He looked at me. “Zee? You’re kidding me. Zee hates guns. She wouldn’t take one if Jesus gave it to her.”
“Well, you have to do Jesus one better, then. I want her to have a handgun and to know how to shoot it, and I think you’re the man to teach her.”
“Let’s go up to the house,” said Manny, giving the chair a final approving look. “When we get there, you can tell me what’s going on.”
11
In the basement gun shop at Manny’s house, I told him about the incident in Boston and the news that the shotgun was from Vineyard Haven.
Manny whistled. “I see why you want Zee to carry. I tell you something, J. W., if more women learned how to use guns and carried them, they’d be a lot better off, no matter what these blamed bleeding heart liberals say. My wife knows how to shoot and I told her that if I ever go off my rocker and start beating on her, she should put a slug right in me and never hesitate!” He handed me a pistol.
I couldn’t see Helen shooting Manny without hesitating, but I was pretty sure that’s what he thought she should do.
“What is this?” I asked, turning the semi-automatic in my hand and looking at it.
“Beretta 84F. .380. Thirteen rounds, double action. I put the wood grips on it. Plenty of whack at close quarters. It’ll fit Zee’s hand, too, and won’t kick too much. She don’t like it, we’ll come up with something else. Important thing is that she knows how it works, isn’t afraid of it, and can hit what she aims at.”
I pointed the pistol at a wall and sighted down the short barrel. Like Scarlett O’Hara, I could shoot pretty well if I didn’t have to shoot too far. “The problem will be getting her to learn that stuff,” I said. “She’s pretty hostile to guns.”
“Yeah, I been thinking about that,” said Manny. “I think it’d probably be best to go the sporting route. Target shooting for family fun, and like that. She might go for that when she wouldn’t go for the self-defense bit. What do you think?”
I thought we’d still have problems. “How much you want for this thing and some bullets to go with it?”
He told me.
“You willing to be the instructor?” I asked.
“Sure. Be glad to. Don’t want no Boston hood coming down here and finding Zee unarmed.”
Good. Not only was Manny a better shot than I was, he was an excellent shooting instructor. There was no doubt he’d have a lot more success teaching Zee how to use the pistol than I would. Even so, I knew I wouldn’t be surprised if, after dutifully learning all Manny could teach her, Zee would then hide the pistol away and never use it. I decided not to tell Manny that, though.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
“Fine. You decide you don’t want it, I’ll buy it back. Something else. Woman needs a gun, she doesn’t want it in her purse where somebody can grab her purse and gun and all. She wants it on her belt where she can get at it if she needs it. They got some rigs that are good for women. After Zee learns how to handle this pistol, I’ll come up with some leather for it, so she can have it with her. Like they say, it’s…”
“I know,” I said, quoting the ancient dictum: “It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
Manny nodded. “You got it, J. W. When you want Zee and me to get started?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “After work.”
“Meet you at the club at five-thirty,” said Manny. “Tell you what. I’ll have Helen come along. She likes to target shoot, and Zee won’t feel so much like she’s being turned into a Joan Wayne.”
Joan Wayne. I hadn’t heard that one before.
I took Zee’s new pistol and a box of bullets and went home. I tucked the weapon and ammunition into the drawer of my gun cabinet, and set about making a supper that would soften Zee’s resistance: pork saté, a nifty Indonesian barbecue that can set your taste buds singing. The secret is in the marinade, of course.
I melted a quarter cup of butter in a saucepan, then mixed in a tablespoon of lemon juice, a bit of grated lemon rind, a little Tabasco, some onion and brown sugar, a tablespoon of coriander, some cumin, ginger, salt, and pepper, a crunched garlic clove, and about a half cup of teriyaki sauce.
I mixed all of that up, and let it simmer five minutes. Then I cut the fat and sinew off the pork tenderloin, sliced the meat into three-quarter-inch cubes, stirred them into the sauce, and put everything into the fridge to marinate.
By the time Zee got home, I had the meat on skewers, the grill going out back, rice ready to cook, and a fresh spinach salad in the fridge. And of course I had the chilled martini glasses in the freezer beside the bottle of Lukusowa.
We went up onto the balcony with our drinks and looked out toward the sound. The slanting evening light passed over our shoulders, over the garden, over Sengekontacket Pond, where a few die-hard tyro surf sailors were still learning to play with their boards in the falling wind, over the road and beach beyond the pond, out over the sound, and on over the Atlantic, where, just beyond the horizon, darkness was rolling toward us.
After supper, accompanied by the house cabernet sauvignon, Zee sighed and patted her belly.
“I think I can make some money by renting you out to train husbands who don’t know how to welcome their wives home in the evening.”
“Let me choose the wives, and it’s a deal.”
“On second thought, forget the whole thing.”
After cognac I told her about my purchase.
“I don’t want anything to do with it,” said Zee, shaking her head. “I know there’s some chance that those guys in Boston may come down here, and I know that the gun being stolen in Vineyard Haven probably makes it more likely that somebody down here is tied into the shooting, but I have no desire at all to learn how to shoot a gun. Forget it.”
