T. Parker - Full Measure

“See you there.”

“Look at the hills out there. Black from the fire. Somebody set it.”

“That would be a heavy burden.”

“To set a fire?”

“I would think.”

Ted looked south to where the ruined foothills stood against the pale blue sky. The Fallbrook air looked clear and clean but the burnt smell still hovered. “Are you new here?”

“No.”

“Do you have a job?”

“Please. Please don’t.”

There was so much Ted wanted to ask but he didn’t want to scare her off. He followed Fallbrook Street into town and picked up Mission again at the post office and headed down the hill to Rosa’s. “Go around one more time,” she said. “The same way you just did.”

“I have to charge you. No, never mind. I won’t.”

She ignored him. In the rearview he watched her pull a cell phone from her purse and dial from contacts. She ordered a number ten and a Fanta. Ted heard Lucinda putting her phone back into her bag and when he looked up at the mirror she had taken off her sunglasses. She was looking down, and from the small motion of her shoulders Ted could tell she was doing something with her hands. He heard the hiss of aerosol spray. Her shiny dark hair hid her face. A moment later she lifted her head and looked in the mirror at him. Her eyes were brown, beautiful, and charged with grief. “Life is like a day,” she said. “It has light and dark. You can rearrange them for a while but the portions never change.” She slid the clean sunglasses back on.

“No, they don’t. That’s why you need a place to go where the dark can’t get you. For me it’s on a boat with my brother. His name is Pat and he’s a war hero. I may be working with him someday.”

“You understand, then. Where the dark can’t get you. I like that. I changed my mind. Go to Las Brisas.”

He made the loop again in silence and parked at Las Brisas taqueira. They watched the shoppers come and go from the little grocery with the soccer posters in the windows and the chilies hanging on the eaves. Lucinda came out a few minutes later with a white plastic bag. A few minutes later, parked behind the narrow garage below her condo, Ted lifted the TV/DVD player in one big hand and — with no privacy partitions in the taxis of the Friendly Village — reached back and set it down on the seat beside her groceries and lunch.

“This is for you.”

“I—”

“It was on sale at CVS and it looks like fair quality, for the price.”

“Look... Ted...”

Ted felt the thrill of his name spoken in Lucinda’s voice, coming from Lucinda’s mouth, carried by Lucinda’s breath. “Remote and everything, you even get batteries.”

“I can’t take it. Give it to someone who can really use it. I can’t. Thank you, but I can’t.”

Ted felt like he had been dumped into deep water with an engine block chained to his ankles. “Maybe you could just put it somewhere out of the way for now, then give it to someone later. Christmas is coming up. I can put it in your garage here—”

“No. Do not.”

“Okay, Lucinda. Not a problem, Lucinda.”

She got out and slammed the door and climbed the stairs two at a time, bags in hand.

“Lucinda?”

“What?”

“You forgot to pay me.”

She looked down on him from the patio and he saw her shoulders sag and heard her sigh. Her bags clunked to the deck. She unslung her purse and came back down the stairs.

Ted finished off his shift at five o’clock, drove his truck to Open Sights in Oceanside and picked up his new Glock. Kerry sold him a clip-on holster, cleaning kit, a locking transport box, and a padded cloth pistol bag. The range was busy and the sharp reports of the guns came muffled but forcefully through the walls and safety glass. He thought of Lucinda coming down her stairs. She had asked for him.

“We’ve got some terrific classes coming up next month,” said Kerry. “Self-defense, safety, all the laws you need to know. Plenty of those to learn and more on the way.”

Before leaving the store Ted made sure the gun was empty, then locked it in the hard case. He locked all of his purchases in the toolbox bolted to the bed of his truck. Driving back toward Fallbrook he felt different. He felt calm, capable, and equal. He felt that he had a powerful secret. He felt that he could protect himself and his family and Lucinda against criminals and government. He thought how different it would have been — the day that Edgar held him up and took his money — if only the Glock had been there with him.

She had asked for him.

He stopped and bought a twelve-pack of budget beer and drove to Pride Auto Repair. Cade’s Bel Air and Trevor’s Magnum were there, along with a gleaming red-on-black Harley-Davidson he recognized. It was dark enough by now for the neon sign to show up beautifully, the blue Model T throwing out red flames. Standing between his truck and the building, keeping a weather eye for cruising cops — especially the one who had given him the nystagmus test in broad daylight after he’d been six months sober — Ted holstered the unloaded gun and clipped the rig to his belt. His XXL aloha shirttail — hula girls in grass skirts playing ukuleles — covered the gun nicely.

Inside there was no one at the front desk but behind it, through the open double doors to the repair bay, Cade Magnus fiddled with the engine of a van and Trevor rolled a new tire toward a white pickup truck. A biker couple Ted had met — Screw Loose and Psycha — sat on the old paisley sofa with their legs splayed and beers resting on their thighs, watching the men work. Ted walked into the bay and opened one of the refrigerators, set the twelve-pack inside then broke one off for himself. He lifted a white resin chair off the stack and set it down by the sofa. Cade and Trevor were watching. Ted lifted his shirttail. Cade nodded and Trevor gave Ted a thumbs-up.

“New iron?” asked Screw Loose. He was a short and stocky, with long orange hair and a short orange beard. Ted had noticed that, contrary to most bikers, Screw’s leather was always clean and his gear always shiny, right down to the buttons on his vest.

“What’s it look like to you?”

“Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

“I could shoot you.”

“Funny,” said Psycha. She was thin with lank brown hair parted down the middle and a face brined by wind and sun.

“True, too,” said Ted, enjoying the familiar tightening of breath and vision that presaged anger.

“What’s got into you, Ted?” asked Screw.

“It’s the gun,” said Psycha. “He’s got stones now. He’s not the shuffling moron he was yesterday and the day before.”

Screw Loose laughed loudly. Ted shook his head and cracked his beer. The beauty of having power was you didn’t have to use it. You could just glide. Cade cursed at the Chrysler engine and Trevor started locking on a new tire with the half-inch impact gun. Ted considered the paisley couch and again remembered seeing Jed Magnus sitting on it, reading, with one hand on Mrs. Magnus’s knee. Through the raised back door he saw the street where he’d sat on his bike all those years ago, looking in.

Cade and Trevor finished up the work and everyone filed past the refrigerator for beers, then went into the lobby. Joan and Amber showed up a few minutes later in tight jeans and snug tops and heady perfumes. They brought a friend named Icey who was slight and fair-skinned and had tattoos running up the backs of both legs — serpentine plaits like an old-fashioned silk stocking — disappearing under her shorts. Her hair was a bleached buzz cut and her face was studded and serious. The three women sauntered in and headed straight for beers, then the pool cues. Joan slung her purse onto the counter and dug in for some you-know-what. Trevor put on some hate rock, a new band called By the Neck Until Dead. To Ted they sounded even worse than Hate Matrix, although the lyrics were rousing.