Guns (John Hardin series)

by Phil Bowie

  There were people on the street but nobody paid undue attention to him. He had become one of the legions of faceless, nameless, urban creatures who live in the shadows and exist by whatever means they can, and who are all but invisible to the rest of humanity. He opened the lid and used his pocket knife to slit two of the big trash bags, releasing a foul, almost overwhelming odor. Holding his breath as much as possible he picked through the contents, a mixture of garbage and miscellaneous refuse. A Woman’s Day magazine. An empty Jim Beam fifth bottle. A brief letter to Maria Calzo from some woman in Florida. A wadded-up grocery shopping list. A burned-out light bulb. There were a few receipts but nothing that yielded any useful information.

  Then he turned up a damp, well-thumbed Cabella’s fishing and hunting catalog addressed to Calzo, with several of the page corners bent back. One marked-up page listed Leupold, Alaskan Guide, and Tasco rifle scopes. Another page had a pair of hunting boots circled. There was nothing else in the trash that helped, and he was spending too much time here. He closed the lid and slowly moved on along the street, eyes downcast, limping, stopping to dig through another trash container before he turned the corner at the end of the block and headed back for his car.

  Two nights later he again followed Calzo and the other two men in the white Mercedes to the Little Italy Lounge. This time he waited until the trio came out at eleven-ten and drove away. He gave it fifteen minutes and then got out and walked to the lounge. The interior was dim except for the well-lit bar with its glittering ranks of bottles arrayed against an ornate mirror.

  There were maybe a dozen customers scattered at tables and in booths. A thin brunette waitress sat tiredly on the end bar stool. The muscular bartender was hip-leaning against the inside of the bar, his big arms crossed, looking up at a basketball game on a wall-mounted TV. A black-haired woman in what looked like a wet red painted-on miniskirt got up from a booth she was sharing with another woman, walked unsteadily to the jukebox, dropped in change, and punched a number. An island beat blared out, then Jimmy Buffet began loudly singing “Margaritaville” and she went unsteadily back to the booth swiveling her slick hips and snapping her fingers. She spotted Hardin and smiled at him. He smiled and nodded back.

  He walked over and took a padded stool that was ergonomically designed to swaddle the drinker for hours on end, nestled up to a slanted, padded bar. There were luxury cars not as comfortable and comforting.

  The bartender glanced at him and said, “Yeah, friend what’ll it be?” as he turned his attention back to the game. “Well, take the damn shot, stupid, before they yank the damn ball away from ya again.”

  “I’ll have a shot and a beer,” Hardin said. “Draft.”

  The bartender tore himself away from the game long enough to say, “Well, okay, there, friend. We like serious drinkers around here.” He poured a generous shot, deftly drew a beer from the tap into a frosted glass, and made change, all with frequent glances up at the TV. “That freakin’ thirty-nine’s gonna lose this one all by himself,” he said to no one in particular, “and I’ll be out fifty bucks. Dammit.”

  “Tell you what, Jake,” the waitress said. “From now on will you let me know who you’re betting on like a day beforehand? ‘Cause then I’ll bet on the other team and it’ll be like a sure thing for me. When’s the last time you won?”

  “I can’t remember,” Jake said. “Shoot, shoot, for Cris-sake. The clock’s runnin’ out…ah, dammit. Well, there goes the game.”

  “Sorry your team lost,” Hardin said. “Hit me again here, will you?”

  “Sure thing, friend. You’re either celebrating or soaking your sorrows. Love or money won or lost; which is it?”

  “Celebrating, I guess. Coming back home after a long time gone. This was my old home town.”

  “Well, I don’t know where you been, friend, but if you’re happy to be back here it must have been pure hell there.”

  “Hey, this is the Garden State, isn’t it?”

  “Any freakin’ gardens around here I haven’t seen ‘em,” the bartender said.

  “I got a tomato plant on my fire escape,” the waitress said.

  “Freakin’ thing’ll die of air pollution,” Jake said. “Anyway, friend, welcome home.”

  “There used to be a guy I’d see around,” Hardin said. “A big guy named Walter Calzo. They called him Winston. Does he ever come in here?”

