Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) (22 page)

Then she noticed that her answering machine was blinking. She twirled over to it—kicking aside an empty corn-chips bag—and played the message.

It was Luigi.

“I owe you
big,”
is all he said.

A
FEW
F
RIDAYS
later, Natalie arrived at the New Town Armory just after four o’clock. She poked her head in the door and saw only Quentin behind the counter.

“He’s gone?” she asked
sotto voce.

He waved her in. “Yeah, he leave just like he say. He can trust me for a hour, so he have go on home early to pack for his trip.”

She crept into the shop. She’d never been here before; it was somewhat like a jewelry store, full of glass cases, except the cases held not bling but blammo. There was also a rack of gun magazines—she’d never have guessed there were so many—and lots of pamphlets and flyers urging patrons to take action to preserve and protect their right to bear arms. Natalie was slightly alarmed by it all.

There were also some T-shirts for sale. She picked one up and held it before her; emblazoned on the chest, in bright red letters, was THE ONLY WAY THEY’LL TAKE MY GUN AWAY IS TO PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS. She checked the label on the collar: 80 percent polyester. “Figures,” she sneered, and she folded it up and put it back on the counter.

Above the cash register was a poster that read, “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”—THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. That was unmistakably the handiwork of Mr. Lloyd Hood, proprietor.

“This is pretty wild,” she said, peering into the cabinets. At first the guns looked evil and frightening, but after a slow stroll around the floor she found herself viewing them almost as abstractions—just shapes and colors and textures. She was surprised at their variety; some were squat and shiny, some long and sleek, some bulky and cannonlike. Some had wooden finishes, some leather, some mother-of-pearl. Some were silver, some black, and some a kind of platinum blue. Some were almost pretty; others, carbuncular and ugly.

“You know what all these are?” she asked Quentin.

“Most,” he said. He was whirling around in the swivel chair by the checkout.

She went over to him. “Let’s see what you’ve picked out for me.”

He stopped the chair in mid-spin, than took out a pistol from behind the counter and set it before her. She jumped at the sight of it. It had a long, thin barrel that made it look somewhat insectoid.

“Thassa Ruger twenty-two,” he said. “Go on, pick it up.”

She lifted it with her right hand; its weight surprised her. “Heavy,” she said. “Don’t you have something lighter?”

“Mmmmaybe. But you say you wanna be scarin’ someone, right? You go smaller, it ain’t so scary. You prob’ly should go bigger, man. A AK forty-seven or what.”

“I don’t want an assault rifle, for God’s sake,” she scoffed. She turned the Ruger over in her hand a few times. “I guess this is fine.”

“It got a adjustable sight,” he said, pointing this out. “I show you how it work on the range.”

“No, I don’t want any demos,” she said. “I just want you to load it and hand it over.”

He leaned across the counter. “First, there’re a seventy-two hour wait period on purchases. And I gots to be careful ‘bout that shit. My job depend on it. And second, you don’t learn how to shoot that thing, you gon’ blow somebody’s head clean off and maybe it be your own.”

“I have no intention of shooting it, I assure you,” she said. “Like I said, I just want to scare somebody.”

“Then it don’t need to be loaded.”

“Yes it does. Trust me, Quentin. I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to shoot this thing, ever, but it
must
have bullets in it.” She set it down before him and slid it across the counter. “Load it for me, please.”

He sighed. “Man, you gonna lose me this job, ain’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You up to some bad shit. First you tell me you wants a gun, but I can’t tell Mr. Hood nothin’ about it; then you tell me you only can come in when he ain’t around;
then
you say you wants it just to scare somebody; now you say please put a clip in but don’t show me how to use it. Fuck else you gonna aks me?”

“Well, there
is
one more thing,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I want you to fake the registration. Make it seem like some young guy bought it. Look, I’ve already got a fake permit.” She produced the document—a forged Firearm Owner’s Identification card—from her purse and presented it to him. “Don’t ask how.”
Thank you, Luigi,
she said to herself. “And don’t worry about the police. They’re not going to come after you on this, I promise. And if Mr. Hood asks you later, just tell him that the guy who bought this gun showed you all the right forms. He’ll believe you.”

