by Ian Rankin
‘English.’
‘Yeah? Cool.’
I was tempted to pull the plug on her game, but you could never tell with teenagers. She might draw a gun on me. I had to attract her attention somehow.
‘Spike never used to like them so young.’
‘Huh?’
‘His girlfriends.’
She smirked. ‘Not!’ She had dimples and a faceful of freckles, a pale face which seldom saw the sunshine outside. The curtains in her room were drawn closed. She’d stuck photos on them; film stars mostly. ‘I’m not Spike’s girlfriend.’ She rolled her eyes at the thought. ‘Jee-zuss!’
I sat down on her unmade bed. ‘Who are you then?’
‘I shouldn’t have let you in, should I? I mean, you could be any-fucking-body, right? You could be a rapist, or even worse a cop.’
‘I’d have to be an English cop, wouldn’t I?’
‘Not. I know who you are. Spike’s told me about you.’
‘Who am I then?’
‘He calls you “Wild West”.’
I smiled. This was true. She was looking at me again. ‘Am I right?’
‘Yes, you’re right. I need to see Spike.’
‘Well, he’s not here. Look at that, eight million seven hundred thou.’
‘The high score?’
‘You bet.’
‘I’m a great believer in quitting while you’re ahead.’
‘Uh-uh, bud.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m headed all the way to annihilation.’
‘Where is Spike?’
‘You’re getting boring, man. He’s on a shoot.’
‘A shoot?’
‘Down towards Post. It’s an hour’s drive.’
‘Can you give me directions?’
‘Sure, head south-east out of town — ’
‘On a piece of paper?’
She smirked again. ‘I’m an American teenager, we don’t write.’
‘I’m going to pull the plug on your little game.’
‘Do that and you’ll be sorry.’ There was no humour in her voice, but I’d run out of patience. I found a four-way adaptor on the floor and picked it up, my hand clenched around the first cable.
‘Okay, man, you win.’ She hit a button on the keyboard and the screen froze. ‘This thing’s got a sixty-second pause.’ She looked for paper, found a paperback novel, tore the back cover from it, and drew a map on the blank side. She threw the map at me and jumped back into her seat.
‘Thanks for the hospitality,’ I said.
‘How hospitable would you be if your parents kicked you out?’
She was asking me to ask her something. My only weapon was to walk away, and that’s what I did.
Back at the store, Bel had bought a pair of boots for herself. They had shiny metal tips and ornate red stitching on black leather. She’d bought a new pair of denims to go with them. She almost looked like a native, which was no bad thing. Maybe that was the reason she’d bought the stuff. Or maybe she was just trying to shed her old clothes, her English clothes. Clothes from a home she no longer wanted.
I handed her the map as we drove off. She looked at the drawing, then at what it was written on.
‘“Mainframe bandits”,’ she read, ‘“are on the loose in hyperspace, and only you can stop them, playing the role of Kurt Kobalt, Innerspace Investigator, with your beautiful but deadly assistant Ingress”.’ She looked at me. ‘Is that us, do you think?’
‘Not.’
19
It wasn’t that easy to find the shoot. The map wasn’t wrong in itself, but some of the roads were little more than dirt tracks, and we doubted we were ever going to end up anywhere. As a result, we lost our bottle once or twice and headed back to the main road, only to find we’d been on the right road all the time.
At last we came to a lonely spot, a wilderness of hillocks and valleys. There was no habitation for miles, yet cars and vans had gathered here. Men and women were standing around guzzling from cans. That worried me straight off: guns and alcohol — the worst marriage.
As soon as we stepped out of the car we could smell it: the air was thick with cordite. We couldn’t tell if there was smoke or not, we’d kicked up so much dust along the track. I was glad I’d bought the Trans-Am and not some anonymous Japanese car. These were Trans-Am people. There were a couple more parked nearby, along with Corvette Stingrays and Mustangs and a couple of Le Barons.
Somebody yelled ‘The line is hot!’ and there was a sudden deafening fusillade from behind the nearest rise. Instinctively, Bel ducked, raising a knowing smile from the beer-drinkers. The sound of firing continued for fifteen seconds, then died. There were whoops and sounds of applause. A man came up to us, beer can in hand.
‘It’s six bucks each, buddy.’ I was handing over the money when I heard an unmistakable voice.
‘You old dawg, what in the hell are you doing here?’ It was Spike Jackson. He had a baseball cap on his head, turned so the shield was to the back. He took it off and ran a hand through his hair. He had thick wavy brown hair swept back to display a high prominent forehead. He wore steel-rimmed glasses, sneakers and old denims, and a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, showing rounded muscular shoulders and thick upper arms. He stopped suddenly, arched his back to the sky and threw open his arms.
‘This is gun heaven, man! I died and went to gun heaven. Didn’t I always used to tell you that, Wild West? That’s what this country is, man.’
His audience voiced their agreement. Now he came up to us and, arms still open wide, closed them around me in a hug that lifted me off the ground.
‘Wild West, man, how in the hell are you doing?’ He let me down and gave Bel a smile, touching his crotch for luck, then turned back to me. ‘You old dawg, you! Come on, let’s go where the action is.’ He went to a stack of beer cans and pulled off a few, tossing one to me, but opening Bel’s and handing it to her with a bow from the waist.
‘Name’s Spike Jackson, ma’am, and this one’s for you.’ Bel took the beer but didn’t say anything. Spike led us around to where, as he’d put it, the action was. In another clearing people milled around examining the damage the latest fusillade had done to a couple of wrecked cars, a lean-to shack, and an array of crates and bottles and cans. Fresh targets were being set up by sweating volunteers.
I knew what this was, of course. Spike had taken me to a Texan shoot before. Forty or fifty enthusiasts would gather together and fire off a range of weapons. You could spectate, or you could participate. A couple of arms dealers, who supplied much of the arsenal, would then take orders. I could see the dealers. They were short and dumpy and wearing holsters under drenched armpits. The day was fiercely hot, and I half wished I’d bought a stetson; or at the very least a baseball cap.
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.
