service.
Dressed in her usual black Giordano T-shirt and Adidas track pants, she sat down again at the computer. The detective had come through for her once more, sending a description of Douglas’s house and a drawing that outlined the exterior. She had a rough idea of what to expect after having seen the complex, but he had filled in the detail. There were no walls or fences around the house and no apparent external security other than that provided by the complex. A three-car garage was attached to the right side of the house, with the front door set farther back at the end of a small walkway. Perfect, she thought.
There was an alarm system in the house, but there would be no reason for it to be on during the day. Even if it was, she expected that Douglas would open the door quite willingly for Martin Littlefeather. The only disquieting note in the document was the fact that Douglas owned three Rottweilers. Carlo and Andy, like most Hong Kongers, weren’t comfortable with dogs. Too bad for them, she was thinking, when her cellphone rang.
It was a Vegas number, and she hesitated before answering it. “Jennie Kwong.”
“It’s Au. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Ava turned off her computer and went downstairs to the lobby. It was a gorgeous morning, with a clear sky, a hint of breeze, and the Sierra Nevadas glistening on the horizon. Au’s taxi arrived just as she left the hotel.
“My wife says nee hoi,” he said.
“ Nee hoi to her.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Doug’s Nevada Gun Shop. It’s at the far end of the Strip, towards the Golden Nugget.”
Doug’s was in old Vegas, a section of the city that began almost as soon as they had passed Steve Wynn’s second deluxe hotel, Encore, on the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard. It didn’t take long for her to notice the difference between the old and the new. The city went immediately from grandiose to grungy. One minute Ava was looking at Encore, shining like a brown jewel framed by lush, manicured gardens, and the next she was staring at a series of strip malls selling cheap T-shirts and liquor, the sidewalks cracked and covered with debris. It got worse the closer she got to Doug’s. Many stores were boarded up and the streets were populated by the down and out. Two men were rooting through a garbage bin in front of the gun store. Au offered to take her in, but Ava politely declined.
Doug’s was a supermarket of weaponry. Ava had been in American gun stores before and thought she had seen just about everything, but Doug’s raised the bar. The store was shaped like a horseshoe, lined with guns in glass cases mounted on the walls. They seemed to have every type of gun she had ever heard of, and more brands than she had known existed. For anyone planning a coup, a quick trip to Doug’s would be one-stop shopping.
She walked past rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and automatics until she came to the section signed guns for the little lady. She browsed the cases until she caught the clerk’s eye.
“What would you recommend?” she asked.
“What’s it for, ma’am?”
“Self-defence.”
“A. 380 should be just about right. Powerful enough, light, easy to fire, and accurate within about fifteen yards. Take your pick,” he said, sweeping his hand across a case.
“So many choices.”
“It’s a popular weapon.”
“Show me a range.”
He opened the glass case and took out three guns. “This is the Hi-Point 380. It’s heavier than most, about twenty-nine ounces, but it’s still easy to shoot and has a reputation for accuracy. It’ll set you back about $150,” he began. “Then we have the Kel-Tac P-3AT. It’s a lighter gun, just over eight ounces, and it’s $300. The last gun is the Rolls-Royce of. 380s, the Kahr P380. It’s probably the most accurate. Shit, you can hardly miss from fifteen yards, and it only weighs ten ounces. Here, feel it,” he said, passing her the gun.
She picked them up one by one. The Kahr seemed to have the best balance. “How much?”
“That’s the problem with this gun, ma’am. It comes in at over five hundred dollars.”
“What ammunition works best with it?”
“I’ve been told that the Winchester Ranger ninety-five-grain is good.”
“I’ll take the gun and a box of ammunition,” she said.
He reached for a sales pad. “Now, you do know, ma’am, that you can’t take the gun with you today?”
“And why not? I was told that a permit wasn’t required here.”
“Not for a weapon you intend to carry in the open.”
“That’s what I would do.”
“Sorry, ma’am, there’s still a seventy-two-hour cooling period. You can come back in three days for the gun.”
“I may not be alive in three days,” Ava whispered.
“Sorry, ma’am?”
“You heard me. Look at this,” she said, pulling up her T-shirt to show him her battered body. “My boyfriend beat the crap out of me last night. He threw me on the floor and kicked me like I was a dog. Then he took off just before the cops came — a lot of good they’d do anyway. I know he’s coming back and he’s going to do more of the same. But this time it isn’t going to be so easy.”
“Ma’am, there are rules — ”
“What’s more important, the rules or your conscience? Is this Nevada or Massachusetts?”
He stared at her. Ava looked back at him defiantly. “If I don’t get it here I’ll go somewhere else.”
“You got a car outside?” he said.
“Taxi.”
“You got cash?”
“Not enough.”
“There’s an ATM about a block left of here. Get the cab to park there. I’ll meet you in ten minutes.”
“How much cash?”
“Six hundred will do.”
She was about to argue that he had quoted her five hundred for the gun, then caught herself. “See you in ten,” she said.
She directed Au to the ATM. She had four hundred dollars on her and took out another five hundred. Then she stood on the street corner and waited. The clerk walked towards her with a brown paper bag in his hand. “Get in the back of the cab, away from the security cameras,” he said.
Ava handed him the cash and he stuck the bills into his pants pocket without counting them. She wasn’t so trusting. She opened the bag and saw the Kahr. 380 and a box of Winchester Ranger ammunition. “Thanks,” she said.
“I just don’t want to see your photo on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow,” he said.
“If you do, it’ll be because I shot him, not because he beat me to death.”
After the clerk left, Au kept looking at her. She knew he had a lot of questions. “I need to find a Chinese grocery store,” she said.
“What do you need to buy?”
“A meat cleaver.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m worried for you,” he said.
“And then I need to get some duct tape and smelling salts,” she added as Au drove out of the parking lot.
When the car stopped at a red light, he turned around. “I told my wife you were a different kind of lady, but I don’t think she’d believe me if I told her about this.”
(26)
Terminal Two at McCarran International was smaller and more relaxed than the main terminal. It was a one-minute walk from her cab to the main level, and once there Ava could position herself at the bottom of an
