David Levien - Where the dead lay

Behr walked up and smelled the cordite and solvent in the air, odors that were long trapped in the dirt and the cinder-block walls that formed a corridor running toward the bulldozed earth backstop fifty yards downrange. Sitting at a picnic table a short distance away from the firing line was the range officer, a guy he knew, Barry Gustus. In front of Gustus, resting on a newspaper, were a cup of coffee and a disassembled Glock. 40 caliber with which he was tinkering.

“Hey, Catcher,” Behr said, crossing to him.

“Well if it isn’t…,” Gustus said, standing and shaking Behr’s hand. Cops can be pretty creative when they’re solving cases, but they spared their imaginations the workout when it came to nicknames. If a guy had body odor he was going to be called “Stinko,” “Pig Pen,” or if there was a clever type around, “Rosie.” Gustus had been on first response at an apartment building fire a dozen years back. Flames and smoke were leaping out of a fourth-story window and a father was holding a toddler, both nearly overcome by the smoke. Gustus ran beneath the window, the father took a desperate chance, and dropped his child. Gustus caught that kid and instantly became “Catcher.” He got his choice of posting after that, and gun guy that he was, he picked R.O.

“Can I get out there and tear up some paper?” Behr asked.

“Sure, sure,” Gustus said. The look on his face made Behr wonder if the door Pomeroy had opened for him included the range, whether Pomeroy had put out hushed word that he was okay, or if Gustus merely didn’t mind.

“Care to join me?” Behr asked. It was a self-motivated offer. He never failed to learn something shooting next to Catcher. Whether it was stance, sight picture, or breathing. The R.O. was an expert marksman who probably shot fifty thousand rounds a year. He was a master on a PPC course and moved through the stations with a powerful practiced economy and lightning speed. His targets could hardly look better if he used a hole-punch on them. He was one of the most dangerous men in the city.

“I’m taking a break,” Gustus said. “My lead level.”

“Where are you at?”

“Forty.”

“Damn,” Behr said. Forty micrograms per deciliter was disturbingly high, especially for a guy who shot outside most of the time. It was the downside of that much practice, breathing in lots of lead. Behr’s lead level was probably a five. He could shoot a tight group at twenty-five feet. He was smooth enough changing mags if he ever played around with an automatic and was almost as fast using speedloaders with his revolver. He could keep them all on the paper at fifty feet, but his pattern was nothing to write home about. Of course he’d never heard of a street shootout being decided at fifty feet. Gustus gave him a nod toward the range.

Behr put on his eye and ear protection and entered the shooting area. He set up in the first station, using the small staple gun in his bag to affix a body silhouette target to a slab of cardboard on a wood stand at twenty-five feet. He unpacked his target ammunition, glanced over at the wall, and half smiled at the plastic-laminated pages he saw taped there. They hung in many ranges, locker rooms, and briefing rooms he’d been in during his career. They were the “Rules to a Gunfight,” as set forth by the U.S. Marine Corps:

1. Always bring a gun to a gunfight.

2. Bring more than one.

3. Bring all of your friends who have guns.

4. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.

5. Bring ammo. The right ammo. Lots of it.

6. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

They went on and on, slightly comic in tone, but in a way that didn’t undercut the truth therein. A man could do worse than to follow them. Behr loaded up with wadcutters and settled into his shooting stance. It was muscle memory, instinct. The pressure in the ball of his right foot, his left thumb snug against the gun frame, steadying it. He began slowly, methodically firing in the space between breaths. The gun bucked in his hand and he was surrounded by the familiar acrid scent of gunpowder. He popped open the cylinder and dropped the warm brass into his hand, deposited it into a coffee can, and reloaded.

He continued on, thinking without thinking, firing round after round, creating a thick cluster of center mass hits on the target. Despite the roar of the weapon, he operated in a place of noiseless concentration. He didn’t think anything could have replaced his focus on the Aurelio murder, but now he realized that after a string of bad deals he’d worked in his day, the pea shake was among the worst he’d seen. He changed targets and shot five boxes’ worth of the dirty-burning target ammo, the gun frame now searing hot and streaked with powder residue. He considered what he had, and what he had learned from Austin. A family. Was it possible some family was acting in concert? He resolved to go deeper into the backgrounds of the owners of the properties that had changed hands. Maybe there was some connection, a thread that would lead somewhere else.

Behr’s anger rose up again, through the calm the shooting had provided. Some more of the rules, from way down the list, found their way into his head:

Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a “4.”

And its counterpart: Nothing handheld is a reliable stopper.

Contrary to popular belief, and television and movie depictions, gunshot wounds rarely killed instantly. They didn’t always render an adversary unable to pull his trigger and shoot back, either. Plenty of law enforcement had died waiting for the bad guy to bleed out and getting fatally shot for their patience.

Behr began the rhythmic sequence of the Mozambique Drill. A double tap, center mass-the kind of hits that deliver major neurocirculatory damage and will kill eventually if not immediately-followed by a carefully placed headshot. Specifically right between the eyes. The final shot instantly shuts down the attacker’s nervous system. No chance for return fire. The method was also known, for obvious reasons, as Body Armor Defeat.

Behr performed the exercise, dropped his brass, reloaded, and repeated. After three go-rounds, Behr noticed that cops had started arriving on the range. He turned and saw them sauntering in, range bags over their shoulders, salty with their youth and the power of belonging. There were a half dozen of them, with more cars rolling in. He wiped down his gun with a silicon chamois and set it aside to cool while he packed up the rest of his stuff.

Gustus appeared next to him and called out, “Cease fire, guns down,” although Behr had already done so and no one else was shooting. A good R.O. always sticks to protocol. Gustus went downrange and dragged two racks of steel-plate targets into place at thirty-five feet.

“Man-on-man plate match,” Gustus said to Behr upon his return. Each rack consisted of five heavy steel discs, two painted white on each side of the middle one, which was painted red. It was a speed and accuracy contest with two shooters going head to head, the faster advancing tournament style until there was a winner.

“I’m outta here,” Behr said.

“You can stay and play if you want,” Gustus offered. “Most guys use autos, but it’s a five-shot course, so the revolver will do. You’re allowed to reload if you have misses, but you usually can’t win if you have to.”

Behr glanced at the cops putting on shooting glasses and ear protection. Several of them were stripping down to tank tops and taking off their duty rigs to replace them with quick-release holsters and paddle-style magazine holders. He didn’t really recognize any of them until a new arrival caught his eye. As the officer peeled off his dark blade sunglasses, Behr saw it was Dominic, the prick from Aurelio’s academy. Dominic saw Behr, too, and they stared at each other for a long, charged moment.