THE OVERTON WINDOW (22 page)

“The tea sounds good.”

“We make it pretty sweet where I come from.”

“Bring it on, Ellie Mae. The sweeter the better.”

He walked about midway into the front room and found a slightly elevated platform enclosed in Japanese screens of thin dark wood and rice paper panels. There were a lot of bookshelves, a dresser, a rolltop desk, and a vanity. But the space was dominated by a large rope hammock, its webbing covered by a nest of comfy blankets and pillows, suspended waist-high between the red shutoff wheels of two heavy metal pipes that extended up from the floor through the ceiling. This room within a room was lit softly by small lamps and pastel paper lanterns. The total effect of the enclosure was that of a mellow, relaxing Zen paradise.

A glance through the nearest bookcase revealed a strange assortment of reading material. Some old and modern classics were segregated on a shelf by themselves, but the collection consisted mostly of works that leaned toward the eccentric, maybe even the forbidden. There didn’t seem to be a clear ideological thread to connect them; Alinsky’s
Rules for Radicals
was right next to
None Dare Call It Conspiracy.
Down the way
The Blue Book of the John Birch Society
was sandwiched between Abbie Hoffman’s
Steal This Book,
Orson Scott Card’s
Empire,
and a translated copy of
The Coming Insurrection.
Below was an entire section devoted to a series of books from a specialty publisher, all by a single author named Ragnar Benson. Noah touched the weathered spines and read the titles of these, one by one:

The Modern Survival Retreat

Guerrilla Gunsmithing

Homemade Grenade Launchers: Constructing the Ultimate Hobby Weapon

Ragnar’s Homemade Detonators

Survivalist’s Medicine Chest

Live Off the Land in the City and Country

And a last worn hardcover, titled simply
Mantrapping.

“Those are some pretty good books she’s got there, huh?”

It was only the tranquil atmosphere and a slight familiarity to the odd voice from close behind that kept him from jumping right out of his skin. He turned, and there was Molly’s large friend from the bar, nearly at eye level because of the elevated platform on which Noah was standing.

“Hollis,” Noah said, stepping down to the main floor, “how is it that I never hear you coming?”

The big man gave him a warm guy-hug with an extra pat on the shoulder at the end. “I guess I tend to move about kinda quiet.”

“I might need to hang a bell around your neck, just for my nerves.”

“Come on,” Hollis said. “Let me show you around some.”

The loft had more living spaces in back than Noah had first imagined. Some were for sleeping, others for working and meeting. In the room that Hollis identified as his own there was a low army cot, several neatly organized project tables, and a large red cabinet on wheels, presumably full of tools. All these things were arranged as though bed rest wasn’t even in the top ten of this man’s nighttime priorities.

“What is all this stuff?” Noah asked. One table was covered with parts and test equipment for working on small electronics, another was a mass of disassembled communications equipment, and a third was devoted to cleaning supplies and the neatly disassembled pieces of a scary-looking black rifle and a handgun. More weapons were visible in an open gun safe to the side, but his focus had settled on the nearest of the workbenches. “Are you making bullets there?”

“Making ammunition.” Hollis picked up a finished example and pointed to a spot near the grayish tip. “The bullet’s just this last little bit
on her business end. That right there’s a .44 jacketed hollow-cavity; got a lot of stopping power.”

Arrayed around this bench were a number of labeled bins and jars, black powders of varying grades and grinds, a pharmacist’s scale, a tray of brass casings, and a hand-operated machine that looked something like a precision orange squeezer, attached to the tabletop by a vise.

“Why on earth would you want to make your own ammunition?”

Hollis sat, put on his spectacles, picked up the components of an unfinished cartridge, started working with the pieces, and then spoke. “Noah, do you like cookies?”

“Why yes, Hollis. We were talking about firearms, but yes, I do like cookies.”

“And which do you like better?” He’d placed the open powder-filled casing in the lower part of his hand-operated machine, fitted a bullet on top, tweaked an adjustment ring with the deft touch of a safecracker, and then rotated a long feed lever until the two parts mated together into a single, snug assembly. “Do you prefer those dry, dusty little nuggets you get in a box from one of them drive-through restaurants?” He removed the finished cartridge from the mechanism and held it up so Noah could admire its perfection. “Or would you rather have a nice, warm cookie fresh out of the oven, that your sweetheart cooked up just for you?”

“I see what you mean, I guess.”

“Oh hell, anything’ll do for target shooting, I suppose, but if I know what I’m hunting I can make up something that’s just exactly right, and she’ll fly straighter and hit harder than anything I could buy in a box from a store.”

“I’m not a gun guy, but it’s hard to believe it could make that much difference.”

“I’d say it makes all the difference.” After consulting his calipers Hollis made an infinitesimal adjustment to the press and returned to his work. “Go out sometime and wing a bull moose with a rifle you loaded
for a little whitetail deer, and see what happens. Might as well just whack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”

“I see.”

“You better see. Nothing quite like a pissed-off wounded moose chasin’ you across an open field to teach a man the value of the proper ammunition.”

Noah looked over the table again. In a stack near the other end a number of clear acrylic boxes were already filled with finished ammo. “How many of those things can you do in an hour?”

“With a one-stage press? I’d reckon somewhere between seventy-five and two hundred rounds.” Hollis looked up at him over the rims of his thin safety glasses, and smiled. “It all depends on my motivation.”

“Hey, boys,” Molly said. She’d brought a glass of tea for Hollis. “Catching up?”

“Yeah, we are. Hollis here was just making some helpful suggestions for the next time I need to shoot a moose.”

