* * * * *
Ernie hired me that day for the princely amount of 600 bucks a month and agreed to pick up all registration/license fees. He also said he’d pay for any formal training courses, but since my training consisted of listening to and following Ernie around, he never had to fork over any cash in that area. In addition, I almost always was the one who wound up buying the beer. To give the devil his due, Ernie did advance me a cool grand to help me get settled in Charlotte.
I agreed to be his apprentice for at least two years, and he promised to teach me the ropes. If I liked working with him and vice versa, he’d help me earn my private detective license.
Ernie explained that his back had been bothering him lately, and he needed an assistant. He said he’d plenty of business and needed a young pair of legs to do the donkeywork.
Lawyers needing divorce and personal investigation work done were his main meal tickets at the time, coupled with the odd insurance agency check. He also had the occasional walk-in, but they weren’t a large part of his income. I eventually changed all that, becoming, as US magazine dubbed me “Shamus to the Stars”...but that’s another story.
Ernie was also something of a mini slumlord, having a few properties that he’d inherited from his late wife scattered around Charlotte. One of the places was a small one-bedroom frame house on the northern outskirts of town that had been built in the early twenties for mill workers. He let me live there rent-free as part of our deal. He said that I soon as I got my PI license, we would renegotiate my salary, so I could eventually afford a better place to live.
The place was a mess, but it was free, so I really couldn’t bitch too much. I remember once sitting in the minuscule living room watching the TV news and seeing a small field mouse sitting on top of the TV, as if he was daring me to do something. I started setting out traps and every night for about a week, I’d be awoken with the sound of them going off.
I complained to Ernie about the rodent problem, but he said no one who had rented the place ever complained about the mice before, but then again, no one who had ever rented that house from him had successfully gotten past the third grade either.
I had to think about that one for a while, but I think eventually understood his point.
I bought a second-hand car, a ’72 green Buick Skylark, and within a week I was situated and ready to go to work. First thing Ernie did was have me fill out all the paperwork for my North Carolina PI apprentice license. I also applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. That took a day or two. Then Ernie and I started my firearm training.
The only gun experience I'd had was with a WWII vintage .45 caliber automatic pistol in the Navy. My ship had pulled into Subic Bay in the Philippines, and the Gunnery Chief had taken all the new crew members out to the rifle range to get .45 qualified so we could stand in-port watch. As an Ensign, I was expected to get Officer-of-the-Deck-In-Port qualified and part of that qualification was knowing how to shoot a pistol.
It was pouring rain, and I was hung over as hell after being introduced to San Miguel beer and bar girls the night before. I shot two clips of ammo, managed to wing the target a few times and was declared .45 caliber pistol qualified in the eyes of the U.S. Navy. That meant I could wear an unloaded gun while standing watch.
Note to the world: never give a loaded gun to a sailor. They won’t know how to fire it and will only try to figure out a way to use it to get drunk and/or laid. I know—I was a sailor.
I never shot a gun again during my time in the military.
So when Ernie asked me what experience I had with guns in the Navy, I could only say that I knew what they looked like, and that they were dangerous.
“That’s okay,” said Ernie, “you won’t have any bad habits to break and lessons to unlearn. I’m going to teach what you really need to know about guns in the private dick business.”
I was expecting a lecture on the inherent dangers of guns, how you never draw one unless you mean to fire it, always shoot to kill and other such rot.
Not from Ernie.
“The first rule about carrying a gun around is to buy a real big shiny gun,” Ernie told me. “I’ve been in this business over twenty years, and shiny guns get the best results when dealing with clients or questioning folks.”
Shiny gun?
I asked him what he meant by shiny gun and Ernie just sighed, opened up his desk drawer and pulled out his gun. It was a big .44 caliber, nickel-plated Smith & Wesson revolver that had been lovingly polished and buffed until it seemed to have an inner glow of its own.
