge. I don’t know how they know each other, but Adams is exactly the right person. I’m impressed. But, no matter. You know what has to be done?”

“I know what has to be done. Do you know what has to be done?”

“Uh, Braxton, I’m not sure I like your tone.”

“This next step has to be addressed. If we take the guns, but leave Swagger alive, he will hunt us down and hunt you down. That’s what he’s good at. That’s what he does.”

“Hmm,” said Kaye. “I don’t like discussing this.”

“It has to be discussed.”

“What are you proposing?”

“The hole that has the guns, it has to have Swagger in it when we close it up. That costs more. Get it?”

Nothing for a few seconds.

“I’m not sure I…”

“The alternative is a deep swim in an Ozark lake wearing a charm bracelet with a color television on it while the Russians play vodka pissing games in the boat two hundred feet above your head.”

“Do what has to be done.”

“You pay off the Russians, we take everything else. Got it? No profit for you, just survival. Got it?”