I was cleaning out the refrigerator, tossing out an indented lime and cheese that had grown its own sheer white negligée. I also got rid of unidentifiable brown chunks in containers: Stew? The revolting remains of roasted vegetables? Breathing through my mouth helped, as did flouting recycling laws and just tossing swollen plastic containers into a black trash bag.
Since mouth breathing got in the way of my singing along with Hamilton, my mind drifted to Pete Delaney. Actually it didn’t drift at all but shot into consciousness as if it came from a Glock.
On March 19 he’d been in Boston, and on March 20 there had been that robbery at a bank in Manchester, New Hampshire. The heist with armed robbery in Wilmington, Delaware. That weird kidnapping with the guy with the paper bag on his head in Birmingham, Alabama. In the Birmingham crime, there was no way of knowing if a weapon had been involved, since the guy never saw his attackers. Since Alabama was an open-carry state, like Texas, I chose to lean toward a weapon being involved.
Fantasy, I knew, would offer me zero, as would reality. I had to get going. So I stuck Wynne’s photoshopped picture of Pete into a folder and left in midafternoon for the city. I was planning on meeting Josh in the evening for a judges-gone-wild night, a pretheater Pasta Festa! and then a performance of The Crucible starring one of many extremely famous movie actors named Chris. But I had some time before then.
There was only one shooting range in Manhattan, Westside Rifle and Pistol. Even though plenty of women went there, it retained a vague testosterone smell, as if it were patronized solely by guys who did not use deodorant. I left my pistol home in the safe. I wasn’t going to take it to the theater since carrying a weapon in a handbag was a mistake made only by low-budget TV shows without a technical adviser, and even the best shoulder holster or carry belt could be seen under silk. And obviously, I didn’t want to have to flash my NYC pistol permit at a ticket taker in front of the chief judge’s wife, a woman who could be harrowed by a loud sneeze.
Though not exactly a familiar face at Westside, at least I was known. I chatted with the assistant manager, Sergei, a hugely muscular guy whose pointy ears extended almost at right angles from his shaved head, making him look like a bouncer at an elf club. He was the go-to guy for assault weapons, but I’d never been a great fan of shooting. I just did what I had to in order to qualify. However, Sergei and I had bonded over a shared fascination with martial arts.
I detested every other form of athletics except running. I would have said I lacked the competitive gene since even a volleyball game during a day at the beach made me long to sprain an ankle. Except there was something exhilarating about actual hand-to-hand (or foot-to-body) fighting. On the occasions when I’d run out of manuscripts to read/reports to write, I could spend half a day watching Brazilian jujitsu videos on YouTube. Same with aikido and Muay Thai kickboxing. And Eliza and I took two classes in tae kwon do together.
I’d gone to a demonstration of a defensive technique developed by the Russian Special Forces, Systema Spetsnaz, that was supposed to work in real life and didn’t require great strength. I’d run into Sergei there. When the demo was over, we said “Wow!” to each other. But that was soon after I’d met Josh, plus I was still at the task force, forever overworked, so I never pursued the system. But Sergei had stuck with it and was now thinking about abandoning the wonderful world of the AK-47, quitting Westside, and opening his own Systema studio.
“It’s for you,” he told me. “For smart people. Not …” He said something in Russian.
“Which means?”
“Street fighters. Animals. You must learn neurophysiology. Brain. Confuse it. Use opponents’ strength against them.” He took my handbag and put it on the floor, then motioned for me to take off my shoes.
“This is a silk dress. I’m going to the theater.” Instead of inquiring about what I was seeing or saying: Oh, peach is a good color for you, Sergei moved to punch me in my solar plexus. I managed to fend off that hit with a swivel. Just as I was going to say: Ha! You didn’t think I’d be able to do that, did you? he hit me—only hard enough for demo—simultaneously under my arm and on top of my head.
“Confused your brain, Blue Eyes” he said, with a boyish smile, though one that had two gold teeth.
“You did,” I agreed, so I decided to be ten minutes late for pasta while he confused my brain several more times in different ways. After I put my shoes back on, I took out the picture of Pete that Wynne had edited for me. I’d printed it out on glossy photographic paper. “Has this guy ever come in?” I asked.
Clearly, this was not the first time he’d been asked to ID someone; cops and Feds routinely checked shooting ranges whenever there was an unsolved case involving a firearm that looked as if it had been used with skill. Sergei squinted, held the photo at a distance, covered the hair and then the mouth and chin with the flat of his hand. “Not here,” he said with depressing finality. “And I pictured him with a mustache. Also not his hair and all that shit. He’s not here, ever.”