She patted her seated friend on the back. “I’m going to steal him for a little while, okay?”

“You two kids be good,” Hollis said.

There were other voices nearby, and Molly led him down the line of doorways and partitioned spaces toward the sound. At the end of this hall they came to a large room with a diverse group of men and women sitting around a long conference table. On a second look Noah saw that this furniture consisted of a mismatched set of folding chairs and four card tables butted end to end.

The people inside had been listening to a speaker at the head of the table but the room became quiet when they saw the newcomers.

“Everybody,” Molly said, “this is Noah Gardner. And Noah, these are some of the regional leaders of the Founders’ Keepers. You said you were good with names, so let’s put you to the test.”

She started at the near end of the table and proceeded clockwise with introductions around the circle. Molly pointed out each person and gave
the historic pseudonym that he or she had taken on when they joined the organization.

“Did you get all that?” she asked.

“Let’s see.” He began where she’d ended and went around the other way. “That’s Patrick, Ethan, George, Thomas, Benjamin, Samuel, John, Alexander, James, Nathaniel, another Benjamin—Franklin or Rush, you didn’t say which—Francis, William, and Stephen.”

“Very good.”

“I owe it all to Dale Carnegie.” Each of the attendees had a book open, and from what he could see they all appeared to be similar in every way but their visible contents. “What did we interrupt?” Noah asked. “Is this a strategy session or something?”

“Not tonight,” Molly said. She motioned for the speaker at the head of the table to continue from where she’d left off. This woman, maybe ten years Noah’s senior, had been introduced as “Thomas.”

“Cherish therefore the spirit of our people,” the woman said, “and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and assemblies, judges, and governors shall all become wolves.”

These words were from the writings of Thomas Jefferson; though Noah hadn’t recognized them as such he could see the heading in the open book of the one sitting next to her as she spoke. This man was following along carefully, tracking the memorized text with a moving fingertip. She was delivering the passage with feeling and energy, not as the rote recitation of a centuries-old letter, but as if for the time being, she’d made Jefferson’s thoughts her own.

“It seems to be the law of our general nature,” she continued, “in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

There was an empty chair at the table with one of those little books
in front of it. Molly picked up this book and waved a good-bye to the others as they prepared for the next speaker in line. She took Noah’s hand and led him from the room and back up the hall again.

“Aren’t they going to need that book?” Noah asked.

“No, this one’s mine.” She handed it to him. “I’m not like they are, though. They’ve each memorized a whole person, and I’ve just got little pieces of a lot of them. Mostly Thomas Paine, though.”

“So what’s the meaning of all this?” The book was clearly hand-bound and not mass-manufactured. It looked old but well cared for, and there was a number on the inside front cover, suggesting that this one and the others were part of a large series.

“It’s one of the things the Founders’ Keepers do,” Molly said. “We remember.”

“You remember speeches and letters and things?”

“We remember how the country was founded. You never know, we might have to do it again someday.”

“So you keep it in your heads? Why, in case all the history books get burned?”

“It’s already happening, Noah, if you haven’t noticed. Not burning, but changing. Ask an elementary school kid what they know about George Washington and it’s more likely you’ll hear the lies about him, like the cherry-tree story or that he had wooden dentures, than about anything that really made him the father of our country. Ask a kid in high school about Ronald Reagan and they’ll probably tell you that he was a B-list-actor-turned-politician, or that he was the guy who happened to be in office when Gorbachev ended the Cold War. Ask a college kid about Social Security and they’ll probably tell you that it was intended to provide guaranteed retirement income for all Americans. Ask a thirty-year-old about World War II and they’ll recite what they remember from
Saving Private Ryan.
Do you see? No one really needs to rewrite history; they just have to make sure that no one remembers it.”

He closed the book carefully and gave it back to her. “Molly?”

“Yes?”

“Hit me with a little Thomas Paine.”

She took his hand, and spoke quietly as they walked.

“ ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’” Molly said. “‘The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

“ ‘What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.’”

Back in Molly’s section of the loft she gave Noah his iced tea and took a seat on the edge of her hammock. He sat on a nearby divan made from crates, a simple frame, and random cushions. The tea turned out to be as sweet as she’d warned it would be, but it was good.

“That looked like a small arsenal Hollis had back there,” Noah said. “Are all those guns legal?”

“Two of them are registered. The rest are just passing through. He’s on his way to a gun show upstate.”

“So the answer’s no, they’re not legal.”

“Do you know what it took to make those two guns legal in this city?”

“I can imagine.”

“It took over a year, and the guy who owns them had to get fingerprinted, interviewed, and charged about a thousand dollars to exercise a constitutional right.”

“Welcome to New York. There’s a lot you’ve got to live with when you live here.”

“Wait, didn’t you say you were pre-law in college? I would have thought they’d have spent a few minutes on the Second Amendment.”

“Yeah, they did,” Noah said. “The experts differ quite a bit on its interpretation.”

She spoke the words thoughtfully. “‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’—that seems pretty clear to me.”

“You left out the part that causes all the arguments.”

“The word
militia
meant something different back then, Noah. Ben Franklin started the first one here. The militia was every citizen who was ready and able to protect their community, whatever the threat. It was as natural as having a lock on your front door.

“Today the police are there to protect society, but they’re not obligated to protect you and me as individuals. The Supreme Court’s ruled on that quite a few times. And they certainly won’t protect us from the government, God forbid it would ever come to that. So the way I read it, the Second Amendment simply says we have the right to be ready to defend ourselves and our neighbors if we have to.”