“Helen’s going to be down at the club with Manny tomorrow, after work,” I said. “They’ll be doing some target shooting. I’m not very good at it, compared to Manny, but it’s fun sometimes. I’d like to have you come along.”
“No,” said Zee. “I don’t like guns.”
“Neither did Sam Spade, but he knew how they worked. You should know, too, because we’re going to have them in the house, and the more you know, the safer you’ll be.”
She thought about that.
“When we have kids,” I said, “the guns will still be there. They’ll be locked up, but they’ll be there and I’ll want to teach them how to use them correctly. It’ll be better if you know about them, too.”
“That’s a pretty low road you’re taking, Jefferson. Waving our children at me before we even have them.”
“You don’t have to shoot if you don’t want to, but I’ll feel better if I know that you can if you wish, and that you’ll be safe while you’re doing it. Guns are very dangerous, especially if you don’t know anything about them.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Will you come down to the club and watch Helen and Manny and me shoot?”
“Sure.”
That was as much as I was going to get out of Zee.
“Good,” I said. “Maybe once you get there, you’ll change your mind.”
“Maybe,” said Zee. “But don’t count on it.”
Later, in bed, she poked me in the ribs with her finger just as I was sliding off to sleep. “I don’t need a gun to protect myself. I don’t.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I am. So forget the whole idea.”
“There’s me, too,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’d like you to be able to protect me, too, if I need protection.”
She lay silent for several minutes. When she spoke, her voice was touched with anger. “You sure can walk the low road when it suits you. First it’s our children who need me to know about guns, and now it’s you.”
“I’m shameless,” I said. “I admit it.”
“Shameless, and disgusting, too.”
“Shameless an
d disgusting and lower than a snake’s belly.”
“Worse than that, even. You don’t deserve to be protected.”
“You’re probably right, but I’m so rotten that I want you to protect me anyway.”
“This is a cheat, you know. You’re making me do something I don’t want to do.”
I sat up in bed and turned on my reading light. Zee stared up at me from her pillow. I looked down at her. “No,” I said. “I would never make you do something you don’t want to do. If you do this thing, it has to be because you’ve decided it’s the right thing to do. If you don’t think it is, don’t do it.”
Her hair was like a black nimbus around her face. Her eyes were huge and dark and deep. “You think we’re in danger, don’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know if we are or not.”
“But you think we might be.”
“I think we should keep that possibility in mind. I don’t think we should start jumping at shadows, but I think we should be careful.”
“So careful that I have to carry a gun?”
My heart turned over as I looked down at her. I touched her lips with my finger and then pushed a strand of raven hair from her forehead. “Not if you don’t want to. It’s just that I might not be there if you need help. You’ll have to help yourself.”
“I’ll have to think about it.” She stretched her arms up toward me. “I love you, you know.”
“Yes.” I sank down toward her. When people love you, you can manipulate them even when they know you’re doing it.
The next evening, after Zee got home from work, we got into my old Toyota Land Cruiser and drove down to the Rod and Gun Club shooting range.
Manny and Helen Fonseca were already there, with Manny’s normal piles of shooting gear spread out on the twenty-five-yard table. He was also wearing his weapons belt, complete with holstered side arm, extra clips, and pouches holding who knew what. I carried the Beretta 84F and its bullets in a paper bag, along with my earplugs and shooting glasses. I put the bag on the table.
Helen and Manny had set up the targets, and I noted with satisfaction that they were using the ringed ones instead of the man-shaped ones. Zee would be more likely to shoot at the ringed ones.
Zee and Helen embraced, and Manny shook our hands, and looked at Zee. “You want to watch for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. It’s pretty noisy, so you’d better wear these.” He handed her some earplugs. “What we’re going to do, Helen and me, is shoot from here first, then move up and shoot from about ten yards. It’s pretty close, but if we were shooting at, for instance, somebody who was shooting back, the chances are we wouldn’t be doing it at long range anyway. The idea here today is just to have some fun and see how good or bad we are.” He gestured at the table. “I got several guns here, and we’ll shoot ’em all. Some are revolvers and some, like this one here on my belt, are semi-automatics like the one J. W. brought along. I’ll shoot first with this here Colt .45 Double Eagle, and Helen will shoot with her Smith and Wesson Lady Smith .38. You won’t have any trouble telling them apart. Mine makes the biggest noise.” He grinned. Nothing made Manny happier than shooting pistols and talking about them.
Manny shot two clips through his .45 and blew the center out of every target he shot at. Helen, reloading between targets, fired her little .38 first with one hand, then the other, then with both, getting the bullets all in the targets, but not so centered as Manny had done.
“Why do you shoot with each hand?” Zee asked Helen, as the shootists paused and targets were being replaced.
“It’s just for fun here,” smiled Helen. “I’m really not good at all with my left hand, and I’m only so-so with my right, so if I really want to hit anything I have to do it with both hands. But if I was, say, a police officer and I got shot in my right hand, I’d need to be able to shoot with my left one.”
“Oh,” said Zee.
“Manny’s good with either hand,” said Helen with a bit of pride in her voice. “Manny, shoot with your left hand, so Zee can see how it should be done.”
