“I’ve got your back.”
She smiled at him and Patrick saw the doubt in it. The bourbons seemed strong to him. He ordered beer backs with the next round and Iris declined. The alcohol kicked in and Patrick felt calm and alert. He knew he was drinking for all the good things he missed, and he wondered what it said about him that what should have been the worst thirteen months of his life were in fact months of excitement, purpose, and selfless loyalty. Good things. Two rounds of drinks later the young Marine next to him asked where’d he’d been and Patrick told him Helmand, the Three-Five, and the boy nodded respectfully. Patrick’s Third Battalion, Fifth Regiment had suffered more casualties than any Marine battalion in the war. They were known through history as the Dark Horse Battalion, and their motto was “Get Some.”
“I wondered if that low fade made you a Dark Horse,” said the young Marine.
“Yes,” said Patrick, the low fade referring to his haircut—long for a Marine, and permitted only to grunts who had seen action. The low fade was not to be worn by new Marines, who were relegated to shaves or the traditional high and tight worn by most officers.
“You guys kicked serious ass,” said the Marine. “Too bad we’ll give it back to the terrorists and dope growers.”
“It’s their home,” said Patrick. “And it’s hell anyway. Let them have it.”
“How many did you lose?”
“Twenty-five very good men. Two hundred wounded.”
“How many’d you kill?”
“Four hundred seventy confirmed but a lot more in reality.”
Someone on the other side of Iris said something but Patrick couldn’t make it out. Whoever said it, said it again. Patrick leaned forward and looked past Iris at the red-faced boy who was drinking Patrick’s generosity. A high and tight cherry if Patrick had ever seen one. “I’d go and kill another four hundred if they’d let me,” he said.
“You’re a POG, so you don’t have to worry.”
“How do you know I’m a POG?”
“What’s a POG?” Iris interjected.
“Personnel Other Than Grunt,” said Patrick. “And I can tell by looking at you.”
“I’m a Marine air mechanic and proud of it. Jason Falk.”
“Lance Corporal Patrick Norris. You guys wouldn’t land for our wounded in Sangin if there was fire. The Brits did it all the time, but not you.”
“Watch your words. The pilots I know would fly down the barrel of a gun. All I said was I’d go over and—”
“Don’t waste your time,” said Patrick.
Jason considered this, then chugged the last half of his beer. “Twenty-five is a lot of Americans.”
“It’s a lot of Americans to waste.”
“I don’t agree it was a waste. Freedom is worth dying for.”
“But Afghanistan isn’t. That’s what I’m trying to get through your thick fuckin’ skull.”
“Lance Corporal Norris, there’s a lady present,” said Jason Falk. “That’s in case you didn’t notice. I told you once to watch your words. I’m Marine air and I don’t back down.”
“Tell your pilots to grow some.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Boots like you,” said Patrick. He drank and stared straight ahead.
“Time to clear out,” said Iris, sliding off the stool.
Patrick turned to where she had been, and the blow landed blind. After that, pure reaction. As Jason chambered another punch Patrick crashed a fist hard into his face, then an even harder elbow. The sound whap-cracked through the music and Jason’s face exploded with blood. Patrick heard Iris scream at him to stop, but he hit Jason twice more on the way down. Then he felt the weight of someone on top of him, went to one knee, and threw the first Marine over his shoulder. Iris pulled him up and Patrick took her arm and guided her to the door, but hustled back and put the half-risen man back down with a short hook to his middle. Outside they ran down Sundowner to Pacific Coast Highway for the truck. The cuffs of Patrick’s too-large pants flopped down past his ankles and almost tripped him. At the truck he opened the doors with the key fob and they clambered up and in. Patrick made the U-turn too fast and the tires chirped and the headlights of a police cruiser parked across the street came on.
“Do not consider trying to outrace that cop,” said Iris.
Patrick checked the rearview and saw he had about a fifty yard head start and that the cruiser was coming fast, lights flashing and the siren loud. He looked at the Galleon and there was no one yet in pursuit. “I’m good. We’re good. We’re okay.”
