"I'll keep you in mind for the part," Laura said, "but what I'd really like to see is Clint play it in drag."
"Hey, you've still got a sense of humor, Shane."
"Did you think I wouldn't?"
Thelma frowned. "I didn't know what to think when I saw you blasting away, looking mean as a snake with fang decay."
"Self-defense," Laura said. "Every good girl should learn some."
"You were plinking away like a pro." Thelma noted the glitter of brass shell casings in the grass. "How often do you do this?"
"Three times a week, a couple of hours each time."
Chris returned with the target. "Hi, Aunt Thelma. Mom, you got four deaders out of six that time, one good wound, and a miss."
"Deaders?" Thelma said.
"Still pulling to-the left, do you think?" Laura asked the boy.
He showed her the target. "Not so much as last time."
Thelma said, "Hey, Christopher Robin, is that all I get — just a lousy 'Hi, Aunt Thelma'?"
Chris put the target with the pile of others that he had taken down before it, went to Thelma, and gave her a big hug and a kiss. Noticing that she was no longer done up in punk style, he said, "Gee, what happened to you, Aunt Thelma? You look normal."
"I look normal? What is that — a compliment or an insult? Just you remember, kid, even if your old Aunt Thelma looks normal, she is no such a thing. She is a comic genius, a dazzling wit, a legend in her own scrapbook. Anyway, I decided punk was passe."
They enlisted Thelma to help them collect empty shell casings.
"Mom's a terrific shot," Chris said proudly.
"She better be terrific with all this practice. There's enough brass here to make balls for an entire army of Amazon warriors."
To his mother, Chris said, "What's that mean?"
"Ask me again in ten years," Laura said.
When they went into the house, Laura locked the kitchen door. Two deadbolts. She closed the Levelor blinds over the windows so no one could see them.
Thelma watched these rituals with interest but said nothing.
Chris put Raiders of the Lost Ark on the VCR in the family room and settled in front of the television with a bag of cheese popcorn and a Coke. In the adjacent kitchen Laura and Thelma sat at the table and drank coffee while Laura disassembled and cleaned the.38 Chief's Special.
The kitchen was big but cozy with lots of dark oak, used brick on two walls, a copper range hood, copper pots hung on hooks, and a dark blue, ceramic-tile floor. It was the kind of kitchen in which TV sitcom families worked out their nonsensical crises and attained transcendental enlightenment (with heart) in thirty minutes each week, minus commercials. Even to Laura it seemed like an odd place to be cleaning a weapon designed primarily to kill other human beings.
"Are you really afraid?" Thelma asked.
"Bet on it."
"But Danny was killed because you were unlucky enough to wander into the middle of a drug deal of some kind. Those people are long gone, right?"
"Maybe not."
"Well, if they were afraid that you might be able to identify them, they'd have come to get you long before this."
"I'm taking no chances."
"You got to ease up, kid. You can't live the rest of your life expecting someone to jump at you from the bushes. All right, you can keep a gun around the house. That's probably wise. But aren't you ever going to go out into the world again? You can't tote a gun with you everywhere you go."
"Yes, I can. I've got a permit."
"A permit to carry that cannon?"
"I take it in my purse wherever we go."
"Jesus, how'd you get a permit to carry?"
"My husband was killed under strange circumstances by persons unknown. Those killers tried to shoot my son and me — and they are still at large. On top of all that, I'm a rich and relatively famous woman. It'd be a little odd if I couldn't get a permit to carry."
Thelma was silent for a minute, sipping her coffee, watching Laura clean the revolver. Finally she said, "This is kind of spooky, Shane, seeing you so serious about this, so tense. I mean, it's seven months since… Danny died. But you're as skittish as if someone had shot at you yesterday. You can't maintain this level of tension or readiness or whatever you want to call it. That way lies madness. Paranoia. You've got to face the fact that you can't really be on guard the rest of your life, every minute."
"I can, though, if I have to."
"Oh, yeah? What about right now? Your gun's disassembled. What if some barbarian thug with tattoos on his tongue started kicking down the kitchen door?"
The kitchen chairs were on rubber casters, so when Laura suddenly shoved away from the table, she rolled swiftly to the counter beside the refrigerator. She pulled open a drawer and brought out another.38 Chiefs Special. Thelma said, "What — am I sitting in the middle of an arsenal?" Laura put the second revolver back in the drawer. "Come on. I'll give you a tour."
Thelma followed her to the pantry. Hung on the back of the pantry door was an Uzi semiautomatic carbine.
"That's a machine gun. Is it legal to have one?"
"With federal approval, you can buy them at gunshops, though you can only get a semiautomatic; it's illegal to have them modified for full automatic fire."
Thelma studied her, then sighed. "Has this one been modified?"
"Yes. It's fully automatic. But I bought it that way from an illegal dealer, not a gunshop."
"This is too spooky, Shane. Really."
She led Thelma into the dining room and showed her the revolver that was clipped to the bottom of the sideboard. In the living room a fourth revolver was clipped under an end table next to one of the sofas. A second modified Uzi was hung on the back of the foyer door at the front of the house. Revolvers were also hidden in the desk drawer in the den, in her office upstairs, in the master bathroom, and in the nightstand in her bedroom. Finally, she kept a third Uzi in the master bedroom.
Staring at the Uzi that Laura pulled from under the bed, Thelma said, "Spookier and spookier. If I didn't know you better, Shane, I'd think you'd gone mad, a raving paranoid gun nut. But knowing you, if you're really this scared, you've got to have some reason. But what about Chris around all these guns?"
"He knows not to touch them, and I know he can be trusted. Most Swiss families have members in the militia — nearly every male citizen there is prepared to defend his country, did you know that? — with guns in almost every house, but they have the lowest rate of accidental shootings in the world. Because guns are a way of life. Children are taught to respect them from an early age. Chris'll be okay."
As Laura put the Uzi under the bed again, Thelma said, "How on earth do you find an illegal gun dealer?"
"I'm rich, remember?"
"And money can buy anything? Okay, maybe that's true. But, come on, how does a gal like you find an arms dealer? They don't advertise on Laundromat bulletin boards, I presume."
"I've researched the backgrounds to several complicated novels, Thelma. I've learned how to find anyone or anything I need."
Thelma was silent as they returned to the kitchen. From the family room came the heroic music that accompanied Indiana Jones on all of his exploits. While Laura sat at the table and continued cleaning the revolver, Thelma poured fresh coffee for both of them.
"Straight talk now, kiddo. If there's really some threat out there that justifies all this armament, then it's bigger than you can handle yourself. Why not bodyguards?"
"I don't trust anyone. Anyone but you and Chris, that is. And Danny's father, except he's in Florida."