Seventh Enemy

by William G. Tapply

  She and I had spent the previous evening lounging on the porch watching the darkness seep into the meadow. It had been stupid.

  I didn’t want to spend any more time in Wally’s cabin. I didn’t want Diana to, either.

  She called me a little after noon. “He was awake for a little while,” she said. “Groggy, pretty out of it. But he recognized me. He has no idea what happened.”

  “Did you talk to the doctor?”

  “Briefly. He seemed pleased. Walter had a fever in the night, but it’s come down. He says that infection is still the main concern.”

  “Diana, listen.” I said. “I want Wally transferred to Mass General as soon as possible. I’m going to make a few calls. Okay?”

  “But—”

  “The best medical care in the world is at Mass General. Anyway, I want him near us. And we’re not staying here.”

  “You can go home, Brady. I’ll be fine. I’m staying.”

  “No, you’re not. It’s not safe.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “You really don’t think it was an accident, do you?”

  “Of course it wasn’t an accident.”

  “So you think…?”

  “You and I are going to find a motel tonight. Tomorrow we go home. Wait for me there. What do you need me to bring?”

  “Brady—”

  “We’re going to do it my way, Diana.

  “Just bring Corky, then.”

  I caught Doc Adams at his home in Concord. I explained to him what had happened. Doc knows every medical person in eastern Massachusetts and has an affiliation with Mass General. He said he’d handle the whole thing.

  He called me back at four o’clock. “It’s all arranged,” he said. “There’s a room waiting for him. They’ll bring him by ambulance tomorrow morning.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “I’ve seen Kinnick’s show,” said Doc. “He’s my kind of guy.”

  16

  I FINALLY SUMMONED UP the nerve to peek in on Wally Sunday morning, just an hour before they were going to load him into the ambulance for his trip to Mass General. They’d cranked his bed into a half-sitting position. He bristled with tubes, just as I’d imagined. Some of them were introducing fluids into him, and others were evacuating them.

  I sat down in the chair beside his bed and squeezed his shoulder. “How you feeling?” I said.

  “Just pisser.” One of the tubes snaked up through his nostril and down his throat. When he talked, it came out as a soft croak.

  “Has the sheriff been in to see you?”

  Wally rolled his eyes. I guessed it would hurt too much to shrug his shoulders. “Dunno. Been sleeping.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Huh?”

  “When you were shot.”

  “Nothing.” He closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Pain?” I said.

  “Comes and goes.”

  “Who did it, Wally? What do you think?”

  “Not SAFE. They’re not that stupid.”

  “Who else, then?”

  “Dunno.”

  I leaned close to him. “You have a suspicion?”

  He sighed. “None. Sleepy.”

  Diana and I waited in Wally’s room until they wheeled him out to the ambulance that would take him to Boston. Then she and Corky and I drove back to the cabin. We cleaned up and packed and loaded our cars. Then she climbed into her Cherokee and I got into my BMW, and I followed her down the hill.

  When we got to the gravel road, Diana bore left to head back to Cambridge. I impulsively took a right. Saturday’s rain had stopped sometime overnight. It was a sparkling Sunday afternoon in May, and I was reluctant to leave the woods and the clean air and the river.

  I followed the dirt road that paralleled the Deerfield, crossed the narrow bridge, and pulled into the grassy area where Wally and Diana and I had parked a couple of days earlier. This time there were eight or ten cars there. None of them was a green Volvo wagon with Vermont plates and a Trout Unlimited sticker on the back window.

  I didn’t bother rigging up. I clambered down the steep path and found a boulder on the water’s edge to sit on. From that vantage I could see three anglers casting flies. The one closest to me was a woman. She cast with fluid grace, and it relaxed me to sit and bathe my face in the sunshine and watch her. She was casting to a fish that was rising in a tricky location where the current eddied behind a rock. She changed flies a couple of times, shifted her position, and then I saw a little spurt of water engulf her fly. Her rod arced, and a minute later she knelt by the riverbank and unhooked what looked like a rainbow of fifteen or sixteen inches. She released it, gently stood, and noticed me. She grinned and waved and I waved back to her. Then she waded back into the river.

