Blood Orchid

31

Holly waited him out. Jimmy stared at her for the longest moment, before he spoke.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and if I’m going to put them all together, I’ve got to know everything. The silencer is an important piece.”

“I might be able to arrange a brief meeting,” he said. “But no names, and when it’s over, it never happened.”

“That’s good with me.”

“Pour yourself another cup of coffee,” Jimmy said, getting up from his desk. “I’ll be back.” He left the office and closed the door behind him.

Holly got up and walked around the room. There was a display of army stuff on the walls-Jimmy’s shooting qualification certificates, awards for winning competitions.

The door opened and a man followed Jimmy into the room. Small, rat-like, nervous, he took a chair, as did Jimmy.

“Go ahead,” Jimmy said.

Holly looked at the man. “Did you ever make a silencer for Carlos Alvarez?”

The man looked at Jimmy, then at the floor.

“This is completely off the record,” Jimmy said. “A meeting that never happened.”

“I’ll never be asked to testify?”

Holly shook her head. “Carlos is dead; you can’t hurt him.”

The man looked at her again. “I made something for a Winchester twenty-two rifle,” he said.

“He does good work,” Jimmy chimed in.

“My work is as good for accuracy as for noise,” the little man said. “I do rifling; they’re perfectly machined.”

“He’s right,” Jimmy said. “I’ve seen his work.”

“How long ago?”

“A month, maybe; I didn’t count.”

“Thanks,” Holly said. “I appreciate your help.”

“That it?” he asked Jimmy, and Jimmy nodded. The man got up and opened the door, then closed it again.

“Something else?” Jimmy asked.

“I made something for a forty-millimeter Heckler and Koch, too.”

“Same time?” Holly asked.

“Same time. Next time I saw Carlos, he said he was real happy with my work.”

“Thanks again,” Holly said, and the man left the room and closed the door behind him.

“That what you wanted?” Jimmy asked.

“That was it,” Holly said. “One more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“I noticed that when I checked in, your lady took the serial numbers of my weapons.”

“We always do. Keeps people from bringing illegal pieces in here, and we throw out anybody who brings in something with the number filed off.”

“Then you’ll have the serial numbers of Carlos’s rifle and two pistols?”

Jimmy went to a card file, flipped through it, and extracted three cards. He lined them up on a copying machine and pressed the button. “There you are,” he said, handing her the copy. “In Carlos’s own handwriting, with his signature.”

“That’s great, Jimmy. I can’t thank you enough.” She didn’t get up.

“Something else?”

“I think Carlos made a connection here. Does the name Pellegrino mean anything to you?”

“There’s a restaurant in Miami by that name; my wife and I have had dinner there a couple of times, on special occasions.”

“You remember the headwaiter, Pio, the guy who seats everybody? He’s tall, slim, very slick-looking.”

“Sure. He owns the place, doesn’t he?”

“With his father, apparently. Has he ever been in here, maybe talked to Carlos?”

“No, I’d remember; he’s never been in here.”

“Then there’s a connection between Carlos and Pellegrino, and it may be somebody who comes in here, who’s seen Carlos shoot and who recommended him to somebody outside, maybe Pellegrino, or maybe a third party who sent him to Pellegrino.”

“Hard to know who that could be,” Jimmy said.

“You have any customer you suspect might be connected?”

“You mean mob-connected?”

“Right.”

Jimmy thought about it. “I can’t even think of anybody with an Italian name, offhand.”

“Doesn’t have to be Italian. When you visited Pellegrino’s restaurant, did you see anybody you knew among the customers?”

Jimmy’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah, now you mention it. There’s a guy named Trini Rodriguez, he’s a regular here. In fact, he’s part of the group that Carlos shoots with.”

“This is Carlos’s regular night; is Rodriguez here?”

“Hang on.” Jimmy left the room and came back a moment later. “Trini is shooting in position fourteen,” he said.

“I want to get a good look at him,” Holly said. “Can you put me next to him?”

“Yeah, thirteen is open. Come on.”

Holly followed Jimmy back into the range, and he showed her to position thirteen. Holly put her weapons on the shelf in front of her, then stepped back so she could see around the partition between the positions. His back was to her and he was shooting a 9mm.

She fiddled with the Beretta a little, waiting for him to recall his target.

“Nice group,” she said.

He turned and regarded her for a long moment. About Carlos’s size, well built, well dressed, slick haircut. “Thanks,” he said, then went back to his shooting.

Holly fired both pistols again, then went to a cleaning station, field-stripped both pistols, and cleaned them carefully, taking as much time as she could.

Eventually, Rodriguez walked over and began cleaning his weapon.

“You shoot here regularly?” Holly asked.

Rodriguez looked up at her coolly and nodded.

“Seems like a nice place.”

“It is,” he said. “Jimmy’s okay.”

She nodded, then packed away her two weapons and walked away. On the way out, she gave Jimmy a wink, and he winked back.

Connection, she thought-Carlos, Trini, Pellegrino. But who did Pellegrino connect with?