Read Online Colonel Rutherford's Colt by Lucius Shepard - Free Book Online Page B

where you are. You don’t know that, you don’t never see it coming.”
    The girl tugged anxiously at the boy, urging him away.
    â€œYou fucking with us?” said the boy.
    â€œNot yet . . . but I’m tempted.”
    In a cute show of defiance, the girl flipped him off and stuck out her tongue. Jimmy grinned, staggered back, pretending to be heart-shot. She giggled again. The boy, perhaps sensing a rival, slung an arm about her shoulder and steered her off toward safer ground.
    Jimmy watched them join the sluggish flow of hunters, browsers, T-shirt collectors, and potential murderers milling about the aisles. Over by Doug Lindsay’s table, a local TV crew had set up and under hot lights an enthusiastic brunette was, he assumed, saying something like, “ . . . whether or not these particular guns should be banned from the marketplace continues to be a hot issue. But most of these folks have already made up their minds, and they’re just out to have a good time. Back to you, Frank.”
    As Jimmy took a seat, a squat sixtyish man, bald except for a ruff of gray hair, carrying a Barney’s Guns shopping bag, came up and pointed at the sign leaning on the display case. “That for real?” he asked. “Serious inquiries only?”
    â€œIt’s what she says.”
    â€œWell, I got a serious inquiry.” The man squared his shoulders and arranged his features into a sober mask and set himself as if he were about to lift an enormous weight. “What’s it all about?” He stared deadpan at Jimmy for a beat, then laughed until his face grew red. “That serious enough for ya?”
    Postal worker, Jimmy thought. Long-divorced and given over to solitary drinking. Favorite TV show: Cops .
    â€œWhat’s it all about?” the man said again, and shook his head in glee.
    Jimmy found that he was considering the question, though in terms the gray-haired man might have judged irrelevant. “I’ll have to get back to you,” he said.
    Â 
    * * *
    Â 
    After her nap, Rita drove to a Buy-Rite for Alka Seltzer. She hung in the aisles, enjoying the antiseptic smell, picking up bottles of skin lotion and transistor radios and packets of pencils, not really interested in buying anything, just nosing around like a cat exploring unfamiliar territory. Her brain idled, releasing stray thoughts. A Muzak version of an old Stones song began to play. “Two Thousand Light Years from Home.” Shoppers holding plastic baskets drifted past. She had been inside the store for two or three minutes when she noticed that a skinny young guy in a white shirt with Buy-Rite stitched in red on the pocket was following her. She ducked around a corner and hid behind a stand-up display of sunglasses. When the guy came up, she stepped out at him. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m here to rob your ass blind. I’m after Post-it Notes, legal pads, aspirin. Shit’s worth a fortune on the street.”
    The guy adopted a wounded look. “Ma’am, I . . .”
    â€œIt’s okay. I understand,” Rita told him, and smiled. “From a distance you probably thought I was black.”
    â€œI’m just doing my job.” The guy glanced toward the rear of the store—hoping for assistance, it seemed.
    â€œÂ â€™Course you are. But now you see I’m a Native American, you realize I’m not after sundries, I’m after liquor.” She glanced about inquiringly. “You do have a liquor department?”
    â€œWe got beer,” the guy said uncertainly.
    â€œBe vigilant,” Rita said. “Don’t confuse those stereotypes.”
    Once he was out of sight, she opened a box of Alka Seltzer and slipped the packets into her shirt pocket. She was heading for the exit when she spotted Loretta Snow browsing in an aisle devoted to health care products. Affecting the style of the guy in the