Cold Wind - C. J. Box [100]
“You know what I mean,” Nate said.
“Are you po-lice?” the girl asked. “You gotta tell me if you are. You look like po-lice.” She said it poh-lease.
“No,” he said.
“You lyin’,” she said. “You a lyin’ motherfucker, mister man.”
Nate sighed. “Such language. Look, I need to buy a gun. If you two can’t help me out, I’ll find someone who can. I’ve got cash and I’m starting to lose my sunny outlook on life.” He thought briefly of shooting his arms out and grabbing both of them by the ear and pulling them inside to make his point. He’d done worse.
The girl looked him over, her face as hostile as she could make it. He felt sorry for her, because her eyes told him she wasn’t lost yet but was working on it. She said, “Wait here a minute,” and was gone.
The boy shook his head at him, condescending, and started to say something and Nate gritted his teeth and whispered, “Don’t.”
The word struck home and the boy was gone.
Ten minutes later, Nate Romanowski steered his rental down the State Street off-ramp. The gangbanger the two had sent over had a thing for nines like most gangbangers, plenty of used pieces in stock, but Nate bought the only revolver he had: a five-shot .44 stainless steel double-action Taurus Bulldog with a two-and-a-half-inch barrel.
“That ’un ’ill make a big mother-fuckin’ hole,” the gangbanger cackled when Nate chose it.
“You don’t need to tell me about guns,” Nate said, and handed over eight one-hundred-dollar bills. The gangbanger threw in a half box of cartridges in the deal. Nate didn’t spend much time speculating what the missing ten bullets had been used for.
As Nate cruised toward the city on the five-lane, he thought: Simple things.
Like how simple it was to buy an unregistered handgun in a city that tried its damndest to ban them. It meant he could pick one up just about anywhere—at any time. No hassle with gun stores, hours of operations, dealers, forms, ID, or criminal record checks.
As long as he had the desire, a purpose, and a brick of one-hundred-dollar bills, he was in business.
Twenty minutes on the computer in the business center of his hotel would give him the rest of what he needed.
Instinctively, he reached over and felt the heavy steel outline of the .44 in his overnight bag. He thought of Sun Tzu.
And he thought about going hunting in the morning.
SEPTEMBER 7
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
—HOSEA 8:7
31
Smith said, “What is it you want to know about Rope the Wind?”
As had happened many times when Joe interrogated people with a high opinion of themselves, it didn’t take long for Orin Smith to open up. He explained how he’d come to own so many companies, and how he’d acquired them. While he explained the strategy and growth of his former enterprise, Joe nodded his head in appreciation, sometimes saying, “Wow—you’re kidding?” and “What a smart idea,” which prompted Smith to tell him even more.
Orin Smith was proud of his business accomplishments, and was grateful someone finally wanted to hear about them.
Smith explained how he’d—legally—taken advantage of a Wyoming initiative to encourage business development during the last energy bust of the 1990s. The state legislature had passed laws that made it very simple and inexpensive to incorporate in the state as a limited liability company. The idea, Smith explained, was not only to encourage new enterprises to start up in Wyoming but also to get existing firms to possibly move their headquarters for the advantage of low taxes and slight regulation. He said he learned the ins and outs of the process, and for a while served as a kind of broker between those wishing to incorporate and the state government entities that processed the applications and granted LLC status.
“I placed ads in newspapers and business journals all over the world,” Smith said. “‘Incorporate your company in Wyoming: it’s cheap, easy, and hassle-free! ’ For a fee, I’d make sure my clients did their paperwork correctly and I’d even walk the applications to the secretary of state