The following day, I drove to check off ranges in Brooklyn and Queens. Of course it was possible that Pete had gotten to be such a crack shot growing up in Indiana that he had no need for practice. And naturally, my following up on firearms could simply be a subfolder of my global Delaney delusion. Whatever, I had to either abandon it or follow up.
There were a fair number of shooting ranges, but I began with only the larger ones, where someone could go for practice occasionally and not be remembered. Queens, borough of my birth, proved to be a bust. Granted I had only one photo of Pete, and he was not someone with a memorable face. But people responded as if I were showing them a featureless outline of a man, the kind of image that says: person unknown.
I had better luck in Brooklyn in a place not far from the Verrazano Bridge. I was talking to one of the supervisors there, a guy named Thad Brownell. I knew that because he had a little bar on his shirt with that name. Nevertheless, he introduced himself and pronounced the th in his name. I suppressed the urge to ask: Don’t you think it should be Tad? Probably shutting up was a wise choice since, even though Thad scratched his beard in deep thought but came up with nothing, he was benevolent enough to call over another employee, Rhonda Jaffee.
Like Thad, Rhonda was wearing camouflage pants and a tucked-in white T-shirt with a name bar. But she had some beanie-like thing on her head. It was larger than a yarmulke: more like a taqiyah, the rounded skullcap a lot of Muslim men use at prayers. Except hers was pink, with a pistol design knitted in. I admired it so effusively that she decided I was a soul mate and shared that she had bought it at a craft sportswear store up in Rhinebeck.
“Rhonda’s been around,” Thad said. “Worked at a bunch of ranges upstate.”
Rhonda shook her head patiently, as though this was an old routine they were used to performing. “Westchester,” she said. “He calls that upstate, like nobody’d invented Buffalo.” She studied the photo closely. I watched her in profile and envied her eyelashes. “Seen him,” she said finally. “Hard to tell, but I’ve seen him. You know, it’s like he picked himself a face people wouldn’t remember. That’s why I remember him! I’m like seventy-five percent sure it was at Hudson. Hudson Rifle and Pistol Range in Yonkers. So if you go up there, save yourself some time and don’t talk to Chick. He’s a pig. He does everything but oink. Ask for Dennis, but don’t call him Denny.”
Naturally, I had an overwhelming urge to say Denny, or to at least ask him why such a likely nickname could be so emotionally loaded. However, it was clear at first glance that personal questions were verboten with Dennis. His expression was one of perpetual piss, as if he he’d been sentenced to life chewing on aluminum foil. He was relatively short and not particularly fit, but he wore a black tank top that showed off marine tattoos on his right upper arm—an eagle clutching a globe with SEMPER FI, a skull that didn’t say anything, and a cross with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR on the crossbar.
I told him Rhonda down at Bridge Range told me I should talk to him.
“You’re law enforcement,” he told me.
“Ex.”
“Let me see your ID.” I was prepared with two wallets, two sets of IDs, so I took out my Coral Jane Schottland driver’s license; it was not only my name pre-Josh, but the name I still used for bureau business. “Coral?” he asked. If he wanted to smirk, he couldn’t because his face was so frozen.
“A family name,” I told him (though until I was born, not in my family). Easier than saying I’d been named for an actress my mom had been “mad for” and also for Jane Austen. My dad had wanted to name me after Great-grandma Feygl (“We can call her Faye or something” he tried to assure my mom). Feygl was said to have bitten the leg of a Cossack during a pogrom. But my mom started to cry and my dad gave in because he’d heard of postpartum depression.
“NYPD?” Dennis asked.
“No.”
“What then?”
“An agency of the federal government.” Since I’d gone that far, there was no reason I couldn’t tell him. But he seemed like the kind of guy who required intrigue in his diet.
Since Dennis’s face already showed as much revulsion as it was possible to display under the most neutral of circumstances, I couldn’t assess how my response went over. But he didn’t walk away. In fact, he took a couple of steps closer. Now I could see his left shoulder tat: an octopus with a streamer around it that said FRATERS INFINITAS, which I assumed meant “Brothers Forever.” I’d never studied Latin but I was willing to bet there was something deeply wrong with the declension, though I kept the thought to myself.
“Are you carrying?” Dennis asked.
“Not now,” I said.
“What do you use?”
“A Glock Gen4.”
“You like it?”
“Yeah. You know the saying that someone couldn’t hit a barn door? Before I got my Glock, I could hit the barn door, but there was a twenty-five percent chance I’d miss the guy coming out of it. I’m much better now. I like that you can customize the grip.”