  The bartender instantly became wary. “What did you say your name was, friend?”

  “Leo Heath.”

  “That bastard.” The black-haired woman in the tight red miniskirt had slid onto the stool next to Hardin, bringing a musky scent of perfume and excess makeup. “That fat bastard Winston,” she said. “You just missed him, Mister Leo Heath. He was in here with those two other hoods he hangs out with. You say you’re like a friend of his?”

  “Hell, no,” Hardin said. “He was only one of the guys I remembered. A tough guy. As a matter of fact he had a run-in with a friend of mine and my friend took a beating. One of those things you don’t forget.”

  The bartender leveled a look at the woman and said, “Maybe you ought to keep your mouth shut, Rose. You’ve had more than a few tonight.”

  “Hey, I ain’t afraid of Winston, that fat bastard.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to start anything here,” Hardin said, smiling. “It’s not important. I was just making conversation, you know? Rose, why don’t you let me buy you and your friend over there a drink? What are you having?”

  She smiled sexily and raised a plucked eyebrow. “Margarita on the rocks for me, white wine for Sarah. This time salt my rim, will you, Jake? Leo, why don’t you come on over and meet my best friend?”

  “You kids go ahead,” the waitress said, “I’ll bring the drinks.”

  “Thanks,” Hardin said as he left the soft embrace of the bar stool.

  “Don’t mention it. I’m like a sucker for romance,” the waitress said dryly.

  Rose slid into the booth and patted the seat beside her. Hardin took it.

  “Meet Leo Heath, a real gentleman, I bet,” Rose said, “and this is Sarah, my best friend.”

  “He’s cute, too,” Sarah said with a woozy grin. She was displaying a square yard of pillowy cleavage, her sprayed blond hairdo had partially collapsed, and her makeup seemed to be slipping like a hillside just before an avalanche. She said, “So, what do you do for a living, Leo?”

  “I sell sporting goods. Boots, tents, fishing rods.”

  “I bet you make good money at that,” Rose said.

  “I do all right.”

  “So, are you like married or what?” Sarah said. “Little wife and half a dozen rugrats at home?”

  “Never been married. What do you ladies do?” The waitress had brought their drinks and was setting them out on napkins, and saying to Hardin, “Now there’s a silly question, Ace. You should probably ask, like, what don’t they do.”

  Ignoring the waitress, Rose said, “Sarah’s a sexy secretary and I’m a cashier. We both work for Sullivan Auto Parts and Salvage. Nine stores in five cities. Big deal.”

  “We’re gonna call in sick tomorrow,” Sarah said. “We already decided. Screw ‘em if they like can’t take a joke, right, Rose?”

  “Do you ever go to Atlantic City, Leo?” Rose asked.

  “Never have, but I’ve always wanted to. Do you like it there?”

  “It’s fantastic,” Sarah said. “There are lights everywhere and nobody hardly even sleeps. They have like these great shows, and the food and the drinks are practically free. I mean good drinks, too, not watered down like they are here. That’s why I only drink wine here.”

  “And there’s always the chance you’ll get rich rich rich,” Rose said. “You’ve just got to be at the right slot at the right time, you know? I mean it could happen to anybody. One pull and you can win a car or that big plastic box of cash they have in the lobby of this one place. I have this friend Sammy? He bought a book that tells how you can recognize the slots tha
t are just about ready to pay off, and how to outsmart the blackjack dealers, and what numbers are the best to play in roulette and stuff. I’m telling you, this book is like just about impossible to find because all the casino owners got together and tried to keep it from being printed. They don’t want people knowing all those secrets. Sammy says the man who wrote it? They evicted him from both Las Vegas and Atlantic City because they were afraid he’d win too much. Sarah and me are gonna read up on it and then go on another one of those bus tours to Atlantic City.”

  “Watch out, Donny Trump, here we come,” Sarah said.

  “The two of you will clean them out,” Hardin said, smiling. “I’m glad I met you before you get rich. Otherwise you probably wouldn’t talk to me after you do.”

  Both the women giggled and sipped their drinks.

  “Listen,” Hardin said to Rose, “I’m sorry about mentioning that guy Calzo earlier. I didn’t mean to spoil your night out.”

