Wolf's Trap
By
W.D. Gagliani

Part 2: Divertimento

MARTIN

Rag's Gunshop was a cramped storefront squashed between a laundromat and a ma-and-pa hardware, perhaps the last of its kind in the city. It was long and narrow, filled with a dusty display case down one side and haphazard shelving on the other. Behind the counter, racks of rifles and shotguns stood like tree trunks in a grove. Nothing looked new. Rag's was about as far as one could get from the freshly-painted, brightly-lit, suburban all-sports complexes that now sold most of the legal firearms. The floor tile was cracked and blackened with age. And the clientele, though loyal, was rarely to be seen until perhaps the month or so immediately before deer season.

Which was why Martin Stewart had chosen to frequent it, having wandered in several times to ogle the Vietnam souvenirs and the Chinese-made AK-47s that rested proudly behind Rag's counter. With some prodding, Rag had even showed Martin a trunkload of what he called "goodies," which he kept under lock and key behind the counter. These were various illegal devices, any of which would have gained Rag a federal rap and some hefty fines, had ATF been alerted to their presence.

Martin smiled. That would have been too easy. And not very smart.

Rag was proud of his stock, much of which seemed to have come by way of China, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Martin had browsed often enough and at length to have heard many of Rag's Vietnam stories, which Rag colored with descriptive hand motions and nudges. The man's straggly grey hair and beard reminded Martin of Jerry Garcia, the late Grateful Dead guitarist, but the man's red-eyed stare called to mind more the crazed look of the terrorist. Rag had militia ties, and Rag himself had often made cryptic remarks about the McVeigh verdict and execution.

"Howdy, Rag," Martin called. A long loop of shrunken, petrified human ears rattled as the door slammed closed. Martin smiled. He couldn't help smiling every time he saw the ears.

"Hey, dude. How ya been?" Rag took his right hand off the holster he wore on his widening hip. In this neighborhood, Martin was well aware, armed robbery -- especially of a gun shop -- was not out of the question, even in broad daylight. Indeed, Rag had himself foiled two attempts in three years.

"Purdy good, man," Martin drawled, sliding into the good old boy patois as if born to it. "How's the wife?"

"Ya know, she ain't no Cindy Crawford, know what I mean?" Rag grinned. "But she's okay enough."

"That's a good one, Rag." Martin grinned until he thought his cheek muscles would spasm.

He stood at the counter now, looking down through the display glass at the rows of tagged handguns. He realized that he could identify most of them. The new ones, at least. His research was paying off. Some of the old military models were lost on him, but those he didn't care about anyway. Martin felt a tingle. This was almost as good as watching high school girls trying on lipsticks at the mall. He suppressed a smile.

Rag sat on his stool and faced him, the frame of a field-stripped Colt .45 in his puffy hand. "Just got this one in -- a real beaut, once I scrape off some of the crud. These people dint care for it, that's for sure."

Martin waited patiently. Rag had a way of thoroughly depleting one track he was on before starting another, and you couldn't just try to make him switch, either; it had to be on his own terms, when he was ready. But Martin had shown patience all his life, and this was a minor inconvenience. Besides, he genuinely enjoyed Rag's machine gun scatter of talk ranging far and wide.

"Is it really old?" he asked.

"Naw, prob'ly issued post-Nam, but it sat in this guy's basement for years. Gave 'im fifty bucks for it, put it out on the shelf tomorrow and get three hundred. Life's sweet, man."

Rag went back to buffing the blue-black frame.

Martin felt a twitch working its way up his left hand. Rag would take his time and get to Martin when he was ready. But

Martin's patience was wearing just a bit thin.

"Bet you want an update on your special order, huh?" Rag grinned. He liked a captive audience.

"When you have time, bud," Martin said, struggling to unclench his jaws. "No hurry."

