At first he did some volunteer work in a shelter, then he parlayed that into another job. Two nights each week he volunteered at a local suicide prevention hot line, working the ten p.m. to two a.m. shift, which was by far the most interesting. He spent more than the occasional midnight speaking softly to students threatened by various degrees of stress, curiously energized by the connection with anonymous but troubled individuals. It was, he thought, as good a way as any of keeping his skills as an analyst sharp. When he hung up the phone line, having persuaded some child not to be rash, but to come into the university health clinic and seek help, he thought, in a small way, that he was doing penance for his lack of attention twenty years earlier, when Claire Tyson had come to his own office in the clinic he hated so much, with complaints that he’d failed to listen to and in a danger he’d failed to see.
Frederick Lazarus was someone different. Ricky constructed this character with a coldheartedness that surprised himself.
Frederick Lazarus was a member of a health club, where he pounded out solitary miles on a treadmill, followed by attacking the free weights, gaining fitness and strength daily, the onetime lean, but essentially soft body of the New York analyst re-forming. His waistline shrank. His shoulders broadened. He worked out alone and in silence, save for an occasional grunt and the pounding of his feet against the mechanized tread. He took to combing his sandy hair back from his forehead, slicked aggressively. He started a beard. He took an icy pleasure in the exertion that he delivered to himself especially when he realized that he was no longer breathing hard as he accelerated his pace. The health club offered a self-defense class, mostly for women, but he rearranged his schedule slightly to be able to attend, learning the rudiments of body throws and quick, effective punches to the throat, face, or groin. The women in the class seemed a bit uncomfortable with him at first, but his willingness to serve as a volunteer for their efforts gained him a sort of acceptance. At least, they were willing to smash him without guilt when he wore protective clothing. He saw it as a means of toughening himself further.
On a Saturday afternoon in late January, Ricky slide-stepped through snowdrifts and icy sidewalks into the R and R Sporting Goods store, which was located well outside the university area in a low-rent strip mall, the sort that catered to discount tire stores and quick-lube auto service. R and R-there was no ready indication what the letters stood for-was a modest low-slung, square space, filled with plastic deer targets, blaze-orange hunting clothing, stacks of fishing rods and tackle, and bows and arrows. Along one wall there was a wide array of deer rifles, shotguns, and modified assault weapons that lacked even the modest beauty of the wood stocks and polished barrels of their more acceptable brethren. The AR-15s and AK-47s had a cold, military appearance, a clarity of purpose. Underneath the glass-topped counter were rows and rows of various handguns. Steel blue. Polished chrome. Black metal.
He spent a pleasant hour discussing the merits of various weapons with a clerk, a bearded and bald middle-aged man, sporting a red check hunting shirt and a holstered.38 caliber snub-nosed pistol on his expansive waistline. The clerk and Ricky debated the advantages of revolvers versus automatics, size against punch, accuracy compared with rate of fire. The store had a shooting range in the basement, two narrow lanes, side by side, separated by a small partition, a little like a dark and abandoned bowling alley. An electrically operated pulley system carried silhouette targets down to a wall some fifty feet distant that was buttressed by brown hundred-pound bags of sawdust. The clerk eagerly showed Ricky, who had never fired a weapon in his life, how to sight down the barrel, and how to stand, two hands on the weapon, holding it out in such a way that the world narrowed, and only his vision, the pressure of his finger on the trigger, and the target he had in his aim mattered. Ricky fired off dozens of rounds, ranging from a small.22 automatic, through the.357 Magnum and 9 mm that are favored by law enforcement, up to the.45 that was popularized during the Second World War and which sent a jolt right through his palm all the way into his shoulder and down to his chest when he fired it.
He settled on something in between, a.380 Ruger semiautomatic, with a fifteen-shot clip. It was a weapon that functioned in the range between the big bang preferred by police and the deadly little assassin’s weapons that women and professional killers liked. Ricky chose the same weapon that he’d seen in Merlin’s briefcase, on a train to Manhattan, in what seemed to him to have taken place in a different world altogether. He thought it was a good idea to be equal, if only in terms of handguns.
He filled out the permit forms under the name Frederick Lazarus, using the fake Social Security number that he’d created precisely for this purpose.
“Takes a couple of days,” the fat clerk said. “Although we’re a whole helluva lot easier than Massachusetts. How’re you planning on paying for it?”
“Cash,” Ricky said.
“Antiquated commodity,” the clerk smiled. “Not plastic?”
“Plastic just complicates your life.”
“A Ruger.380 simplifies it.”
Ricky nodded. “That’s more or less the point, isn’t it.”
The clerk nodded as he finished the paperwork. “Anyone in particular you’re thinking of simplifying, Mr. Lazarus?”
“Now that’s an unusual question,” Ricky responded. “Do I look like a man with an enemy for a boss? A neighbor who has let his mutt loose on my lawn one too many times? Or, for that matter, a wife who had perhaps nagged me once too often?”
“No,” the clerk said, grinning. “You don’t. But then, we don’t get too many handgun novices in here. Most of our customers are pretty regular, at least maybe so’s we knows the face, if not the name.” He looked down at the form. “This gonna fly, Mr. Lazarus?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, that’s more or less what I’m asking. I hate this damn regulation crap.”
“Rules are rules,” Ricky replied. The man nodded.
“Ain’t that the goddamn truth.”
“How about practicing,” Ricky asked. “I mean, what’s the point of getting a fine weapon like this if I don’t get real expert at handling it?”
The clerk nodded. “You’re a hundred percent right about that, Mister Lazarus. So many folks think that when they buy the gun, that’s all they need for protecting themselves. Hell, I think that’s where it starts. Need to know how to operate that weapon, especially when things get, shall we say, tense, like when some criminal is in the kitchen, and you’re in your jammies up in the bedroom…”
“Precisely,” Ricky interrupted. “Don’t want to be so scared…”
The clerk finished his sentence for him, “… that you end up blowing away the wife or the family dog or cat.” Then he laughed. “Though maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing of all. Take that burglar out for a beer afterwards, if you was married to my old lady. And her damn fluffy, makes-me-sneeze-all-the-damn-time cat.”