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I finished my sandwich and grabbed my messenger bag. “I’m heading out for the day. I need to go home and get my Smith & Wesson. Let me know if there’s any news, horrible or otherwise.”
I drove down the alley and waited at the corner of Hamilton to let the Rangemen catch up to me. I couldn’t shake the image of Vinnie hanging from a meat hook. It was ugly awful. If Tank was willing to take the time to teach me how to use my weapon, I was going to pay attention. And I was not going to lose my escort. Ranger was working to find the kidnappers and we were inching our way closer to that goal. I had to do my part to stay safe.
Benji was sitting on the floor in front of my door when I got to my apartment. He got to his feet and gave me a bag.
“This is for you and Lula and Connie,” he said. “Housewarming gift for the bus. I haven’t seen it yet, but Beedle told me about it. He said it’s being guarded by guys dressed in black, so I thought I’d give this to you here.”
“They’re friends of mine,” I said. “You can visit anytime you want.”
I let us into my apartment and opened the bag. It contained a stack of superhero comics and the Thor action figure Lula wanted.
“This is great,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I decided not to go to Hawaii,” he said. “I have a bunch of friends here, and I like selling comics and stuff. Anyway, as soon as I got the money, I used it to buy the comic store and I couldn’t get my money back. I renamed the store and I’m having a grand opening on Saturday, if you guys want to come.”
“What’s the new name?”
“Benji Land.”
“That’s perfect!”
Benji left, and I took my S&W out of my brown bear cookie jar and put it in my messenger bag. I read a couple comics, brushed my teeth, retied my ponytail, and drove to Rangeman.
Ranger’s gun range is in the basement, next to the garage. I met Tank in the first-floor lobby, and he walked me down the back stairs to the soundproof room. We sat at a table, and I took my two guns out of my bag.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Tank said. “Name the parts of the gun.”
Turned out that I didn’t know many parts. I was pretty much lost aftertriggerandbarrel.
“We only have an hour so we’re going to concentrate on the Glock 42,” Tank said. “It seems like that’s the one you use because that’s the one that’s loaded.”
“Ranger gave it to me that way,” I said.
“How many magazines do you have for it?”
“This one.”
“No extra ammo?”
“No.”
“Any ammo for your S&W?” he asked.
“No.”
“Oh boy.”
“I’m not really a gun person,” I said.
“You will be after today,” Tank said. “Both these guns are thirty-eight caliber. The S&W is a revolver, and the Glock is a semiautomatic. Ranger gave you the Glock 42 because of the size and the recoil. Even though it has the least possible recoil you still managed to knock yourself out.”
“There were circumstances,” I said. “We were scuffling on the ground, and I didn’t knock myself out. I was momentarily stunned.”
“That’s encouraging. The Glock 42 is equipped with the ‘safe action’ system. It’s a fully automatic safety system consisting of trigger, firing pin, and drop safeties, which sequentially disengage when the trigger is pulled and automatically reengage when the trigger is released. It gives you six rounds in a flush-fit magazine.”
“I don’t know what any of that means.”
“Okay,” Tank said. “Moving on. Release the magazine and reload.”
