Gus looked. The front grille of the car was indeed plated in silver. “Now, that I like,” said Gus.
“Silver rims are next on my wish list,” said Creem. “So, you wanna get your backups out here now, so I don’t feel like I’m gonna be ripped off? I’m here in good faith.”
Gus whistled and Nora came out from behind a tool cart holding a Steyr semiauto. She lowered the weapon, stopping a safe thirty feet away.
Joaquin appeared from behind a door, his pistol at his side. He could not disguise his limp; his knee was still giving him grief.
Creem opened his stubby arms wide, welcoming them to the meet. “You wanna get to it? I gotta get back over that fucking bridge before the creeps come out.”
“Show and tell,” said Gus.
Creem went around and opened the rear door. Four open cardboard moving cartons fresh out of a U-Haul store, crammed full of silver. Gus slid one out for inspection, the box heavy with candlesticks, utensils, decorative urns, coins, and even a few dinged-up, mint-stamped silver bars.
Creem said, “All pure, Mex. No sterling shit. No copper base. There’s a test kit in there somewhere I’ll throw in for free.”
“How’d you score all this?”
“Picking up scrap for months, like a junk man, saving it. We got all the metal we need. I know you want this vamp-slaying shit. Me, I like guns.” He looked at Nora’s piece. “Big guns.”
Gus picked through the silver pieces. They’d have to melt them down, forge them, do their best. None of them were smiths. But the swords they had weren’t going to last forever.
“I can take all this off your hands,” said Gus. “You want firepower?”
“Is that all you sellin’?”
Creem was looking not only at Nora’s weapon but at Nora.
Gus said, “I got some batteries, shit like that. But that’s it.”
Creem didn’t take his eyes off Nora. “She got her head smooth like them camp workers.”
Nora said, “Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?”
Creem smiled silver. “Can I see the piece?”
Nora brought it forward, handed it to him. He accepted with an interested smile, then turned his attention to the Steyr. He released the bolt and the magazine, checking the load, then fed it back into the buttstock. He sighted a ceiling lamp and pretended to blow it away.
“More like this?” he asked.
“Like it,” confirmed Gus. “Not identical. I’ll need at least a day though. I got ’em stashed around town.”
“And ammo. Plenty of it.” He worked the safety off and on. “I’ll take this one as a down payment.”
Nora said, “Silver is so much more efficient.”
Creem smiled at her—eager, condescending. “I didn’t get here by being efficient, baldy. I like to make some fucking noise when I waste these bloodsuckers. That’s the fun of it.”
He reached for her shoulder and Nora batted his hand away, which only made him laugh.
She looked at Gus. “Get this dog-food-eating slob out of here.”
Gus said, “Not yet.” He turned to Creem. “What about that detonator?”
Creem opened his front door and laid the Steyr down across the front seat, then shut it again. “What about it?”
“Stop dicking around. Can you do it for me?”
Creem made like he was deciding. “Maybe. I have a lead—but I need to know more about this shit you’re trying to blow. You know I live just across the river there.”