John Lange didn’t look much better. His clothes were expensive but messy, at least from the waist up: a white dress shirt with the sleeves pulled up to the elbows and a suit jacket and tie slung over the back of the booth. I was wearing faded jeans with a vintage Clash concert T-shirt and brown engineer boots.

“Hot enough tonight, eh?” he said as I sat down.

I nodded and the waitress came to take my order. She put a cup of coffee in front of me as I rattled off my breakfast order. I really didn’t want to be there, but Lange was the legal gatekeeper between me and visitation with my daughter.

“I don't mind it during the day if I've got air conditioning to sleep with,” I said.

“Sweating's good for a body. Cleanses the system and all that.”

“Take a while to cleanse my system,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

We continued with the small talk for a while longer and I sensed Lange was working himself up to tell me something important. He’d never usually had trouble working up the nerve to screw me over.

“My son is in trouble,” Lange finally said.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting from a late night clandestine meeting with him, but this wasn’t it. So I nodded, non-commitally.

“He got mixed up with the wrong crowd. I’m still not sure on all the details. But he stole a gun of mine and sold it to buy drugs.”

“I don’t do interventions,” I said.

“I reported the gun stolen before I knew what really happened. The police told me it was Danny. He’s been sentenced to three to five years in prison. He'll go in a good boy and come out a criminal.”

“He's already a criminal."

“I know, it's just…he's…obviously there's no excuse but--.”

“Doesn't mean he's not still a good kid,” I said.

“Right.”

The waitress set down our orders and refilled my coffee. Lange's cup was untouched. He picked up a piece of toast and nibbled.

“His mother's sick. She blames herself.”

He looked at me, expecting me to assuage them. I remained silent.

“The gun is the thing, though,” he said. “Without it, Judge White said he has to sentence him to the maximum."

I kept nodding.

Judge Duncan White. Raised downtown Flint, Michigan. Sister killed by stray gunfire in the 70's. Daughter killed by stray gunfire three years ago.

“He didn't say he'd let Danny off if the gun was recovered, but I've got to try, right?”

“Have you tried to find it on your own?”

“I drove around in the city for a while but nobody would say anything to me. I had my gun for protection but I'm not the pistol-whipping sort.

“You're liable to get yourself shot with your own gun if you do that shit, John.”

Lange ignored me and continued picking at his food. He had a big omelet platter with sausage links and some white toast on the side. I had steak and eggs. We both asked for more coffee and, after the waitress left us, Lange pulled a small glass bottle from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

“I can take care of myself. But you're on the street with these punks everyday. You can get through to them. I've got a gun but I don't have a badge.”

“I may not, either. I'm suspended without pay.”

“So you got some time on your hands and could use a little money?”

“You want me to find the gun for you?”

“Like I said, it may not make a difference but I've got to try. I got it from my father when I was 18. It’s really the only piece I have left of him…and it’s quite valuable.”

“So this isn't really about helping your son,” I said.

“No, of course that’s not it. I just--”

“Finding a gun in Flint is not going to be easy.”

“Come on. There's gotta be a thousand stolen guns on the street. You'll probably trip over them as you're looking.”

“That's what I mean,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “Of these thousands of unregistered or stolen guns, how am I going to know which one your son stole?”

“That's easy,” he said. “It's engraved.”

“Seems a little romantic for a gun.”

Lange took a sheet of glossy paper from his pocket and handed it too me. It was a catalogue ad for the special edition Lynyrd Skynyrd “Mr. Saturday Night Special” revolver from the Rock and Roll Mint: a short-nosed, blue steel, revolver with the song title engraved on the barrel and the band's logo on the grip. The lyrics from the song ran through my head as I pictured Ronny Van Zant burning down the Rock and Roll Mint.

Ain't good for nothin' but put a man six feet in a hole…

Which is where the guy who created this needs to be, I thought.

“Don’t you have your own investigators?” I asked.

“I have a couple freelancers but I’d rather keep this, uh, separate from my business.”

“I still don’t know,” I said. “Seems pretty far-fetched to believe this is going to make any difference in your son’s case.”

The truth was, I didn’t want to do it because it was a stupid chase to help clear an arrogant father of his guilt.

“I understand you have another custody hearing coming up soon,” Lange said, after a dramatic pause. “If you do me this favor, I could convince Alison to concede on a few of the important points.