“You still gots to wait seventy-two hour,” he insisted. “Hell if he don’t fire me for that.”

“He won’t fire you, Quentin. I’m taking the gun today.”

“Aw, shit.” He lunged up from the chair and stalked the length of the counter and back. “You been usin’ me, bitch! You set me up in this job just so’s you can get a gun to do some bad crazy, now you gonna go off and leave me to take this shit!”

“You won’t lose your job, Quentin,” she said firmly.
“If
Mr. Hood threatens to fire you, just throw a couple quotations from
The Fountainhead
at him; he’ll change his mind.”

“Fuckin’
bitch,”
he said; his breath was coming hard, and he leaned against the case menacingly. “First job I ever had that matter shit. First boss I ever had treat me decent. Now you says I gots to go screw him.”

“You wouldn’t have this job at all if it weren’t for me. Now I’m telling you to trust me again. And if, by some bizarre chance, you do lose this job, I’ll get you another one. Okay?”

He turned his head and wouldn’t answer.

“Go on and put the clip thing in,” she said, tapping on the gun handle. “And hurry, please.” She nodded at the name on the FOID card. “‘Bernard Davidson’ is waiting.”

He glared at her. But even though his jaw jutted out and his lips pursed in anger, she could see the submission in his eyes.

O
N
S
ATURDAY MORNING
, Lloyd left town for a weekend seminar on economic freedom at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. The date of the seminar had been indelibly etched in Natalie’s mind; she’d heard Lloyd mention it a dozen times during the months she’d eavesdropped on his bedtime conversations with Peter.

She’d also heard him mention the back door’s spare key, which he kept taped to the rainspout next to the kitchen window in case he or Peter got locked out of the house.

Everything was in place.

She was ready.

O
N
S
ATURDAY NIGHT
, Peter pulled into the driveway at 9:41 P.M., parked, and entered the house through the front door. He threw his gym bag on the floor, kicked off his shoes, and hung his jacket in the hall closet.

Then, stripping off his sweatshirt, he went into the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and took out a peach. He bit deeply into it, and a rivulet of juice ran down his chin; he wiped it away with his wrist.

He jerked upright, as though he had heard something. “Hello?” he called out.

No answer.

He took another bite from the peach and shut the refrigerator door.

He left the kitchen for the living room. Holding the peach between his teeth, he pulled off his polo shirt; he was now bare-chested. He dropped the shirt to the floor, turned on the television, and left the room. He took the peach from his mouth with his left hand, then lifted his right arm and smelled his armpit. He grimaced in disgust, then bounded up the stairs to the bathroom.

He turned on the shower, then loped back downstairs and into the living room. He sat down, bit into the peach again, then pulled off his sweat socks and let them lie beside the chair.

He watched six minutes of
The Golden Girls
without laughing, during which time he finished off the peach. Occasionally he wiped away a trickle of juice from his chin.

Once, in the split second of silence between commercials, he sat up and looked over his shoulder.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

There was no answer, but he sat for a long time as though one might yet come. The TV continued to blare its tinny hyperbole, trying to win back his attention.

Eventually he turned back to the set, just in time for the show’s closing credits. He got up, sauntered back to the kitchen, where he flipped open the lid of the wastebasket with his bare foot, and dropped the peach pit into the plastic sack that had been fitted around the basket’s rim. He let the lid drop back into place, then unzipped his pants, slipped his hand beneath the elastic of his boxer briefs, and scratched at his pubic hair.

He exited the kitchen and trotted back up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs he turned on his heel and re-entered the bathroom, which was now billowing with steam. He slid open the shower door and put his hand beneath the shower nozzle; the jet of water hit his hand. He yelped in pain, shaking his whole arm. He bent over and adjusted the Hot and Cold knobs above the faucet.

Then he dropped his blue jeans and let them lie on the mat. He was now stripped down to his underwear.