He nodded, and his expression softened to merely revolted. “More consistent trigger pulls,” he told me. I nodded slightly, to the same degree he did.
“I have a picture,” I said as I pulled the folder from my handbag and opened it before he could refuse to look. The photo was only minimally crumpled.
Dennis took it and walked over to a showcase that had the kind of high-wattage daylight lighting that stores use to accentuate the features of diamonds or, in this instance, ammo. He put it on the counter, backed up to view it from another perspective, then lifted it and gradually moved it so close that he and photo Pete were practically nose to nose. He was so meticulous in his observation that when he finally said, “He’s been here,” I got a double shiver of excitement. It was not one of those nebbishy identifications where someone says: Yeah, maybe, I think so, but … This was a definite ID from a very careful guy.
“Has he been here more than once?” I asked.
“Three or four times,” Dennis said.
“Did he make an impression on you?”
He shook his head. “Not him himself. I remember him because it was pretty quiet in here, and at one point I went to the back and as I passed, I looked at his target and holy Jesus, he was one hell of a shot.”
“What was his weapon?”
“Winchester M70. The Alaskan model.”
“The M70 is a high-caliber rifle, right?” Listen, there was no point in my pretending to be the reincarnation of Annie Oakley. When it came to firearms, this guy would be able to smell fakery a mile off.
“Right. It’s used for defense and hunting. Big game. I talked to him afterward. It was the end of the summer—”
“Last summer?” I interrupted.
“No. Probably a few years ago. He was preparing for the start of bear season in New Jersey. Like it was August and bear season doesn’t start there till October. Not that he was hepped up or anything. Very flat kind of guy, but he knew his weapons. That Alaskan is a great weapon for bear. He wasn’t at all macho. Didn’t look ex-military. Not law enforcement. I can usually spot that. Like with you. You’re easy.”
I got that transitory tornado in my stomach that happens when I’m simultaneously taken aback and disturbed. “What gave me away?” I asked casually, as if I were charmed by his insight.
“You come in and take in the whole room right away. Civilians usually look straight at you first.”
“And our friend with the Alaskan?”
“Took in the whole room, which is funny. Because he sure as hell was never a marine and not any other branch. I can always tell if someone is military. And not a cop either. He was …” Dennis was trying to come up with a description.
“He was his own category?”
“That’s it. Like I was naturally curious. Did he ever hunt anywhere else? Have a go at grizzlies or brown bears? Normal conversation. But I didn’t ask, because he wasn’t what you’d call a guy who liked to talk.”
“Was he so uncommunicative that he seemed weird or that he was hiding something?”
“No. Not a nut job. You know, within normal. Just low-key as low-key gets.”
“The other times he came in,” I said, “was it to practice with the Winchester?”
Dennis rubbed the FRATERS INFINITAS octopus on the shoulder thoughtfully. “The next time or two, I recognized the guy, though I’ve got to admit there was something about him that made me not say, ‘Good to see you again.’ But while it’s interesting to watch the best, I’ve been around expert shooters too long that I didn’t gotta see him.” He grunted, which I took to be his version of a chuckle. “Not like he was a Metallica concert.”
I acknowledged his humor with a small smile. “So you never saw him with any other weapon?”
“I didn’t say that. I said the next time or two, not never. Actually, the last time he was in? Probably sometime this year. He had a pistol. Now I didn’t see it, but the guy who works with me on weekends clocked him in. Checked his permit, all that, and later, heard from someone in the back that his weapon …” My mom would have admired his dramatic pause. “The Springfield Loaded model, laser equipped.”
“Laser equipped,” I repeated. “Good for low-light sighting.” That was about the outer limits of my knowledge on laser-equipped pistols. Well, I did know a laser that is automatically projected toward the target makes the pistol (as they say in gun biz marketing) “an excellent weapon for home defense.” And it’s no biggie if the target sees the laser. The bullet will close his eyes a second later.
He didn’t seem to mind having me around, so I asked if he could check out a name to see whether it matched any of the names on gun licenses of people who’d come in to shoot. When he nodded, I was relieved, but also a little on edge.
I didn’t know Dennis. What would happen if he and Pete actually knew each other or had even worked together on God knows what? Wouldn’t Dennis call and tell him: “Someone named Coral came looking for you.” It wasn’t a giant leap from Coral to Corie.
But then why would he ID Pete’s photo? All he’d have to do is say, “Never saw him in my life.” And interestingly, a guy who’d been around the block as often as Dennis found someone like Pete slightly off-putting. I couldn’t see the two of them hooking up for nefarious dealings. Also, I was a trained interrogator, and in Dennis, I didn’t see or hear any of the behaviors of a person who is lying.
