The statute of limitations?'
'On most felonies. There's no statute of limitations on tax evasion or murder.'
'Don't I know it.' He picked up his glass and looked at it. 'Here's how it was. There were these three cases of Kalashnikovs. AK-47s, you know. Assault rifles. They were in a storage bin in Maspeth, just off Grand Avenue. Big crates they were, with more than thirty rifles in each, so you had close to a hundred in all.'
'Whose were they?'
'Ours, once we blew the lock on that storage shed. The crates were too large for the van we had. We broke them open and loaded the rifles into the back of the van. I don't know whose guns they were, but he couldn't own them legally, and he couldn't go to the police about it, could he?' He took a drink. 'We already had a buyer for them. You wouldn't steal something like that if you didn't.'
'Who was your buyer?'
'Some lads who looked like Hitler's next of kin. Their heads this close to shaved, and the three I saw were dressed alike. Blue shirts with designs on the pocket and khaki trousers. They said they had a training camp in the Adirondacks, up around Tupper Lake. They wanted the guns, and they paid more
than they had to, I'll say that for them.'
'So you sold them.'
'So I did. And two nights later I'm having a drink at Morrissey's, and Tim Pat himself calls me aside.
You remember Tim Pat Morrissey.'
'Of course.'
' 'I hear you've a few extra rifles,' he says. 'Wherever did you hear that?' I say. Well, the whole of it is that he wants the lot of them for some friends of his in the north of Ireland. You knew they were involved in all of that, the brothers. Didn't you?'
'I'd certainly heard as much.'
'Well, nothing would do but he must have these rifles. He won't believe I've already sold them. He's sure I couldn't have moved them so quick, you see. 'You don't want them in this country,' he says. 'Think what your man may do with them.' Why, I said, he and his friend will go and play toy soldier with them, or at worst they'll go and shoot a few niggers. 'You don't know that,' he says. 'Maybe they'll start a revolution and storm the governor's mansion. Maybe they'll give the guns to the niggers. Sell them to me and you'll know where they're going.' '
He sighed. 'So we stole them back and sold them to Tim Pat. He wouldn't pay the price the little Nazis paid, either. What a bargainer he was! 'You're doing this for Holy Ireland,' he said, driving the price down. Still, when you collect twice for the same fucking guns, any price is a good price.'
'Did the original buyers come back at you?'
'Ah,' he said. 'Now there's the part the statute of limitations doesn't cover. You might say they were in no position to retaliate.'
'I see.'
'I made good money on those guns,' he said. 'But once they were out of the country, well, that was an end to it. I was out of guns, and so I was out of the gun business.'
I went to the bar and got another Coke. This time I had Burke cut me a wedge of lemon to cut the sweetness. When I got back to the table Mick said, 'Now what made me tell you that story? The gun business, that's what put me in mind of it, but why go on and tell it?'
'I don't know.'
'When we sit together, you and I, the stories roll.'
I sipped my Coke. The lemon helped. I said, 'You never asked me what I needed with a gun.'
'Not my business, is it?'
'Maybe not.'
'You happen to need a gun and I happen to have one. I don't think you'll shoot me, or hold up the bar with it.'
'It's not likely.'
'So you owe me no explanation.'
'No,' I said. 'But it makes a good story.'
'Well,' he said, 'now that's another thing entirely.'
I sat there and told him the whole thing. Somewhere along the way he held up a hand and drew a short horizontal line in the air, and Burke chased the last few customers and started shutting down the bar.
When he started putting the chairs up on the tables Ballou told him to let it go, that he'd see to the rest of it. Burke turned off the lights over the bar and the ceiling lights and let himself out, drawing the sliding gates across but not engaging the padlock. Mick locked the door from inside and cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of whiskey, and I went right on with my story.
When I got to the end he looked again at the sketch of Motley.
'He's a bad bastard,' he said. 'You can see it in his eyes.'
'The man who drew the picture never even saw him.'
'No matter. He put it in the picture whether he saw him or not.' He folded the sketch and gave it back to me. 'The woman you brought in the other night.'
