The older man fished a fresh toothpick from his shirt pocket and wedged it in his mouth. “Good boy.” He looked at Raymond. “Now let’s do some business.”
Raymond followed him to the rear of the store, where they stepped through a door, through a room stacked with boxes, and then through another door.
Raymond’s jaw dropped. Then he closed his mouth and let out a low whistle. “My God…”
The clerk chuckled.
Raymond squinted as he moved deeper into the room. “Jesus…is that a…a bazooka?”
The man clapped a hand on his shoulder. “That, son, is a shoulder-mounted AT-7 antitank weapon.”
“I’ll take it.”
Some of the gun seller’s good humor evaporated. “Ain’t for sale. I may skirt the law a lot of ways, but selling heavy artillery’s a good way to wind up in the slam for a long stretch of years. Besides, you could be with Al Qaeda or some other batch of assholes. Nah, that sucker’s just for show. But looky here, I got some good stuff…”
Thirty minutes later Raymond Slater exited GUN CITY USA thousands of dollars poorer and in possession of the first firearms he’d ever owned, a Glock 9mm and a Mossberg pump-action shotgun. He’d also purchased several boxes of ammunition for both weapons. After stowing his booty in the trunk of the Lexus, he sat behind the wheel of the car for several minutes as he considered what to do next.
He was exhausted. It was possible he wasn’t thinking straight. The night before he’d watched his mistress decapitate his wife while his dick was still inside her. It was the sort of thing that would unhinge any man. By all rights, he should be a gibbering, useless mess, but here he was, a man on a mission. A man with murder on his mind.
So now he asked himself: Can I really do this?
But he’d been around the block with that one countless times and knew the answer.
I have to.
I have no choice.
If not me, then who?
Never in his life had Raymond Slater felt so alone. It wasn’t fair. This burden was more than any one human being should have to shoulder.
And yet…
I have no choice.
“Fuck!” He pounded the steering wheel with his fist several times, each blow punctuated with another curse: “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Then his fist missed the wheel and glanced off the horn pad, producing a single loud squawk. He winced and looked at the storefront. The big man-the older one-was behind the register again. At the sound of the horn he turned away from another customer and stared straight at Raymond. Raymond’s heart skipped a beat. If the man had any doubts about the wisdom of doing business with him, those doubts had likely edged closer to certainty. Raymond didn’t think the man would call the cops. That would mean at least as much trouble for him as it would for Raymond. Still, putting some distance between himself and the man’s suspicious eyes was probably a supremely excellent idea.
He started the Lexus and reached for the gearshift.
A knock at the driver’s-side window startled him.
Raymond let out a little squeak and reached for his chest. “Jesus!”
His heart slamming, he turned and saw Cindy Wells staring down at him through the closed window. She smiled and waved. The smile looked grotesque beneath her bandaged nose. Dark sunglasses obscured her eyes. The shades hid a dark shiner inflicted by the thing pretending to be a teenage girl named Myra Lewis. The thought sent a chill through Raymond. He believed in coincidence, but he did not believe in capital-C Coincidence. This was just too much. The idea that Cindy was now allied with Lamia struck him with sudden force and unassailable certainty. Rockville High’s expelled golden girl wouldn’t just happen to be outside a gun shop at the exact moment he was leaving the place.
She was following him.
Keeping tabs on him.
Raymond’s throat tightened. For a few tense moments, he saw all his grand plans going down in flames. He desperately wanted to bolt. His hand hovered near the gearshift as he debated a quick, rubber-burning departure.
Cindy was still smiling, but the expression was beginning to falter at the edges. She made a rolling motion with her hand and said something that was unintelligible through the window.
A thought struck him. His hand came away from the gearshift. He was suddenly sure he should talk with her, if only long enough to allay any suspicions he might be planning something that could piss off Lamia. He pressed a button and the window lowered a few inches.
Cindy’s smile brightened again. “Hello, Mr. Slater.”
Raymond cleared his throat. “Hello, Cindy. What-” He stopped, realizing he’d been about to ask why she wasn’t in school. Stupid. He knew the answer to that. Instead, he settled for the next obvious question. “What are you doing here?”
Still smiling, she said, “Following you.”
Raymond gulped. His gaze flicked to the gearshift. “I, uh…”
Cindy’s expression turned solemn. “Don’t.” A note of pleading entered her voice. “Listen to me, okay? I need to talk to you about Myra Lewis. I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but I think she’s planning to hurt a lot of people. We need to do something to stop her.”
For a moment, Raymond felt something that might have been hope. More than anything, he didn’t want to do this alone. He touched the button again and the window lowered another few inches. He leaned toward Cindy and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I have a plan. It’s not much, but it’s better than-”
He let out a startled shriek as Cindy stuck her head through the newly widened opening and wriggled in to her waist. Her right hand went for the key ring dangling from the ignition, but he batted it away. She laughed and reached for the keys again. Raymond knew he had to do something drastic or risk losing his chance at salvation. He backhanded her with a tight, hard blow, knocking the sunglasses off her face. Cindy howled in agony and started screaming about her nose. Raymond unclipped his seat belt, twisted in his seat, and braced his palms against the top of her head. The fleeting thought that her soft, conditioned hair felt nice against his fingers whistled through his mind like a bottle rocket; then he gave her a mighty shove and she fell back through the opening. She staggered backward, wobbling on high heels for a moment, then fell hard on her ass. He saw that she was dressed in a tiny halter and a tight black miniskirt. They made her look like a cheap hooker. Nothing at all like the effervescent, brainy head cheerleader he’d known for four years. Seeing her lying there on parched asphalt with her long, shapely legs splayed open triggered a spark of crazy lust.
He gave his head a hard shake and put the Lexus in gear.
Cindy began the laborious process of getting to her feet.
Slater backed up the Lexus and executed a quick three-point turn. Then he stomped the gas pedal down and the car shot to the edge of the parking lot.
He hit the brakes and let out a scream of frustration. An 18-wheeler was blocking his way, slowing down as it neared the intersection. Raymond glanced at the rearview mirror. Cindy still wasn’t upright. The older gun-shop clerk was at her side, offering his assistance. A knife appeared in her hand. The blade flashed in the morning sunlight before she stuck it in the man’s throat. Raymond whimpered and whipped his head back toward the street. The 18-wheeler was rolling slowly through the three-way stop. He heaved a sigh of relief and let his foot off the brake, allowing the Lexus to roll closer to the edge of the street.
Then Cindy was there again, screaming and launching herself through the halfway-open driver side window. Raymond might have cursed his stupid failure to close the window had he been capable of coherent thought in that moment. Instead he matched Cindy’s scream with an impressive one of his own as he dodged the bloody blade in her hand. Then he looked in front of him and saw that the street was clear again. He hit the gas and the Lexus surged into the street, straight toward the brick wall of a building on the opposite side. He spun the wheel hard to the left and the car swerved back to the street.