“Can you pass the test?”
“Pretty sure.”
Patrick pulled into the Harbor House parking lot and the cop car whirled and screamed in behind him. He drove to the rear and parked. In the sideview he saw the cruiser flashing. He waited while the cop ran his plates and he hoped someone back home had paid up the registration in his absence. “Just be nice and be yourself,” said Iris.
“Can’t be both.”
Patrick watched the prowl car door open and a chunky uniform cop climb out. The cop had his hand on the handle of his sidearm in a casual way and in his other hand was a long flashlight. He stopped short of and slightly behind the driver’s window and raised the beam of the flashlight into Patrick’s face. Pat sat up with both hands on the wheel and looked straight ahead. His breathing was normal and his pulse felt right.
“What’s the hurry?” said the cop.
“Just heading home.”
“Ma’am. How are you tonight?”
Patrick saw her squint. “Just fine, Officer. And you?”
“License and registration.” Patrick dug out his wallet and handed over his military ID and driver’s license. Iris had opened the glove box and Patrick leaned across and caught her scent and the curve of her legs illuminated faintly by the compartment light. He rummaged through the bin and found the registration folder. “Step out.”
Patrick opened the door and got out just as another police car pulled into the parking lot, lights flashing but silent. Then another. He looked across the tops of them toward the Galleon but still he saw no people or commotion there. The two new units penned him in. An officer from each car got out and stood between Patrick’s truck and the first cruiser while the lead responder walked back for a warrants check. Patrick looked through the open window at Iris, then leaned against his door and waited.
“Be cool,” said Iris.
“How many cops does it take to arrest a jarhead?”
“I mean it, Patrick.”
“They shouldn’t leave those lights flashing.”
“Did your dad ever tell you bedtime stories?”
“Mom did. Dad read me the Weekly Newsline of the California Avocado Commission.”
The first cop came back and handed Patrick his documents. “Been drinking, Patrick?”
“I had two beers.”
“Smells like more than that.”
“Precisely two, sir.”
“Are you returning or deploying?”
“Just home.”
“I’m going to do a nystagmus test.” The cop pulled a penlight, stepped close to Patrick and played the beam back and forth, eye to eye. “Hmmm. Can you walk a straight line for me?” The cop stepped back ten paces. “Extend your arms and look up. Straight line now, walk directly to me.”
Patrick heard muffled laughter from the other cops, who stood just beyond the lights and flashers of the first car. A group of people watched from the sidewalk. His plan was to focus on the North Star but the marine layer offered him nothing but a pale fuzzy firmament. Marine layer, he thought, that’s funny. He wished he could Marine lay Iris. He stared up into the fog as he walked but sensed he was just a little off course and when he lowered his gaze he saw that he was off almost thirty degrees. He stopped and sighed deeply and heard the truck door slam. Iris advanced through the flashing lights and the headlights with a hand out, proffering what looked like a business card. “Officer, I’m Iris Cash wi
th the Village View newspaper in Fallbrook? Can I talk to you for just about two seconds? Please?” Patrick saw the other officers converging in her direction and he felt his adrenaline spike and he was more than ready to fight again.
He heard the first cop say, “Yes, you may.” The other officers moved closer to Patrick and he watched Iris and the cop talking but could not hear their words. They stood by his car just out of the flood of the headlights. The cop had that feet-spread, arms-across-the chest stance that looked nonnegotiable. Patrick saw the red, white, and blue bands of light flashing across their bodies. He looked toward the Galleon and saw that the door was open now and there were men looking up and down the street. He tried to count how many drinks he’d had and could not. Iris came through the flashing lights, walking fast with her hand out, palm up. Patrick saw the men outside the Galleon looking his way. “Keys,” she said. “Now.”
Patrick held out the truck keys and saluted the officer partially visible in the whirling colored lights.
