"Au contraire. I come with goodies in hand and money in pocket.”
“Did you—?" Abe peered over the counter at the white box with the blue lettering. "You did! Crumb?” His fingers did a come-hither waggle. “Come to Papa.”
Abe Grossman defined the concept of rotund. He carried way too much weight for a frame that fell short of five-eight. His graying hair had receded to the top of his head. His clothes never varied: black pants, short-sleeve white shirt, shiny black tie. The tie and shirt were a sort of scratch-and-sniff catalog of the food he’d eaten that day. As Jack neared the counter he spotted scrambled egg, mustard, and what could be either catsup or spaghetti sauce.
Just then the door dinged as a big burly fellow in a dirty sleeveless undershirt came through.
"You got softballs? I need three, quick like."
"Softballs we don’t have," Abe said without looking up. His eyes never left the Entenmann’s box. "Hardballs neither."
The guy made a face. “No softballs? What kinda sports store is that?"
“The kind that doesn’t have softballs.” Abe removed his glasses and gave the man a withering stare. “I should explain my inventory?”
The guy left, slamming the door behind him.
Jack pointed at a softball-laden shelf to his right. "You’ve got at least a dozen right there."
He shrugged. “I know, but then this cake would be lonely while I dealt with him. An Entenmann’s crumb cake should never be lonely.”
Jack handed him the box. “You want me to leave you two alone?”
"Feh!” he said as he lifted the lid. “You really know how to hurt a guy." He broke off a piece of cake and biting heartily. "You know I'm on a diet." Powdered sugar speckled his tie as he spoke.
"Yeah. I noticed."
"I should lie? I'm on low carb—except for Entenmann's. That's a free food. All other carbs have to be counted, but Entenmann's is ad lib." He took another big bite and spoke around it. Crumb cake always made him manic. "Did I tell you I added a codicil to my will? I've decided that after I'm cremated my ashes should be buried in an Entenmann's box. Or if I'm not cremated, it should be a white, glass-topped coffin with blue lettering on the side." He held up the cake box. "Just like this. Either way, I should be interred on a grassy slope overlooking the Entenmann's plant in Bay Shore."
Jack tried to smile but it must have been a poor attempt. Abe stopped in mid-chew.
"What's eating up your guderim?"
"Saw Gia today."
"Nu?"
"It's over. Really over."
"You didn't know that?"
"I knew it but I didn't believe it." Jack forced himself to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered. "Am I crazy, Abe? Is there something wrong in my head for wanting to live this way? Is my pilot light flickering and I don't know it?"
Without taking his eyes from Jack's face, Abe put down his piece of cake and made a halfhearted attempt to brush off his front. He succeeded only in smearing the sugar specks on his tie into large white blotches.
"What did she do to you?"
"Opened my eyes, maybe. Sometimes it takes an outsider to make you see yourself as you really are."
"And you see what?"
Jack took a deep breath. "A crazy man."
"That's what her eyes see. But what does she know? Does she know about Mr. Canelli? Does she know about your mother? Does she know how you came to where you are?”
"Nope. Didn't wait to hear."
"There! You see? She knows nothing! She understands nothing! And she's closed her mind to you. Someone like that you don’t need."
"I do."
Abe rubbed a hand across his forehead, leaving a white smear.
“Nu? You've never been ditched?"
"Abe...I can't remember ever feeling about anyone the way I feel about Gia. And she's afraid of me!"
"Fear of the unknown. She doesn't know you, so she's afraid of you. I know all about you. Am I afraid?"
"Aren't you? Ever?"
"Never!" He trotted back behind the counter and picked up a copy of the New York Post. Riffling through the pages he said, "Look—a five-year old beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend! A guy with a straight razor slashed eight people in Times Square last night and then disappears into a subway! A headless, handless torso is found in a West Side hotel room! As a hit-and-run victim lies bleeding in the street, people run up to him, rob him, and then leave him there. I should be afraid of you?"
Jack shrugged, unconvinced. None of this would bring Gia back; it was what he was that had driven her away. He decided he wanted to do his business here and go home.
"I need something."
"What?"
"A slapper. Lead and leather."
Abe nodded. "Ten ounces do?"
“Sure.”
Abe locked the front door and hung the Back in a Few Minutes sign facing out through the glass. He passed Jack and led him toward the back where they stepped into a closet and closed the door after them. A push swung the rear wall of the closet away from them. Abe hit a light switch and they started down a worn stone stairway. As they moved, a neon sign flickered to life:
Fine Weapons
The Right to Buy Weapons Is the
Right to Be Free
Jack had often asked Abe why he’d placed a neon sign where advertising would do no good; Abe unfailingly replied that every good weapons shop should have such a sign.
"When you get right down to it, Jack," Abe was saying, "what I think of you or what Gia thinks of you—will that matter much in the long run? No. Because a long run there won’t be. Everything's falling apart. You know that. Not much time left before civilization collapses completely. Meshugge Islamics are just the tip of the iceberg. It's going to start soon. The banks'll start to go any day now. These people who think their savings are insured by the FDIC? Feh! Such got a rude awakening they’ve got coming! Just wait till the first couple of banks go under and they find out the FDIC only has enough to cover a pupik's worth of the deposits it's supposed to be insuring. Panic you'll see. And that's when the government will crank up the printing presses to full speed to cover those deposits. Then runaway inflation just like Weimar Germany. Bushel baskets of—"
Jack cut him off. He knew the routine by heart.
"You've been telling me this for ten years, Abe. Economic ruin has been around the corner for a decade now. Where is it?"
"Coming, Jack. Coming. I'm glad my daughter's full-grown and disinclined toward marriage and a family. I shudder at the thought that a child or a grandchild of mine should be growing up in the coming time."
Jack thought of Vicky. "Full of good cheer as usual, aren't you? The only man I know who lights up a room when he leaves."
"A comedian he’s become. I'm only trying to open your eyes so you can take steps to protect yourself."
"And what about you? You've got a bomb shelter somewhere in the sticks full of freeze-dried food?"
Abe shook his head. "I have a place, but built for a post-holocaust lifestyle I'm not. And I'm too old to learn."
He flipped another wall switch at the bottom of the steps, bringing the ceiling lights to life.
The basement was as crowded as the upstairs, only there was no sporting equipment down here, The walls and floors were covered with every one-man weapon imaginable: switchblades, clubs, swords, brass knuckles, and a full array of firearms from derringers to bazookas.
Abe went over to a cardboard box and rummaged through it.
"You want a slapper or the braided kind?"
"Braided."
Abe tossed him something in a Zip-lok bag. Jack removed it and hefted it in his hand. The sap, sometimes called a blackjack, was made of thin strips of leather woven around a lead weight; the weave tightened and tapered down to a firm handle that ended in a looped thong for the wrist. Jack fitted it on and tried a few short swings. The flexibility allowed him to get his wrist into the motion, a feature that might come in handy at close quarters.