"Okay." Rag nodded, but he set the Colt aside on the workbench that served as his back counter. A half dozen firearms in various stages of assembly rested in vises or under gooseneck lamps. He turned back and gestured at the case between them. "Take a look at that top one, all the way to the left."

Martin followed Rag's pointing finger. It was a bulky, stumpy, squat semi-automatic. Black. Mean-looking and all business. Martin could not recognize it, though he knew he should have been able to. He looked up, tilted his head inquiringly, and waited for Rag to fill him in.

"It's a Glock 17 9mm. Standard cop issue. Light as a feather -- about half ABS plastic. Takes a seventeen round magazine, plus one up the spout. Hell of a gun. Six hundred, you interested?"

He waited for Martin's reaction. Martin eyed the pistol slowly, muzzle to grip. Standard cop issue. This was very likely Lupo's sidearm, then. It looked every bit as dangerous as Martin knew Lupo to be, and he felt an obligation to get to know it.

"Can I see it?"

Rag grinned. "It's a nice one, all right." He unlocked the cabinet and slid the Glock out. In one fluid motion he snapped the slide all the way back and presented it to Martin with the breech open. As Martin carefully took it from him, his finger pointed to the slide stop lever. "Push that with your thumb."

Martin did, and the slide slammed forward smoothly. Martin knew that if a magazine had been inserted into the handgrip, the slide would have chambered a round with the forward motion, and the pistol would have been ready to fire.

Fingers tingling, Martin held the Glock out, aiming it at the side of the store.

Lupo held a pistol like this when he was hunting me.

Martin handed Rag the Glock. "Not today," he said with real regret. "But it's nice," he added quickly.

Rag nodded and recased the weapon. There was a squawk and the scanner hidden somewhere on the workbench broke into a series of calls. For a moment, both Rag and Martin listened to the police broadcasts. After the radio quieted down again, Rag stood and squeezed through a doorway to the back of the store, returning in a few seconds with a wrapped bundle and two yellow and green boxes.

"Took me a little longer than I thought," Rag was saying, "but I think they turned out great. And the piece was no problem. It's clean, a Smith .44 with a four-inch barrel. Still has a serial number, but I'm told it has no history. Not that you care, huh?"

"No," Martin agreed. "I just don't want the purchase on the books -- all this gun ban stuff going around, why should they have my name on a silver platter?"

"Right," Rag nodded. "No sweat. I get a couple a month just for guys like you -- law-abiding individuals who don't want the government to come and take their guns away. So it adds a hundred to the price, but it's worth it."

He unwrapped the holstered Smith & Wesson. Martin gulped. It wasn't quite as big as the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry gun, but it was big. Martin took it. It was heavy, too. Very solid. He understood why people felt comforted by handguns -- such compact power, all in the palm of one's hand.

"I like it," Martin said, flexing his fingers around the checkered grips. "It feels great."

Rag smiled. "I knew it, man. Three hundred even for the Smith. These'll run you another hundred fifty each." He lay the two boxes on the counter and slid one open. Fifty cartridges stood at attention on a styrofoam tray, ten rows of five, rattling gently together. "Took me a couple hours per box, but the stuff you give me was primo, so it wasn't as hard as I thought."

Even in the store's dim light, the silvery sheen of each cartridge tip was obvious.

Martin took out his wallet and lay it on the counter. "Looks like a nice job, Rag. Thank you."

Rag smiled again. "Not to be nosy, but what are you hunting, anyway? Maybe that werewolf that got on the news a couple years ago? The werewolf of Oconomowoc, they called it on the silly news."

"Werewolf, huh?" Martin laughed. "No, nothing so bizarre. Actually it's a gift for a very special friend. I thought the silver bullets were good for a joke. My friend, he's a big Lone Ranger fan."

"Really? I grew up on the stuff, man. Jonah Hex, too. Hey, I hear they brought Jonah back a couple years ago."

"Yeah?" Martin examined the other box of reloaded ammunition. "So what'd I end up with?"