“Always wear something like this slung under your arm when meeting a customer. Leave your coat unbuttoned and make sure that he gets a glimpse of it. It will impress the hell out of them, and they won’t bitch as much at you when you later give’em the bill. I found out that the shiny ones are easier to see than the ones painted blue.”
Painted blue?!
This last statement should have sent alarm bells going off in my head, but I was in hock to the guy for a thousand bucks, and he’d been making his living at this for a long time, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he did have a license to carry one of these things.
God, I was naïve back then.
We then discussed the finer points of pistol whipping an individual; make sure they’re unarmed and keep your finger off the trigger when smacking a guy. People are reluctant to give information after you have accidentally shot them in the head. I asked Ernie if it was better to use the barrel or butt of the gun when hitting a subject, and he laughed.
“Just hit the son-of-the-bitch with the gun,” he said, “and remember to polish it after you’re done. Some of the shit people put on their hair these days will ruin the polish job on your gun, especially the crap niggers and whores put on their heads.”
With that last fashion commentary, Ernie and I went out to buy me a gun.
We hopped into Ernie’s caddy and went to a local gun store. I first started looking at some automatics, but Ernie put a stop to that.
“Get a revolver, they’re easier to load and shoot, even if you have been drinking and a lot less likely to go off when you hit someone with it. They’re also easier to keep clean and polished.”
I finally settled on a Ruger nickel-plated double-action, short-barreled .38 caliber revolver. The owner said it was the least likely of guns to go accidentally off—a big selling point with me, I assure you—and Ernie said it met his shiny criteria. He did have some reservations about its size, but I mentioned that Dick Tracy had a gun something like this. Ernie nodded his head and said, “Good point, customers will like that.”
I also purchased a top-of-the-line shoulder holster and a bunch of bullets to practice shooting with. Ernie advised me to buy cheap bullets for target shooting, but to load the gun with soft-lead hollow points in the field, just like he does.
“No matter where you hit the bastard, these babies will do enough damage to stop him,” opined Ernie.
After I bought the gun, we got back in the car. Like a kid with a new toy, I couldn’t keep my hands off the .38. There’s something seductive about guns, even to the most ardent pacifist. The weight and density of the gun, the way your hand can mold itself to the butt, and the sheer capacity for destruction made handling a pistol like holding a wanton whore in your arms. They’re both sexy, dangerous and hold the promise of forbidden fantasies that can ruin your life.
And it helps if they’re shiny, too.
Ernie just drove along, looking at me through the corner of his eyes, and finally shook his head and said, “Looks like we’re going to have to get you used to the gun, quick. So let’s go shoot the damn thing till you’re sick of holding it. That’s the only way to get a guy to over the fascination of a new gun.”
I asked him where the shooting range was located that he practiced at. Ernie just looked at me like I was crazy.
“Goddamn boy, why do we need to pay money to go to a range, when we can just go outside of the
city to the country, park along any damn dirt road and shoot?”
“What about targets?” I asked. “How do you tell if you’re hitting what you aim at, and if you’re improving?”
“Christ, haven’t you been listening to me? That gun is for client relations and interrogation purposes only. I don’t expect you to shoot at anyone. Shit, that only happens in the movies. Do you realize the fuckin' trouble you would get in if you shot someone, much less killed them? The cops won’t understand, ‘cause they think—and with some justification—that they and they alone have a monopoly on deadly force. If they start letting civilians horn-in on the shooting business, then there goes their ability to protect, serve and extort money from the populace. Cops are notoriously stupid, but they realize that their ace-in-the-hole is their undisputed right to blow people away. Threaten that right and you open yourself up to trouble. So don’t worry about targets, just learn how to operate the damn thing.”
“But what if I do have to use it,” I said, “there’s always that possibility, you know.”
“The first rule is to avoid that situation,” Ernie stated.
He thought for a bit, lit a cigarette, shook his head and looked at me.
“Well, I guess I’d be amiss if I didn’t give some advice. I was gonna wait for a few months, till I could get the true measure of ya, but, what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.”
