But he started counting anyway.
“Five…four…three…”
The man cracked his neck and placed his hands palm down on the table.
“Two…one.”
Javier had seen fast hands during his stint with the Special Air Mobile Force Group, but nothing to rival this. It was a single, flawless movement, like choreography, and then the Glock 36 lay in four pieces—slide, recoil spring, barrel, and grip.
Javier couldn’t help shaking his head. “Damn.”
“Maybe three seconds?” the vendor said.
“Impressive,” Jav said. “You military?”
“Force Recon. Isaiah, by the way.” The man offered his hand and Jav shook it.
“Javier.”
Isaiah reassembled the firearm. “Maybe we’ll run into each other at the range some time. Have ourselves a little shootout.”
Javier said, “Competitive much?”
“I’m a Marine, what the fuck do you think?“
Isaiah slapped him on the shoulder, and when he was gone, Javier turned back to the vendor. “How much?” Javier asked.
“Six fifty.”
“That’s a bit more than retail, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Look, I don’t have to sell this gun. It sells itself. That’s the price.”
Jav ran a finger along the slide. “You have a suppressor to fit this pistol?”
“Suppressors are illegal in thirty-eight states. Which state are you from?”
“That’s not what I fucking asked you.”
“You know, you can make your own,” a deep voice said.
Jav turned to look at the man who had come up behind him, wondering what it was about gun shows that made complete strangers act like best buddies. This stranger was a white guy, tall motherfucker. Worst of all, he was wearing a police uniform.
Javier hated cops. They were down there with roaches and rats and needed to be exterminated. But at the same time, Jav knew how to play the game, act nice, pay them to look the other way.
But that didn’t mean he had to be buddy-buddy with them in public.
“I don’t recall inviting you into this conversation, officer.”
The large man smiled. Jav noticed the tag on his dress blues read FULLER.
“Just offering my two cents. A plastic pop bottle and some duct tape can do wonders for suppressing a pistol. Not as nice as a custom, but it works in a pinch.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Javier gave the pig his back, but Officer Fuller didn’t take the hint. He leaned down close and whispered in Jav’s ear. “Look, I’m kind of hurting right now, if you know what I mean. Headache from motherfucking hell. Can you sell me something?”
Jav glanced back, his face screwed up in bewilderment. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I have money,” Fuller said. “I just need a little something to take the edge off.”
Javier considered gutting the pig right there. Then he looked around for cameras to see if this was some kind of Ashton Kutcher Punk’d bullshit. “I don’t know which should offend me more. That you think I’m stupid enough to sell drugs to a cop, or that you think just because I’m Hispanic, I must be carrying something.”
Javier stared at the pig, hard. He saw amusement, and nothing else.
“My mistake then,” Fuller said. “You have a nice day.”
Then he backed off, blending into the crowd.
“You fucking believe that?” Jav asked the vendor.
The vendor smiled slyly. “Cops are some of my best customers. You still interested in a suppressor?”
“Did I say I changed my fucking mind?”
“I could perhaps slip a custom Gemtech into the package, along with a magazine extension. That’d be twelve hundred. Plus two hundred for the BATF license.”
“I really hate to fill out paperwork…” Javier let the sentence hang in the air.
“I hate paperwork, too. But the law requires it.”
“Fuck the law. Fourteen hundred to box it up,” Jav said. “I’ll be back in a half hour.”
“I only take cash.”
“Of course you do.” Jav threaded his way through the crowd. It was stuffy under the tent and the reek of rancid sweat and body odor was stifling.
He pushed past three men in army fatigues who he felt more than certain hadn’t spent a single day in the Service. He made eye contact with one of them.
“The fuck you lookin’ at, brown boy?”
Javier stopped and faced the man. “Hello, Swanson.”
He saw a tremor of confusion fluttering through the man’s eyes.
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s printed on your G.I. Joe jacket, asshole.”
Jav let his shoulder bump hard into Swanson’s as he pushed on through the crowd, forcing himself to ignore the stream of threats and slurs the man hurled after him. Why did this always happen? People talking shit and throwing down challenges when he couldn’t accept because he had a package to deliver. Even three years ago, he’d have crushed the man’s balls in his palm like a couple of Swedish meatballs and beat him to within an inch of his life. But his mentor in the Alphas had taught him a few things since then. About patience and wisdom. About not being reckless. The hot-heads who couldn’t control themselves wound up dead or in prison before thirty-five, and that was not going to be him, because at the end of the day, he loved playing golf too much.
He had to piss something fierce.
Javier moved past a table selling knives, and he browsed for a moment, giving serious thought to purchasing the custom Crawford Tanto folder, but the dealer, some guy named Morrell, wanted a grand for it, and he wouldn’t budge on the price.
So he moved on toward the exit.
Passed tables of hunting equipment, fishing gear, army surplus, gun safes, pre-1900 Colt Revolvers, and table after table of guns specific to every major war of the last century.
He stepped outside.
Mid-afternoon, and a cold and sunny winter day.
It felt wonderful to be out of the stuffy accumulation of body heat under the tent.
A row of blue Porta-Johns stood at the far end of the parking lot. Must’ve been twenty or thirty of them, and there were lines five and ten deep to each one.
He’d let his bladder rupture before he stooped to relieving himself in the same cramped space where countless rednecks had pissed and shit.
Fuck that in the ass.
Hmm.
His eyes fell upon the building adjacent to the parking lot—Porter’s Guns and Ammo.
He could drop in, buy some .45 ACP hollowpoints for his new toy, and if he was lucky, use a nice, private restroom.
Luther Kite
He’d spent the last month in an urban ghost town. After what had happened in Ocracoke a mere seven weeks ago, and the catastrophic loss and pain he’d endured, it had been good to immerse himself completely in a new project.
Now, he’d ventured out into the world again, though only for a short while, having driven several hours south out of Michigan to this gun show he’d heard advertised incessantly on talk radio over the past few weeks.
He’d just purchased two Spyderco Harpys from a Montana knife dealer—a comfort purchase, no question—when Table # 81 caught his eye.
Luther wandered over.
The dealer was a four hundred pound bald man with a handle-bar mustache who eyed Luther but made no move to heave himself off his stool. He wore a leather Harley-Davidson vest that appeared to have spent considerable hours getting baked in direct sun. He wondered if they made motorcycles that could accommodate the punishing weight of such a man.
“Is this a good system?” Luther asked.
“Top of the line.”
Luther lifted one of the surveillance cameras.
“What exactly am I holding here?”