by Dean Koontz
"I don't need them today," Tucker said.
On the third floor, as on the first, the partitions had been knocked out to form one enormous room. But while the first floor contained old furniture, curiosities and antiques, this place housed more deadly merchandise: in excess of two thousand rifles, shotguns, handguns, machine and submachine guns. They were hooked on the white pegboard walls, crammed on wooden and metal wall shelves, tilted against wooden display lifts, laid gently in velvet-lined collector's cases, scattered about the floor, jammed into paper bags. The room also contained metal-working machines, lathes and a small gas-fired forge and cooking pots where metals could be melted down and shaped. Despite the disarray there was no dust up here as there was on the first floor. And all the corners were well lighted. There was an open, airy feeling that the lower level did not have. Quite obviously, it was here at the top of the building where Imrie's heart would remain even if the improbable should come to pass and his antique business should become more profitable than gun dealing.
"I take it you don't want machine guns," Imrie said. "If you did, you'd have said."
"Something ugly and impressive-but concealed," Tucker said, measuring an imaginary weapon with his slim hands.
"Three of them?"
"That would be best."
The fat man scratched his shiny skull, ruffled the fringe of gray hair, pursed and unpursed his lips, smiled with sudden inspiration. "Give me a minute or two." He went off to prowl through his haphazardly stored collection. Five minutes later he called Tucker over to the main workbench. "Here's what I can let you have," he said, carefully aligning three guns on the top of the bench.
They were fairly well matched heavy black automatic pistols with folding wire stocks that could be swung back to transform them into moderately efficient submachine guns. At the moment, all the stocks were clamped forward over the barrels; however, the pistols looked nonetheless deadly in this compacted shape.
"These are perfect," Tucker said, lifting one of the guns, testing its weight on his flat palm. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"It's a Czech Skorpion," Imrie said fondly.
"World War Two?"
"Sure."
"Looks like a thirty-eight," Tucker said.
"No. Just a thirty-two." Imrie picked up one of the others. "But it isn't a lady's weapon, believe you me. It packs more wallop than any other thirty-two-caliber piece ever made."
As gently as if he were handling a mean-tempered poisonous snake, Tucker turned the pistol over in his hands, examining it from every angle. Heavy, well defined, cast with many rich planes, the piece looked especially wicked and even alien, almost like something from the lurid cover of an old science-fiction magazine. Though inanimate, it radiated a chilling animal malevolence, a tangible and exciting evil. Because he was basically a non-violent man who operated in a violent business, Tucker was able to assess the weapon from the viewpoints of both the professional and the victim. From either perspective the Skorpion passed muster.
"Nice work," Imrie said.
"Yes."
"They were proud of their product."
Tucker held up the pistol, sighted along the barrel through the framework of the collapsed wire stock. "It's ugly enough. But how accurate is it?"
"When it's a pistol, it's about as accurate as anything you've ever carried. At least it will be when I get finished with it."
"And as a submachine gun?"
"Only half as good. But a submachine gun doesn't need to be as precise as a pistol, right?"
"Right."
"And if you use it, you'll probably only want it as a pistol," Imrie said.
"How much work do they need?"
Imrie looked at the three pistols, at the tools on his workbench, sucked on a tooth while he thought about it. "Oh I suppose I could have them ready for you around noon on Monday. How would that be?"
"Fine," Tucker said. "Ammunition?"
"I already have that," Imrie said. "It's all my own stuff, hand packed and guaranteed."
Tucker put down the Skorpion he had been examining. "How much do you want for them?"
"Remember," Imrie said, "I've got a lot of work to do to get them in shape. And I-"
"How much?"
"Don't forget, none of these pieces has a history, Tucker. They're all as clean as a baby's ass. You get nailed on this job, you won't have to worry that maybe you're carrying a gun that was used in a big heist or a murder or something."
Tucker smiled. "How much, Imrie?"
Imrie told him.
"Too much."
They haggled for several minutes, exchanged tales of poverty and want, finally settled on a thousand dollars for the pistols and ammunition.
"When you come back on Monday," Imrie said, "we'll go down to the basement and use one of the Skorpions on the shooting range."
Tucker frowned. "Doesn't it handle about like any ordinary automatic?"
"Pretty much," Imrie said. "But it never hurts to know a gun, what it can and can't do for you."
"Even when you don't expect to use it?"
"Especially then," Imrie said.
Thinking about Oceanview Plaza, about the curiously agitated movements of Frank Meyers, Tucker nodded. "I guess you're right."
At three-thirty that afternoon, on the bottom floor of the Americana Hotel once again, Tucker pumped coins into the pay phone until the operator was satisfied. On the far end of the line another telephone rang, and Clitus Felton answered it.
"It's Mike," Tucker said. "You busy?"
"Pretty busy, yeah," Felton said.
Tucker gave him the number of the phone he was using and hung up.
The hotel corridor remained deserted. Dishes clanked, silverware clattered, and voices rose in a sealike susurration from the coffee shop around the corner. The floor had recently been mopped down, for the hall smelled of pine and detergent; but the maintenance crew was nowhere in sight.
