Blood Trail

needed saving from herself.

    For the moment, they'd maintain the truce.

    "It's almost 2:30 and I'm starved. How about stopping for something to eat?"

    Vicki glanced up from Barry's scribbled directions and gratefully acknowledged the peace offering. "Only if we eat in the car on the way."

    "Fine." He pulled out onto the street. "Only if it's not chicken. In this heat the car'll suck up the smell of the Colonel and I'll never be free of it."

    They stopped at the first fast food place they came to. Sitting in the car, eating french fries and waiting for Vicki to get out of the washroom, Celluci's attention kept wandering to a black and gold jeep parked across the street. He knew he'd seen it before but not where, only that the memory carried vaguely unpleasant connotations.

    The driver had parked in front of an ancient shoe repair shop. A faded sign in the half of the window Celluci could see proclaimed, You don't look neat if your shoes are beat. He puzzled over the fragment of memory until the answer walked out of the shop.

    "Mark Williams. No wonder I had a bad feeling about it." Williams had the kind of attitude Celluci hated. He'd take out-and-out obnoxiousness over superficial charm any day. He grinned around a mouthful of burger. Which certainly explains my relationship with Vicki.

    Whistling cheerfully, Williams came around to the driver's side of the jeep, opened the door, and tossed a bulky brown paper package onto the passenger seat before climbing in himself.
    Had he been in his own jurisdiction, Celluci might have gone over for a chat, just on principle; let the man know he was being watched, try to find out what was in the package. He strongly believed in staying on top of the kind of potential situations Mark Williams represented. As it was, he sat and watched him drive away.

    With the jeep gone, a second sign became visible in the shoe shop window.

    Knives sharpened.

    "Bertie Reid?" The middle-aged man sitting behind the desk frowned. "I don't think she's come in yet but ..." The phone rang and he rolled his eyes as he answered. "Grove Road Sportsman's Club. That's correct, tomorrow night in the pistol range. No, ma'am, there'll be no shooting while the function is going on. Thank you. Hope to see you there. Damn phones," he continued as he hung up. "Alexander Graham Bell should've been given a pair of cement overshoes and dropped off the continental shelf. Now then, where were we?"

    "Bertie Reid," Vicki prompted.

    "Right." He glanced up at the wall clock. "It's only just turned three, Bertie's not likely to be here for another hour. If you don't mind my askin', what's a couple of Toronto PI's want with Bertie anyway?"

    More than a little amused by his assumption that her ID covered Celluci as well, Vicki gave him her best professional smile, designed to install confidence in the general public. "We're looking for some information on competition shooting and Barry Wu told us that Ms. Reid was our best bet."

    "You know Barry?"

    "We make it our business to work closely with the police." Celluci had no problem with being perceived as Vicki's partner. Better that than flashing his badge all over London - behavior guaranteed to be unpopular with his superiors in Toronto.

    "And so do we." His voice grew defensive. "Gun club members take responsibility for their weapons. Every piece of equipment that comes into this place is registered with both the OPP
    and local police and we keep no ammunition on the premises. It's the assholes who think a gun is a high-powered pecker extension - begging your pardon - who start blasting away in restaurants and school yards or who accidentally blow away Uncle Ralph while showing off their new .30 caliber toy, not our people."

    "Not that it's better to be shot on purpose than by accident," Vicki pointed out acerbically.
    Still, she acknowledged his point. If the entire concept of firearms couldn't be stuffed back into Pandora's box, better the glamour be removed and they become just another tool or hobby. Personally, however, she'd prefer worldwide gun control legislation so tight that everyone from manufacturers to consumers would give up rather than face the paperwork, and the punishment for the use of a gun while committing a crime would fit the crime ... and they could use the bastard's own weapon then bury it with the body. She'd developed this philosophy when she saw what a twelve gauge shotgun at close range could do to the body of a seven-year-old