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Now how did he know that? I poked his sore side again with my shoe and he winced.
“You kicked me in my balls, man!”
“You’re lucky I didn’t just shoot your ass.”
“Next time, homes. Next time. I won’t hesitate.”
Now I was running cold, just like training had taught me. I kept him in the gun sight. “There’s not going to be a next time you like, homes. You people aren’t going to be the only ones watching. I’m going to be watching. You won’t know when or where. I’m going to be watching this street, and if I have to blow away some felons, nobody’s going to bother me about it.”
“If you have the valor to pull the trigger.”
“You don’t want to find out. Better for everybody that we just drop it.”
“They won’t drop it, chingaso. They never do.”
“If they don’t, Estás chingado, hombre.” You’re fucked, man.
My legs were going stiff, but I went on with it. “Now, you be a good messenger boy and get the hell out of here.” He raised himself with difficulty and fell back into the driver’s seat. I said, “If I see your hand come out of that window, I’ll kill you. If the truck turns around and comes at me, same deal. Drive away. Don’t come back.”
He looked at me with sad eyes.
“My wallet…”
“Adios, asshole. I might need to know your name so I make sure it gets on the street that you talk to cops.”
He thought about it. He thought about it again. Then he sighed, closed the door, and started the truck. It drove slowly down to the corner and turned north.
I picked up the TEK 9. He also left his matches. The matchbook was yellow and said Jesus Is Lord Pawn Shop, with an address on Bell Road. I put them in my pocket and slowly walked home, my butt and lower back aching, my nerves drained. When I crossed Third, I could make out a pair of taillights several blocks past the traffic circle at Encanto Boulevard, moving slowly away.
Inside the house I sank gingerly into one of the leather chairs in the darkened living room, sweat against my chest, and my hands shaking so badly I had to put them under my arms. Nausea flooded my middle. I looked at the bookshelves in an urgent attempt to hold onto something steady: the shelves with grandfather’s books and mine, lifetimes of reading and reflection. It was a few minutes before I could will my legs into the bedroom, where I stowed the TEK 9, replaced the Python on the nightstand, and got into my sweatpants for bed. I missed sleeping in the nude. I missed a lot of things about my old life. I sure as hell didn’t know the person who had just done that take-down on the street. Was I willing to shoot the banger? Yes, I was.
An hour later I was still lying flat on my back staring up at the ceiling. Robin’s door opened quietly and I watched her pad across the landing that separated the two bedrooms. She wore boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Her nipples were obvious even in the semi-darkness. I let her climb into the bed and lie down next to me, resting her head on my shoulder. Neither of us said a word. She put her hand on my bare chest and I fought any feeling. I did not know myself or what I was capable of. It was nearly three a.m. in Washington. I turned away from her and this time I was the one crying while she held me close, her front to my back. I tried very much not to notice the contour of her body against mine, head-to-toe, or to remember how it felt that night on the landing when we were both naked holding onto each other, or how it had felt the other time, when she first came into our lives. My wedding band weighed on my left hand, the room grew cooler and after a long time it dissolved into sleep.
10
The man who stood before me at the Jesus Is Lord Pawn Shop was a middle-aged Anglo with short, gray hair and skin the color and texture of a scrubbed potato. The Arizona sun will do that. His face was unremarkable except for the fact that he lacked one eye. He didn’t wear a patch, frosted glasses, or any kind of prosthetic. Instead, his eyelid hung half-open like a stuck garage door, inviting you to stare into the cavity beyond. His good eye was yellow. He was at least a hundred pounds overweight, which was accented by the tight T-shirt encasing his folds of flab. The front of the shirt proclaimed in yellow capital letters, PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER. The butt of a revolver stuck out of his shoulder holster.
“Colt Python?” I asked.
“One of my faves, bro.”
One can always find common ground.
He stood behind a display counter that ran what looked like a third the length of a football field. It contained every firearm goodie I could think of and quite a few I had never even seen. The old days of a reliable few brands and types of revolvers and some nine-millimeters were long gone. The pistols under the glass were varied and bad-ass looking, plenty of semi-automatics, and a couple that looked like pistol-sized shotguns.
Behind him was a wall of shotguns and assault rifles, as well as another low counter stocked with ammunition. When Barack Obama was elected president, there was such a run on Phoenix gun shops that even the cops had a hard time finding ammo. They obviously didn’t look here. Around me was the equivalent of a big-box gun store, with tables and shelves full of holsters, magazines, Speedloaders, scopes—every accessory a shooter could want. Combat knives were abundant in another display case. Overhead signs marked each merchandise area. It was the largest gun store I had ever seen, exuding the vibe of a porn shop crossed with a hardware store.
The sound system was playing tunes from the seventies. “Brandy” was on at that moment, and I cursed to myself—now I’d have it in my head for a week or more.
The spaces on the wall that didn’t contain firearms held a large American flag hung horizontally and a six-foot-long stained wood plaque reciting the Second Amendment. Bumper stickers also abounded: Illegal aliens SUCK, Stop the Invasion, Every Juan Please Go Home, and Illegal Alien Hunting Permit among them.
“I see you have good taste, too.” He eyed the Python on my hip. “May I?”
Never give up your gun, Peralta taught. The night before I had almost carelessly lost it. Now I unholstered it, opened the cylinder, and dropped the shells into my palm. Then I handed it across the counter to him.
He snapped the cylinder back in, pointed it at me. “Bang!” He laughed with a strangely high-pitched voice, like a boy soprano, and his belly tectonically undulated the folds of his T-shirt. His bad eyelid fluttered then froze again grotesquely in place.
“You’re not the jumpy kind, huh?”
