Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

“Are you a cop?” he asks.

“Do I look like a cop?”

“I’m not asking if you look like a cop,” he says. “I’m asking if you are a cop.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I promise you, I’m not a cop.”

“If you are,” he says, “this is entrapment.”

I don’t know if it’s entrapment or not. I only have a vague Hollywood understanding of what that even means. “Exactly,” I tell him. “I’m not a cop and I’m not working with any cops. I’m just a guy who wants a gun for target shooting at a range. Nothing more.”

He takes another long, hard look at me. I say nothing as he fights with his temptation. Greed wins out. It always will with a guy like this. Without breaking eye contact, he makes the money disappear much in the same way Floyd did yesterday. He’s decided I’m no cop. Cops don’t have this sort of money to play with.

From beneath the counter he pulls out a sign that says Back in 15 mins and hangs it on the door, checking that it’s locked. He comes back to the counter, makes his way around it, and disappears though a doorway. Ten grand is a lot of money for a gun. But it guarantees the fact I’m going to get one. If I showed up with forty dollars and a free hamburger voucher I wouldn’t get the same quality of service.

I spin around the newspaper he was reading and study the headline. It’s dedicated to Frank McClory. He was found early this morning by an unnamed woman. It doesn’t mention how he died or whether it’s related to his dead wife, but he must have been found early enough for it to make the paper, but not early enough for there to be any detail. The article is small, proof the reporter had little information and even less time to come up with something dramatic. There’s little speculation-that’ll come later with news bulletins and tomorrow’s paper.

“Shame about that lawyer,” the salesman says, stepping back through the door. He puts a wooden box on the counter. He’s wearing a pair of thin gloves. That means he doesn’t want the gun traced back to him.

“It’s not often they get put to such good use,” I say.

Arthur starts laughing, then stops when he sees I’m being serious. I can see him considering if I’m the type of person who should have a gun. He pats his pocket. Reminds himself of why he’s doing this.

“You’re not going to be shooting somebody, are you, mister?”

“It’s for self-defense. Home invasions have been in the papers all week.”

“I thought you said it was for shooting deer.”

“It’s home defense, mainly.”

“Then you said it was shooting at the range.”

“It’s that too.”

He nods. He gives me another hard look. “Got a driver’s license?” he asks.

“What? Why?”

“For ID,” he says.

“Why do you need ID?”

“Do you want the gun or not?”

I reach into my pocket. I get out my wallet and pause. This doesn’t feel right. He reaches out and I hand him my license and the feeling doesn’t get any better.

“Charlie Feldman,” he says.

I don’t answer him.

“You married, Charlie?”

“Why? You interested?”

He doesn’t laugh. “People don’t tend to wear wedding rings unless they’re married.”

I look down at my hand. It reminds me of the conversation with Kathy.

“Okay, Charlie. Before this goes any further, you need to understand a few things, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, and I’ve been in the Real World long enough now to know what’s coming up. He’s going to threaten me. He’s going to tell me that if anybody ever finds out the gun came from him, he’s going to be pissed off. He’s going to send people after me. After my wife. People that may or may not consist of Floyd.

“I’m a struggling businessman,” he says. “This economy-it’s a killer. You walk through town this time next year and you’ll see a quarter of the businesses that are here now won’t be then, just like this year compared to last year. People keep saying things are going to get better, but they don’t. This shop-well, I’m hanging on. This time next year, hell, I’m doing what I can to not be one of those businesses you drive past and wonder what happened. You think I want to sell guns to people who shouldn’t have them? Of course not. But I have a wife. I have kids. And kids cost a lot of money. I’ve been in this business for over twenty years, and times have never been so tough. Taking money from guys like you is the only way I can survive. You see what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I get it. This is where you tell me that no matter what happens, nobody can ever know the gun came from you.”

“Exactly,” he says. “Before you think I’m some kind of bastard, let me tell you this-I’m selling you the gun because you look like the kind of guy who needs one. You don’t look like the kind of guy who’s going to rob a bank. So I’m selective. I’m not trying to supply guns to the assholes of the world. You don’t look like an asshole. But if the police ever find out this is where this gun came from, then I’m going to be the asshole. I’m going to send somebody to your house, and they’re going to fuck you up. You and your wife. And if you’re in jail at the time, then I’ll have you fucked up in jail. Like I say, I’ve been doing this twenty years, and I know people. People who make Floyd look like an angel. Now, tell me again that you get it.”

“I get it,” I tell him.

He looks back at my license. Then he hands it over.

“Come on back through here. It’s more private.”

I follow him through the doorway. There are posters of guns and girls, sometimes of both. A calendar from four years back with a naked smiling woman stops me from looking around at the shelves full of stock and the cluttered workbench. Part of me just wants to walk away, knows that getting involved with a guy like Arthur is only going to end in a lot of trouble. Only that’s long-term trouble-and that’s only a possibility. Short-term trouble is certain. I need that gun.

“This is a Glock Eighteen C,” he says, putting the package down on the workbench. “It takes a nine-millimeter Parabellum bullet. Nine millimeter is the most famous and frequently used handgun cartridge in the world. It’s used in semiautomatic pistols and in submachine guns. This Glock here,” he hands it to me by the handle, “has a magazine capacity of seventeen rounds. Of course it’s currently unloaded.”

“Of course.”

“Naturally it isn’t designed for target shooting. It’s purely a defense weapon. Used in the service industry overseas.”

“What, like restaurants?”

“Yeah, good one,” he says, his face tightening as he frowns at me. “Police. Military. Armed security.”

“Right.” I’m holding the gun by the handle, bouncing my arm slowly up and down like gun guys do, getting a feel for the weight. Shame there aren’t any tires to kick.

“It’s a little over six hundred grams,” Arthur says. “A hundred and eighty-six millimeters long, small enough to slip in your pocket. It has an internal safety. .”

“Meaning?”

He carries on for a few more minutes telling me about the gun. I’m already sold, was from the moment I saw it had a trigger and a handle and a barrel and didn’t need any kind of assembly.

“The Glock Eighteen C is fully automatic,” he continues, and it seems he could talk forever about the pistol. “There’s a switch here,” he touches it with his gloved finger, “that selects between semi- or fully automatic. Highly illegal if owned by a civilian in any country.”

“Fully automatic?”

“It’s crazy,” he says. “But you can fire off a whole magazine in under a second.”