The master of the mansion spent much of his time in a windowless basement room, according to visitors. From this underground bunker, he could control the villa’s security cameras and alarms, as well as the air-conditioning and elevator. He could even set the temperature of the heated tile floors in the many bathrooms upstairs. “He was down there alone for hours,” Jannuzzo said.
Glock employed a cleaning staff and a computer technician but no other household servants. He drove his own BMW and never graduated from the $80,000 car to a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley. He frequented pricey restaurants, but typically those popular with tourists, rather than the most exclusive establishments. He insisted on caviar for the whole table and plentiful bottles of Gray Goose vodka, yet he demonstrated unease ordering from an elaborate wine list. One of his favorite spots was Essigbratlein, a dining establishment in Nuremberg, Germany, where Glock traveled for business. Originally a sixteenth-century meeting place for wine merchants, the tiny restaurant is famous for its roast loin of beef. But it is hardly extravagant by the standards of corporate titans or movie stars. A six-course dinner of Franconian cuisine can be had for $120.
When visiting Austria, Glock employees ate all their meals with their hosts. Mr. Glock dominated the conversation, often holding forth on physical fitness and human longevity. On occasion, he discussed his intention to live to the age of 120. The key to his biblical durability, he said, was a substance called megamine, which he consumed daily. Just what he was ingesting is not clear. There are various dietary supplements of dubious value that are marketed under names similar to megamine. A company called NaturalMost sells Megamino Amino Acid Complex “for the satisfactory maintenance of physiological functions.” Glock described megamine as a derivative of volcanic ash, which when ground finely and taken orally, could enter human cells and purge them of impurities.
Business meetings with Mr. Glock in his large office in the villa at Velden lasted hours at a time. Typically, executives presented him with a decision—whether to move ahead with a hiring, firing, or scheduling of a promotional event—followed by extended periods of silent rumination. Glock stared out his window at the broad lawn and tall trees surrounding the villa. “One hundred words per hour is probably a high estimate,” Jannuzzo said, speaking of Glock’s verbal contributions. Another Glock in-house lawyer, Peter Manown, occupied himself by surreptitiously conjugating verbs in German, scribbling on a pad as if he were taking notes about company matters.
Visiting executives were at the Glocks’ command twenty-four hours a day. Jannuzzo recalled an autumn Sunday morning in Velden: “At about six thirty a.m., there was a knock at my door, and it was Mrs. Glock: ‘Time for swim.’ ” The villa had a heated indoor pool, but this day’s exercise would commence outdoors in the Wöthersee. Wearing a bathrobe, Gaston Glock led the way down to the dock. He signaled for the others to enter the frigid water first, which they did. Upon surfacing and looking back up at the dock, Jannuzzo saw his employer disrobing. “All you could see from the rear was a long skinny body, some semblance of ass, and a ball sack.” While Mrs. Glock and the executive were clothed conventionally in swimsuits, Glock himself took his constitutional au naturel.
CHAPTER 15
Glock Culture
American gun owners express enthusiasm for firearms in distinct and varied ways. Would-be cowboys dress up in Old West costumes, assume the identities of frontier marshals and gunslingers, and collect single-action Colts. They compete in target shoots that feature re-created nineteenth-century saloons and poker games gone bad. The more serious single-action shooters display the intensity of Civil War reenactors.
Sniper-rifle disciples gather in groups of two or three at un-decorated rural ranges. They speak softly and peer through high-powered scopes before squeezing off a shot at a plywood bull’s-eye six hundred yards away. They assess their accuracy with binoculars and recalibrate for another go. Machine-gun enthusiasts, who must register their automatic weapons with federal and local authorities, gather for a twice-yearly festival at a Kentucky gun club called Knob Creek. Participants fire at abandoned washing machines and refrigerators, although more emphasis is placed on quantity of ammunition expended than on accuracy.
At the more conventional end of the gun-owning spectrum, hunters track everything from gray squirrels to white-tailed deer to grizzly bear. Some use bolt-action rifles based on the 1903 Springfield; others prefer AR-15s with flash suppressors and thirty-round mags that resemble the rifles American troops carry on patrol in Kandahar or Kabul.
No brand of modern firearm commands greater loyalty than Glock. “Glockmeisters” see themselves as rugged, un-romantic, and above all, lethally effective—like the gun they love. The website Glock Talk ( glocktalk.com ) sponsors scores of online forums where Glock “fanboys” (and the occasional interloping “hateboy”) dissect a range of topics connected to the pistol. The obsession and vituperation characteristic of the Internet are often evident. Virtual symposia parse the qualities of the Glock, usually in service of proving its superiority over rival handguns. One rambling group discussion in 2010 addressed the similarities between the Glock and the AK-47 semiautomatic rifle. The two firearms share a reputation for reliability in the field, even in the absence of diligent maintenance. The reason? “Loose tolerances and a simple design with few parts,” noted a participant from Colorado using the screen name Voyager 4520. “More room for dirt before the friction becomes too much for the slide to cycle,” agreed Ambluemax. The AK-47, invented in Russia, does not incorporate polymer, but its lack of delicacy made it a favorite of the militaries of the old Soviet bloc. It can last for decades and rarely jams. Children can be taught to use it, as demonstrated by the youthful ranks of African guerrilla armies. Glock, wrote Vis35 of Alaska, “is the AK-47 of handguns.”
Glockmeisters who stray even momentarily from slavish devotion risk ostracism. Dean Speir, the Long Island firearm dealer and gunzine writer who helped break the Suffolk County ban on Glock in the late 1980s, made a habit of pointing out that “Glock Perfection” was a marketing device not to be taken literally. He used his own website, The Gun Zone ( thegunzone.com ), to compile instances when substandard ammunition, improper shooting technique, or a factory flaw led to Glock malfunctions. Glock Talk regulars pilloried Speir for his apostasy and effectively banished him from their site. “Speir has very little knowledge about firearms; does not tell the truth; lies; prevaricates,” ranted WalterGA. “I have from a reliable source that his I.Q. is less than that of an unborn rhinoceros.”
In fact, Speir is a meticulous if prickly gadfly—and a loyal Glock owner. “All critical thinking skills are checked at the gate of the Tenifer Temple,” he told me. “Polymer is the highest power, and Gaston Glock is the combination prophet-and-deity.”
Nationally known guardians of the American firearm ethos early on helped define the Glock’s everyman (and every-woman) practicality. Marion Hammer, a legendary NRA figure from Florida, told a story in 1989 about why she switched from carrying a Colt revolver in her purse to a Glock. Several years earlier, she said, she had been cornered in a Tallahassee parking garage late one night by no fewer than six men. She brandished her Colt, and, thank goodness, the assailants fled.