Each of the next five minutes felt like an hour, partly because Tucker was worried about getting unwanted company and being overheard on the line with Clitus-and partly because he was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious mistake by involving himself in this operation. The whole thing was a hair too daring, a shade too clever and complex. And he kept thinking of Frank Meyers: the way the big man lived, the way he dressed, the desperation in those bright blue eyes
He took a roll of Life Savers from his jacket pocket, peeled away the foil from the top, popped a lime-flavored circlet into his mouth.
Finally the telephone rang.
"Clitus?"
"You're throwing in with Frank Meyers, aren't you?" Felton asked, a playful note in his voice.
"That's right."
"I knew you would," the old man said. "He's a damned good man, a real pro."
Tucker tongued the candy wafer to the side of his mouth. "Maybe he once was."
"Oh?" Felton said guardedly. "What's wrong with him?"
"For one thing, he's living in a dive. He doesn't clean up after himself anymore-nearly has the roaches tamed. He's sloppy, tired, and nervous. He's a man on the edge."
"Why?"
"He says he let a woman take all his money away from him, and now he's broke."
Felton sighed, a hollow ahhh that echoed down the line like the call of a spirit. "It's happened to better men."
"But I don't believe that's what's wrong with him," Tucker said, swallowing lime saliva. "I want you to ask around over the weekend. Contact anyone who's worked with him recently. See if you can turn up anything."
"Like what?"
"I don't know," Tucker said, wishing that he did. "Anything that might help explain why he's let himself slide."
Felton cleared his throat. "Well I'll try, Mike. But it's probably just a waste of time. If there was anything I should know about Frank, I'd already know it." The old man respected Tucker, knew him to be one of the best in the business. At the same time, he thought he knew Frank Meyers; if not Tucker's equal, he w
as at least a sensible and reliable man.
"One other thing," Tucker said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, switching the receiver from left to right hand. "I'm going to need someone who's good with safes. I'd like to have Edgar Bates. He's here in the city somewhere, isn't he?"
"Sure," Felton said.
"Get hold of him for me. Set up a meeting between us for tomorrow at the Museum of Natural History."
"What time?"
"Let's say-noon. In the room where they have all of those Eskimo totem poles."
"If I can't get hold of him?" Felton asked.
"I'll know it when he doesn't show up tomorrow," Tucker said. "I'll call you again on Monday to see what you've picked up on Meyers. Good-by, Clitus." He hung up. He crushed the thinning Life Saver between his teeth and swallowed the tiny sugared fragments. The scent of sweetened limes rose in the back of his nostrils.
In front of the Americana he caught a taxi and was just as surly with the driver as the driver was with him. The ten-minute ride home required twenty-five minutes in the sluggish traffic-which gave him too much time to worry about Frank Meyers. He went through three more Life Savers.
At his apartment building on Park Avenue in the eighties, he was greeted by a minimally liveried doorman nearly twice his age. "Beautiful day, isn't it, sir?"
"Just fine, Harold."
"September and October are the only good months in this city," the doorman said. On his black uniform the small brass buttons gleamed with early-October sunlight.
Inside, the hall man also wanted to talk about the weather. And the elevator man thought that autumn was his favorite time of the year in New York. Tucker smiled, nodded, and agreed with both of them while he thought about Oceanview Plaza
He entered his nine-room, tenth-floor apartment to the strains of Beethoven's Minuet in G as interpreted by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. The music was like a cool liquid spilling over him. Some of his concern about Meyers-and the slight but constant fear that was with him when he was in the Tucker persona-disappeared. He felt more at ease, more relaxed than he had all day.
However, it was not yet time to mix a drink and sit down with Elise. There were certain details He stepped into the large living-room closet and opened the wall safe, put away the wallet that contained the Tucker papers. He removed his own wallet from the safe and slipped that into his jacket pocket, closed the round metal door, and spun the combination dial. Now it was time for a drink and for Elise.
She was in the white-on-white kitchen, sitting at the big Lane table, sipping a Jack Rose and reading the newspaper. He put his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and kissed the side of her slim neck, his lips lingering just long enough to feel the steady pulse of blood in her throat.
She shook her head. Her yellow hair bounced. "Just a minute. I'm reading about myself."
"You're in the Times?"
"Ssshhh," she said, bending more closely over the paper.
He took off his jacket, draped it over another chair, then went back into the main hall to the bar, where he fixed himself a vodka martini and admired two of his most expensive possessions. While his hands worked with the bottles and the ice cubes, he studied the two pieces of primitive art that so starkly decorated the cream-colored wall in front of him. There was a fragment of a fifth-century Edo shield, roughly half of a well-worked copper oval trimmed in silver and inlaid with tiny pieces of hand-carved ivory. The African artisan who had made it had lived on the east bank of the Niger River among peace-loving people who made shields and rarely went to war. From the same tribe, but crafted by a different man, was a hunting spear with an intricately carved nine-foot shaft and an ivory-graced iron head. Tucker had paid forty thousand dollars for the fragment of the shield some six months ago. In August he had disposed of a few less important items in his collection and had cleaned out a savings account to come up with the full sixty-five thousand that the spear had cost him. It was the spear that had so severely depleted his resources and had forced him to look for another job. But he did not mind. The great lance was an incredibly beautiful piece of work worth any temporary insolvency.
