Gun Machine by Warren Ellis Page A

making the plans and committing the homicides. I’m thinking he had some kind of network. Maybe not a big one. But people who owed him favors, people he paid, people he could somehow trust just enough to get him the things he needed. Maybe, yeah, maybe someone did get him a gun he liked out of an evidence barrel. You didn’t stop to think for a minute how someone could commit several hundred homicides in Manhattan over God knows how many years and not get one of them hung around his neck? Not one? ”
    Tallow had come to that junction on his train of thought only about thirty seconds ago, but he didn’t feel the burning need to tell Bat that. It didn’t matter. Tallow felt like he was thinking well again. He felt like his brain had kicked in since that afternoon’s visit to Pearl. It occurred to him that this might be his most energetic thinking in years.
    “So some kind of network. Some people who could find him the right tools for the job. Like a flintlock from Rochester. If the search on that kill is going to be so easy, Bat, then I’ll bet you ten dollars right here that the kill on that gun is going to have some special relationship with the first recorded murder in Rochester.”
    “I’ll take that,” said Bat with a curl of the lip. It revealed very narrow, keen teeth and gray gums. “What about the Bulldog .44?”
    Tallow looked at Scarly. She gave him a twisty grin of complicity.
    Scarly said, “I’ve got ten that says that if you didn’t manage to massively fuck up the ballistics through your ricockulous magic trick of making it shoot backward, then it’s Son of Sam’s gun, and we have a much bigger and scarier case than even we thought.”
    Bat laughed, a short yap that said more about discomfort than joy. “So I’m twenty bucks richer and I didn’t even have to buy the drinks first. Win. You’re both nuts, by the way.”
    “All right,” said Tallow as Bat chugged a quarter of his vodka. “You tell me why our guy had a flintlock in his cache.”
    “How the hell should I know? I’m not some lunatic who built a church out of guns.”
    Tallow smiled. “And that’s why I wanted the storage space. I take your points about not getting lost in the forest and ignoring the trees. But cop voodoo can be strong too. We need to be in that apartment, as best we can, and understand why he kept those guns and what he was thinking. That apartment was part of his plan too. Scarly referred to him as a serial killer. If that’s true, then he must almost permanently be in totem phase. Totally high on the adrenaline of being surrounded by his trophies.”
    “Aha!” yelped Bat. “No! Because if you think he’s matching weapons to targets that carefully, then he’s not experiencing trolling phase, is he? He’s not walking around looking for juicy kills. He’s aiming specifically at specific people. So no!” He pulled a face at Scarly. “Wrong!”
    “Oh,” commented Tallow. “You’re on board with our idea now, then.”
    “Yes. No. Yes. What? Fuck you.”
    Scarly cracked up.
    “‘Fuck you, John, ’” Tallow gently said.
    Bat put his hands up, laughing. “All right, all right, John. So he’s not a serial killer, and he’s not in totem phase, and we need to work out exactly what his deal is regardless of whether I win twenty bucks or not. You win. Can I have another drink?”
    “Sure.” John stood up and pulled twenty dollars from his wallet. Scarly yanked the two tens out of his grip hard enough to leave the ghost of a friction burn on his fingertips.
    “I’ll go,” she said, getting up. “What do you want?”
    “Better get me two of those energy drinks they keep in the fridge with the bottled beers.”
    “Done.” She took off at a clip.
    “She’s really married?” Tallow said to Bat.
    “Yeah. Talia’s like this Scandinavian Amazon who can break rocks with her boobs. She could fit Scarly in her armpit. Sometimes I think she likes Scarly just because she was the most portable