C
HAPTER
6
Ten minutes later, he arrived at Lincoln Firearms and walked in the door. The bell over the door jingled as he did. As expected, there were racks of guns, knives and bows. In one section stood two mannequins outfitted in fluorescent orange hunting gear. They were set up in front of a pitched tent. Sleeping bags and a mock campfire on green outdoor carpet completed the scene.
It was rumored that Lincoln Firearms stocked more than just your garden-variety rifles, shotguns and pistols. When Matt was thirteen, he heard his father and one of his golfing buddies, Robert Brennan, discussing the store. Robert was also an avid hunter and had told Matt’s dad that Harry, the owner, had a small arsenal hidden away. If you were willing to pay the right price, he could hook you up with automatic weapons or even explosives. Matt hoped the rumor was true, for he would need special weaponry to suit his purposes.
The counter was a clear glass case with some of the largest knives Matt had ever seen.
You could gut Moby-Dick with one of those
.
There was a bell on the counter. Matt rang it.
A man stepped out from a doorway behind the counter and asked in a hard voice, “What can I do ya for?” Head-on, he reminded Matt of a bulldog: he was short and squat, with heavy jowls and a thick jaw.
The clerk stepped up to the glass counter and leaned on it, his knuckles pressed on the top of the case. His flannel shirt rode up and Matt saw a faded Marine Corps tattoo on his forearm.
Matt scanned the case and pointed to a knife with a polished walnut handle and a shiny blade that looked sharp enough to split a piece of paper in half. “One of those, for starters.”
The clerk unlocked the case and took out the knife. He set in on the counter.
Matt picked up the knife and held it at eye level, tilting the blade back and forth slowly. When the moment of truth came, could he really stick this lethal object into a beating heart, or cut a throat, spilling his enemy’s blood? As he tilted the blade again, he caught a glimpse of his eyes in the polished surface. He stared at it for a long second, his gaze flat. Would this tear through one of Their hides?
“You all right there, Chief?” the clerk asked.
“Just thinking,” Matt said. “I’ll take this.”
“Let me get the sheath for you.” He bent down to retrieve it.
Matt pretended to be admiring the rest of the knives in the case and leaned as close to the clerk as he could without it seeming like he wanted a kiss from the guy.
He inhaled and smelled Dial soap mixed with cheap cologne, maybe English Leather or Brut. There was no sulfur smell; a good sign.
Looking around, Matt saw the store was empty.
Perfect time to ask about doing a little extra business
, he thought.
“I might be looking for something a little heavier. Some automatics, maybe some explosives.”
The clerk eyed him with suspicion. If the guy
were
a bulldog, he might have bitten Matt. “Buddy, just who the hell are you anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what kind of question is that? Do I look like I deal arms to third world countries? Do you see any heavy armaments on the walls here?” He waved his arms around, indicating the store.
“I don’t know—do you? Deal heavy arms?” Matt retorted.
“Just what does someone like you want with automatics and explosives?” The clerk stepped forward so his belly rested on the glass case. “Come here.”
Matt stood still.
“Will ya come here? I don’t bite.”
Matt stepped closer to the counter, his right hand curled into a fist, ready to pop the guy.
To his surprise, the clerk grabbed him by the front of his shirt and jerked him forward until they were nose to nose. Matt raised his hand to punch him. The guy whipped out a revolver from behind his back and jabbed it into Matt’s belly. The cold steel dug into him hard, seeming to press against his backbone.
“Let’s see about you,” the clerk said.
Panic struck Matt, and his mouth felt as if it were full of paste. His bladder felt like an overinflated water balloon. Two ways to lose your dignity in one day: get gut shot and piss all over the floor in the process. At least it would make for a gripping obituary.
The clerk sniffed, his eyes narrowed, and his hold on Matt’s shirt tightened. He looked into Matt’s eyes.
“Hmmm,” the clerk said. He released his hold and Matt breathed a sigh of relief. The clerk tucked the revolver away and into his belt as casually as a man tucking in his shirt. Matt backed away from the counter.
“Are you sure you’re not a cop?”
“I left my badge at home,” Matt said sarcastically.
“Then why in blue blazes did you ask me about heavy weapons? Rafferty send you in?”
“Hell no,” Matt said. “I’m doing some hunting.”
Now the clerk leaned on the rear counter, below the racks of rifles on the wall. “Hunting what?”
“Some things here in town.”
He rubbed his chin, then stared at Matt for a good minute. “Come around here.”
“You’re not going to pull another Jesse James on me, are you?”
“Just come on.” The clerk ran a hand through his spiky flattop and disappeared through the door behind the counter.
Matt followed him into a small room that held a kitchen table, chairs and a portable television. There was also another door, this one padlocked. There was also a mini fridge; the clerk hunkered down (Matt heard his knees groan like a sinking ship) and took out a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
He held up the beer. “You care for one?”
“You always invite someone in for beer after you nearly scare them to death?”
“Shit, I’m sorry about that. That’s why I brought you back here, to explain.”
Matt took the beer from the clerk. Little beads of moisture dotted the side of the can. It seemed surreal to be standing here with a beer in his hand right after almost getting killed by a nutty gun store clerk, but nothing had ever been normal in Lincoln.
The clerk stood up, wiped his hand on his jeans, then offered it to Matt. “Harry Pierce.”
Matt introduced himself and shook Harry Pierce’s hand. The man’s grip felt like he could squeeze iron and make it bend with no problem. It was deceiving, because Harry looked like a mound of flab.