  “That fat bastard, pardon my English. He comes in here tonight, Leo, he comes in here with those other two goons tonight like always. Like the three Hoodkateers. And they sit there at that table and right away they start like hitting on us.”

  “Talking about us like we’re just a couple whores, you know?” Sarah said.

  “Winston, he finally comes over and sits down right where you are,” Rose said, “while those other two bastards are laughing. He starts putting his hands all over me. I told him to fuck off or his wife’s gonna get a phone call, you know? He gives me the mean eyes like I’m supposed to faint right here. Then the chief goon Nicky, he goes, ‘Come on, Winston, knock it off, the bitch ain’t worth it,’ and so lardass gets up and goes back to the table. He acts like he’s some kind of Mafia big shot but he’s just another dumb bone breaker. He doesn’t fool me. I’ve been knowing him for years. I could like tell the cops a thing or two about ol’ Winston, let me tell you.”

  “I thought he used to be a hunter or something,” Hardin said.

  “If you call shooting deers in some kind of deer zoo great sport,” Sarah said.

  “We heard them talking about that for about an hour,” Rose said. “The brave hunters. They’re going to some big place in upstate Pennsylvania, I forget the name of it, where they raise the deers and you pay a heavy fee so you can shoot yours. They guarantee you get to kill one.”

  “They probably tie one to a post that’s got like a sign on it says deer,” Sarah said with a laugh, “and then lead you over to it by the hand.”

  “Maybe they spray-paint a target on it for you,” Rose said, giggling. “Shoot it here or here but don’t shoot it there or you’ll have a hole in your steak.”

  “Did they say when they’re going?”

  “Next week, I think,” Rose said. “I guess that’s when zoo deer season starts.”

  “And you don’t know the name of the place?”

  Rose frowned and tried to focus on him, getting a little suspicious. “Just some kind of big fancy hunting club. Why?”

  “No reason. Just curious. It looks like you girls could use another drink.” He motioned for the waitress and asked Rose what her favorite gambling game was.

  She was heavy-lidded now and her friend Sarah was not far behind. They were both slurring some of their words.

  “Craps,” Rose said. “It’s real exciting, but it goes like so fast it’s hard to follow, you know? You can wooze…lose big-time and just like that.” She tried to snap her long-nailed fingers. “Leo, what you say after this drink we go get something to eat?”

  “Sure, ladies. Do you know a good place?”

  “You bet,” Sarah said. “You got a car, Leo? We took a cab here so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving home after.”

  They went to an all-night diner for early breakfasts, Sarah looking even more disheveled in the harsh light. Rose was drunk and nodding. After they ate he drove Rose to her apartment first and Sarah helped him get her inside and comfortable on the couch. Her miniskirt rode up while Sarah was slipping her shoes off. There was a small tattoo of a rose on her inner thigh. She was snoring lightly and she looked worn, vulnerable, and bereft of hope. Hardin got a pillow and a sheet from her bedroom and covered her up. Then he drove Sarah home and left her at her door with a kiss on her heavily made-up cheek and an empty promise to see her again soon at the Little Italy Lounge.

  The next morning, with a pocket full of change, he found a pay phone in the corner of a convenience store parking lot and started calling hunting clubs in Pennsylvania at numbers supplied by information, asking to confirm a reservation for Walter Calzo.

  The Beechwood Sporting Association covered six hundred rolling, posted acres of fields and woodlands in northwestern Pennsylvania, some of it adjacent to the Allegheny National Forest. The staff raised pheasant, partridge, doves, rabbits, and deer for the pleasures of the guests. The accommodations were log cabins, each plushly furnished and screened from its neighbors by careful rustic landscaping. Staffers in a log lodge prepared excellent meals and box lunches, sold gear and ammunition, and rented out such items as fishing rods, rifles, and shotguns. A basic three-day deer hunt cost $3,000 per person and results were guaranteed.

  If a guest happened to kill his or her buck or doe on the first day or two there were other pursuits depending on the weather, including cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, tennis, chip and putt golf, indoor swimming, horseback riding, and serious drinking, all at extra fees, of course. Since this was a private club there was no need to observe legal hunting seasons.

