I find him in the crook of the counter, between the stove and the sink, downing a glass of some kind of sugary orange stuff, his eyebrows cocked upward in shock.
“You seem a little put out by all this,” I whisper. The camera clicks and the cold blue light barrels down the hallway, strobing over the kitchen appliances. “You shouldn’t be. It’s not so bad, having a wife who can still surprise you.”
“It’s not that,” he says. “It’s the artist. Gina’s doing this to try and help her, to be supportive. But she’s got some baggage. I think she’s bad news.”
“That’s funny, coming from you. You go out of your way to support people, right? It’s your job. So what’s the harm in her doing the same thing?”
“Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head. “It’s just. . Ever since, you know, the baby. . I just want to keep her safe. To look out for her.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, that makes two of us. But I think this will be all right. She’s having a good time with it. If it were Charlotte in there and I was sulking like this, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. Now come on, let’s go back in.”
He puts his glass in the sink and follows me.
“All done,” Gina calls to us, sashaying up the stairs holding the sheet at the back. In the living room the photographer is packing up her things. Carter puts on a smile and goes to her assistance. While they chat, I check my watch and survey the mess. I should get going, but I want to say hello to Gina first.
I’m going through her stack of schoolbooks when she returns wearing a knit dress that clings tight to her belly, both her hands on her hips for support. Her hair is clipped back and she makes a show of wiping sweat from her dry brow. “You’re still here,” she says. “I was afraid you were going to disappear on us.”
“I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop in and say hi. Make sure you guys aren’t missing the old garage apartment and want to move back.”
“Tempting,” she says. “In my condition, stairs aren’t a girl’s best friend.”
Carter and the photographer start carrying gear out to her car. Gina eases herself into an empty space on the couch, then starts moving books over so I can sit, too. The one on top is Dante’s Inferno, the Robert Pinsky translation. It’s dog-eared and sticky-noted and creased down the spine. Gina is nothing if not a good student.
“Let me do that.” I move the stack for her. “You like the Dante?”
“I’m only halfway through.”
“If that’s halfway, I don’t think the book is going to survive the experience.”
“You’ve read it?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. But I knew someone once. .” My voice trails off. “Let’s just say, I have a special relationship with that thing.”
As I speak, the stack I’ve just moved topples of its own accord.
I lean over to straighten the books. One of them is an old paperback with a Norman knight on the cover. The nasal piece on his helmet juts out and he presses a curved horn to his lips. “Well, well. This looks like my kind of reading.”
She rolls her eyes. “The Song of Roland. Don’t get me started. That was the first one we had to read. If that’s chivalry, then you can have it. That book infuriates me.”
“Really.” I flip through the pages, many of which are underscored. I’m familiar with the story, of course, though I can’t recall having actually read the poem. In fact, before now I’m not sure I realized it was a poem, with all the stanzas and verses. “He’s supposed to blow the horn to signal the ambush, is that it?”
“He’s supposed to blow it if they need help. Only Roland’s too proud for that, so he waits and waits until everybody’s basically dead. Does that sound like heroism to you?”
“Actually, it kind of does.”
She snatches the book in mock outrage. “It’s not bravery, though. It’s stupidity.”
“Don’t let your professor hear you. That book’s a classic.”
“It’s all right,” she says. “We’re allowed not to like them. It’s even encouraged.”
I could sit and argue about books I haven’t read for hours. I want to stick up for my namesake, for the whole tradition of chivalry, for the stupid pride that would lead a man not to give his enemies the satisfaction of blowing the horn. At the back of my mind, some history stirs, something I saw on television or maybe read years ago in college.
“Sir Francis Drake,” I tell her, “when he was sailing into some Spanish port or other, and all their cannon started firing at his ship-or maybe it’s Walter Raleigh I’m thinking of. Anyway, when the Spanish artillery opened up, instead of shooting back, he got his trumpeters on deck and had them blow a note.”
“What?”
“That was his reply. His way of putting them in their place.”
“That sounds stupid, too.” She shakes her head at the ways of men. “If he was smart, he should have fired his guns at them. Unless those were really nasty trumpeters or something.”
“It was like he was saying, Your efforts are beneath my contempt. He was insulting them.”
She gives me an indulgent smile.
“Hey, I’m just saying, that stuff speaks to me. Don’t dismiss Sir Roland out of hand. You weren’t there.”
“Okay,” she says. “Just promise me you’re not going to follow his example.”
“You sound like Charlotte.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is a compliment, kid.”
After the last of the gear is packed, the photographer leans down to touch Gina on the tummy and kiss her cheek. “New life,” she says under her breath. Gina beams up at her, a bookish, impish, argumentative and glowing earth mother at the height of her charms.
The uncle who raised me, after leaving the Houston Police Department on disability when a stray truck jackknifed his cruiser during a pursuit, used some settlement money to buy himself a modest gun shop on Richmond. He’d give his former colleagues deep discounts on their purchases, which ensured the place was always filled with cops. When I was a teen, I used to work with him behind the counter, learning everything there is to know about firearms. And every time a tropical storm blew through, dumping so much rain into the parking lot that we and the little jewelry shop next door would end up with an inch of standing water on the floor, it was me who mopped up the mess.