He drove down the road for a few moments and then launched into the lesson.
“If the person is alone, try to be not more than a few feet from him when you fire and make sure you kill him. After he’s dead, make sure he was armed and put the rod or knife in his hand, to make it look like it was a fair fight. If it turns out he was unarmed, and you shot him, place a knife in his hand to make it looked like he was armed. I got a few knives that I can give you for this type of emergency.”
I was still new enough to the game to be a bit taken aback with this, but I was smart enough to say, “Shouldn’t you plant a gun on him instead of a knife?”
“Nah, knives are cheaper and the result is the same. It looks like the guy was threatening to kill you. Either way, it will take some explaining to the cops and a good lawyer to get you off without going to the can.”
Ernie went on, “If you’re in a hostile crowd, and it looks like they’re going to do you some damage, you gotta take charge. Pull the gun and get their attention. However, if you got to shoot someone try just to wound them.”
“Bullshit, I know enough that if you pull the trigger, you shoot to kill. Hell, I’ve taken the FBI tour in D.C. That's gospel if you ask them.”
Ernie rolled his eyes skyward and said, “The FBI are the cops, remember? They can get away with killing a man. On the other hand, if you shoot the poor bastard dead in front of all his friends, only two things can happen. The first is that you get away and then the friends testify against you in court, and you go to the slammer for a long fucking time, at the very least. The second is that the guy’s pals kill you, so while you might die with the knowledge you took a few of them with you, you’re still dead. Bottom line is it’s easier to get off just wounding the guy in a crowd vice killing him. Don’t worry, if you use the hollow points, chances are he will go down and stay down, at least long enough for you to get the hell out of there, but my advice is to avoid crowds. Now let’s go get us some supplies to go shooting with.”
I thought he wanted to get some more ammo, but we when pulled into the parking lot in front of a supermarket, I got real confused.
“Go inside and get a case of cold beer, some peanuts and a bag of ice. I got a cooler in the trunk. Oh yeah, get me a couple packs of Winston’s, in the hard-box, not the soft-pack.”
Like the good apprentice I was, I didn’t question my master’s judgment and went in and got the “shooting supplies.” In ten minutes, we were heading out of town, drinking beer and eating peanuts. Both of us had our guns slung under our arms, and over thousand rounds of ammunition were in the back seat.
About two beers later, Ernie had found a dirt road he liked, and we tooled down it for about ten minutes until we were in the middle of nowhere. Ernie and I got out, stretched our legs and got rid of some of the beer we had drunk.
I got the gun out and loaded it. Ernie stood off to the side and watched me. I asked him if I loaded the gun properly.
“As long as you got the same amount of toes as when you started, you loaded it—okay?” he said.
This advice was from a one-legged man, mind you.
Once the .38 was loaded, I asked him what to do next, and he just laughed, opened a beer, gestured towards the trees and said, “Fire away kiddo, and have fun.”
So, I began to shoot into the woods.
The first time that revolver went off, it shook me from head to toe and made my ears ring, but after about ten rounds, I was used to the recoil and noise. I wasn’t really aiming at anything; I was just squeezing off the rounds into various trees. I stopped every now and then for a beer or to reload.
After a while, Ernie began to throw his empty beer cans into woods in front of us, and I tried to hit them with my shots. I think that after 60-70 rounds, I managed to hit a can twice.
I drank more beer and was starting to feel like Wyatt Earp. Ernie was drinking three beers to my every one, shoveling peanuts into his gut, and soon we were laughing and hollering like teenagers, while I continued to blaze away at the local fauna with my now trusty .38. Ernie even pulled out his gun and shot at a can or two.
Two hours later, I’d shot over a hundred rounds, had drunk close to nine beers and my right arm was numb and sore from shooting the damn gun.
The novelty had finally worn off.
