By Phineas Redux
Contact – phineasredux003@Gmail.com
—OOO—
Summary:— Temmington City, on the East Coast just south of New York plays host, at an unstated date, to a lady who buys her first firearm and then eventually becomes inadvertently involved in one—several in fact, if truth be told—of those kind of days!
Disclaimer 01:— There is some minor cursing in this story.
Disclaimer 01:— The firearm described in this story is of a fictitious make, just to be on the safe side of controversy.
Note:— Copyright ©2024 Phineas Redux.
—O—
Part One.
The Archon .38 automatic lay on the glass topped counter looking every inch an evil infernal weapon ready to bite at a moment’s notice if provoked; or so Miss Jane Margrave, prospective buyer of same, so thought as she gazed at it with more of repentance than delight.
“Could’a spoken-up fer the point thirty-two,” Bert Ruggerson, owner of the gunshop, giving a superficial nod to said rejected article still residing under the glass of the counter. “but like I said, it ain’t got the stopping power of a spent match; hit a passin’ fly with it an’ the fly’ll jes’ shrug it off unconcerned. Now, this thirty-eight here, that’s a stopper, sure ‘nuff!”
Jane, who up till this point hadn’t handled a real firearm in her entire life, looked even more as if recognising a eminently bad decision when faced with such.
“Stopper? In what way?”
Bert shuffled his wide shoulders under the bright red checked shirt he habitually wore, giving his customer an openly, almost brazen, patronising glance as he did so.
“Some guns is jes’ fer show; fer ladies who wants ter give the impression they’re armed fer war when, in fac’, they couldn’t stop a passin’ mouse with the dinky little mini-derringers, firin’ point twenty-two’s or sich, they carries.” A muted growl, emblematic of contempt, escaping his lips at this. “Children’s toys; no, what you want, ma’am, if I may say so from long experience, is something with get-up-an’-go, like this here Archon, in fac’. Point thirty-eight, have I said that a’fore? Could stop a chargin’ bull, if hit in the right place, an’ doesn’t have the recoil of a forty-five, but much the same impact—‘specially if usin’ hollow-points. Great weapon fer self defence, ‘specially fer a, er, lady such as yerself, ma’am.”
“I have no immediate intention of either holidaying in Spain, where the bull motif might well come into play, or taking a safari to Africa, thank you; is such a-a-a heavy weapon really necessary? Couldn’t I get along with something much, ah, smaller, lighter? Say, a twenty-two?”
Bert raised his chin in the air, assuming the expression of a leader of Society who had just been criticised to his face about an unwitting social faux pas.
“Ma’am! Like I said, children play with twenty-two’s in their games! T’ain’t a weapon fer a grown ma-, er, woman, no way. What say yer were walkin’ down a dark street at night, an’ a thief accosted you? You empty eight shells from an automatic twenty-two straight in’ta his chest, an’ what’s the outcome? Why, he jes’ pulls his’self up straight, looks mighty disappointed at the low level of his victim, an’ says ‘Ouch, thet stung some!” a’fore proceedin’ t’do, er, whatever naughty things he wanted. No-no, ma’am, think nuthin’ of twenty-two’s, whatever; no good ter man, woman, nor beast. You’ll notice, in fac’, I don’t have any such items on show; wouldn’t think of annoyin’ respectable frequent customers with such.”
Jane, a woman in her late thirties, somewhere around 5’7” in height, lithe of body while rather shy in manner, featuring a slightly pointed chin with fine teeth and sharp brown eyes, dressed in an unassuming beige tweed suit of longish skirt and short jacket top, frowned even more intensely now the moment of choice had irrevocably arrived.
“I suppose all my paperwork’s’ in order—”
“Oh, yes!” Bert nodding to the three documents laid out on the counter to his right-hand. “All shipshape there, ma’am; Yer of age, no criminal record, paid up the requisite certificates, an’ all. So, will you be takin’ the Archon thirty-eight? Fine weapon; guarantees it myself, sure!”
Jane sighed rather regretfully, as faced with a terrible decision she would much rather not have to take.
“Well, modern times being what they are, and self defence being so much in the news these days, and the criminal element in this city being so-so-so uncontrolled, seemingly; well, I suppose I have no choice.”
Bert, knowing when speed was of the essence in a sale, reached behind him for the small metal box in which the automatic pistol would be safely stored.
“A good decision, ma’am. Nothing like knowing you’re safe on any journey; ready t’spray lead in whatever direction’s needed if pushed to it! Magazines, ma’am?”
