by Joseph Flynn
“Here he comes now,” Ellie Booker said, inclining her head toward McGill getting out of his black Chevy sedan at the curb in front of the church.
Her videographer pointed his camera that way and started recording McGill’s every move and word. So far, though, he hadn’t done much more than shake some hands and say hello to people who had gathered in front of the church. McGill seemed at ease. The woman with him, his Secret Service protection, looked anything but relaxed.
“Want me to get up close, boss?” the videographer asked.
“Better not. You might get shot.”
Ellie saw how nervous the Secret Service agent was. She even knew who the woman was, Elspeth Kendry. The head of the White House Security detail. A thrill ran up Ellie’s spine. This could be really good. Something big. As McGill climbed the steps to where a priest and a guy with a beard and scruffy clothes were waiting, she waved to him.
McGill waved back and called out, “Get a good vantage point for your camera guy.”
Talk like that almost made Ellie swoon. She urged her companion forward, only to see that the approximation of a front row center spot had already been staked out — by her boss, WWN Chairman Hugh Collier. The brawny gay Aussie stepped aside to let the videographer have a direct line on McGill and the two other men standing four steps above them.
The press of the growing crowd nudged Ellie up against Collier.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Galia Mindel called me yesterday. Said I might want to keep a close eye on Mr. McGill.”
Ellie frowned. “Damnit, the White House is playing us.”
Collier laughed. “Yes, but isn’t it great fun they’ve chosen us as their playmates?”
Ellie had to admit it was pretty cool.
Calle Ocho — Miami, Florida
In the cutting room of his shop, Jerry Nerón worked on the first suit for the client he’d seen in Washington. To the hum of the air conditioner and the murmur of a television set to a low volume, he’d done the cutting blueprint on strong white paper a meter wide and two meters long. The completed blueprint was called a draft. That was followed by the production pattern, a duplicate of the draft made with a pricker wheel on brown card stock called oaktag. The first two steps proceeded with a Zen flow, every millimeter perfect.
It had been years since Jerry had to think about his tailoring.
The oaktag pattern was cut with shears. Jerry always kept his honed to exquisite edges. The one distraction he allowed himself was to recall how deftly he had put an end to that fat cabrón Galtero Blanco, employing the same tool he used to ply his trade. A flick of the wrist. Zip. Three hundred and forty-three pounds of mierda hit the floor.
Several years earlier, Jerry had a girlfriend who read Stephen King novels in bed after the two of them had made love. He didn’t mind. He just fell asleep as his girlfriend read the stories to him. He’d absorbed enough to realize King thought just about anything could be haunted. Including a 1958 Plymouth Fury, for Christ’s sake.
That made Jerry wonder if Galtero Blanco might haunt the shears that had been used to kill him. He could see the way it would play out. His shears wouldn’t attack him, oh no. The way it would go, one night all the men who wore the suits Jerry had tailored for them with a murder weapon would come for him. The best-dressed zombies anybody had ever seen.
They’d all have their own shears. Slice his ass to pieces.
He was pretty sure he could sell that story to Hollywood.
Once he decided he was tired of living and wanted the state to pick up his funeral expenses.
Until then, he’d go about his chosen professions. One of them anyway. Doing people in was getting tiresome. And he didn’t like the way his last job had gone. Improvising at the last minute had been foolish. If he’d gone ahead and killed his target the way he’d planned, that would have been the smart thing to do.
Coming in the wake of the slaughter at the school — those poor kids — his homicide would have gotten much less attention than it would have normally.
But, no, he couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Maybe that was the curse that would get him.
He’d become as stupid as Galtero Blanco.
Jerry moved on to the next step in his work. He placed the production pattern on the cloth he and the client had chosen for the suit. Wool as smooth and soft as a young girl’s cheek. He used a piece of sharpened chalk to draw thin, clear lines.
He wondered if he could use the chalk to the same effect as the shears.
Zip. Someone’s throat got slashed.
Before he could arrive at an answer, a story on the television caught his attention.
He used the remote to boost the volume.
James J. McGill was standing in front of a church in Washington. He pulled at a piece of cloth and revealed an electronic display board with flashing numbers on it. A title above the numbers defined the board’s purpose.
Holy shit. Someone had gone to the trouble of tallying his work.
Well, his and a lot of other people.
FirePower America — Falls Church, Virginia
Auric Ludwig watched the same WWN broadcast Jerry Nerón saw in Florida, and his eyes all but popped from his head. “Goddamnit, goddamnitall to hell.”
McGill had just revealed the nation’s dirtiest secret.
He was showing America how many people guns killed in the country.
That was the legend across the top of the display board: National Gun Death Counter.
And, goddamnit, the thing was actually counting. The number had gone up twice in the few seconds Ludwig had been watching. The total was measured in the thousands, and it was only March. Just wait until summer and the weather got hot. That damn thing would be spinning like a slot machine.
Maybe it wouldn’t even take that long. The counter would take a big spike the next time there was another mass shooting. Christ Almighty, that would be just the kind of visual TV news would eat up. Worse, there would be no way he could stop them.