Ernie had over 12 beers and most of the peanuts in him. Sunset was coming, and after all that gun slinging, both Ernie and I just sat there in the woods for a while, enjoying the return of peace and quiet. We sipped on our beers…at least I did, Ernie was still chugging his. We just leaned on Ernie’s caddy with our revolvers in one hand, cans of beer in the other.
We didn’t say a word to each other for about twenty minutes as we soaked up the quiet beauty of the Carolina woods.
Finally, Ernie mumbled something about having to piss like a racehorse, took a step from the caddy and proceeded to relieve himself.
I was a little disappointed that the spell had been broken, but I turned my head to look away (real men don’t look at other men urinate), and stared up into the nearest tree, an oak, if memory serves me.
There was a large squirrel clinging to the side of that tree. He had gotten the courage up to come out after the gunfire had finally ceased. I stood there and studied him, and it studied me. I was in the middle of admiring the way the squirrel could adhere, upside down, on a tree trunk, when suddenly a bomb went off beside my head and the squirrel fucking exploded.
Have you ever been in the middle of a car wreck or some other emergency and time slowed down? You’re aware of every little thing that occurs. Every movement and sound take on a crispness, a clarity that is so intense, so clear, that you can remember every detail in the years to come.
That’s what happened to me.
I remember the crashing noise to my right, then a stone-cold silence as my eardrums were stunned to insensitivity. In slow motion, the animal came apart, with the middle third of it instantaneously going from the state of “squirrel” to a fine cloud of red mist that expanded geometrically. The hindquarters remained clinging to the tree, but the front part of the creature launched itself directly towards me.
To this day, I can still remember that damn squirrel coming at me with its bright, black eyes, staring at me, accusatory, then the light of life going out of them, mid-flight, literally turning dull and cloudish as it approached me.
Dumb-founded, I stared as the squirrel head, still attached to a squirming torso of streaming bloody and gray intestines, smacked me in the forehead and spun me around. I fell to the ground on my knees, gun in hand. I then looked up into the slack jawed an
d unbelieving face of Ernie Twillfigger as he held his still smoking .44 magnum in his right hand.
After a stunned moment (or minute, I’m not sure, I lost track of time), the world wrenched, crazy like, back into real-time.
Something red and hazy was obscuring my vision, and I stood up to face Ernie. He was still staring at me, and then with a lurch, he bent over and began to projectile vomit onto the ground. At the same time, I became aware of a weight on my head, and reached up to remove it. I slowly pulled it off and looked at it, dully.
It was the front half of the squirrel and the “something red and hazy” that had been blocking my vision was the shattered remains of the guts of the squirrel. I began to scream and flung it into the woods. Then, like Ernie, I started to throw-up.
So there we were, two drunk guys in cheap suits, standing on a dirt road littered with beer cans, shell casings and squirrel, puking their guts up, while holding on to their big, shiny guns.
After about ten minutes we had recovered somewhat, and I hollered at Ernie.
“You bastard! What in hell were you trying to do, you could have killed me!”
“Kid…kid, calm down, I didn’t mean anything. I—I just saw the squirrel there and decided, on a whim to take a pot shot at it. I really wasn’t trying to hit it, and I guess, well…shit, it was an accident. I'm sorry, damn I’m sorry. I'll pay to get your clothes clean…huh?”
I continued to scream for a while but after a bit, calmed down some. Ernie continued to apologize profusely, and I soon realized that, hey, we both were drunk and Ernie was not really trying to kill me. It’s amazing the capability of the mind to rationalize away stuff, especially when alcohol is involved.
We drove back to Charlotte, and a chastised Ernie dropped me off to get my car. I went home, took a long shower and went to bed.
I had nightmares about beer-drinking woodland creatures armed with machetes for a while, but after a week or two, I was back to normal.
The result of this lesson in gunplay was that I always kept my gun polished and clean (I still carry a .38), rarely practice with it (why bother) and keep it loaded with hollow point bullets (believe me, they work.)
Moreover, I didn’t know it at that time, but this little misadventure was to help save my life one day.
Chapter 3
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