  I sat there for a few minutes longer, then climbed the path to my car. I had found what I’d come here for—that “momentary stay against confusion” that Frost wrote about. Trout rivers—even when I don’t fish in them—do that for me.

  I got into my car, followed the dirt roads to Route 2, and turned left. I was headed east, back to the city. I kept it below the speed limit. I was in no hurry to get home. Tomorrow I’d have to go to the office. It always amazed me how a few days in jeans and moccasins blunted whatever enthusiasm I had for the practice of law.

  Up ahead on the right I saw a sign that read GUNS. Why not? I thought. I pulled into the peastone parking area. Only two other vehicles were there, a blue Ford pickup and an old Buick sedan.

  It was a low-slung square dark-shingled building. Handprinted signs in the window advertised AMMO, BAIT, TACKLE, AND GUNS NEW AND USED.

  I climbed the steps and went in. A bell jangled when the door opened. A beagle was sleeping on an old sweatshirt beside a cold woodstove in the corner. He opened his eyes, looked me over, decided I wasn’t a rabbit, and closed them again. Two men were leaning toward each other over a glass-topped display case. The one behind it, I figured, ran the place. The other was a customer, or perhaps just a friend in for a chat.

  On the wall behind the glass case stood a rack of guns. There must have been forty or fifty of them standing there on their butts. Guns of every description—double-barreled shotguns, pumps, autoloaders, bolt-action rifles, rifles with scopes.

  The glass case under the two guys elbows contained boxes of ammunition and an assortment of handguns.

  I glanced around the rest of the place. Against the back wall stood the bait tanks. There was a free-standing rack of spinning and bait-casting rods. Rotating display racks held lures affixed to cardboard, vials of scent, spools of monofilament, hooks, bobbers, swivels, lead weights. There were knives and hunting bows, bowsights and broadheads, canteens and tents and sleeping bags, camouflage suits and boots.

  It reminded me of an old-time Five and Ten, with a theme.

  I prowled around while the two men talked at the counter. I took a small Buck knife from a shelf, slid it from its sheath, and tested it against the ball of my thumb. I’m a sucker for good knives. I collect them the way some people collect paintings. In fact, a well-made knife to me is beautiful, a work of art. I only actually use two or three of my knives. But I do like to own them.

  I continued browsing until the customer left the store. Then I went up to the counter.

  “How ya doin’?” he said. He had a bristly black mustache and watery blue eyes. Late thirties, early forties.

  “I’d rather be fishing,” I said.

  He nodded. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  I put the knife on the counter. He picked it up. “Want this one?”

  I nodded. “It fills out my collection.”

  “Buck makes a good knife.” He hit some keys on his old-fashioned cash register. “Forty-two bucks. Plus two-ten for the governor.”

  “Fine,” I said. I jerked my head in the direction of the rack of guns. “What kind of rifle would you use for turkeys?” I said.

  “Rifle?” He smiled. “No kind, that’s what. Get yourself arreste
d, hunting turkey with a rifle. You want a tight-bored twelve-gauge autoloader for turkey. One of those Remingtons with the thirty-inch barrels, they’ll send out a nice tight pattern of number fours. You want to shoot your turkey in the head, which ain’t much bigger’n silver dollar. You wanna kill a turkey, you need all the help you can get. Shotgun’s the thing for gobblers.”

  “You wouldn’t use a rifle?”

  “Not in Massachusetts, unless you want to break the law. Some guys go after turkeys with a bow. Helluva sport, bow and arrow hunting for turkey. You plannin’ on goin’ after a turkey?”

  “I never did it. Sounds like fun.” I fumbled in my pockets and brought out one of the empty cartridges I’d found in the woods, the one I’d already handled. I had sealed the other two in a plastic bag, hoping there were fingerprints on them.

  I handed the cartridge to the guy. “You wouldn’t use one of these for turkey, then, huh?”

