4
"All right already!" Abe said when he finally opened the door in response to Jack's insistent knocking. "My hundred-yard sprint days are long past."
"It's known as the hundred-yard dash, Abe."
"Dash, sprint, whatever—I can't do it anymore."
Jack doubted that Abe Grossman, the balding proprietor of the Isher Sports Shop, whose belt length probably equaled his height, had ever sprinted or dashed a hundred consecutive yards in his life. He strode by him and headed down one of the narrow, canyonesque aisles teetering with hockey sticks and basketballs and safety helmets, heading for the counter in the rear. His nose started to itch from the dust that layered everything. Abe didn't do high volume in sporting goods. His real business was in the basement.
"Got the morning papers?"
Silly question, Jack knew. Abe read every issue of every local English language paper—morning, evening, weekly.
Behind him he heard Abe's mocking tone, " 'Good morning, Abe, my good and dear friend.' And a very good morning to you, Jack. My, but it's early, even for you. 'Yes, Abe, so sorry to barge in on you like this—'"
"Abe," Jack said. "I'm feeling just a bit frazzled this morning and I could use your help."
He hadn't slept well. The combination of the subway mess and running into Kate on the same night had kept him turning and pounding his pillow until dawn.
"'Frazzled,' says he; cranky, says I. But I should be one to quibble? He wants help but he asks for the morning papers."
"Yeah. I need another pair of eyes to help me go through every article on last night's subway killings word by word and—"
"For why? To see if the police got an accurate description of you?"
Jack stopped and turned so fast he almost lost his balance. He felt his blood congealing as he stared at Abe.
"You know?"
"What's not to know?" Abe said, slipping his considerable bulk past Jack—no easy feat in these confines. He waddled on and led Jack back to the scarred counter where the morning papers lay scattered. "A gun-toting crazy gets blown away by this nondescript mensch with a .45 the size of a kreplach and I should think it's Senator Schumer? Or Bernie Goetz back on the job?" He grinned. "So where's your halo, Mr. Savior?"
"But… but how?"
This was bad, very bad. If the connection was that obvious to Abe, how many other people had made it?
"The Semmerling, of course. You forget already who sold it to you?"
"Could've been another make. An AMT Backup or—"
"Could've, shmoud've. Who else but my dear friend Jack would go up against two autoloaders with a five-shot double-action piece?"
"Not like I had much choice."
"And you did have five shots, didn't you?" Abe's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Jack. "A round in the chamber and four in the clip, right?"
Jack shrugged and glanced away. "Well… not exactly."
"Please don't tell me you started off with an empty chamber."
"I know it's safe but a loaded chamber bothers me."
"What if four hadn't been enough, Jack? What if you'd needed that fifth round? Where would you be now?"
Jack noticed a shift in Abe's tone. He glanced at his old friend's face and saw real concern there.
"Point taken."
"So tell me: how close did he come to killing you?"
"What makes you think he came close at all?"
"You were outgunned and you had to work that farkuckt slide for every shot." Abe visibly shuddered. "You could have wound up in a body bag like the rest."
"To tell the truth. I think he was so shocked to see someone else with a gun that he didn't know what to do. Never occurred to him that he might have to defend himself."
"So you didn't need a fifth?"
"Didn't even need the fourth." Jack dropped the spent casings from last night on the counter. "Here's the brass."
"Very considerate of you. I'll recycle these and—wait: there's four here. I thought you said—"
"Used it to kill his boom box."
Abe winced. "Don't tell me: playing rap. Dr. Schnooky Ice or somebody."
"Nah. An old song I used to like, but I don't think I'll want to hear it again for a long while. Can we go through the papers now?"
"Newsday and the Times I've been through already. No detailed description in either."
That was a relief. "All right, you take the News and I'll take the Post." As Abe settled on his stool behind the counter, Jack scanned everything pertinent in the Post and found nothing.
"So far, so good."
"Nothing in the News either," Abe said.
Jack felt the tension coiled in his shoulders and along the back of his neck begin to ease. He spotted the Village Voice in the pile. No need to bother with that—a weekly wouldn't have a fast-breaking story like the massacre—but he couldn't resist a dig at Abe.
He tapped its logo. "I'm surprised, Abe. I didn't think you stooped to freebies."
"For the Voice I make an exception—but only because of Nat Hen-toff. Even when it wasn't free, I bought the Voice for Nat. Such a mensch."
"Right. Like I used to buy Playboy for the articles. 'Fess up. You read the Voice for the personals."
"You mean those ads that show pictures of beautiful woman but feel the need to have a banner reading FEMALE plastered across her tuchis to assure me that what I'm looking at is what I'm looking at? That I don't need."
The logo of The Light was visible at the bottom of the pile but Jack gave no sign that he'd seen it.
"Got any scandal sheets?"
"Feh! Never!"
"Not even The Light'?"
'"Especially not The Light. Grant me a modicum of taste."
"Not even as paper to line Parabellum's cage?"
"Parabellum wouldn't allow it. Never. Not fit for his droppings."
"But here it is."
"Where?"
"There. The Light—right in front of you."
"Oh, that. Well, I can explain. You see, I was looking for birdcage paper this morning and Parabellum spotted the headline and liked it so he made an exception. A momentary aberration on the part of an otherwise splendid and tasteful bird."
"He's forgiven."
"Parabellum thanks you, I'm sure. But please don't tell anyone. He's very sensitive, and even those shlub park pigeons would laugh at him if they knew."