Furthermore, the spear and the shield and the other bits and pieces in the apartment lent substance to his cover as a freelance dealer in primitive art objects. And that cover was essential. It satisfied Elise, and it stalled his father's hired investigators. He did not profit much from his art dealings, certainly not enough to live in the style he preferred, but that was a fact his father's men could learn only by burglarizing the IRS files.
"You can come in here and kiss me now," Elise called from the kitchen.
He went back out there and kissed her, lifting her from her chair, bringing her to her feet so that they could embrace. When she finished kissing him, he said, "What's this about your being in the Times?"
She slipped out of his arms and tapped the paper, turned it around on the table so he could read it where he stood. "I made the business pages. The article on advertising." Her smile was wide and bright.
Bending over the newspaper, palms flat on the table, Tucker read the brief story. It concerned the careers of several of the currently most successful actors and actresses in television commercials, and it gave Elise the highest marks for beauty, charm and professional skill. "With a copy of this in your resume," Tucker said, "you ought to be able to get a lot more money the next time you push a product."
She grinned, dimples puckering her smooth cheeks and making her look quite unlike a cool, sophisticated actress. "Your mind's in the same groove as mine-take the suckers for everything you can get out of them."
If only you knew, Tucker thought, reminded of what he was planning for Oceanview Plaza. "Nonsense," he said. "You're worth every penny you get, no matter how much it is."
The Times reporter was right about her beauty. She was tall and willowy like a show girl, five-eight to Tucker's five-nine. Her legs were exquisite and long, her waist pinched up as if corseted, her breasts high and round and firm. She was a real blonde with wild green eyes, natural and wholesome-and yet sultry. Her complexion was as smooth as an air-brushed bosom in Playboy, an attribute that made it possible for her to play roles ranging from gosh-wow ingenues to slinky sexpots with equal success.
He was continually amazed that she wanted to live with him, for she was the sort of woman who usually was escorted around town by tall handsome men whose shoulders were as wide as doorways. Yet she had come, and she stayed, and they were happy with each other.
In all but one way their relationship was fresh and honest. Each came and went as he pleased, with no deceptions, lies or jealousy. They did not make plans for a mutual future because neither wanted the other to feel obligated to any prepared script. They earned and did not own each other. She paid half the rent and utilities, bought half the groceries, because that was the only way she would remain with him. They trusted each other, respected each other as equals. However, when it came to his "business," Tucker deceived her. It was not that he thought she would turn him over to the police if she knew that he was a thief; it was simply that he did not want to involve her in his own criminal activity in any way for which she might later have to suffer.
He turned away from the newspaper and put his arms around her again. She was wearing a lightweight knitted suit that clung to her and seemed to dissolve between them. "The New York Times thinks you're beautiful," he said.
"Then I must be beautiful."
"You're a celebrity."
"Impressed?"
"Terribly."
"Want my autograph?"
"On an eight-by-ten glossy."
She kissed his chin. "Have you ever been to bed with a celebrity?"
"Never."
"Now's your chance," she said.
"Are you propositioning me?"
"That's it exactly."
In the master bedroom she undressed him, and then he returned the favor. The buttons on her knit suit parted easily. The flimsy material seemed to me
lt away from her, flowing down across her full curves and puddling at her feet.
His voice was soft, almost inaudible, when he said, "You are beautiful, Elise."
"Do you believe everything you read in the papers?" she asked.
Later, they went out to the kitchen and made dinner. He put the steaks on and mixed the salad dressing while she cleaned and chopped the lettuce, celery, and carrots. They had lots of cheap wine and finished with Tia Maria and coffee.
"I'm whoozy," she said.
"So am I." "
"Defenseless," she said.
"Are you really?"
"Utterly defenseless."
He took her back into the bedroom and helped her slip out of her comfortable quilted houserobe, and then he took advantage of her. It lasted longer this time, was slower but more complete for both of them.
Well afterward, she said, "Oh, you got a telephone call from your father's lawyer."
He rose up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her. Her face was half hidden in purple shadows as smooth as steamed velvet, half revealed by the warm orange light of the bedside lamp. Darkness molded to her body and subtly emphasized the ripe lines of it. "You mean Littlefield called?" he asked.
"Yes."
"When?"
"About one o'clock this afternoon." She was lying on her back, but she turned slightly to face him. The shadows retreated from her face.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I knew it would spoil the evening," she said. "I was horny. As you may have noticed. And I knew that if you had Littlefield and your father to worry about, you would never be in the mood."
He laughed, cupped and. kissed one of her breasts. "What did the bastard want?"
"I really don't know," she said. "You're to call him back. He left his home number in case you didn't get in until after five."
"The hell with him," Tucker said, falling back against his pillows.
Elise sat up and ran her hands through her long yellow hair, combing it into dozens of bright banners. "You'd better call him, Michael. Maybe something has happened to your father. He could be sick or hurt."
"Unless the old goat died," Tucker said, "I don't want to be bothered by Littlefield."