Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(46)

“Bad time?” I asked. He looked up and waved me over.

“Oh, hey, Faust. No, c’mon in. Jenny with you?”

“Just me,” I said. Jennifer had introduced us a few months back when he needed my kind of help. They had business together, but I wasn’t sure if Winslow was one of her distributors or just an enthusiastic customer. Probably the former. There wasn’t much you couldn’t buy at the Sunset Garage, once the right people vouched for you. “Getting into making jewelry?”

He laughed and showed me the pewter pendant around his neck, a coiled and rearing cobra. “Son, I been into it longer than I been into anything else. Good hobby for a mechanic. Keeps your fingers limber. I ain’t winnin’ no contests, but then, I ain’t enterin’ any either. What brings you by?”

“Business, with a twist.”

“Yeah?” he said. “What kind of business?”

“I need wheels and a gun.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought you weren’t keen on guns?”

“I’m not, but I’ve got troubles with some folks who are keen on guns, and I don’t think I can fight back with strongly worded arguments.”

“Reckon not. All right, what’s the twist?”

“I’m a little short on cash. As in, I don’t have any.”

Winslow pointed toward the bay doors.

“There’s the exit,” he said. “Directions are free.”

“C’mon, Winslow. You know I’m good for it. I’ve got a line on a big score.”

That wasn’t entirely a lie. Given my cash situation, I would need to find a big score pretty damn quick once the current crisis was over and done with. Saying I’d already found one was technically just confidence talking.

“I don’t do credit, kid. Bad business. You start making handouts in my line of work, people think you’re soft. Then they start taking instead of asking.”

“And I can keep my mouth shut. Besides, I was hoping, given what I did for your sister…”

I let that hang in the air. He sighed. Then he narrowed his eyes. I could see his brain working, sniffing for an advantage.

“Jenny says you might be going inside for a little while.”

“Maybe. Soft time. Cops got me on a bullshit beef for threatening somebody in traffic. I’m out on bail, don’t even have a trial date yet. What about it?”

“I got a buddy inside right now. Friend of the MC. Needs a little help. Your kind of help.”

I had a sinking feeling. Outlaw biker gangs are a little outside my usual crowd, and I wasn’t sure what kind of occult “help” Winslow’s pal could possibly need behind bars.

“Maybe I’m going inside,” I said. “I might walk on the whole thing. Remains to be seen.”

“Well, here’s my proposition. I’ll bend the rules and get you what you need today, just this once. But you owe me double what I’d normally charge, and I damn well better get paid by month’s end, or you and me are gonna have harsh words. That’s if you don’t go inside. If you do, and if you can help my buddy? Then we’re square.”

I winced at “double.” Winslow’s services already weren’t cheap, and he wasn’t kidding about the implied threat. Not even being a friend of Jennifer’s was going to save my kneecaps if I didn’t pay him back to the last penny. Then again, I didn’t have a whole lot of choices right now.

I offered him my hand. He took it in a hard grip and shook it in a way that left no doubt the deal was sealed.

“First things first,” he said, sliding back a tarp on the floor and pulling on a knotted rope attached to a trap door. I followed him down into the cellar. Wire mesh lined the cinder-block walls, adorned with enough firepower to outfit an army platoon and then some. Under the light of a dangling bulb, I took in the sights. Winslow stocked pistols, shotguns, and rifles, and propped up in the corner of the cellar was, I was pretty sure, a vintage World War II flamethrower.

“What size bear are you hunting?” he asked.

“I need something with serious stopping power. If I have to pull this thing, it’ll mostly be for the intimidation factor, to buy me some time. Anyone who’s still dumb enough to run up on me needs to go down hard as a lesson to his friends. On the other hand, it’s got to be small enough to fit in a duffel bag or a briefcase. I can’t be toting an assault rifle around town.”

Winslow rubbed his chin. Then he nodded.

“I’ve got just the thing. You’re gonna like this.”

He searched the wire rack and took down a fat monster of a revolver, matte black with a scarlet backstrap along the grip.

“Here comes the Judge,” he said with a grin. “Taurus Judge Magnum. Six-and-a-half-inch barrel, six-round cylinder, chambered to fire .454 Casull cartridges and, here’s the fun part, .410 bore shotshells.”

I took it from him, feeling the weight, the coldness of the grip.

“Shotshells,” I said. “As in shotgun shells?”

“That’s right. You don’t want to get in any long-range shenanigans with this baby, but if someone gets up in your face? One pull and you’ll take their face off. Plus it’s one ugly, mean-lookin’ mama.”

One thing for certain, the gun had the intimidation part down pat. It still wouldn’t stop Sullivan, but if I shot him right between the eyes, the sting might slow him down long enough for me to do something useful.