W. Griffin - Special Operations

Pekach searched his limited vocabulary in the area and as much in triumph as surprise came up with "bikinis."

Or the lower half of bikinis, whatever the hell they were called. Little tiny goddamned things, which, what there was of them, rode damned low.

Nice ass, too.

"Swords, halberds, some Arabian daggers, that sort of thing," Martha Peebles said, "but they were difficult and time consuming to care for, and Colonel Mawson-do you know Colonel Mawson, Captain?"

"I know who he is, Miss Peebles," Pekach said as she stopped at the head of the stairs and waited for him to catch up with her.

"Colonel Mawson worked out some sort of tax arrangement with the government for me, and I gave them to the Smithsonian Institution," she concluded.

"I see."

She led him down a carpeted corridor, and then stopped so suddenly David Pekach bumped into her.

"Sorry," he said.

She gave him a wan smile, and nodded upward, toward the wall behind him.

"That's Daddy," she said.

It was an oil painting of a tall, mean-looking stout man with a large mustache. He was in hunting clothes, one hand resting on the rack of an elk.

It was a lousy picture, Pekach decided. It looked more like a snapshot.

"I had that done after Daddy passed away," Martha Peebles said. "The artist had to work from a photograph."

"I see," Pekach said. "Very nice."

"The photo had Stephen in it, but I told the artist to leave him out. Stephen hated hunting, and Daddy knew it. I think he probably made him go along to… you know, expose him to masculine pursuits. Anyway, I didn't think Stephen belonged in Daddy's picture, so I had the artist leave him out."

"I understand."

Martha Peebles then put her arm deep into a vase sitting on the floor and came out with two keys on a ring. She put one and then the other into locks on a door beside the portrait of her father, and then opened the door, and reached inside to snap a switch. Fluorescent lights flickered to life.

The room, about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long, was lined with glass-fronted gun racks, except for the bar end, which was a bookcase above a felt-covered table. There were two large, wide, glass-enclosed display cases in the center of the room, plus a leather armchair and matching footstool, and a table on which an old Zenith Trans-Oceanic portable radio sat.

"This is pretty much as it was the day Daddy passed away," Martha Peebles said. "Except that I took out his whiskey."

"How long has your father been dead, Miss Peebles?" Pekach asked, as he walked toward the first display case.

"Daddy passed over three years, two months, and nine days ago," she said, without faltering.

Pekach bent over the display case.

Jesus H. Christ! That's an 1819 J. H. Hall breech action! Mint!

"Do you know anything about these guns, Miss Peebles?" Pekach asked.

She came to him.

"Which one?" she asked and he pointed and she leaned over to look at it, which action caused her blouse to strain over her bosom, giving David Pekach a quick and unintentional glimpse of her undergarments.

Even though Captain Pekach was genuinely interested in having his identification of the weapon he had pointed out as a U.S. Rifle, Model 1819, with a J. H. Hall pivoted chamber breech action confirmed, a certain portion of his attention was diverted to that which he had inadvertently and in absolute innocence glimpsed.

Jesus! Black lace! Who would have ever thought! I wonder if her underpants are black, too? Black lace bikinis! Jesus H. Christ!

"That's an Army rifle," Martha Peebles said. "Model of 1819. That particular piece was made in 1821. It's interesting because-"

"It has a J. H. Hall action," Pekach chimed in.

"Yes," she said.

"I've never seen one in such good shape before," David Pekach said. " That looks unfired."

"It's been test fired," Martha said. "It has Z.E.H. stamped on the receiver just beside the flintlock pivot. That's almost certainly Captain Zachary Ellsworth Hampden's stamp. But I don't think it ever left Harper's Ferry Armory for service."

"It's a beautiful piece," Pekach said.

"Are you interested-I was about to ask 'in breech loaders,' but I suppose the first question should be, are you interested in firearms?"

"My mother says that's the reason I never got married," Pekach blurted. "I spend all my money on weapons."

"What kind?"

"Actually, Remington rolling blocks," Pekach said.

"Daddy loved rolling blocks!" Martha Peebles said. "The whole wall case on the left is rolling blocks."

"Really?"

He walked to the cabinet. She caught up with him.

"I don't have anything as good as these," Pekach said. "I've got a sporting rifle something like that piece, but it's worn and pitted. That's mint. They all look mint."

"Daddy said that he regarded himself as their caretaker," Martha Peebles said. "He said it wasn't in him to be a do-gooder, but preserving these symbols of our heritage for later generations gave him great pleasure."

"What a nice way to put it," Pekach said, absolutely sincerely.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Daddy passed over and can't be here now," Martha said. "He so loved showing his guns to people with the knowledge and sensitivity to appreciate them."

Their eyes met. Martha Peeble's face colored and she looked away.

"That was his favorite piece," she said after a moment, pointing.

"What is it? It looks German."

They were looking at a heavily engraved, double-triggered rifle with an elaborately shaped, carved, and engraved wild cherry stock.

"German-American," she said. "It was made in Milwaukee in 1883 by Ludwig Hamner, who immigrated from Bavaria in 1849. He took a Remington rolling block action, barreled it himself, in 32-20, one turn in eighteen inches, and then did all the engraving and carving himself. That's wild cherry."

"I know," Pekach said. "It's beautiful!"

She turned and walked away from him. He saw her bending down to lift the edge of the carpet by the door. She returned with a key and used it to unlock the case. Almost reverently, she took the rifle from its padded pegs and handed it to Pekach.

"I don't think I should touch it," he said. "There's liable to be acid on my fingertips from perspiration."

"I'll wipe it before I put it back, silly," Martha Peebles said. When he still looked doubtful, she said, "I know Daddy would want you to."

He reached to take the gun, and as he did so, his fingers touched hers and she recoiled as if she was being burned, and he almost dropped the rifle.

But he didn't, and when, after an appropriately detailed and appreciative examination of the piece, he handed it back to her, their fingers touched again, and this time she didn't seem to recoil from his touch; quite the contrary.

"So what does Mr. Walton Williams have to say about the burglaries of the Peebles residence?" Staff Inspector Peter Wohl inquired, at almost the same moment Martha Peebles handed Captain David Pekach the 1893 wild cherry-stocked Ludwig Hamner Remington rolling-blockSchuetzen rifle.

"We had a little trouble finding him, Inspector," Officer Charley McFadden replied.

"But you did find him?"

"No, sir," McFadden said. "Not really."

"You didn't find him?" Wohl pursued.

"No, sir. Inspector, we was in every other fag bar in Philadelphia, last night."

"Plus the bar in the FOP?" Wohl asked.

"We met Payne there is all, Inspector," McFadden said.

"Oh, I thought maybe you thought you would find Mr. Williams hanging around the FOP."

"No, sir. It was just a place to meet Payne."

"So you had nothing to drink in the FOP?"

"Hay-zus didn't," Charley said.

"Does that mean that you and Payne had a drink? A couple of drinks?"

"We had a couple of beers, yes, sir."