"My lips are sealed." Jack looked around as he tugged The Light from beneath the pile. "Speaking of Parabellum, where is the blue-feathered terror of the skies?"
"The perfect parakeet is sleeping in. You miss him? You want I should—?"
"No, let him sleep until we're finished. With my luck he'll drop one of his little packages right on some crucial para—oh, no!"
"SIX GUN SAVIOR" and "Exclusive Eyewitness Report" screamed at him. He opened to page three, almost tearing the paper in his haste. His gut clenched as he found a face he recognized staring back at him.
"Christ!"
'Wit?" Abe said, leaning forward to get a look. "What's up? What is it?"
Jack's memory colorized the grainy black-and-white photo—dark blond hair, hazel eyes, fair skin, gold wire on the glasses.
"This kid! He was sitting a couple of feet away from me on the Nine last night."
The byline identified him as Sandy Palmer. Jack felt his palms growing moist as he read Palmer's first-hand account, dreading each new paragraph, certain that here was the one that would describe his features; and if not this paragraph, then the one after it. Palmer had nailed the shoot-out pretty much as Jack remembered it, but when it came to describing the so-called Savior, the kid came up empty.
"He was looking right at me," Jack said. "And 1 know I looked at him right before I made my move. He had to have seen me."
"You think maybe he left it out for some reason?"
"But why?" Jack didn't know what to think.
"Here, look," Abe said, rotating the paper so he had a better angle. "He's got an excuse. Listen: 'I know I saw his face at one time or another during the trip, but it made no impression on me. Neither did any of the other faces I saw before the shooting began. Ships passing in the night, every night, night after night. And that's sad, don't you think? This man saved my life and I can't remember his face. Perhaps this is a lesson for us all: look at the faces around you, really look at them. They're not just faces, they're people. Remember them. You may wind up owing your life to the person behind one of those faces.' " Abe grimaced. " 'Ships passing in the night.' Oy. So original. This is journalism?"
"Do you believe him?"
Abe shrugged. "I should think that if he'd been able to sit down with a police artist and give him anything useful, your punim would be on page one of every paper in town."
"Good point." Jack was starting to feel better. "You know, I just might get through this."
"Let's hope so. But the vultures already are swarming. Senators, congressmen, councilmen pushing and shoving to see who can be first to climb on top of those dead bodies to get better seen. Their stomachs should burst. They yammer about stricter gun control but what we're getting is stricter victim disarmament. Next thing you know one of the dead folks' relatives will be running for office on a victim disarmament platform, arguing for more of the same kind of laws that left their dead loved one defenseless."
"Irony ain't always pretty."
"It goes further. These shlubs like to hit up small businesses for donations. They don't know how good their farshtunken laws are for my real business, but they shouldn't come to me looking for donations. A krenk I'll give them."
Jack thought about Abe's real business, about the scores of pistols and rifles racked in the basement. He hesitated, wondering if he should ask, then plunged ahead.
"You ever wonder when you hear about something like this if it was one of your guns that did the killing?"
Abe sighed. "Yes, I do. But I'm careful who I sell to. That's no guarantee, obviously, but most of my customers are solid citizens. Of course, their buying a gun from me automatically makes them criminals. Felons even. But mostly they're decent people looking for a little extra protection who shouldn't want to be awakened in the middle of the night by stormtroopers when someone decides to collect all the city's registered weapons. Lots of ladies I sell to. These victim disarmers would rather have a woman raped and beaten to death in some back alley than let her carry a little equalizer. A brock on all of them!"
Uh-oh, Jack thought as Abe's face reddened. Here he goes.
"Gun laws they want? Make me king and gun laws they'll get! Random checkpoints day and night! If you're not carrying a weapon—bam! A fine! Three offenses and we lock you up! Last night would never have happened in my city! That meshuggener would have thought twice, three, maybe four times before trying what he did, and even if he'd gone ahead he'd have got off one, maybe two shots and then everybody would have opened up on him and a lot fewer bodies would've been dragged out of that car. And just imagine what the body count would have been if you'd been delayed a few minutes and wound up on the next train. Think about that."
"I have. And I'm also thinking you're crazy. You have any idea what this city would be like if you gave everyone a gun?"
Abe shrugged. "A period of adjustment there'll be, of course, during which a lot of defective genes will be removed from the pool, and during which I might maybe think about going on vacation. But when I came back I'd be living in the politest city on earth."
"Sometimes I wish the gun had never been invented."
"No guns?" Abe put his hand over his heart. "You mean a world where I'd have to make my entire living selling this sporting junk? Oy't Wipe such a thought from your brain!"
"No, seriously. I wouldn't mind a world where no guns existed."
But if one gun existed—just one—Jack wanted to be the man to own it. And since lots of guns already did exist, he wanted to own his share, and he wanted to own the best.
"Enough sky blue," Abe said. "You have plans for the day?"
Jack thought about that. Hadn't made any because he hadn't been sure he'd be able to show his face on the street. Now the whole day had opened up. Gia wouldn't be back until tomorrow but…
"Maybe I'll get together with my sister."
Abe's elevated eyebrows wrinkled his forehead all the way up to where his hairline used to be. "Sister? I remember you saying once you had one but since when are you in contact?"
"Since last night."
"What's she like? She'd like a good deal on a .32 maybe?"
Jack laughed. "I doubt that. Tell you the truth, I'm not sure yet what she's like. It's been a lot of years. But I hope to find out…"