Silent Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page A

was looking down at his feet.
    “Where’d Thayer get it all?”
    “Tell you when we finish inventorying it and run the serial numbers.”
    “When will that be?”
    “Hell, I’ll be two years into my pension. This asshole next to me will be Washington bureau chief by then.”
    Pardo said nothing.
    “Spitball it,” I said. “You don’t look like someone who sleeps with the book.”
    “There’s a book?” He grinned his baggy grin. Then he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t find myself agreeing with Vic much. I never agree with Vic. But we’ve been working the local big iron dealers for two years and I’m just close enough to retirement not to want to blow it. Sorry.”
    I stepped on what felt like a pine cone and took my foot off it. It was a hand grenade, one of the old pineapples we used to practice with. Livingood noticed it, scooped it up with a grunt, and tossed it and the portable rocket launcher into the trailer.
    “Mrs. Thayer told me an old beat-up pickup came to the basement door once,” I said, when the hairs on the back of my neck lay down. “What do you hear from the Shooter?”
    “Good old Shooter. I heard he married a rich divorcee and retired.”
    “You buy it?”
    “He’ll get out when they screw him into the ground. This is way out of his wheelhouse, though. Biggest thing he ever dealt was the MAC-10 he sold me, just before I busted him the last time.”
    “He tried to sell me a Thompson once.”
    “Did you see it?”
    “The wrong end. The guy he was going to buy it from changed his mind and tried shooting up some cops with it.”
    “Blew him out from under his hat, I bet. Them old typewriters are too heavy and got a mean pull besides. Plus they jam. Any rookie with a crummy department-issue thirty-eight can plug you while you’re still trying to clear the slide.” His eyes flicked over my shoulder. “Here comes the law in Iroquois Heights.”
    I hadn’t heard the big Pontiac coasting to a stop in front of the truck. It was robin’s-egg blue, with the city seal etched in gold on the driver’s door and the department’s motto painted in matching italics on the rear fender.
    “ ‘To serve and protect,’ ” Livingood read. “I wonder if the boys in Truth in Advertising know about that?”
    A young officer in a uniform he had put on with a roller—it was the same color as the car, with a gold stripe on the pants—got out from behind the wheel and swaggered our way, sliding a walkie-talkie into a holder on his gun belt. Hatless, he wore his sandy hair in a crew with the temples shaved, gold-framed Ray-Bans with violet lenses, and a triangular moustache clipped with nail scissors and a slide rule. His gear, stowed in various loops and pockets of his belt and uniform, included a leather sap, a monkey stick, a pair of black jersey gloves with studded knuckles, two speed-loaders bristling with cartridges, and a Colt .357 Magnum with a fisted grip. His stomach was as flat as an inquisitor’s rack.
    “Good afternoon, Officer Pollard,” said the senior agent.
    “What can we do for you today and how much is it going to cost?”
    Officer Pollard stopped in front of us and pointed a manicured finger at him. “That’s showing disrespect for an officer in the performance of his duties. I could ticket you for that.”
    “Who’s going to show you how to write it?”
    Pollard made no answer to that. Up close, he wasn’t as young as he appeared from a little distance; his spiky hair was going silver at the tips and the dark glasses couldn’t hide the lines around his eyes. “The chief asked me to look in on you from time to time, find out if you needed anything.”
    “I know what he wanted you to find out.”
    Pardo spoke up. “Thank you, Officer. If we need anything, we’ll let the chief know.”
    “Who’s chief these days?” I asked.
    The violet lenses turned my way slightly. “You’re who?”
    I showed him my ID. There was no telling if he was reading it. His lips