He fed the eighth round to the magazine he’d been charging, then took a single round from the polymer box. He picked up the pistol, pulled back its slide, slipped the single round into the throat, and let the slide go forward. The moving of the slide backward caused the hammer to go into the cocked position. He then used his right thumb to throw the lever on the left rear of the slide, thereby leaving the pistol “cocked and locked.” And he slid the charged magazine into its place in the grip of the pistol.
He reached back into the clamshell box and took out the black leather skeleton holster. He unbuckled his belt and threaded the holster onto it so that it rode on his right hip inside his navy blazer. He secured the pistol in it. Finally, he loaded a second magazine, then a third. These he slipped into the front pockets of his pants, one magazine in each pocket.
He looked at Payne with what Payne thought was a look of satisfaction.
“Okay,” Byrth said with a smile. “I feel whole.”
“I know what you mean,” Payne said, securing his Officer’s Model back under his waistband.
“Excuse me, Jim,” Payne said motioning with the phone as they drove up I-95. “This won’t take a second.”
Jim Byrth shook his head in a gesture that said, No problem, then casually took in the river view.
Payne noticed motion at Byrth’s left hand, which he rested on his left thigh. He looked more closely and saw that Byrth had a small dry white bean on the top of his fingers. He manipulated the bean by moving the fingers in series-tumbling it end over end from his pointing finger to his middle finger to his ring finger to his pinky, then tumbling it back to the pointing finger.
He moved the bean quickly. It was evident that Byrth had had plenty of practice.
Some kind of nervous energy going on there, Jim?
Payne turned his attention to the highway. Into his cell phone he said, “Hi, Amy. Can I call you back in a bit?”
He listened for a moment.
“Yeah, that’s what I want to talk with you about.” He paused. “No, Amy, I didn’t ‘kill another one.’ I could do without your attempt at sarcasm.”
That caused Jim Byrth to twitch his head in interest.
“So then do you want to meet someplace later?” He paused. “Okay. That works. See you then.” He was about to push END but had an afterthought. “Amy? You still there?”
He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the screen. It showed that the call was dead.
Dammit! If she’d just been talking to someone at Temple’s Burn Unit, she might know something about that Dr. Amanda Law.
He put down the phone, then retrieved his pretzel. He glanced at Byrth, who was still looking out the window, still tumbling the bean.
The guy looks tough as nails.
I can just see him riding the range, then single-handedly driving off a mob of marauding Injuns.
But how’s he going to do here in the big city?
Then again, he did just come in from Houston.
With Byrth sitting, the cuffs of his pants rode higher, and Payne could see the upper parts of the western boots. They appeared to cover the complete calf. They had some intricate patterns of stitching and there was another representation of the Texas Ranger badge, this one in silver leather, and the red leather initials J.O.B.
Payne then looked at the pointed-toe part. The material that made up the part covering the foot was a high- gloss black, textured with a grid of little bumps every half-inch or so the size of BBs.
“Mind if I ask what kind of leather that is on your boots?” Payne said.
Byrth glanced down at his boots as he lifted the flap of the left patch pocket of his blazer and slipped the dry white bean inside.
“Skin,” Byrth corrected.
“What?”
“We say ‘skin.’ ”
“Oh. Okay, what kind of skin is that? All those bumps. They look like tiny nipples.”
There was a moment’s pause as Byrth considered that.
“Do they really?” he said.
Oh shit!
He’s taking offense to “tiny nipples”? “No offense.”
Byrth laughed. “None taken. I’d just never seen my boot skins in that light. But I believe I will from this point forward. So is that what they call Freudian?”
Payne grinned.
“Quite possibly,” he said. “I’ll ask my sister. She’s a shrink. That was her on the phone just now.”
Byrth nodded.
Payne pursued, “So, what are they? What skin?”
“Ostrich. Ugly damn bird. But pretty skin. Soft, too.”
“Is that common?”
“Not as much as cowhide. But more than some snake skins. And eel or lizard. There’s a pretty long list.”
Payne shook his head.
“I had no idea,” he said.
“Let’s talk about why I’m here,” Byrth said suddenly.
Homicide Detective Matt Payne raised his eyebrows, surprised at the ninety-degree change of subject. He said, “Sure.”
“By the way,” Byrth said, “where’re we headed?”
“The Roundhouse. It’s Philly’s police headquarters. You’ll understand why we call it that when you see it. We’re maybe fifteen minutes out.”
Byrth nodded.
“So,” Payne said, taking the last bite of pretzel, “what did bring you here?”
“Texas government code section four one one dot zero two two,” he rattled off. “Authority of Texas Rangers.” He paused and looked at Payne chewing his pretzel. “It even covers your chewy there.”
Payne glanced at him with a curious look.
“Subsection (b),” Byrth went on, “and I quote: An officer of the Texas Rangers who arrests a person charged with a criminal offense shall immediately convey the person to the proper officer of the county where the person is charged and shall obtain a receipt. The state shall pay all necessary expenses incurred under this subsection.”
“What about the bad guy Liz Justice mentioned?” Payne replied. “The one who cuts off heads? What the hell is that all about?”
“That’s only part of it. It’s my personal opinion that this guy is a ticking time bomb. He’s a psychopath with one helluva temper.” Then, surprising Payne, he made the sounds “Tick, tick, tick… BOOM!”
“This guy got a name?”
“El Gato.”
“What?”
“The Cat. That’s his street name.”
“What about a real name?”
Byrth shook his head. “Nope. Not yet, anyways. But his MO’s pretty consistent. Won’t be hard to track him down. As far as we can determine, he’s not MDTO. He just has connections with them.”
Payne of course recognized MO-the short version of the Latin modus operandi, the critter’s “method.” But the other acronym was new to him.
“MDTO?”
“Mexican drug-trafficking organization.”
Payne nodded. Then he said, “You just quoted ‘a person charged with a criminal offense.’ How does the name on this guy’s-this El Gato’s-warrant read?”
Payne glanced over at Byrth, who looked back and said, “What warrant?”
What? No warrant?
No wonder Liz Justice asked for doors to be opened in Philly.
