Chapter 843: Collaboration (Part 2)

Chapter 843 -10: Collaboration (Part 2)

His smile was simply because Ronald was willing to arrange for him to buy guns under a legitimate identity, which had already solved his biggest problem.

Of course, perhaps there was some sarcasm in it too—

Mocking this guy for only being willing to pay a price of $5,000 for his daughter and himself.

Chen Zhou had gone through plenty of newspapers these past couple days, and he now understood much about this period in the United States.

From what he knew, Ronald’s new Chevrolet Belair cost over $2,000 in US Dollars; someone who could afford such a car and carried over $400 in cash shouldn’t find $5,000 to be much of a hardship.

Thinking that the “life money” this man offered for his daughter and himself was only this paltry amount, Chen Zhou couldn’t help but find him pathetic.

While despising this American, Chen Zhou inevitably thought of Bi Kai and Gao Yao.

People who treated him as a friend worthy of a kingdom, to whom he returned the same, may truly be rare.

…

“Deal.”

Chen Zhou shook Ronald’s hand, smiled politely, then tossed the Long Saber into the back seat of the car.

“So, Mr. Ronald, about your daughter, have you found any leads?

I remember I gave you the last location your daughter was seen last night. Did you go ask around there?

I suspect that driver took your daughter. As long as you find out the driver’s name and address, we can head out right now.”

As he spoke, the two got back into the car.

Ronald recalled his encounter early this morning and immediately recounted the results of his investigation and his guesses to Chen Zhou in detail.

Hearing about a toolshed where people were kept alone, the strange man who seemed to have been tortured and disfigured with no tongue, and the waxwork family’s sneaky, irrational behavior, Chen Zhou, like Ronald, shifted suspicion onto the waxwork-making family.

Thinking carefully, not only was this family connected to the missing little girl, but they also matched his profile of a murderous family.

For example, they lived in a remote town but were quite wealthy, had connections with high society, and acted suspiciously and unreasonably.

There was still one point of doubt—

The number of people in this family was really too small; just three or four people could hardly be called a family, let alone fit the description in the contract of a centuries-old lineage, unless they were vampires.

Also, whether Ambrose mentioned in the contract was actually Prescott, that’s another issue.

If Prescott isn’t Ambrose, then even if the waxwork-making family are murderers, perhaps they have nothing to do with the murderous family that needs to be eradicated…

There were still mysteries left unsolved, but for now, it seemed there was only one worthy target of suspicion, and Chen Zhou had no other choice.

…

While driving back toward the small town, he discussed with Ronald what they needed to do next.

This Chevrolet was their only means of transportation, and Chen Zhou planned to repair it and use it as their ride.

The difference in mobility between having a car and not having one was huge; they might need to go hundreds of kilometers, so a car was a must.

He planned to take Ronald out to buy guns first, pick up some clean and decent clothes, then drop the car off at a repair shop—at least get the windshield and side windows replaced, and fill up the tank.

After finishing these errands, he would take the guns and go probe the waxwork family’s place, to dig up some information.

To those people, he was a complete stranger, so he likely wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

Ronald had already stumbled upon their secret and couldn’t show himself there again.

…

Ronald was thinking only of his daughter’s safety, too anxious to discuss all the details with Chen Zhou, wanting only to find and rescue his daughter as quickly as possible.

So when it came to the highly sensitive matter of buying guns, he barely argued at all and agreed outright.

At that time in the United States, purchasing guns was easy for white people; as long as you had money, or even if you didn’t, if you dressed well and spoke like an upper-class person, you could get them on credit.

Of course, most of what you could buy in a gun shop was standard stuff; hoping to buy decommissioned military equipment there was unrealistic—you needed special connections for that.

Ronald did have connections, but not in this remote little town.

Besides, Chen Zhou hadn’t kept his promise yet; even if Ronald was willing to risk getting better guns, he just wasn’t going to do it.

He was no longer some na?ve youngster—though he was overweight and out of shape, Ronald was nothing if not shrewd.

Bounced checks meant nothing to him.

…

At noon, the car stopped on the busiest street in the small town.

The tall vagabond and the well-dressed Ronald split up, heading for the clothing stores and gun shops on either side of the street.

Chen Zhou’s appearance needed no explanation—if it weren’t for his intimidating size, he’d have been thrown out by the shopkeepers outright. Even then, getting inside took effort, and he got plenty of dirty looks.

Of course, for the sake of money, the shopkeeper reluctantly served him anyway.

In an era of rampant racial discrimination, and this being Arkansas, the shopkeeper’s attitude was actually pretty good.

If they were in a big city, some clothing stores would rather lose money than serve such a customer. They thought people of color would “pollute” their goods—if white customers saw their merchandise had been worn by someone of color, they’d refuse to buy it.

But even if the shopkeeper was willing to sell Chen Zhou clothes, with his size, finding something that fit in a small town’s store was no easy task.

Even the largest sizes were tight on him, and the sleeves or pant legs were always too short.

No choice—Chen Zhou had to buy an overcoat, and had the shopkeeper measure his shoulder width, waist, and arm span, left a deposit, intending to pick up his custom clothes in a few days.

Compared to his troubles, Ronald’s side went much smoother.

As long as he had money, Ronald could always carry himself with the arrogant air of the wealthy.

With his fluent, big-city English, Ronald quickly intimidated the gun shop owner and soon bought two Colt revolvers, a double-barrel shotgun, and several boxes of ammo.

Those two kinds of guns were standard for county sheriffs in the South; in this remote town’s gun shop, apart from ancient revolvers and some late-19th-century hunting rifles, the best guns you could hope to find were those.

As for a Winchester M12 or a Browning automatic rifle, those were not something you could just buy anywhere. The small gun shop didn’t even have access to them.

…

Not long after, Chen Zhou and Ronald met back by the car, clothes shopping done.

Chen Zhou, though he’d bought new clothes, wasn’t wearing them yet, still dressed as a vagrant.

Ronald carried a double-barrel shotgun on his back, two revolvers stuffed in his pockets; with them, his courage seemed to grow instantly.

Gun in hand, heart at ease; with these instruments of instant death, Ronald even felt he could rescue his daughter without Chen Zhou’s help.

$5,000 was half a year of his salary; now he’d lost his job, no income, his hopes pinned on savings and some uncertain investments, and every dollar he spent hurt.

But when he sat in the passenger seat, looked into Chen Zhou’s cold eyes, that courage instantly evaporated—

From a businessman or employee’s perspective, Ronald was hardly a good man.

In these forty years, even if he hadn’t done murder or arson, to make that much money, he’d committed plenty of unscrupulous deeds.

At least when working at the bank, he’d tricked clients into buying dodgy wealth products and took a cut, even secretly misappropriated deposits for his own investments.

If it hadn’t been for a client too powerful to mess with reporting him, he wouldn’t have lost his job—he’d been a senior employee after all.

Still, Ronald’s involvement in criminal activity never went much beyond light connections to mob money laundering—murder and robbery were a whole separate world for him.

Compared to someone like Chen Zhou, with ten-plus bodies to his name, Ronald’s courage collapsed to nothing.

Sitting in the car, he quickly abandoned any idea of breaking the deal, obediently handed the revolvers, shotgun, and ammunition over to Chen Zhou.