Damn it. Now I really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be manipulated into action for this guy. But being suspended and under investigation from the department didn’t leave me in the best negotiating position.

“Give me a day to figure out how hard this is going to be,” I said. “Then I'll call you.”

“Thanks Mark. Really.
* * * *

Outside, I lit a cigarette and watched Lange pulled away in a black late model Cadillac. Fifteen minutes later I was in a rundown pawnshop on the northern edge of Genesee County talking to a guy who was known to run the occasional illegal handgun through his shop.

George Marcello was younger than his brother Reed, who owned the shop, but he was still in his late sixties. His faded black skin hung loose from his face and bony hands with the rest of his body covered by a gold velvet sweat suit. This was only the second time I'd met him since he took over the shop from his brother and he wrapped his hands around mine with guarded friendliness. The entire place smelled of weed and sweat.

“Ah, Mr. Farner, good to see you.”

“You smoking marijuana in here?” I asked.

"You here on police business?"

“I’m here about a gun.”

“Ah, my specialty.”

“You don't play black houseboy well, what with the velvet outfit.”

“Ain't velvet,” Marcello said, offended. “It's suede.”

Marcello went from offended to glowing when we were interrupted by a little girl about seven years old bursting into the store waving a toy gun. She pointed the gun at Marcello and pulled off a couple of rounds. He pretended to take the hits and she giggled and gave him a hug.

“I probably shouldn't shoot you, Pop-Pop,” she said.

“My granddaughter,” he said to me.

“Trying to get her into the family business I see.”

Marcello waved her off into the office where he had a TV set up and waited to make sure she was gone before he spoke.

“Honestly, I wish she wouldn't play wit' the damn thing. But she loves it.”

“I have a daughter about her age,” I said.

“I do what I need to do to keep food on the table but that don't mean I gotta get my little girl into it.”

“Well I'm looking for an engraved gun,” I said, suddenly conscious of the weapon tucked under my own shirt.

“Somebody got an anniversary?”

“Not that kind of engraving. It says Mr. Saturday Night Special. It's a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.”

Marcello shook his head. “Somebody named a gun to after a song that's against guns?”

“Wouldn't have pegged you as a Skynyrd fan.”

“You ain't known me long enough to peg anything about me. Why this gun?”

“My client's son stole it and sold it to buy drugs.”

“He stole a gun from daddy? We talkin' a real desperado here, huh?”

I shrugged.

“And the police couldn't find it?”

“Police didn't need to find it. The son confessed to the robbery.”

“But your client thinks if you can find it the judge won't send Little Man to jail?”

I nodded.

“And it’s valuable,” I said.

“I can ask around. I ain't heard about it, but I ain't the only dude there is, and," he shrugged, "my clients ain't exactly collectors.”
****

I live in a one-room studio over a pipe shop on Saginaw Street. The place is a dump and the resale value drops every time I open the door but I like simple spaces and the feel of a downtown area. I tried to sleep off the last few days but only managed to toss and turn for a while, dreaming about my daughter bursting into a pawnshop, but instead of a toy gun she was holding my back-up weapon.

A few hours later, as the sun rose and sent the creatures of the night scurrying, a creature of the day knocked at my door: Lorenzo Jade, one of my teammates from the Street Crimes Task Force. Jade's a tall, thick, good-looking Hispanic guy, with traces of Asian in his skin tone and eyes. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt over stained jeans with battered running shoes, the standard street crime uniform.

“Damn,” I said, waving him into my apartment.

We shook hands half-heartedly. Not only was he a kiss-ass and a lousy cop but I suspected he'd slept with my ex -- possibly while we were still married. I fell onto the couch while Jade perched on the armrest next to me.

“Sarge knows what you're doing,” he said. “Not cool.”

“Sarge knows I'm watching TVLand reruns all day?”

“Cut the shit, man. Sarge knows about John Lange,” Jade said.

I didn't respond. I was getting better at that.

“I'm your warning shot,” Jade continued. “He knows you talked to Marcello and he's pissed. You're not supposed to be on the street at all. For us or on your own. You know cops can't moonlight as P.I.s

“I'm suspended.”

“IA gets wind of it, you'll be out.”

“I'm not going to be a fucking recluse,” I said. “This is bullshit.”

“It's not my call, but the Sarge' ain't joking. This is coming from the top.”

“Who the hell downtown cares if I go snooping around the ghetto for a gun?”