  He squinted at it for a moment then handed it back to me. “Very common varmint load, the .223 Remington. Put a good scope on a .223 and it’d probably work real fine on a gobbler. Except, like I say, it’s illegal.”

  “So I’d want a shotgun,” I said.

  He nodded. “You need camouflage, turkey call, maybe a spread of decoys. I got all that stuff. Also a video that’ll teach you how to call. You’ve gotta know how to call ’em in. Kinda late to get started, actually. Spring season’s about over now.”

  I nodded. “Maybe next year I’ll try it.” I took out my wallet and handed him my MasterCard. “I’ll take this nice Buck knife, anyway.”

  He ran the card through his machine and gave me the slip to sign.

  I peered up at the rack of guns behind him. “How’s the market for assault guns these days?” I said.

  “A little slow. I’ve sold maybe three or four this spring.”

  “If a man wanted to get himself, say, an Uzi…”

  He shrugged. “No problem. I haven’t got one in stock, but I could order it for you. I get ’em on trade-in now and then, too.”

  “As easy as that?”

  He smiled. “So far, that’s all there is to it. You want to buy a gun, if I’ve got what you’re after here, you give me money, show me your FID card, and I give you the gun.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup. That’s it.”

  “Any gun?”

  “Any gun you want. If I ain’t got it in stock, I can order it for you. Whatever you want.”

  “Even a military weapon?”

  “You bet. Except for full automatic, of course.”

  “There’s no waiting period or anything?”

  “Thank God, not yet. Matter of time, I suppose, the way things are going.” He cocked his head at me. “You lookin’ for an Uzi?”

  “Nope. Not today. This knife will do me for today.”

  He dropped the knife into a bag, and I took it, thanked him, and headed for the door. A table just inside the entrance held a coffee machine and a stack of papers. I picked one up. The SAFE logo was blazoned across the top—a flintlock musket poking through the A in SAFE, and under it the slogan: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

  “Can I take one of these?” I said to the guy behind the counter.

  “Help yourself. They’re free. Just got ’em in Wednesday.”

  I waved and went out to my car.

  When I slid behind the wheel I looked at the four-page newsletter. The front page was taken up by a two-column article with the title, “Another Attack on Gun Owners.”

  It was written by Gene McNiff, SAFE executive director. I skimmed it. It gave an acutely biased summary of each witness’s testimony on the assault-weapon bill, and concluded with a dire warning about the impact the legislation would have, if passed, on the liberties of the American people.

  Walt Kinnick’s statement before the subcommittee was characterized as a “cynical betrayal.”

  The second page, and the first column on page three, contained a series of short pieces reporting events at New England rod-and-gun clubs.

  The right-hand column on the third page was called “Know Your Enemy.”

  It was a list, and the words “Brady Coyne” jumped from the middle of it and smacked me in the face.

  “The following people,” read the lead-in to the list, “want to take your guns away from you. Let them hear from you. Let them know how you feel. Let them know that all of us decent law-abiding gun owners are not going to lay back while they rip up our Constitution.”

  There were ten of us, complete with our mailing addresses and phone numbers. Walt Kinnick was number one. Second was Marlon Swift (R-Marshfield), the state senator who had chaired the subcommittee before which Wally had testified. Then came the governor of Connecticut, followed by both United States senators from Massachusetts and the congressman from Rhode Island’s Second District.

  Then, in seventh place, Brady Coyne. Me. Enemy number seven.

  Seeing my name there in print made me shiver. I was an actual enemy. I was on a list. Name, phone number, address.

  Wally was at the top of the list, and he had nearly been assassinated. Somebody had let Wally know how he felt. The list, giving his phone number, came out on Wednesday, just two days after the hearing. That’s when he began getting phone calls.

  SAFE obviously didn’t take their enemies lightly.

  They shot them.

  One week earlier I had never even heard of the Second Amendment For Ever organization. Now my friend had been shot in the stomach, and I was their seventh-ranked enemy.

  I wasn’t sure I had the courage to be a worthy enemy.

