Fear the Night

you,” he said around the knish, “he’s mostly legal. His expertise is in obtaining valuable pieces for serious gun collectors.”

“Sounds all the way legal.”

“Well, sometimes the guns aren’t legal, or maybe they’re from a museum or who knows where. Maybe the collector doesn’t have a permit. I don’t know, mind you. I’m speculating.”

“So speculate as to where I might find Boniface Grams.”

Artie gave Repetto the Twenty-third Street address.

“I have to level, Artie, I’m not sure if I can do you any good if you’re angling for payback. I’m not with the NYPD anymore on a permanent basis.”

“I know. I read the papers. Which is why I wanna help, so you can stop this Sniper prick and the city can get back to normal. It was after dark, I wouldn’t be standing here eating this knish.”

“Boniface,” Repetto said, folding his paper napkin so he could write on it. He unclipped a pen from his pocket. “How do you spell that?”

Artie told him.

“He French?”

“If France is in Africa.”

The steps hadn’t been too bad. Not breathing noticeably harder, Repetto found himself at the end of the hall on the second floor. The door to B. Grams, Inc., had cheap brass numbers on it and fancy black lettering spelling out the name of the company. Repetto opened the door and stepped inside, expecting some kind of anteroom, maybe even a receptionist.

Instead, a tall, spiffily dressed black man not yet thirty was seated on the corner of a desk, reading a newspaper. He was wearing pleated gray slacks, a white shirt, and colorful blue and yellow suspenders. His black, cap-toed shoes were shined to a blinding gloss. A suit coat that matched the pants was draped over a hanger dangling from a brass coatrack.

He looked up in mild surprise and removed dark-rimmed reading glasses as Repetto entered. “You got an appointment?”

“Does anyone?” Repetto asked.

The man grinned handsomely with perfect white teeth. He had a trimmed little brush mustache that made him look something like Errol Flynn. A guy his age, Repetto bet he’d never heard of Errol Flynn. “Cop?” he asked Repetto. As if he didn’t know.

Repetto nodded. “Boniface?”

The man placed the newspaper on the desk and stood up all the way. Repetto took that for a yes.

“I got a soft spot for cops,” Boniface said. “My brother was one in L.A. and got shot to death by some drug- freaked asshole. Mom never got over it.”

“Too bad,” Repetto said, doubting if any of it was true.

“Had a helluva funeral. VIPs and LAPD brass and bagpipes and everything. What can I help you with, Detective Repetto?”

Repetto hadn’t given Boniface his name. “Want to see some ID first?”

“Don’t need that. I seen your photo in the papers and on TV. Knew you was the dude soon as you walked in. Anyways, you got cop stamped on your forehead.”

Repetto believed him there. “You strike me as a smart guy.”

“Course.”

“You know why I’m here?”

“’Cause you think for some reason I might be able to help you.”

“Why would I think that?”

Boniface smiled and shook his head. “Never did like to dance. So let’s say somebody told you my company sometimes deals in firearms, and you think I might know something about where the Night Sniper dude’s getting his arsenal.”

“We think he might be a collector.”

“Well, I ain’t no collector.”

“But you supply them. You’re a buyer for them.”

“Well. . sometimes. They’re looking for something rare, I locate it for them. That’s not illegal, though.”

“Not if the guns are legal. And the sale is legal. And the transportation of the guns is legal. And there’s no hard-ass homicide cop who might get on your case in a major way if you don’t tell him what he asks.”

Boniface leaned back so his haunches were against the desk, then crossed his arms over his colorful suspenders and floral-pattern tie. “Point taken.”

“You supply any illegal collectors? I’m not asking names. Not yet. It’s the Night Sniper I’m interested in, not some redneck who likes to collect guns.”

“I don’t supply any collectors like you’re talking about,” Boniface said. “Some secret collectors, yeah. But there’s nothing about them I know’s illegal. They just wanna keep their collection a secret ’cause of the bias against guns in this country. Don’t want their pansy-ass friends to know, you follow?”

Repetto didn’t answer. The river was flowing.

“And I deal mostly in handguns. Some long guns, though. Sometimes. But I ain’t dealt long guns in over a year. Year at least. That’s God’s truth, dude.”

Repetto thought you seldom heard God and dude in the same sentence. He fixed Boniface with a stare that obviously made him uncomfortable. “Talk some more. On your own. Tell me something that’ll brighten my day. Your day, too.”

“Kinda collector you’re looking for, I don’t know,” Boniface said. “Truth is, most of my customers are legal, got permits, licenses, the whole shebang. Also, the kinda collector you’re talking about don’t figure to be a serial killer. Ones I met, they’re so interested in guns they wouldn’t have time to go on a killing spree. Some of the really expensive collector pieces come from Europe, too. Dueling sets, blunderbusses, that kinda thing.”

“I’m not looking for blunderbusses, Boniface. You aren’t helping me.”

“Well, the kinda help you want, I can’t give, ’cause I don’t know the answers to your questions.” He uncrossed one arm and stood like Jack Benny, thumb and forefinger cupping his chin. He was thinking deeply, and just for Repetto. “Lemme put it this way. You ever do any hunting?”

Repetto stared at him. “You mean birds and animals?”

“Whatever. Things you’d use a rifle on.”

“Not in a long time.”

“If you were an avis hunter-”

“You mean avid? Avid hunter?”

“Yeah. You’d know from the bullets, the Sniper dude ain’t using hunting rifles. They’re target rifles.”

“Target. . hunting … what’s the difference?”

“Mostly the caliber or millimeter. The bore. Target rifles use those offbeat, smaller-size rounds, nothing like most hunting rifles. Plinker size but powered by large loads so they got muzzle velocity. Foreign make bullets, too.”

“You saying the Sniper collects target rifles? The shooting-for-sport kind?”

“Maybe not only target rifles. There are rifles made specifically for sniping, too, with some of the same characteristics, and he might have a few of them. But mostly from the bullet sizes the papers are saying, my guess is the rifles are manufactured for target shooting and are expensive.”

“What do you mean by expensive?”

“Four, five figures almost certainly. Up from there. What I’m saying, Detective Repetto, is the Sniper dude, if he’s a collector-and he probably is-he’s one rich mother to own the kinda guns he’s been killing with so far.”

“Where would he obtain them?”

“Oh, there’s all kinds of bad, bad people in the arms business, and all over the world. And I can tell you there’s some rich collectors avis enough to buy stolen collectibles and keep ’em just so they can get ’em out once in a while and play with ’em.”

“Avid.”

“What you say.”