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“Much better.”
“About twenty-five pounds?” Canidy said.
“Yeah.”
“That’d be the ‘sticks.’ I have only one free hand. I’ll carry them while you get the cans.”
Fulmar raised an eyebrow.
“Gee, thanks, pal.”
In the suite, Canidy put the large parcel on the coffee table in the sitting room. Fulmar entered a moment later, somewhat struggling with the weight of the two metal cans of .30-06 caliber ammunition, one awkwardly cradled under each arm.
He pushed the door closed with his right heel, then put the cans on the floor with a solid thump, thump. He tore off the brown paper wrapping.
“I’m going to hit the head,” Canidy said and started in that direction.
The ammo boxes, dark green with a stencil of yellow lettering on the side indicating the contents, each had a metal handle that folded flat against the lid. Fulmar pulled up a handle as he worked the lid latch.
“It would have been far easier to carry these using the handles.”
Canidy chuckled.
“Yeah, and far easier for anyone to have recognized them as ammo cans,” he answered from the bathroom, then swung the door shut.
When he came back into the room a few minutes later, Fulmar had the brown paper off of the sturdy cardboard containers holding the Johnny guns and was opening the lid to the one on top.
He looked inside and said, “Oh, shit. Original packing.”
Canidy pulled back the lid to get a better look.
“Oh, shit, indeed. I hate Cosmoline.”
The rust preventative that coated the entire gun—metal and wood—was a petroleum jelly much like Vase-line—but stiffer and stinkier and harder than hell to remove completely. It had a nasty tendency, particularly in hot weather, to ooze out of every pore of the weapon, notably from the stock, and onto the shooter’s face, which was the last place anyone wanted greasy oil when they were hot and sweaty.
“How’re we going to get it off?”
“How else? Same as usual. Make a mess. And hope we get most of it off….”
Some forty minutes later, the floor was a pile of petroleum-fouled hotel towels. But the Johnny guns practically gleamed.
“I knew it!” Fulmar said disgustedly, holding out his hands.
“What?”
“Look at me. There’s fucking Cosmoline all over me. And I need to take a quick shower before I see Ingrid.”
Canidy began laughing.
“A shower? Good luck. You’re going to bead water better than a goose’s ass!”
Fulmar made a face.
“I’m sorry,” Canidy said, not at all convincingly and visibly trying to suppress more laughter. “Really. Look, maybe I’d better go for you. I’d probably have a better chance of bagging her, anyway.”
“I’ll go like this before I let that happen.”
Canidy, smiling and shaking his head, got up and went to the door.