“I had to check you out. You come in here and ask for heavy weapons, I get nervous. There are some strange folks in this town, folks I wouldn’t sell anything larger than a peashooter to. Got me?”
“I think so.” Matt took a swig off the beer and Harry did the same, and it finally occurred to Matt that he was drinking a beer at eleven o’clock in the morning. Probably too early, but it tasted good—and after the scare he just had, it calmed his frayed nerves.
“Did you say you’re from around here?”
“Born in Lincoln and lived here until I was eighteen,” Matt replied. “Then I headed out west.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“It’s a long story.”
Harry turned one of the chairs around backward and sat in it, his elbows resting on the back of the chair. “You ever notice anything strange about this town?”
There was no point in beating around the bush, because it was obvious to Matt they both knew about the town’s secrets and just how dangerous it was here for anyone who was an outsider. “You mean the creatures, the monsters, whatever it is you want to call them? Yeah, I’d guess I’d call that strange,” Matt said.
“So you know about Them.”
“More than I would like.”
“And you know why I was sniffing, checking.”
“Checking for the scent.”
Harry slurped his beer. “Yeah. If you were one of Them I would have had to done some shootin’.”
Matt didn’t doubt that.
“That’s my reason for needing the guns,” he said aloud, and took a sip of beer. “And I want to make sure that what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
“What exactly happened to you?” Harry said.
“It’s a long story.”
“My wife whips up a mean pot roast. Why don’t you stop by for dinner sometime. Of course I’ll need to clear it with her. May take some convincing.”
“We can compare notes. Would you mind if I brought a guest?” Matt asked.
“Is he okay? You know.”
“Yes,
she
is. She knows about them too, but I don’t think she’s convinced herself yet.”
“Now about those weapons. Let’s see what we can do. Follow me.”
Harry got up, took another sip of beer and walked over to the door with the padlock on it. He fished a key out of his pocket and undid the lock, then opened the door and flicked a switch on the wall.
“C’mon!”
A stack of mannequins stood in the corner, one of them naked save for a camouflage baseball cap. A large box marked
COLUMBIA SPORTSWEAR
sat against the wall, the sleeve of a blue winter jacket poking out of the box. Across the room, a red-and-yellow banner with the Marine Corps anchor, eagle and globe hung on the wall.
“Over here.”
Matt followed Harry across the room, where a row of shiny black gun safes lined the wall beneath the banner. Harry turned the combination on one of them, then pulled it open, revealing half a dozen M-16 rifles standing on end. They had cylindrical grenade launchers mounted under the barrels.
“Pretty impressive, huh?”
“Where in the hell do you get this stuff?”
“Friends in low places,” Harry said, and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “That’s all you need to know.”
“I won’t ask.”
“Good. Now let’s get you set up with some weaponry. It’ll be better if you buy from my private stash here. That way you don’t have to fuck around with pistol permits and waiting periods. And the serial numbers have been filed off of these babies. Difficult to trace.”
After browsing the rest of the safes, Matt selected a Browning M951R handgun, capable of firing in auto or semi automatic modes, and a pistol-grip Mossberg twelve-gauge for some extra punch. These would be good for a start.
“Rafferty know about this place?”
“I think so. He’s just too busy going around busting people’s ribs and throwing them in his jail to care. I paid his predecessor a pretty nice sum—bought him a summer home, in fact—to keep quiet about this place. Although I got an extra-special present for Rafferty and his boys if they ever come for me.”
Matt wondered about Harry’s clientele—how much white powder they sold, how many of their enemies were now encased in concrete.
As if reading his mind, Harry said, “Case you’re wondering, I sell to guys who target shoot, maybe want to go off to a mountain cabin and drink Budweiser and blast targets with a little bit more than your garden variety thirty ought six. No drug dealers, any of that shit.”
Matt didn’t know if he entirely believed that statement. “No other reason you got this stash?”
Harry gave a laugh, his belly jiggling. “You see where I live, don’t you?”
Good point. If you were foolish or crazy enough to stay in Lincoln, then having some firepower at your disposal wasn’t a bad idea.
After paying for his weapons, Matt shook hands with Harry and left.
Vomit stood between Jill and punching out at three o’clock.
At two-thirty, Dorothy Gaines approached her, smiling a thin-lipped smile, announcing that the Lopez boy had thrown up all over himself and Jill was to clean it up.
Jill accepted the assignment with feigned enthusiasm, not wanting her supervisor to get the satisfaction of humiliating her. She tended to the boy with patience, asking him what his favorite sports teams and television shows were, trying to keep his wounded dignity in tact. The boy’s mother had gone outside for a cigarette—the poor kid had been in the emergency room all day waiting for a bed.
At eleven, the last thing most boys wanted was for a strange woman to see them in their jockey shorts. Jill felt for the kid, and felt even sorrier for him when he apologized for making such a mess. She assured him it was no big deal, ruffled his hair and was on her way.
After gathering her purse from her locker and punching out, she left the main hospital building and stepped into the sunshine. It was the middle of August and summer was baring its teeth, the sun blinding her for a moment until she could dig out a pair of sunglasses from her purse and get them on her face. The air felt thick and sticky; it was ninety-five, easy.
She entered the parking garage, her footsteps clacking on the pavement and echoing through the cavernous structure. It always amazed her how silent these ramps were, and she found it a little unsettling. She hurriedly took the stairway to the second level and found her Toyota.
After paying the attendant in the booth, she turned right onto Elmwood Avenue and headed toward home. The encounter with Dorothy Gaines had gotten her pipes warm, but she had kept from overheating. No reason to give Gaines justification for writing her up.