CHAPTER NINE
Ted quit the grove work at noon and drove to Oceanside. He stepped inside Open Sights gun store and range, saw the glass counters along three of the walls, heard the muffled gunfire. The handguns were arrayed beneath the glass, all pointing in the same direction, like fish in a school. A tall man with a big head and a black suit came in. Ted thought he might have seen him around Fallbrook recently, then decided it was just his guilty conscience. Then he thought, What should I feel guilty about? The Second Amendment protects my right to keep and bear arms.
He looked through the safety window at the range shooters blasting away. There were several men, three women, and two children who, it seemed to Ted, should be in school. He watched them through the imperfectly clear bulletproof glass, their arms extended, all wearing goggles and bulbous headgear, guns jumping in their hands, shiny cases flying. He heard the pop-pop of smaller guns, then the booming thunderbolts of the Magnums. Through all the soundproofing, he thought. What power. With the glass before him it was like watching on a monitor or TV or through the windshield of his taxi, thus hypnotic. He wanted to polish the safety glass so he could see better.
“May I help you?”
“I hope so. I was robbed at gunpoint three days ago. I’m looking for a gun.”
“I’m sorry that happened. I hear stories like that a lot these days. I can help you be better prepared for that kind of situation.”
“I’m Ted.”
“Kerry.”
Kerry was about Ted’s age—assured, muscular, and friendly—and Ted wished he was more like him. Kerry gave him general advice on reliable, effective home-protection handguns and Ted liked the look of the Glocks. Kerry removed one of them, checked the chamber, popped out the magazine, and set the gun on the counter. He told Ted that you could run it over with a truck, dip it in mud, and hold it underwater, and a Glock would still fire every time. He praised the .40 caliber as a versatile round, plenty of stopping power and it would carry fifteen cartridges in the magazine. He handed the gun to Ted. “It’s like having your own fire squad,” Kerry said.
“I sure could have used it a couple days back.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Ted did, feeling his anger and fear again, and his embarrassment at having been lured into the ambush.
“That shouldn’t happen in this country,” said Kerry.
“I’d like it not to happen to me again.”
“We teach weapons self-defense classes, right here.”
“I’ll take the gun.”
“You do know if you decide to purchase, there’s a ten-day wait while the state does a background check on you?”
“Right. So they can make sure I’m not a crazy.”
“We offer a free test-fire if you’re serious about that sidearm. Have you fired a handgun before?”
“No.”
“I think you’ll like it.”
Inside the range Ted watched Kerry fasten the Zombie Steve target to the motorized line and send it twenty feet out. At the bench he watched Kerry ready the autoloader. The headsets were comfortable and made the gunshots around him sound distant, but he could still feel the percussion in his body. Kerry stepped to the shooting stall with the gun, demonstrated the basic two-hand shooter’s stance: feet shoulder-wide, weight slightly forward, right elbow locked, left not, grip firm but not tight. Squeeze, he said, don’t pull. He fired one round. It took Ted a moment to find the hole, which was right through the middle of Zombie Steve’s grimacing face. Ted smiled. Kerry set the gun on the shelf and Ted stepped forward and picked it up.
He listened to Kerry’s instructions and squeezed off a round. He was surprised at the power, and at the immediacy of the recoil. A gun was a decisive thing, he realized—nothing hesitant or reversible about it. It impressed him that it could reload itself so quickly, before the bullet got to the target, it seemed. Actually hitting the target was the hard part. Even at only twenty feet away, when he got the sights lined up, all it took was a split second to be aiming someplace else—the slightest breath or random thought and the gun barrel jumped far off course. So Ted held his breath but Kerry, speaking loudly through the gunfire and protective headgear, told him, “Don’t do that, just squeeze the trigger on the exhale and it’s both eyes open, Ted, don’t close that left eye of yours, you need them both to shoot well.” Nine shots later Ted had hit Zombie Steve’s body four times, and the white paper outside the body twice, and missed the target altogether with the other three. For a split second Zombie Steve became Evelyn Anders’s campaign poster and this led to one of the body shots. Then Zombie Steve became Edgar and Ted hit the target again.