"I coated every slug with the silver, like you wanted. Double-jacketed and split the top, so you should get quite the expanding effect. Load's upped to 50 grains, too, so you get more bang. I was gonna try it out, but we're talkin' three bucks a shot and I had just enough silver, so I didn't. You let me know how they handle, okay?"

"You bet." Martin thumbed the release and swung out the cylinder. "Can I get a bag for all this?"

"Sure thing." Rag turned around and rummaged on the workbench.

Martin waited until Rag's head was turned, then he glanced at the front of the store. No one was in sight. He slid a single silver round into the cylinder and carefully closed it, snapping it into the frame so that the cartridge he had inserted sat squarely under the hammer. He cocked it back with his thumb.

"Can you recommend some oil to clean it with?" His words masked the hammer's buttery click.

Rag nodded. "Got just the thing," he said, turning around to face the bench.

Martin reached out, rested the muzzle lightly on the side of Rag's head, and jerked the trigger.

The explosion slammed into his ears and the recoil drove his hand up and nearly ripped his shoulder out of its socket.

"Ouch."

Rag's head deflated like a balloon, blood and cranial matter smattering the workbench and back wall. His body spasmed just once, his bowels let go, and then he was sprawled on the floor and out of sight.

Martin gagged momentarily at the smell and the sight of the blood, but he recovered quickly and scooped up his own wallet, the handgun, holster, and two boxes of ammunition. He filled the paper bag Rag had just set on the counter.

He glanced at the front of the store. Still nothing. Things were going well, according to his plan. So much depended on luck, even in a perfect plan, and luck was with him -- no customers for Rag today. But then Martin had spent enough time with Rag to know that his few customers were so regular that he didn't have to worry about running into them. And Rag's walk-in traffic was nearly non-existent.

Martin reached over the counter with a handkerchief in his hand and slid open the display case door, which Rag hadn't yet locked. He scooped up the Glock and the four spare magazines neatly lined up next to it. Then he ducked below the gate, inhaling deeply of the cordite smoke that hung in the air. He grabbed two handfuls of 9mm ammunition boxes from the wall case, and with his foot slid the metal footlocker out from below the workbench -- Rag's box of goodies. He threw open the lid, his fingers still covered by the cloth, and made a quick selection. Two UZI submachine guns ("the full-auto kind," Rag had said once, showing him how to cock the stubby thing), a tiny MAC-10, a bundle of spare 30-round magazines, and a dozen grenades strung on a webbed belt so they resembled a bunch of green metal grapes.

This ought to do it.

Martin unfolded a cloth shopping sack from under his jacket and stuffed it with his new acquisitions. He shoved the locker most of the way back under the counter. Then he felt under the countertop for a lever, felt it and pulled it toward him, and a metal box swung down and out and into his waiting hand. Rag's paranoid distrust of banks and the government had led him to believe his money would only be safe where he could protect it himself. The cashbox was ingeniously hidden but unlocked, and Martin helped himself to Rag's life savings. He didn't bother to count it -- Rag had once told him he had set aside twenty-five thousand dollars. As Martin stuffed the cash into his shopping bag, he reflected that it did feel like about twenty-five thousand, if not more. It made his score all that much higher, and it killed two birds with one bullet, to paraphrase one of Rag's favorite distorted cliches. Now he wouldn't have to arouse suspicions with bank transactions.

Less than thirty seconds later, he strolled out the door of the shop and onto an empty sidewalk. Human ears rattled once as he eased the door shut after wiping the handle and jamb as best he could, and then he was walking slowly away. A dumpy woman climbed out of a mini-van a few doors down and glanced at him briefly. He smiled widely -- not a care in the world -- and nodded in greeting. Her features softened and she smiled back.

By then, Martin was crossing the street.

The blood and cordite smelled sweet in his nostrils, and he couldn't help but grin and hum a nonsense tune in his head.

Coming in May 2006 from Leisure Books
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