“Sure,” said Manny. Shooting southpaw, he promptly blew the centers out of more targets.
“Manny’s got the touch,” said Helen, nodding. “I’ll never have it, but he’s got it. He’s a natural shooter.”
Manny was pleased about his skill, but not vain. “It’s a gift,” he said, “like some people have perfect pitch. Me, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but I can shoot pretty good if I stay in practice. I can’t teach anybody else how to be a great shot, but I can teach them how to shoot well. Helen here could be a lot better if she’d practice, but she’s got other things she likes to do better, so she’s not as good as she could be. Her and me are going to shoot with some of these other pistols now. Each one’s a little different, but the principle is the same with all of them.” He smiled and I knew his favorite wisdom was coming: “The secret is to stand in back of the gun when you shoot it.”
Zee gave him enough of a smile to make him feel good, and he and Helen blazed away some more, shooting with first this and then that pistol in Manny’s collection. The calibers ranged from .45 to .22, and the noises produced made me glad to have earplugs.
“Now, then, J. W., let’s try out that .380 you have in that lunch bag.” Manny got the Beretta out of the bag, checked it for safety, and slipped the clip into the handle. He glanced at me. “You mind if I shoot it first?”
I didn’t mind, and Manny, squeezing off the shots, blew out the bull’s-eye of his first target, then that of his second. He popped the clip and reloaded it.
“Nice little gun,” he said, handing clip and pistol to me.
I put on my glasses, assumed the two-handed stance he’d taught me, and emptied the clip into a target. The first shot went high, but the others were all on the paper. Not bad. If that had been a man out there, he’d have been pretty leaky by the time my clip was empty.
“Thirteen rounds,” Manny was saying to Zee. “That’s a lot better than the six rounds in Helen’s Lady Smith, but Helen likes the revolver and doesn’t like a semiautomatic.”
“I can figure out how my Lady Smith works,” said Helen, “but I’m never sure what’s going on with those semi-autos. I don’t feel comfortable with them.”
“That’s right,” said Manny. “When they were thinking about bringing out a pistol for women, Smith and Wesson did a study about what the ladies thought about guns. They found out that women thought semi-automatics were too complicated, and that they didn’t think anything smaller than a .38 would stop a rapist. So the Lady Smith is a .38 revolver, and Helen likes it better than the other guns here. It’s not too big and it’s not too little, it’s got a good trigger pull, and it’s got stopping power.”
“Then how come you talked Jefferson into taking this Beretta?” asked Zee.
“You get six shots with the Lady Smith and thirteen with the Beretta. Six should be plenty, but thirteen is seven more than plenty, in case you miss the first six times. Besides, the new autoloaders are just as safe as any revolver and just as trouble free. More gun for your dollar, I think. And so do most police and military agencies I know of.”
“Then why is Jeff’s police gun a revolver?”
“Because he was too cheap to buy an autoloader, I guess. A few old-timers still carry those police specials, but most law officers are wearing autoloaders of some kind these days. Just a matter of firepower. You don’t want the bad guys to have better weapons than you do, like happened down in Waco with that wacky religious guy and his gang. Say, would you like to take a few shots with the Beretta?”
Zee hesitated, and I wondered which way she would go. I was pleased to discover that I really didn’t care. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll try it.”
“Good girl,” said Manny. “I’ll show you some things about the weapon, and then we’ll fire some rounds. I think you’ll have fun shooting this gun. It’s a nice little piece.”
I felt
glad and sad at the same time, as they began to talk.
12
When Zee and I got home later that evening, she wasn’t in the grumpy mood I’d half expected. Instead, she played with Oliver Underfoot and Velero, and was thoughtful and quiet for the most part, although an occasional frown crossed her brow.
I had anticipated a more irritable disposition, and had planned a counterattack at the supper table, since Zee, for all her sleek slimness, could probably eat a horse if she tried, and found it hard to be in a bad humor when she had a full belly. I wasn’t serving horse, but something better: the Scandinavian fishbake that both of us could eat seven days a week without complaint. I made mine with cod this time. Delish, as always.
Zee was properly impressed, and almost her normal self as she drank the last of her wine and wiped her lips.
“Now I know why I married you, Mr. Jackson.”
“Since we’re hitched, you can stop that Mr. Jackson stuff and just call me J. W.”
After supper, while I washed and stacked the dishes, Zee made a phone call. As I hung the dishcloth over the spigot and dried my hands, she came into the kitchen.
“I just talked to Manny. We’re going to shoot again tomorrow evening.”
I was surprised. “Fine. That gun is yours, by the way.”
“I don’t want it! I don’t know if I’m going to go on with this.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Manny will buy the gun back if you don’t want it. I’m not going to say any more about it.”
“I know. But you’ll be thinking about it.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m thinking about it myself.”
“Okay. The thing is, what I think about how you should live and what you should do doesn’t make any difference. It’s what you think that counts.” I poured coffee and carried two cups out onto the porch where we could watch the fireflies flicker across the garden and through the trees. “Of course, I reserve the right to give you wise advice.”
“Which I don’t have to take.”
Death on a Vineyard Beach Page 9