“Not bad for your first time,” said Kerry. “That Model Twenty-two in your hand is lightly used, so you’d save a good chunk of change.”
Ted bought the gun and put the ammunition in his truck. He felt more capable now, and empowered by the idea that in ten days the Glock would be his.
* * *
A few minutes later he was back in Fallbrook, heading up Main toward home. The many poster faces of Evelyn Anders looked down on him with smug condescension. The face of Walt Rood struck him as caring and reasonable. He liked the slogan, “Small Government that Works.”
Ted caught the red light at Alvarado and saw that Vince Ross Village Square on the corner was crowded. People were talking and drinking canned sodas and there was a long table with a red, white, and blue tablecloth set out with what looked like brochures and DVDs. A banner facing the street proclaimed: CARRY FREEDOM! He saw both men and women and there was something unusual about them. It finally dawned on Ted that they were all wearing holsters. No guns, just holsters. Some wore leg holsters like Old West gunmen, others had detective-style shoulder rigs, some had holsters attached to their belts. Ted saw a man wearing shorts with a large holster strapped to his calf. Some even had empty rifle scabbards slung over their shoulders. They moved with an exaggerated ease, pretending too hard that they were not doing anything unusual. Ted wondered if nudists did that. He stared until the light changed, then rounded the corner, U-turned, and parked on Alvarado.
Through the window glass he saw a man, head and shoulders above the crowd, apparently standing on one of the park benches. He wore twin leather six-gun holsters and bandoleers thrown over his shoulders. His arms were spread in oratory. Ted recognized him immediately as Cade Magnus. He hadn’t seen him in ten years and he was heavier, but had the same stocky build and bushy brown hair. He remembered that Cade Magnus had eyes just like Cade’s father—blue and clear. He had talked to them years ago, down at Pride Auto Repair, back when he was interested in the White Crusade. Now here was Cade, back in Fallbrook, a city that had rejoiced when he’d moved away.
Two sheriff’s cars pulled up and parked in the red along Vince Ross Village Square. Ted watched the four deputies get out, recognizing the black man as the one who had pulled him over for the brake light and given him the sobriety test in broad daylight, though his most recent drink had been h
alf a year ago. One of the deputies was older, one was a stocky Latina, and the other a young white man. They strolled casually toward the square. Magnus seemed to stop what he was saying, then smiled and acknowledged them. Many of the bystanders turned as the deputies worked their way into the crowd.
Ted felt his indignation march in, and his vision beginning to constrict, and his heart rate climb. He trained his gun-barrel vision on the deputy who had written him the fix-it ticket—the black one, hiding behind the sunglasses. Anger overtook indignation. Ted felt that he had to do something. Should he go tell the deputies that this was a peaceful demonstration? Should he ask them why it takes four of them to raid Village Square when not one showed up when he was robbed at gunpoint two days ago? Should he tell Magnus he respected his right to stand up to the government and exercise his constitutional rights?
Ted got out of his truck and locked up and headed up the sidewalk toward the square. As he walked past, Cade glanced at him, as did two of the deputies and some of the crowd. Their eyes were hard on him and with every step Ted felt less protected—no layer of glass to shield him—and his anger and indignation fled. In their place he felt a constricting panic, almost like being lost. He thought of the box of .40 caliber shells in his truck. Was that a crime? Without breaking stride he passed the square, turned the corner, and kept going. When he felt safely past it all, he turned for a look behind him and saw a tall man in a black suit standing on the sidewalk, looking into the front window of the candy shop. From this distance, he looked like the man from Open Sights just an hour ago. Impossible, thought Ted.
His heart was racing by the time he got to Gulliver’s Travels on Main. Mary Gulliver had no customers and she stood and smiled at Ted when he came through the door. Behind her was a wall of travel posters for exotic destinations. She specialized in cruises. To Ted, Mary was a beautiful woman, full-bodied, fragrant, always groomed to perfection. He had seen her around town for years but had talked to her for the first time only two weeks ago.
“Hello, Ted.”
“Hi, Mary. Busy? I just came to … say hello.”
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