The Shooter’s Paradise on I-10 couldn’t be more different than my uncle’s establishment. Vast and brightly lit by shining fluorescents, its spotless glass cases are packed with an endless variety of pistols and revolvers, from entry-level Glocks and SIGs to exotic race guns with fancy anodized frames. If longarms are your preference, they have those, too, along with a selection of custom leather holsters that would normally require months of waiting to obtain. As I know too well. Every surface gleams, every item is displayed with the care of a museum exhibit. It’s a pistoleer’s boutique, a lifelong NRA member’s idea of what heaven will be like.
But the attraction for me is in back.
One of the managers recognizes me from behind the counter, motioning toward the double doors at the rear of the shop.
“They’ve already started,” he says, “so you better get moving.”
I nod my thanks.
An acquaintance on the SWAT team first tipped me off to the league, suggesting I might want to brush up my skills. The Shooter’s Paradise, in addition to the showroom, boasts a state-of-the-art pistol range with twenty lanes, excellent ventilation, and even a soundproof observation gallery so you can watch the action without having to wear ear protection. On Thursdays, a loosely organized club gets together, arranging a series of tactical targets and running one member after another through the course. At the end of the night, the shooters compare rankings and head over to the taquería next door.
In the vestibule I run into a couple of latecomers.
“Hey, Roland, how’s it hanging? We thought you were bailing on us this
time.”
We shoot the breeze as we strap on our gear. Meaningless small talk. There are a couple of law enforcement types in the club, but no one who knows me. I keep pretty much to myself. I’m here to blow off steam, not make new buddies. Still, there’s a charm to it all-the macho camaraderie, the obsessive focus on performance, the specialized vocabulary. Egregious rule-breakers, when they’re penalized, are charged with a “failure to do right.” I like the term. What is a homicide detective if not the living embodiment of such a charge. Do right and you’ll never tangle with me. Fail to do right, and there I am.
“I see you dropped some dollars on a new rig,” one of the guys says.
I pause in the midst of adjusting my new holster, the new matte-silver Browning inside. “I didn’t plan it. You just get sucked in, you know?”
When I started the league, I was shooting with my off-duty piece, a.40 caliber Kahr with all the sharp edges melted away. Long ago, the Kahr went to Teddy Jacobson for some work, coming back with an action slicker than glass. It’s a flat, short-barreled hideaway pistol, but I can hit targets with accuracy much farther out than you’d expect.
But after a couple of weeks, all the club’s magazine changes and malfunction drills had me yearning for a full-size pistol. Instead of bringing my duty gun or springing for one of the usual plastic-framed, high-capacity numbers, I’d toured the glass cases at Shooter’s Paradise and gone a little crazy, ending up with a custom Novak Browning Hi-Power. Compact for its punch, slender, and all metal, with a crisp single-action trigger pull. It’s also a natural pointer, which I appreciate.
In addition to the standard thirteen-round mags, I’d bought a bunch of hi-cap South African magazines, bringing the total up to eighteen with one in the spout. And I’d picked up a couple hundred dollars’ worth of saddle-tan holsters and mag carriers, keeping it all in the new gym bag ready to go.
I feel a little guilty at all the expenditure. When Charlotte lays out money like this, I can’t help giving her a lecture. But she’s not here to return the favor.
Out on the range I add my name to the sign-up sheet, then file to the back of the line. Already the air smells of gun smoke. I put my things in an empty lane, locking the Hi-Power’s slide back and slipping it into my belt holster, one of the club’s safety requirements.
“Hey, man, how’s it hanging?”
I turn to find Jeff, another new guy, unloading his gear next to me. He wears jeans and a tight-fitting linen safari shirt with epaulets and button tabs securing the rolled-up sleeves. The look is more fashion than function, but he’s the only shooter here I’ve really warmed up to. Maybe because, unlike most people here, we both know what it’s like to be shot at.
In Jeff’s case, the experience was racked up doing private security work somewhere in Iraq-“outside the Green Zone” is as specific as he’s ever gotten. He’s in his mid-to-late twenties, square-jawed, and sarcastic. His Glock 19 has a gunmetal shine where the finish has rubbed away from use. Compared to my chromed new toy, his gun is a battered workmanlike tool. I like that about him, too.
It’s hard to have a conversation with ear protection on and guns going off a few feet away. We lean through the lane openings, watching shooters work through the course. Tonight there’s a cardboard wall with a window in the middle. Downrange, two IDPA cardboard bad-guy targets are staggered on the left side of the wall, one at five yards and the other at ten. Through the window, a bad guy becomes visible, most of his body shielded by a hostage target, and on the right side of the wall a crowd of three bad guys stands between five and seven yards away. The shooter takes cover on the left, puts two rounds on each target, reloads, then puts one in the head of the hostage taker through the window. To finish, he angles around the wall’s right edge to put two rounds each on the three final targets. All this with the stopwatch running.
“Right,” Jeff says. “This would happen in real life.”