In fact, Dennis was open. He invited me around the counter so I could look at his computer monitor with him. No Pete or Peter Delaney had been at Hudson Rifle and Pistol. No Delaney from Nassau County, either. So assuming Dennis checked gun licenses as was required by law, Pete must have been using fake ID.
Frustrating. But talk about thrilling! This was progress. A guy doesn’t go to the time, trouble, and cost of getting a counterfeit, unrestricted, concealed-carry handgun license unless he has something he wants to keep hidden.
Instead of taking the parkway south, I drove back on US 1, the old Boston Post Road, through quaint and not-so-quaint towns. That gave me the chance to stop at traffic lights and savor my elation. Pete Delaney was a superb shooter! Pete Delaney kept up his skill with firearms—though I had to consider the possibility he was just a guy who loved target practice. But it would be strange for a mere enthusiast to use a fake ID.
But Pete Delaney avoided the customary camaraderie of hunters and gun enthusiasts. Some New Yorkers liked to go into the woods or wetlands and shoot deer, black bears, or wild turkeys over the weekend. Some played Army Ranger. Then there were the antigovernment, racist, anti-Semitic schmucks with automatic and semiautomatic rifles. Whether it was the thrill of the hunt or rehearsing for insurrection, much of the time shooting was a communal activity. However, Pete Delaney was a one-man operation. He might barbecue baby back ribs for the family and volunteer at the high school’s car wash day, but when a weapon was in his hand, he was on his own.
I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my dad about my day. But in the next cute town, I pulled over in front of a store called Tootsies, yet another salon catering to the suburban foot. This was not a surprise: to me, Westchester was Long Island with hills. I closed my eyes to block the bucolic view of a parking meter in the comforting shade of a leafy tree and called Sami Bashir.
“Obviously you find me irresistible,” he said.
“You manage to sound so offhand when you’re stating a conclusion you believe in to the depths of your soul,” I told him.
“Right. I want to come across as casual so you won’t feel humiliated at being unable to control yourself.”
“I’m glad you’re sensitive enough to protect me from self-loathing. And how you’re even kinder to tell me how humane you are—in case I missed your decency. Hey, I need the names of people off the grid who do really good fake IDs. Not necessarily involved in terrorist activity: mostly a source for your average upscale felon. Where the pros would go or a good semipro?”
“Not my turf,” Sami said. I knew that, but I also figured he’d know the person on the task force whose turf it was. Before I could ask him for a favor, he volunteered. “I know two people, a cop and someone from Secret Service, concentrates on counterfeiting. I’ll get back to you when I get back to you, so don’t start asking me when.”
“When?”
“Soon, okay? You going away for a vacation or something?”
“Not until my daughter gets back from camp.” I heard him breathe. Right from the start, we’d known (though never said aloud) that we’d never marry. So I don’t think my having a husband bothered him too much, but he always seemed taken aback that I had a child. “The three of us are going to Idaho. Hiking, fishing. It’s supposed to be beautiful. But that’s not till August, so I’ll be around. Thanks so much for—”
“Okay,” he said and hung up without any good-byes.
A half hour later, after I’d stopped thinking about Sami and moved on to whether I should stop at a deli in Great Neck and have the damn pastrami sandwich I’d been obsessing about for at least a week, Sami called back. I pulled off the Long Island Expressway so I could take notes.
“All right, got some places for you. You can get reasonably good stuff, not the crappy ID kids get to drink. They’re not superior quality, not like the great freelancers make. But these are good and selective about their clientele. Given enough time, some of them can produce stuff that’s pretty foolproof, even with government scanning devices.” He gave me the names of printing places: two in Nassau County; one in Suffolk, the easternmost Long Island county; and seven in Queens. He said there were so many places in Manhattan and the Bronx that he didn’t even bother taking them down, though he would go back if I needed them. Then Sami added, “For whatever it’s worth, I vote for Suffolk County. Unless he’s doing some shit in the Hamptons.”
“No, at least not that I know of. What’s your thinking on it?” I asked.
“Counterintuitive. Manhattan is still the center of the universe, at least for most people in greater New York. Your Pete operates solo, so he’s probably given to thinking a lot or overthinking. Instinct might say to do one thing, but he’d think on it and do the opposite.”
“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I agree with you. Anyway, I have to start somewhere.”
“Keep me posted on this. The fact that he can shoot the balls off a rat from two hundred feet … makes him interesting.”
I was in the middle of “Thank you, I really appreciate you doing this” when he hung up.