“Come on. A guy walking around with fifty-five thousand dollars in cash?”

     “This is Reno. It happens.”

     “And I guess he just threw sixty assault rifles and a few tons of bullets into the back of his station wagon.”

     “The ammunition, we got shipping instructions, our warehouse to some place in Oakland.” He gave me the address. The waterfront: docks. “The rifles, I told you, it's a little more complicated. The rifles were in the limbo side of a bonded warehouse in Long Beach. They never went through customs. They were never actually in the country. If you want to get technical.”

     “You just happen to have sixty AK's sitting on a dock.”

     “We do a lot of import wholesaling, direct sales to police departments, SWAT teams. He was just lucky that these hadn't passed customs. Otherwise the red tape would be a bitch.”

     “They went out of the country? You're sure?”

     “No background check, no transfer tax, that's all he could do, ship 'em back out. But, see, that's where it worked out so good. If those guns had actually gotten into the country, he'd have had a hard time getting 'em out again. Export licenses, all the paperwork. But since they never cleared customs, all he had to do was put 'em on a boat.”

     “Convenient.”

     “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

     “Does it say where they went?”

     “Can't help you there. We don't keep track of other people's toys.”

     Gilsa was gone, but his secretary had a number for Collins in Bacolod. She placed the call for me. I went into Gilsa's office, picked up his phone, heard the snap of distant connections introduce a low hum and rattling ring.

     “Green Fields Hotel,” said a woman's voice, faint.

     “I want Pat Collins,” I said loudly. I had to say it again, louder.