In the first hour, he wandered, stopped, handled many weapons up and down the aisles. He stopped and chatted with salespeople at five booths, smaller manufacturers. Getting comfortable. He hadn't done any street work in a very long time.

After the shoot-out last year, Moses McGuire had disposed of all the guns they had used in the firefight, including both of Glitsky's Colt.357 revolvers. In the interim, he hadn't really missed them- he wore his Glock.40 automatic with his uniform every day- but now he had a hunch and on impulse he stopped in front of the Colt booth. There were two other customers, but the man behind the counter stepped to Glitsky as soon as he approached.

"How are you doin', sir?" Jerry, by his name tag, was in his mid-thirties. He was buffed under his shirt and tie, and wore a clipped red mustache and jarhead haircut. "Are you interested in buying a gun today?"

Glitsky slowly looked to one side, all the way around to the other. Guns for sale everywhere he looked. He came back to Jerry and nodded. "It appears so, doesn't it?"

"Are you familiar with Colts?"

"Moderately. I used to own a couple. Somebody took them." Technically, this was not a lie. "I thought I'd see if one of these spoke to me." He pointed down under the counter. "This Python looks like the brother to the ones I lost. Three fifty seven."

"Yes, sir." The man was lifting it out, placing it on the counter.

"May I?" Glitsky asked, reaching for it.

He hefted it in one hand, passed it to the other, flipped open the cylinder, removed it entirely, then held the gun up to his eye and squinted down the barrel.

"What line of work are you in?"

Glitsky checked the sight, replaced the cylinder, handed the weapon back to Jerry. "Security." His smile did not reach his eyes, and lowering his voice, he cut to the chase. "I've always loved that gun, but I'm looking for something that can accommodate a suppressor, and I'm afraid that leaves revolvers out of it."

"Yes, it does." Jerry turned, rummaged in a drawer at the desk behind him, and a few seconds later placed a professionally designed, full-color brochure on the counter. "If you're going to go with a suppressor, Colt recommends its M1911 handgun, which takes your forty-five-caliber ACP cartridge. The M1911, of course, is semiautomatic and takes the S0S-45 suppressor once its been threaded for-"

Glitsky interrupted. "The guns that got taken from me, they were these three fifty seven revolvers, and I had suppressors to go with them. They also got taken."

"Well, yes, sir. But-"

"It sounded like you were telling me if I didn't shoot a semi, you couldn't help me."

"No. Not at all. Although we can't authorize any sales of suppressors out of the show today. We can't even carry them, as I'm sure you realize. But if you're interested…"

"Maybe you haven't been listening to me, Jerry. I'm interested in this gun, right here, right now, and I happen to have the thousand dollars to buy it. I don't like to use a semiautomatic. They jam, you notice that? Now, are you telling me you can't help me locate a silencer in this brochure of yours here for this exact weapon that I'm interested in putting down some money for? 'Cause if that's the case, I think maybe I can find another dealer nearby who might be willing to."

He put the revolver down on the top of the glass counter. "On the other hand, you put me in line with a top-quality suppressor for this gun, I give you my credit card, come back later on after the ridiculous ten-day cooling off period has expired, and you've got at least one sale, maybe a few more after I talk to some of my friends. Are you hearing me?" He leaned in and lowered his voice. "Someone told me if I had any trouble I should ask for Mort."

It was, indeed, the magic word. Jerry glanced at his other customers- nobody paying any real attention. "Give me a couple of minutes," he said.

It was more like twenty, during which Glitsky wandered some more, checking back at the Colt booth at five-minute intervals. The fourth time, Jerry was talking to a heavy, short, bald man and motioned Glitsky over. "This is, uh…"

"Abe." Glitsky extended the hand that held the C-note.

"Mort." The man's grip was weak and sweaty, but he palmed the bill like a master, glanced down at it quickly, apparently was satisfied. "Let's go," he said.

They walked out back toward the main entrance, Mort a couple of steps ahead of Glitsky, never looking back. Glitsky got stamped for readmission. Outside, they turned right and walked in the bright sun through the parking lot. Hard up against the chain-link fence, a white van with a dash full of dolls in the window squatted in the meager shade of a lone eucalyptus. Mort knocked once, then twice, on the back door, then turned and, without a word or a nod at Glitsky, headed back across the lot.

When the door finally opened in a fog of cigarette smoke, Glitsky stepped forward. If he'd thought that Mort was overweight, the man who sat on the swivel seat in the rear of the van put things into perspective. He must have gone close to three hundred, although the untucked Hawaiian shirt may have added twenty pounds or so. He was still smoking, and every breath wheezed out of him like a bellows. He squinted through the smoke and out into the sun and said, "It's nine hundred dollars. Cash."

Glitsky fanned away some of the smoke. There was no ventilation in the van itself. "That's what I heard. I'm looking at a Colt three five seven revolver." He took out his wallet and started counting out the bills, laying them out on the filthy shag rug.

The huge man wheezed again, put out his cigarette, then swiveled and grabbed one of the thick black leather briefcases that lined a shelf behind the front seats. Pulling it onto his lap, he opened it, studied a moment, then took out one of the long, heavy metallic objects. "This isn't just a flash suppressor," he said, handing it over. "This will eliminate noise in excess of seventy-five dB. I can thread it and mount it here whenever you pick up your weapon, a hundred dollars, or you can take it with you and mount it up yourself. I recommend you let me do it here. I've got all the equipment as you can see. You fuck it up, it might kill you."

The left side of the back of the van was a low metal work counter, with a vise and array of tools neatly mounted against the side wall. He grabbed a metal box off the counter, wiped his brow and, wheezing with the effort, reached down to pick up Glitsky's bills. After counting them again, he placed them in the metal box. When the box was back on the counter, he pulled a small spiral notebook from his pants pocket. "You got a number? Cell's best. I change the setup, I like to keep my customers in the loop."

Glitsky's hands had gone damp with nerves. So far, everything that his snitch had told him about this operation had turned out as advertised, but if this fat man had a partner sitting in any one of the hundreds of nearby cars, covering him, this is where it would get ugly. He put the suppressor down on the rug and reached behind as though for his wallet or a belt-worn cellphone. Instead, he pulled his Glock from where he'd tucked in at the small of his back.

At first, the fat man's face registered a mild surprise, as though Glitsky had brought along the weapon for which he wanted the silencer. Then, realizing how and where the gun was pointed, he lowered his hands into his lap, then raised them slightly. "You can take your money back," he said. "And whatever else is in there. I'm absolutely cool with this. You can take the truck, too. I don't care."

"Keep your hands where I can see them and crawl on out here."

He backed up as the man slowly got himself off the mounted swivel chair and pathetically, on all fours, made his way across the gross shag. His dark hair hung in greasy shanks down around his face.