He went to the linen closet in the hall and opened it. From the third shelf, he took a powder-blue terrycloth bath towel.

Then he turned his head and saw somebody in the corridor with a gun. A gun that was pointing at him.

Downstairs, the television was still blaring.

Behind him, the shower was still steaming.

He dropped the towel and faltered back a few steps.

The intruder was dressed in black jeans, high-top sneakers, and a parka. The intruder wore a Teenage Ninja Turtle latex facemask that covered the entire head.

The intruder waved the gun to the right.

Peter bumped into a wall and kept backing up. He backed into the room at the intruder’s right, which was the bedroom.

The intruder motioned him to get down on his knees.

Peter got down on his knees.

The intruder went behind him and held the gun to the back of his head. Peter closed his eyes. “Oh, Christ, please,” he said, and his voice was hoarse.

The intruder produced a length of acrylic rope from the pocket of the parka. Then the intruder forced Peter to the floor, and Peter lay down with his left cheek pressed to the carpeting; he was facing a wall only a few inches away.

The intruder sat on Peter’s shoulders, facing Peter’s feet, and pulled his wrists toward the small of his back. With the acrylic rope, the intruder tied Peter’s wrists together. Then gun rested on Peter’s back, between the intruder’s knees.

A sharp, acrid stench filled the room. The intruder looked at Peter’s briefs, which were now filled with what Peter was too frightened to keep stored in his bowels.

The intruder turned and looked at Peter’s face for almost fourteen full seconds, then turned back and finished tying the rope.

Then the intruder tied Peter’s ankles together.

Peter was now immobilized, by his bonds if not by his fear. The intruder got up and took a pillowcase from one of pillows on the bed, and started ransacking the dresser drawers. Socks, ties, and underwear were soon strewn all about. The intruder found a wristwatch and a ring and put them in the pillowcase.

At the side of the bed, the intruder opened the drawer of a nightstand. It was filled with books with titles like
The Politics of Plunder
and
The Economics of Time and Ignorance.
The intruder snorted.

Then the intruder reached behind the headboard and pulled something away that had been affixed there. This was deposited into a small manila envelope, which the intruder inserted into the right-hand pocket of the parka.

The intruder looked at the alarm clock atop the dresser; it read 10:17 P.M. The intruder then unplugged the alarm clock and put that in the pillowcase, too.

Then the intruder went to the door of the bedroom and looked back at Peter. Peter was still on the floor, his head turned; he was white as a ghost—whiter certainly than his soiled briefs. He looked up at the intruder; his breathing sounded like gasping.

The intruder blew him a kiss from the mouth of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask.

Then the intruder passed the bathroom, where the shower was still running, went downstairs and into the dining room, and took some silverware and dumped it into the pillowcase. From there the intruder went to the living room. The television was still happily carping away about nothing. The intruder started unplugging the VCR.

Before this could be completed, the intruder got up and looked out the window.

A police car was visible about three blocks distant.

The intruder picked up the gun and the pillowcase and started to leave the room but bumped into a bookcase on the way. The bump made the intruder drop the gun, which exploded off a shot; the intruder flailed in alarm and fell over, and whispered, “Shit!”

The pillowcase lay in a heap by the bookcase.

The gun had skittered across the floor and was lying at the bottom of the staircase.

The intruder got up a little dazedly and unlocked and partially opened the front door. And waited.

Seconds later, the police car pulled up. A police officer got out and approached the house. When he came to the front door, he pushed it open.

“Why, how very fuckin’ careless,” he said in a low voice. “Guy who lives here must’ve left his door unlocked when he came in tonight. Just fuckin’ asking for some low-life scum to waltz in, wasn’t he?” He smiled. “Good thing I just happened to be in the ‘hood and noticed the door hanging open.”

The intruder stepped out of the shadows and removed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mask. “Here’s your bug,” she whispered as she retrieved the manila envelope from the parka’s pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it and slipped it into his breast pocket. “Gun’s over there,” she continued, gesturing towards the stairs, “and some things I didn’t quite get away with over there.”