For a brief moment, Ludwig thought he heard the sizzle of his brain frying.
That’d take care of any worries about his going to prison.
McGill began to explain the sign’s purpose: “Every day in our country, an average of thirty people are murdered with firearms. Another fifty-three people kill themselves with guns every day. Those are just the deaths; that’s all that we’re counting on this display. But another one hundred and sixty-three Americans are wounded by firearms daily.
“These figures come from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control.
“You add up all three numbers and you get two hundred and forty-six people who are gunshot victims in the United States every day. These are the kinds of casualty numbers we might not expect to see anywhere but in a major war. In the United States, however, we just shrug them off as being a part of everyday life in what we like to call the greatest country in the world.
“We can’t do that any longer. The killing must stop. There must be a ceasefire. When I was both a police officer and a grad school student in Chicago, I wrote a paper in which I said, ‘If a situation stinks and you want to change it, you can’t let people hold their noses.’ That’s the purpose of this National Gun Death Counter, to keep people from holding their noses, to make them revolted by the stink and to get all of us to make our country a safer place. Thank you for your attention. Father Alphonsus Dennehy, the pastor of Saint Martin de Porres parish, would also like to offer a few words.”
Father Dennehy stepped forward. “The Catholic Church has consistently and ardently advocated a pro-life doctrine. I’ve always been proud of that. After hearing the figures Mr. McGill shared with us, that doctrine must include an all-out effort to end the scourge of gun-death killings and maimings in our country. I challenge every Catholic parish in the country to prominently display a gun-death counter as we at St. Martin de Porres have done. To my friends of other denominations and faiths, we ask that you l
ook to your souls, talk with your congregations and decide what is right for you. Thank you.”
Ludwig snapped off his television.
Holy God, he thought. If all he had to deal with was one poor church in Washington, he could handle that. But if Catholics and Protestants across the country started equating gun deaths with abortions, he’d be in real trouble.
That fucking McGill. Maybe attacking him would be the way to fight back. McGill was the bastard trying to prove that a good guy with a gun hadn’t killed Abel Mays, but Ludwig needed that good guy to exist now more that ever.
Ludwig went to his office window, hoping the view might inspire him as to how to mount his counterattack. Instead it staggered him. There was a billboard opposite the FirePower offices. The ads that appeared on it were invariably innocuous commercial appeals, but no longer.
A second National Gun Death Counter was going up.
Ludwig knew it was no coincidence. He was being challenged directly.
Saint Martin de Porres Church — Washington, DC
McGill told Ellie Booker he’d meet with her to shoot his interview in thirty minutes. Then he stepped through the crowd, shaking hands as he went, Elspeth watching for unfriendly faces, and came to Captain Rockelle Bullard and Detectives Meeker and Beemer. They’d parked their city car behind McGill’s Chevy.
McGill had called them en route to the church.
Rockelle told McGill, “I knew things were bad, but I didn’t know they were that bad. And I’m a homicide cop. I hope that priest lights a fire under a lot of people.”
“Me, too,” McGill said. He told Rockelle and her men about the two guys from the DOD seizing Jordan Gilford’s laptop computer and his hard-copy files.
“I know everything’s all about national security these days, but I sure would have liked to know if any information Mr. Gilford might have possessed could lead to his murder,” Rockelle said.
“Any good cop would,” McGill agreed. “Captain Welborn Yates has top-secret clearance. He’s going to be talking to some prominent people at the Pentagon in the very near future. If he sees anything he thinks you or I should know, he’ll tell us.”
Both Meeker and Beemer looked unpersuaded.
Rockelle reassured them. “Captain Yates is as straight as it gets. I’ll trust Mr. McGill to be the same way. Let me have that envelope we brought with us, Detective Meeker.”
She took a manila envelope from Meeker and handed it to McGill.
“The Park Police delivered some pictures to my office this morning and were very polite about it. It was almost like someone way up the federal ladder told them to play nice. So we made copies for you.”
McGill took three eight-by-ten color prints out of the envelope and examined them.
Rockelle told him, “Nothing showing Mr. Gilford’s actual murder, but the car in the pictures shows it was parked right in front of Abel Mays’ SUV. Man at the wheel drove off just about the time the medical examiner established as the time of Mr. Gilford’s death.”
“He’s wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses,” McGill said.
“On a morning that was cloudy,” Beemer said.
“Doesn’t look like was styling either,” Meeker added.
McGill agreed. “No it doesn’t. The plates on the car are visible, but they’ve got to be stolen.”
“They were,” Rockelle said. “My detectives and I think that car is so plain it might as well be invisible. Then Detective Beemer had a thought on how it might be made even more so.”
McGill guessed, “You’re thinking a compactor? At a scrapyard?”
The two detectives looked at each other properly impressed.
Rockelle said, “You got it. The detectives will be making the rounds, and contacting their counterparts with the state police in Maryland and Virginia.”
McGill said, “Good. Maybe another camera at a scrapyard has a better shot of the driver.”
