"Whaddya mean amateurs? I'm a Marine."
"You're a rummy," said Alstein.
"You don't know what Marines can do," said Pitulski.
"Get drunk and lose fistfights," said Alstein. "Jeez, I wish I had my weapon with me. I wish I had it."
"You will," said Jellicoe.
"Naah," said Alstein. "He took it in Chicago. That Gordons is a funny guy. I bet he brings me some cheap piece of shit that I have to stick in the hit's nostrils to get a piece of the nose. You'll see. Everybody laughs at the chrome plate and the size of a .357 Magnum, the chrome being my own idea. But with that little doozy, I'm king."
"You'll get your gun back," said Jellicoe.
"Bullshit. He couldn't get a gun through customs. I know. They're spooky about those flights that go past Cuba."
"Marines could get guns into Cuba," said Pitulski. "As a matter of fact we got them there. Gitmo. God bless the United States Marines," he sobbed and moaned that he had deserted the only family he ever had, the Marines, and for what? Money. Filthy, dirty rotten money. Even stole a flamethrower—which the Marines would miss. Not like the Air Force where you could lose a fleet of planes and the government would resupply five squadrons. The Marines treasured their weapons.
"Shut up," said Alstein. "You're worried about a dinky six-hundred-a-month job and I've got a whole career riding on this."
"You'll both get your weapons," said Jellicoe.
"Not the same one," said Alstein. "Not the same feel."
"The exact feel," said Jellicoe.
"Not the same serial numbers."
"The same serial numbers. Right down to the pits in the chrome," said Jellicoe.
When Mr. Gordons returned to the hotel suite, he carried valises, swinging them slowly and easily. He instructed everyone to bring the packages he had given them back in Chicago and which had passed inspection at the airport, into his room. When he saw Pitulski stumble drunkenly, he put the bags down lightly.
"Negative. Cease. Not that much drink. Overabundance. Cease. Cease," said Mr. Gordons, and twice smacked the reddish face of Sergeant Pitulski, making the crimson cheeks shine just a little more brightly. He upended him and walked him to a closet where he locked the door on the upside-down Marine.
"Excessive drinking is dangerous, especially when people have tools in their hands and are responsible for the survival of other things," said Mr. Gordons.
"He didn't have any tools," said Alstein.
"I'm talking about his skills as tools and my survival," said Mr. Gordons. He nodded to the bags and Jellicoe bent down, gripped a handle, and jerked—himself to the carpeted hotel room floor. The valise wouldn't move.
"That is a bit excessive for you, isn't it?" said Gordons. "I will take them," and, as if the valises were filled with woven wicker and handkerchiefs, Mr. Gordons lifted them and walked them smoothly into the other room.
"You're pretty weak there, Jellicoe," said Alstein.
About a half-hour later, as Alstein read a magazine in the suite's living room and Jellicoe stared dumbly at the door that Mr. Gordons had locked behind himself, the door suddenly opened.
"What's that?" asked Mr. Gordons.
"Nothing," said Alstein.
"I hear something."
Alstein and Jellicoe shrugged.
"I hear something. I know I hear something," said Mr. Gordons. A canvas cloth covered his hands, at least where his hands should be, but the vague outline under the canvas was that of tools attached to his wrists. "Open that closet."
When Alstein opened the closet door, they all saw Sergeant Pitulski, upside down and red-faced. Alstein lowered an ear.
"He's humming 'The Halls of Montezuma,'" said Alstein.
"Right side him up," said Mr. Gordons. "And for him, no drinks. You others seem capable of drinking without wanting to become disorderly, so you may drink. But not Pitulski."
"How we gonna keep him from drinking if we drink?" asked Alstein.
"You mean just because a person sees someone else drink, he wants to drink?"
"It works that way," said Alstein.
"Feed that in," said Jellicoe.
"I just have," said Gordons.
"As a seventy-three percent positive," said Jellicoe.
"How are you using that?" asked Mr. Gordons.
"As in seventy-three percent of the time that would be accurate."
"Done, but with the standard deviation for human inaccuracy," said Mr. Gordons and disappeared into his room. When he returned, he held in his two hands—they appeared normal now to Jellicoe, as he had expected they would—a .357 Magnum with the bullets clutched in his palm, and the spear guns. The flamethrower was strung around his left arm; the scuba tanks and rubber suit hung from his right. The flamethrower sloshed. It was filled.
He gave Alstein the gun, Jellicoe the underwater gear, and put the flamethrower down at Pitulski's feet. Pitulski was snoozing in an armchair.
Alstein looked at the shiny chrome. He bounced the gun flat on his palm. He spun the cylinder. He looked at the cartridges and with his fingers isolated one and held it up to the light.
"Same gun, same bullets," said Alstein. "I know this cartridge. Two days ago I was loading and I became fascinated by the bronze case. I always am. Bullets are beautiful. Art. Really beautiful. And with a pin, for the hell of it, I scratched my initials in it. Not deep. I don't want to weaken the shell. But here it is."
"I was wondering about that," said Mr. Gordons. "I thought perhaps you had some special system. But I see you are about to put it into a different chamber."
"The chambers are all the same," said Alstein.
"They are not. Neither are the bullets. They are all different in size and shape but you cannot perceive that. Here. Let me load the same way you had them loaded."
Alstein watched and commented that he couldn't see how Mr. Gordons could tell. But that wasn't the first crazy thing and it wasn't the last. It was not only the first time Alstein had gone on a team hit, but also the first time that he was wired and given what Mr. Gordons called a tracker. He made Alstein stand in the center of the room and turn around slowly. When the button-like thing taped to Alstein's stomach vibrated, Mr. Gordons said the two targets were in the direction Alstein was facing.
"You mean, here in the room?"
Mr. Gordons laid out a map of St. Thomas. "No. Roughly either the Peterborg Estates or over Magen's Bay. When you're pointed toward them, you'll feel the vibrations. They will get stronger as you get closer."