I shrug. “It’s just a game, but you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like it.”
He smirks and turns back to the range. One of the hardcore shooters is getting ready to run the course. He wears a white germ mask over nose and mouth, marking him as one of the club’s several handloaders. For economy, since they’re sending so many rounds downrange, these guys make up batches of their own ammo at home. When they get together, they brag to each other about their “lead count”-not the number of bullets they’ve churned out of their presses, but how much lead has infiltrated the bloodstream as a consequence.
Jeff sighs. “Watch this guy.”
The shooter stands still, waiting for the buzzer with his hands raised. Once it sounds, he pistons his arm down, clears his holster, and starts firing. Before the spent brass of his initial shots reaches the ground, he’s already reloading and lining up the hostage shot through the window. The speed and economy of motion is something to behold. After the last round is fired, he keeps his weapon leveled, scanning back and forth like he’s expecting one of the cardboard adversaries to get up. Then he unloads and re-holsters.
“Perfect round,” someone says.
Glancing down the lanes, I see the timekeeper shaking his head in admiration.
But Jeff looks amused. “I wouldn’t want him on my side.”
“Seriously?” I say. “He looked good to me.”
“I doubt that, Roland. You saw the way he uses cover? Just enough to satisfy the rules. If those targets could shoot back, believe me, he wouldn’t be leaning out that way.”
A couple of shooters in front of us glance back, not liking what they’re overhearing. I know better than to try and shut him up, though. A little experience combined with the arrogance of youth is a potent combination.
“Now you,” he says. “You I’d take with me into combat.”
“You would, huh?”
“Maybe not with that fancy gun.” He smiles. “But yeah, I would. I can tell who’d keep his head when the flare goes up and who wouldn’t. You can handle yourself, I bet.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Whatever.”
The line advances and we get closer to the front, with members crowding behind us once they’re done. The middle shooters are mostly citizens. They joined the club after getting their Texas CHLs, concealed handgun licenses, or maybe they grew up in the gun culture like I did and the club offers an escape from the banking or lawyering or used-car dealing.
The club draws a strange cross section of Houston society. It’s all male, but apart from that fairly diverse. Hispanics and Asians, whites, blacks, some with money to burn and others scrimping to afford the gear. Meticulously law-abiding to a man, though not without some grumbling about the ATF and the administration. There are short-barreled, high-capacity assault rifles on sale up front, with thirty-round clips, flash suppressors, and collapsible stocks thanks to the lapse in the assault-weapons ban. But most of the guys out here seem to think that’ll all disappear at a moment’s notice. At least they tell themselves that to justify the next big-ticket purchase. I know the type from working for my uncle.
As the shooters progress, Jeff keeps a running commentary on their technique, half of it lost to the muffled noise. He can’t help it. Whenever the rules don’t match up to his take on reality, he has to open his mouth.
“Don’t you think you’re stating the obvious?” I ask. “The point isn’t to replicate a gunfight; it’s to have some fun while working on the repetitive skills that would come in handy in real life-reloads, clearing a jam, whatever.”
A couple of shooters nearby grunt their approval. They’re a little tired of what they see as his bragging. Noticing this, Jeff concedes with a good-natured shrug. “I hear you, but what can I say? I run my mouth under pressure.”
Now it’s my turn to say, “Whatever.” I have a good sense how Jeff would operate under real pressure, just like he has of me.
When his turn comes, he gives me a watch this look. He approaches the start line, crouches slightly, and raises his hands. At the buzzer he
goes into action. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s doing. Every movement mimics the masked shooter from before. The timing is identical, like he’s imitating a film running in his head. The bullets even perforate the targets in more or less the same places. At the finish he scans back and forth.
“Wow,” somebody says.
“He’s just a show-off.”
“If he can shoot like that,” I say, “then who cares?”
Muscle memory is one thing. Reproducing someone else’s action like that, after an interval of time-I’ve never seen anything like it. The timekeeper notes the scores on his clipboard without giving anything away. From this I gather Jeff finished a hair quicker than the man he was copycatting.
“That was amazing,” I tell Jeff when he files back.
He pats my shoulder. “Get ’em, killer.”
I toe the start line and take a deep breath. The buzzer sounds. I draw and move forward to the edge of the cardboard wall, double-tapping each of the targets. At the window, though, a needle of pain shoots up into my back. I try to ignore it. During my reload, I fumble one of the fat Browning mags, watching it bounce to the ground. I leave it, slotting the fresh one into place, then take the hostage shot. Everything’s a blur, and then I’m at the right-hand side of the wall, blazing away at the final trio.
I put my gun away, embarrassed.
“You’ve got a failure to neutralize,” the timekeeper says, meaning I missed one of the bad guys entirely.
The safety officer, standing off to the side, adds: “Also got a hit on a non-threat target.”
I turn around and glance through the window. Sure enough, the hostage has been clipped in the region of the right shoulder.
Returning to the lanes, dragging my sore leg a bit, I smile awkwardly and feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Since I started, I’ve never dropped below the top third of shooters. This is a disastrous showing. I want to get out of here. Back at my spot I begin packing my gear.
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