Jade shrugged.

I stood up and opened the front door.

Jade took the hint and rose from the armrest.

“This is going to end badly,” he said.

“Seems about right,” I said, slamming the door.

I grabbed a box of Pop-Tarts from my tiny pantry and tore into them while tried to figure out how the brass had found out what I was working on. Marcello didn't have anything to gain by telling anyone. I wondered about my ex. Even though she was the one who had set me up with Lange it wouldn't be beyond her to rat me out to Jade in hopes I would get in trouble with the department and shake off the last shreds of custody I had with my daughter. Before I could come up with any deeper conspiracy theories the phone rang.

“If you not going to be trusting me to do my job without supervision you can find your own damn gun,” Marcello said.

“Explain.”

“Your man John Lange was just by here hittin’ me up for info ‘bout his gun.”

“Dammit,” I said. “I didn’t send him. He must have followed me.”

“I’m not even sure I like dealin’ with you, Farner. I surely don’t want business with no old white man.”

“I’ll take care of him, keep looking for the gun.”

I hung up with Marcello and immediately called John Lange’s cell phone. He didn’t answer and I debated leaving a message but I didn’t want to give him any clue I knew about what he did. I hung up, dialed another number, and left a quick birthday message for my daughter on her mother’s answering machine then headed off to consult some individual gunrunners I knew.

A block away from my building I noticed the car tailing me. After looking closer I saw it was John Lange’s car. I figured he must have followed me to the pawnshop too. I wasn’t going to let him screw around with any more of my sources so I led him on a bit of a wild goose chase, just to make sure he was really following me, before I slammed on my brakes at a stop sign in one of the small residential areas off of Kearsley Street. He barely missed rear -ending me and I was out of the car and next to his window before he realized what was happening. I knocked on the window with my fist and he rolled it down.

“Why the hell did you hire me to find your gun if you were going to go around looking for it yourself?”

“I’m sorry, Mark. I just got carried—“

“You’re going to get one of us killed if you don’t stay out of the way,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to—“

“Go home. I’ll call you when I find the gun.”

“Maybe I should go back and apol—“

“Go home. Now, John.”

He looked at me like a scolded grade-schooler for a second before rolling up his window and turning his car around. I watched him for a few blocks until I was sure he wasn’t going to pull something and then got in my own car and drove away.
****

I spent the next hour shaking down street thugs and spreading the word that I was looking for a special gun and willing to pay high for it. The criminal grapevine in Flint is shallow and short. If the gun was anywhere in the city I’d know about it soon so I used some of Lange’s money to buy myself lunch at the Torch Bar and Grill while I waited for something to happen.

Two Torchburgers later, Marcello called me.

“These two young guys just came in trying to unload a gun they can't sell on the street--”

“Are they there now?” I asked.

“I told them to come back in half an hour while I contacted a buyer.”

I thanked him and went back to my apartment to get a few things before I headed to the pawnshop.The Flint Police Department confiscated my duty weapon, a Glock 9mm automatic, after the preliminary inquiry. But I still had my back-up Browning 9mm. I tucked it into a holster at the small of my back and strapped a hunting knife to my right boot. The steel-toed boots wouldn't stop a bullet, but they sure could stop a man when they connected with his nuts. I took half of the money Lange gave me and folded it into my back pocket.
****

George Marcello was in the same spot he’d been in the last time I visited. He was wiping down a glass case with a dirty rag and mumbling to himself. I heard a giggle and looked next to me and saw his daughter in the office spinning around in a chair. Marcello looked up at me and shook his head.

“I know,” he said. “Damn woman won’t look after her own daughter if it conflicts with her hair getting’ done.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” I said.

“Lots of things that shouldn’t happen, happens.”

I hopped up onto the case he’d been cleaning and tossed the rag into a trash can next to me. Marcello gave up trying to clean and went into the office, returning with two cans of Old Milwaukee.

“You think they’ll show?”

“What they gonna do with an engraved gun? He’ll show, and he’ll take what we give him.”

“Which will be…?”

“A hundred bucks or an ass whuppin’ if he tries to negotiate,” Marcello said.

“It’s coming out of John Lange’s wallet so be generous.”

“Generous don’t work in this business.”

“Cantankerous does?”

“You see me starvin’?”

We were interrupted by the rattling of the bell over the door. Two lanky white kids wearing baggy jeans and stained tank tops sauntered into the store like they expected trouble. They were fidgety and paranoid.

