Bleeding Hearts (34 page)

Spike never
officially
organised these shoots, because he wasn’t officially a gun dealer. He worked the black market, and got a lot of his stuff from Army bases throughout Texas. He bought from overseas too, though. He just didn’t do any of this legally.

‘Look at this,’ he told me. He had led us to where today’s arms were displayed, spread on sheets of plastic on the ground. It looked like an arsenal captured from the Iraqis. Spike had picked up a Browning anti-aircraft gun. It showed off his bronzed arm muscles. ‘Something for the lady,’ he said, laughing.

I laughed back, and Bel gave me a disgusted look.

‘We got your M16s, your AK-47s and 74s.’ Spike pointed out the most interesting items. ‘Look here, we even got something from Finland or Sharkland or someplace, a Varmint.’

‘Valmet,’ I corrected. ‘The M62.’

‘Whatever. We got armour-piercing ammo you wouldn’t believe, man. Look here, the M39B. Use it in a handgun, it’ll go through a bullet-proof vest. Get ’em while you can. Black Talon bullet here, you ever hear of it?’

‘It expands on impact,’ Bel said coolly, ‘and has these sharp little edges.’

Spike opened his eyes and mouth wide. ‘Lookee here, we got us an expert! It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for!’ Then he went back to his inventory. ‘It’s all cute stuff, and believe me we got
everything.’

‘So what would you suggest?’

Spike stopped his spiel and looked at me. He was wavering, but it was an impersonation of a drunk rather than an effect of drink. His blue eyes were clear.

‘Well now, depends what you need it for.’

‘We need a variety of things. A sniper rifle, a couple of pistols, and maybe an assault rifle, something serious.’

Spike nodded thoughtfully, then counted off on his fingers. ‘Sniper rifle for long range, pistol for close range, and assault rifle for taking on the Seventh Cavalry.’

‘You might not be far off.’

He finished his beer and crushed the can, throwing it on to the ground. ‘What’s this “we” shit, man?’

I nodded in Bel’s direction. Spike stared at me, working out if I was serious, then he shook his head.

‘Maybe we better discuss this,’ he said.

I knew he wouldn’t want to discuss anything out in the open. Texas had lax gun laws, but that didn’t mean illegal dealers were encouraged. After the Waco siege, even Texans had started to ask questions about the amount of guns around.

We followed Spike’s pick-up truck. Bel said she wanted to drive, so she drove the Trans-Am. I didn’t mind her driving at all; two drivers would make the trip north all the faster. Back at his house, Spike yelled up the stairs that he was home, then went into the kitchen and brought out half a dozen refrigerated beers. We made ourselves comfortable on the porch. Bel said she needed the bathroom, and Spike told her where it was. We didn’t see her for a while after that.

Spike drank his first beer in silence.

‘So who is she?’ he said at last.

‘A friend.’

‘What’s her problem?’

‘She’s in mourning.’

‘Mm-hm.’ He opened the second beer and wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm. ‘So, what’s the story, Wild West?’

I shook my head, and he shrugged.

‘That’s up to you, of course, but if you’re looking to buy so much hardware, people are going to be wondering.’

‘That’s not my problem. My problems start if you can’t get the stuff.’

‘Man, I can get anything. I just want to be right in my mind about why
you
want it.’

‘What is this, new legislation? You have to have a clear conscience after each sale?’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Things are crazy though. We’ve got doctors telling us guns kill more teenagers than every known disease combined. We’ve got Clinton, man, the most anti-gun president we’ve ever
known.
That fucker got the Brady Bill through! We’ve got the NRA fighting its battle, but not always winning any more. I don’t always agree with the NRA, man, you know that. It simply isn’t right that minors can carry handguns, no way. But now some states are banning assault weapons, they’re limiting how many guns you can buy... Forty deaths a day, man, forty a day. I know it’s mostly gangs fighting each other, but it’s a lot of blood.’

‘Maybe you’re just getting old, Spike. Either that or Democrat.’

‘Wash your mouth, boy! No, I’ll tell you what it is, it’s ever since Jazz came to stay. Her real name’s Jasmine, but she likes Jazz. There are kids she hangs around with, they carry guns, a boy in her class got himself shot. There was a shoot-out at some zoo someplace. She tells me all this, and I just...’ He shrugged his shoulders and finished beer number two.

‘Who is she?’ I asked.

‘Jazz? She’s my niece, man, my sister’s kid. Her mom and dad split up, and neither of them was ready to take her with them. Hell, I don’t blame my sister, she’s just mixed up just now, you know. So I said I’d let Jazz stay here for a while, see if I couldn’t give her a less crazy environment, something stable, you know.’

I think I nodded.

‘She’s a great kid, man, clever too. She’s got a computer up in her room, she can do
anything
with that pile of junk. She’s some kind of genius, I guess.’

‘Can you get me an assault rifle?’ I said, smashing into his reverie.

‘Hell, yes, just so long as you don’t want an ownership licence. Know why they started licensing automatics?’ He’d told me before, but I didn’t say. ‘To stop Dillinger, man, and gangsters like him. They reckoned you could stop those guys by getting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to run background checks. Man, they can hardly check the baseball scores.’

Spike had drunk more than I’d thought. He could ramble on all night, trying to justify his existence and that of the other people around him, trying to make sense of his world. I knew the only place his world made sense was out on the gun range.

‘You’re staying tonight, right?’

‘We’ve got a hotel.’

‘Aw, you could stay here.’

‘Thanks, but it’s already bought and paid for.’ I shrugged my shoulders.

‘That’s too bad.’

‘We can talk more in the morning. How long will it take to get the stuff?’

‘I can have it for you tomorrow, I guess. Cash, right?’