“That or a junkyard dog took a good bite out of him,” Beemer added.
“Either way,” Rockelle said, “we’re all keepin’ our fingers crossed. One more thing.”
“What?” McGill asked.
“I like Captain Yates. He’s a fine young man. If Mr. Gilford was a threat to some big shot’s action, Captain Yates will be, too. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” McGill said. “One more thing for you, Captain.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d suggest Metro PD assign additional patrol units and maybe some plain-clothes officers to keep an eye on the church’s new sign for a few weeks.”
“You think somebody’s gonna come by and vandalize that sign?” Meeker asked.
“Maybe even shoot it up,” Beemer said.
“Could be either,” McGill told them.
Connecticut Avenue NW — Washington, DC
Ellie Booker got straight to the point with her first interview question. “Mr. McGill, are you crusading for, and do you support, stricter gun-control laws?”
The two of them sat in facing chairs, offset by a few degrees so they didn’t bump feet or knees, but closer than two people engaged in conversation would normally sit. Per Ellie’s suggestion, McGill had left his hair a bit wind-tousled. She’d said it would make for better continuity with the video shot outside the church.
McGill was wearing makeup; he’d learned the wisdom of doing that long ago.
The videographer and Hugh Collier, sitting out of camera range, were the only other people in Ellie’s interview room.
McGill said, “No, to both halves of your question.”
Ellie blinked, taken by surprise, but she was a pro, ready with an alternative question to an unexpected answer.
“So you’re fine with things as they stand? You just happened to support a provocative measure like the unveiling of the National Gun Death Counter at Saint Martin de Porres Church today?”
“I’m not fine with the status quo. I deplore the gun-deaths of innocents at the Winstead School and anywhere else in the country. I not only support the National Gun Death Counter at Saint Martin de Porres, it was my idea. I can tell you now that other such counters will soon be put in place in cities and towns throughout our country.”
Hugh Collier leaned forward, smiling.
WWN had just been given a major scoop.
Looking thoughtful, and feeling a measure of actual respect for McGill’s cunning, Ellie said, “You’re acting on what you said earlier today. You’re looking on a situation you think stinks —”
McGill interrupted. “There’s no thinking necessary about this situation. The murders and suicides of dozens of people every day, tens of thousands of people every year, isn’t a situation anyone has to ponder. It’s a vast national tragedy and it has to stop.”
“If you don’t support stricter gun laws, how do you propose to do that?”
McGill said, “By changing the way the American people think about guns.”
With incredulity in her voice, Ellie asked, “You think that will be more effective?”
“I think it’s an imperative first step. At one time we had a Constitutional amendment against the sale, distribution and possession of alcoholic beverages, commonly known as Prohibition. It didn’t keep anyone from drinking, and it gave rise to modern organized crime.
“If you had a Congress that wasn’t bought and paid for by special interests, including the gun lobby, it could pass a gun-control amendment to the Constitution, but that wouldn’t matter any more than Prohibition did. Except that a lot of cops would get killed trying to enforce it. Gun ownership in the United States is more than a right, it’s a fact of life. Banning it would be like trying to ban wine in France or beer in Germany. Never happen.”
“So you want to change people’s thinking. But a lot of people think the Second Amendment is absolute, in effect an anything-goes-for-guns amendment.”
McGill was ready for that argument. He’d reread his grad school paper.
“Well, let’s take a look at the histo
ry of that amendment. It was written, along with the rest of the Constitution, in 1787. At that time the United States Army had a standing force of 800 soldiers and officers. The Navy and the Marine Corps had been disbanded after our victory in the Revolutionary War and the Air Force, of course, remained undreamt of.
“There were no police departments at the time; it would be another fifty-one years before the first department with daytime patrols would be established in Boston. Given those circumstances, and the fact that the country was largely a wilderness and there were ongoing hostilities with Native American tribes, you’d think that would be enough to inspire the Framers to include a right to bear arms, but many historians think there was another root motivation for the writing of the Second Amendment.”
Ellie had taken the time to read a copy of McGill’s paper, too.
But she took her cue anyway. “What would that be?”
“The year prior to the writing of the Constitution, in 1786, there was an act of insurrection in Massachusetts known as Shays’ Rebellion. A group of war veterans who’d never received full pay or promised bonuses for their service and a number of ordinary citizens who felt oppressed by a tax increase decided to rebel against the state government. The governor raised militias to put down the rebels before they could raid the state’s Springfield Armory and arm themselves. The militias barely succeeded. The rebellion was fresh in the minds of the men who gathered in nearby Pennsylvania the following summer for the Constitutional Convention.”
“So your point here is …” Ellie asked.
“That you can’t forget the predicate clause of the Second Amendment: ‘A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state …’ The militias raised by Massachusetts were the forces that put down the insurrection. The militias were all any state had to provide for their security when the Constitution was written. They not only had to be well-regulated, they had to be armed. So the right to bear arms was provided to any potential militiaman, and by extension everyone else.”
“And what’s your takeaway from all this?” Ellie asked.