“We here to sell a gun. You gonna take our money, boy,” the taller of the two said to me.

They were both crowding my personal space and I could see that they were both sweating heavily. The tall one’s breathe smelled liked battery acid and orange juice. I figured they were doped up on something and when the short one smiled at me and I saw his rotten teeth I knew it was meth.

“Get to moving boy, we want our damn money.”

“The gun,” I said.

“Money first, then the gun.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “We lay it all on the counter and sort it out.”

He stared at me for a second, still shaking and sweating, but he finally sighed and pulled the gun from his waistband under his shirt.

“Hope you not expecting to get full price for that thing after it’s been near your sweaty nuts,” Marcello said.

The boy cocked his head and I glared at Marcello.

“You’ll get enough,” I said. “In cash. Nice and easy.”

“Don’t need this in my life,” the tall kid said. “Don’t need the money.”

His friend went goofy when he said that. He didn’t speak but his nervous shaking turned into a full-blown attack of the shakes. I was getting paranoid myself. I’d been in enough close contact situation to know when some junkie was going to explode and the pin had just been pulled on this one.

“Just give us the money and we’ll go,” the tall one said, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Take it all,” Shaky said. “Let’s just take everything and torch the place.”

“Like hell,” Marcello said, moving toward his office. I wondered if he still kept his shotgun in there if his daughter was around. She was still entranced by the TV and hadn’t noticed anything special was going on behind her.

I pulled the wad of bills from my back pocket and put them on the counter where the tall kid could see them

“One thousand dollars,” I said. “Drop the gun on the counter and split.”

“Don’t trust him,” Shaky said.

“Shut up, boy. I’ll do what I want to do.”

“I’m not giving them a thousand dollars for that tacky piece of shit,” Marcello said.

“Shut up, old man,” Tall Boy said.

“You’re dealing with me,” I said. “One thousand dollars for the gun.”

Shaky reached under his shirt and pulled a small revolver from his waistband, pointing it at me.

“I’ll take the money and the gun,” he said, putting his hand on top of the bills.

I pushed his hand away and pulled the money closer to me.

“Put that away. Take the money. Leave the gun.”

The tall one took the stack of bills and dropped the gun on the counter. Marcello grunted, but didn’t make a move to stop the kid. Shaky was quiet, but still had his gun trained on me. As I evaluated the situation, a black Cadillac pulled up in front of the pawnshop and John Lange got out. My stomach clenched.When he came through the door, he looked at me and then at the stack of money.

“What are you doing? Is that my gun?”

“I told you to—“

“Who the fuck are you?” Shaky asked. Then he looked at me. “You trying to set us up?”

While I tried to calm down Shaky, I saw Lange pull something from his pocket. By the time I saw it was a gun, he had it pointed at Tall Boy.

“Give me my gun back and my mon—“

Before Lange could finish, Shaky fired, hitting him in the arm. Lange returned fire but his shot went wide and hit the glass case next to Marcello’s office. Marcello came out of the office with his shotgun as Lange took a bullet to the face from Shaky. He turned to fire on me but before I could clear my gun, his chest exploded in a bloody cloud.

As Shaky’s body collapsed next to the office, Tall Boy looked around then ran out the door. I didn’t bother to stop him. Instead, I picked up the engraved gun and waved it at the two bodies lying in a co-mingling puddle of blood and body waste.

“Pop-pop,” I heard a little voice say from behind me.

Marcello set his shotgun down on the counter and picked up his daughter.

“Guess she won’t be playin’ with guns no more,” he said.
* * * *

A week after the shooting, I was fired from the Flint Police Department. Because of my involvement in the shooting, and what Alison called my “violent and corrupt lifestyle” I was denied visitation with my daughter, pending an appeal. Alison's speech was so prepared, it made me think that’s the reason she’d gotten me involved with Lange. I couldn’t prove it, but I also guessed she was the one who egged Lange into doing his own investigating hoping it would blow up like it did.

Later, while digging through the mess of clothes on my floor, I found a package wrapped in polka-dotted Happy Birthday paper. I tore off the wrapping and took the package, a toy police set with handcuffs, a walkie-talkie, a badge, a holster and a gun, to the kitchen. After grabbing a barrel I use to burn old checks and other sensitive papers, I sat in front of the TV, lit the package on fire, and threw the whole set into the barrel.