‘Right.’

‘We’re talking big numbers here.’

‘Let me worry about the money.’

‘That’s cool.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s your woman?’

‘She’s not my woman.’

‘Oh? Whose is she then?’

‘Her own.’

‘A ballbreaker?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘It’s what I hear in your voice. She must’ve got lost or something.’

We went inside. Bel wasn’t lost, she was in Jazz’s room, seated at the computer and playing a new game while Jazz gave instructions over her shoulder.

‘Time to go, Bel.’

‘Five more minutes, Michael.’

Jazz glowered at me. ‘If you don’t obey him, Bel, he might pull the plug.’

‘He’ll get a kick in the balls if he does,’ Bel said quietly, bringing a spume of laughter from Jazz. Spike mouthed a word at me.

The word was ballbreaker.

We lay in bed naked, damp from our shower, and watched TV. Then Bel did something that surprised me. She turned the TV off and put down the remote.

‘Jazz,’ she said.

‘What about her?’

She turned on her side to face me. ‘She’s got an incredible computer.’

‘Yes?’ I started stroking her spine.

‘Maybe we could... use it in some way.’

‘How?’ I was interested now.

‘Keep stroking,’ she instructed. ‘I don’t know how exactly, but you can do things with computers these days, can’t you? They’re not just for games or glorified typewriting.’

‘It’s a thought. We’ll put it to her.’

‘Michael, tell me something. You love guns, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I can control them.’

‘Or control other people with them.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe I should go on one of these chat shows and talk it out of my system.’

She smiled for a moment. ‘I hated what was happening out there on that range. Those people were
having fun.
How can it be fun?’

I shrugged again.

‘Michael, do you think you love them more than you’ve ever loved a woman?’

By ‘them’ she meant guns of course. I thought for a second. ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’ She’d turned on to her back, trapping my arm beneath her. Our faces were close.

‘Prove it,’ she said.

This time when we made love she didn’t cry, not on the outside. But there was a rage inside her, and she bucked, punching and clawing at me. Then she stopped suddenly.

‘What is it?’ I asked after a moment.

‘We’re going to kill them, aren’t we?’ Her voice was strangely calm. ‘Promise me we’re going to kill them.’

Kill them? Jesus, we didn’t even know who
they
were.

‘Promise,’ I whispered. She wanted me to say it louder.

I said it louder.

Spike had invited us round for lunch, which meant barbecued steaks in his ‘yard’. The yard was in fact a very long narrow garden, nearly all of it grass, with a wire pen at the bottom where Wilma lived.

‘It’s a pig,’ Bel said when introduced. She was wearing her new denims and cowboy boots with a fresh white T-shirt.

‘That’s no pig,’ said Spike, ‘that’s a
hawg.
Anyone I don’t like, Wilma eats those suckers alive.’ He was wearing a plastic cooking-apron and waving a wooden spoon, which he occasionally stuck in his mouth. Then he’d go and stir the barbecue sauce again and add another dash of Tabasco.

Spike’s living room was no advert for the bachelor life. There were photos and magazine cuttings covering most of the walls, and you couldn’t see the carpet for old engine parts, sports trophies, discarded clothes and memorabilia. Spike collected service-station signs, especially ones made of metal. He also seemed to be going in for full-sized cardboard replicas of his sporting heroes. There was a black basketball player I’d never heard of leaning against one wall, and a baseball pitcher behind the sofa.

‘When he’s watching a game,’ Jazz confided, ‘he actually talks to it like it was the real person.’ Then she shook her head and went back to her room.

Muffled in black cotton cloth on the sofa were several items for me to look at. Spike, his lips coated orange with sauce, came back in and waved his spoon. ‘Gimme a minute and I’ll be with you. Bel’s gone upstairs with Jazz.’

When he left, I unwrapped the first gun. It was the sniper rifle, a Remington 700 ‘Varmint’. It wasn’t the military version which Max had offered me, but the commercial version, which meant it was beautifully polished and didn’t have a pre-fitted telescopic sight. I’d used one before, last time I’d been in Lubbock. Maybe it was the same gun. It was manufactured in Ilion, New York State, and I knew it was an accurate weapon. It wasn’t the greatest sniper gun around, but it would do. The sight was a Redfield. I checked that it was compatible with the mounting plate. Then I opened the second package.

These were the handguns, one pistol and one revolver. The revolver was a Smith & Wesson 547, with the four-inch rather than three-inch barrel. I’d never had much time for revolvers, though I knew Americans loved them, more for what they represented perhaps — the past — than for their modern-day ability.

The pistol felt better. It was another Smith & Wesson, a 559 semi-automatic, steel-framed and heavier than the revolver. It took fourteen rounds of parabellum ammo, but wouldn’t accept a silencer. Not that I thought I’d need a silencer, though the option would have been welcome.

I was opening the third package when Spike came in.

‘Wait till you see,’ he said.

I’d been expecting an M16, but this was a lot shorter, almost a foot shorter in fact. It didn’t weigh much more than double the pistol, and I picked it up one-handed.

‘It’s a Colt Commando,’ Spike said. ‘It’s close to the M16, but the barrel’s half the length. The stock’s adjustable, see, and there’s a flash hider if you want it. It’ll take anything from a twenty- to a thirty-round mag. Elite forces use them, man, so you know you’re talking quality.’

‘Spare me the sales pitch, Spike. It won’t take sights.’

He grinned. ‘That don’t matter, see.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’re shit long-range. They don’t have the muzzle velocity of an M16. You need the muzzle flash, too, because this thing makes a noise like a Gatling gun. But for close-up action, you can’t beat it. Tuck it into your shoulder with the stock retracted and you can fire one-handed, just like Big Arnie!’