Read Online Accustomed to the Dark by Walter Satterthwait - Free Book Online Page A

deep-set dark brown eyes beneath a wide craggy forehead. His long hair was black, pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore a black beard that left his long upper lip bare, like a Mennonite. It made him resemble a young, handsome version of Abraham Lincoln.
    â€œWhat do you need?” he asked me.
    â€œSomething clean and reliable.”
    He nodded again. “I heard Mrs. Mondragón got shot.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œâ€™Kay,” he said. “Let’s see what I got.”
    He pulled a pale blue rag from his back pocket, used it to wipe his hands, tossed it to a metal workbench. I followed him to a door set in the east wall of the garage, waited while he found the right key on his key chain. He opened the door, leaned into the room to pull the string for the overhead light, then stood back and gestured me forward. He trailed behind me, pulling the door shut as he entered.
    It was an office, cramped and windowless. To the left, at one narrow end of the room, sat a gray metal desk. To the right was a narrow wall that held only a Michelin calendar. Chuck went toward this, pushed gently against its side. The wall swung open, and behind it was another wall, this one made of Peg-Board, and hooked on each of the pegs was the trigger guard of a handgun. There were twenty or thirty of them, and most of them were semiautomatics. Lying along the base of the wall were a Ruger .223 carbine and a black Mossberg shotgun with a plastic stock and an extended cartridge tube.
    â€œI got a forty-caliber Smith,” he said. “Brand new, very nice. More stopping power than a nine mil. Lot of your cops these days, that’s what they’re carrying.”
    â€œTen-round clip?”
    â€œThat’s the law now. Courtesy of those assholes in Washington. Your tax dollars at work.” I didn’t know Chuck well, but I’d always suspected that politically he stood somewhere between Pat Buchanan and Jesse James.
    â€œYou want more firepower,” he said, “I got this Beretta.” He lifted it from its peg. “Model Ninety-two-eff. Almost cherry. Got a pre-Carter clip—fifteen rounds. Sixteen pellets in the piece if you keep one up the spout.” He handed me the pistol.
    It was heavy, and it would be heavier when it held fifteen or sixteen cartridges. But it wasn’t so heavy that I couldn’t carry it.
    â€œCock it,” he suggested.
    I worked the slide. The action was flawless.
    â€œIt’s okay to dry fire it,” he said.
    Holding the gun so its barrel pointed toward the wall, I pulled the trigger. Snap.
    â€œSmooth as silk,” he said. “Double-action. Spring-loaded safety. Reversible mag release. A very tasty piece of equipment.”
    â€œSpare clip? Ammunition?”
    â€œSure. You want Glasers?” Glasers were cartridges with slugs that blew apart on impact.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    He smiled. “Oh yeah. I forgot. You’re a liberal.”
    â€œHow much?” I asked him.
    â€œFor anyone else, six. But I owe you, so I’ll make it five. Including the ammo. Bring it back in good shape and I’ll buy it off you for three-fifty.”
    I smiled. “Only three-fifty?”
    â€œGotta replace the barrel.” In case I had left any slugs lying around—in someone’s stomach, for example—that a ballistic test might match with the barrel the gun now held.
    I asked him, “Is it sighted in?”
    â€œSure. For standard nine-mil ammo. But I’d play with it before I used it.”
    â€œHow much for the shotgun?”
    â€œThree.”
    â€œYou have any shells?”
    â€œDouble ought and deer slugs.”
    â€œI’ll take the shotgun, too. And a box of each.”
    At both entrances to the Interstate, one opening onto the north and one to the south, there was a line of cars nearly fifty yards long. Here at the northern entrance, two State Police cruisers had been angled across the roadway