  A half hour before dawn a Beechwood guide had used a flashlight to lead Walter Calzo along a path to a deer stand that the guide claimed was one of their best, a log bench atop a low boulder that protruded from a hillside, lightly screened by brush and with a commanding view of a wooded vale about 100 yards out where there was a stream that had been dammed to create a small pond. A salt lick near the pond had been not-too-cleverly disguised as a tree stump. Particularly tempting forage had been planted near the pond. Calzo could see none of this yet because it was too dark, but the guide described it like he was reading from a color brochure. The guide left him with a small canvas shoulder bag packed with a thermos of coffee, soft drinks, sandwiches, and two hand warmers.

  Like all guides and hunters at Beechwood, Calzo was dressed in a blaze orange winter jacket and an orange billed cap with ear flaps, along with good boots, heavy pants, and orange shooter’s gloves to ward off the cold. He sat on the bench with his Winchester Model 70 Classic .30-06 lefthander bolt action rifle across his ample lap, a cartridge from the five-round magazine chambered and the safety on. With the scope the rig had set him back over $1,000 but it was deadly accurate and hit like a pickax. He knew the ballistics by heart. The rifle fired one of his favorite bullets, a Springfield soft-nose 150-grain Power-Point notched around its metal jacket so it would instantly blossom like a gray flower when it hit living tissue. The bullet would be moving at more than half a mile per second when it blew out of the 24-inch rifle muzzle. All the way out to 400 yards the drop would only be 27 inches and the velocity would still be 1,700 feet per second, so it could still hit with 967 foot-pounds of punch, plowing a half-dollar-diameter tunnel through muscle, flesh, and bone. From here to the pond off there in the murk, if the guide was right about the range, the bullet would hardly be slowing down, would rise just over two inches, and would hit with over 2,200 foot-pounds. One hell of a smack.

  The log bench had a back rest so he relaxed. He unzipped the jacket enough to dig a fat greenish cigar out of his inside pocket. He clamped it between his teeth but didn’t light it.

  The air was still but as the sky turned gray and the trees and pond began to emerge from the darkness a light breeze came up, blowing down-slope at his back, which meant he was upwind of the pond and any deer coming that way would probably smell him.

  “Phuck,” he said around the cigar, thinking I might as well eat a sandwich. He pulled a ham and cheese out of the canvas pack and rested the cigar on the edge
of the bench seat. He had both cheeks full and was thinking about moving around the pond to a spot between two trees over there that looked pretty good when a man stepped out from behind brush just downhill to his right and he damned near choked on the sandwich.

  He coughed heavily and spat to the side and said, “Hey, asshole. You don’t want to get shot you don’t come up on a man like that.”

  But there was something bad wrong here. The man was dressed all over in Realtree camo. He was holding an un-scoped lever action rifle across his chest, his finger inside the trigger guard. His eyes were shadowed by his hat brim. He stood there real still, his legs apart, like he was ready to make a fast move. Was he wearing fucking moccasins? He wondered if he could get the Winchester up off his knees, hit the safety, and shoot before this asshole could swing down on him and pull. In the distance a rifle went off twice. A semi-auto.

  He tossed the rest of the sandwich aside carefully and said, “Well, you ain’t a guide or a hunter here or they’d make you wear orange. So, who the hell are you?”

  “That was smart,” the man said. “Saving your night vision until I took off and I was right over you.”

  “What?” Winston said, but then he knew and he went still inside. He reached for the cigar slowly, very carefully got his Zippo out of his side coat pocket, and lit up, blowing out a small bluish cloud.

  He put the lighter down on the bench and said, “You made a hell of a splash. Didn’t think you’d get outta that. I hit you?”

  “In the hip.”

  “Good. You here tryin’ to kill me? Have a shoot-out? Is that it?”

  Hardin watched the big man carefully, ready to shoulder the rifle and fire. He’d bought the Marlin .30-30 in a Harrisburg Wal-Mart for $265 and had practiced with it at short range for three hours two days ago in an old sand pit he’d found deep in the woods. He had a soft-nose deer round chambered, the hammer back and the safety off.

  Winston showed no change in his bulldog expression.

  Just sat there pulling on the cigar.