  Then I thought, Hell, if they wanted an enemy that badly, they could have me. Like Boston Blackie from the early television days, I was willing to be an enemy of those who made me an enemy.

  Blackie had been a friend to those who had no friends, and that suited me, too. Walt Kinnick seemed to be losing a lot of friends.

  I glanced at the rest of the names that filled out the list of ten. Eighth was a United States senator from Vermont, Number nine was a congresswoman from Maine. Gun-control advocates, I assumed.

  Number ten was Wilson Bailey, the poor guy whose wife and child had been mowed down in a small-town library near Worcester by an angry man with an assault gun. Wilson Bailey had struck me as an eminently worthy enemy, a man with plenty of courage and conviction. Wilson Bailey might need a friend, too. As I started up the car and pulled out of the parking area, I thought of the guy behind the counter of the gun shop. Either he hadn’t read my name off my credit card, or he hadn’t committed the SAFE list to memory. I doubted he’d have been so friendly if he’d realized I was such an important threat to his livelihood, even if I did buy a nice Buck knife from him.

  17

  I GOT ALL MY gear put away and took a short glass of ice cubes and bourbon out onto my balcony to think about it all. A moon sliver hung like a thin slice of honeydew melon over the horizon. I lit a cigarette and sipped from my glass. It was very clear to me that some fanatical member of SAFE had tried to kill Wally. The newsletter had given Wally’s phone number and post office box number in Fenwick. The SAFE vigilante had called the number and left his message. A few inquiries of the local shopkeepers and gas station attendants would have directed him to “the Palmer place,” Walt’s cabin.

  Probably it was seeing my own name on that list that led me to my next conclusion. Or maybe it was irrational. But it seemed eminently likely to me that the same crazy man who shot Wally might have gotten it into his skewed brain to work his way clown the list, picking off enemies one by one, to the greater glory of God, Country, and the Second Amendment For Ever.

  I’d he number seven, if he got that far.

  State Senator Marlon Swift was number two. If my logic was sound, he would be next.

  There had been two messages on my machine when I got back from my adventures in the Berkshires. The first was from Doc Adams, Sunday afternoon, advising me that Wally
was safely ensconced in a private room at Mass General Hospital. Doc had dropped in on Wally and found him sleeping.

  Charlie McDevitt had called, asking for a report on the trout fishing.

  There were no anonymous death threats.

  Not yet, I thought. It wasn’t my turn.

  I watched the moon rise for the length of time it took me to finish my drink. Then I went inside. I found the SAFE newsletter, sat at the kitchen table, and punched out the phone number for Senator Marlon Swift’s home in Marshfield.

  A woman answered. I asked for the senator.

  “Who’s calling, please?” she said. Her voice was pleasant, neutral, efficient, as if she was used to having strangers call on Sunday evenings and knew how to handle them.

  “My name is Brady Coyne,” I said. “I’m Walt Kinnick’s attorney.”

  “Who?”

  “Walt Kinnick,” I said. “He testified before Senator Swift’s subcommittee on Monday. If it’s not convenient…”

  “I’ll see if he can come to the phone,” she said.

  A minute later a cautious voice said, “Yes?”

  “Senator Swift,” I said, “it’s Brady Coyne. I’m Walt Kinnick’s lawyer.”

  “Sure,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you seen the latest SAFE newsletter?”

  He chuckled. “Yes. Walt Kinnick has supplanted me as their number-one enemy. Damned disappointing. My constituents want me to be at the top of that list. Gun control is a big issue in my district.”

  “Did you know that Wally was shot?”

  There was a long pause. Then he said, “What did you say?”

  “Walt Kinnick was shot. It happened Friday up at his cabin in Fenwick. He’s—”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yes, I guess he’s going to be okay. They transferred him to Mass General this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean, shot?”

  “He was in the woods. They got him in the stomach.”

  “And you think…”

  “Senator, Wally was number one on that list. You’re number two.”

  He laughed quickly. “And you, if I recall, Mr. Coyne, are also on the list.”