“What? What do I have to read?”
“No, ma’am, magazines for ammunition! These automatics use eight-round mags; you slip ‘em in the butt like so,” he demonstrating with an empty mag before removing it again. “Here, try it yourself.”
Picking up the light metal container Jane gave it an inquisitive glance, turning it all ways in her hand before copying the manner in which the shop-owner had loaded the object into the weapon’s butt.
“And you just pull it back out again?”
“Yes, ma’am, then reload another, not forgettin’ t’rack the slide after t’load one in the chamber, like so.”
“Oh, I see.”
Reaching into her shoulder-slung bag she opened her purse to extract her credit card, with the weary air of an old soldier called back to onerous duty.
“How much?”
“For the thirty-eight—three hundred an’ twenty. For eight eight round mags, eighty-seven dollars. Total, four hundred an’ seven, thanks.”
Having inserted her card, very reluctantly, into the electronic reader she watched as the cash machine spat out the requisite receipt; not at this point realising that she had so started a cyclic chain of events that would affect the whole of the rest of her coming days in a way she least expected or wished for.
“There you are, ma’am; hopes you have a good time with your purchase. Don’t forget t’hit the gunclub range t’practice an’ get some advice on how t’use the weapon—very important, if y’don’t wan’na shoot your—or somebody else’s—toes off instead of hittin’ the target, hey!”
“Oh, dear!”
—o—
As Jane made her weekly pay check by way of writing Romantic novels for the firm of Goodal & Byers’ famous Hearthrob Series, undercover of a number of pen-names to protect her real one from unwanted possibly adverse Public scrutiny or criticism, she had all the spare time to do as she pleased of a day; the next such after her purchase being Wednesday and her destination, as she drove downtown in her Plymouth sedan, a gunclub range where she had every hope of learning exactly what a firearm was and how to operate her own example.
Temmington City while by no means being a hotbed of crime and delinquency—in no way attempting to outdo Deadwood or Tombstone of old—still had a rather high rate of what might be called medium-level felony and criminal behaviour; of which daytime robberies by armed thugs accosting innocent passers-by on quiet streets was a growing menace, thereby providing the basic rationale for Jane’s decision to become one of the safely armed majority rather than a member of the virginal victim’s minority.
While being a city of no great geographical note, registering a mere quarter of a million populace in the regular Directories, Temmington still boasted no less than eleven gunclubs; the one Jane had picked out, by the ancient method of sticking a pin in the appropriate page while averting one’s eyes, being the Cyclops Gun Range and Club on Riverwest Avenue to which she was now heading, in a rather distracted frame of mind considering her intended purpose. A state of mind which soon caught up with her—the whine of a police siren behind her bringing her back to reality with a jerk.
The usual routine followed inexorably—pulling into the side of the road, waiting patiently while the cop seemed to be too busy writing a follow-up to War & Peace to exit his vehicle, the resulting tightening of the anal muscles as she watched the officer finally approaching in her rear-view mirror, then the inevitable questioning.
“ID, Insurance, Drivers’ Licence, ma’am!”
Having all these to hand, being the well-adjusted person she was, Jane then had to wait through the following hiatus while the officer returned to his vehicle to perform exotic unknown acts on his computer before returning with the steady tread of a hangman to the waiting gallows and its quaking victim.
“All in order, ma’am. Know why I stopped you?”
“—ah, no, officer.”
“Doin’ fifty-five in a thirty section, ma’am. Got’ta give you a citation, OK?”
“Must you?”
“Yip! Regulations. Order to appear in Court on the twenty-seventh, this month, OK? Probable fine two hundred an’ fifty bucks, or one month in jail.”
“Oh, dear!”
“Yip.” The officer bending low to sniff at her open side window as he spoke. “Any drugs, firearms, or alcohol in your vehicle, Miss?”
Here Jane was stumped for several seconds—seconds which to her were filled with a plethora of possible answers to this question but seconds which, to the waiting officer, spoke only of dubious if not wholly suspicious possibilities.
“Well, er, no; that is, ah, I do have a firearm, in my trunk, yes. Is that important?”
The officer here stepped back a pace, lowering his right hand to his holster, which pretty much answered Jane’s question without the need of further words.
“Firearm? What is it? Why’d y’have it on you? Y’got a Carry Licence?”
By this point Jane was completely flustered, with just cause.
“Licence? Why, yes; I mean, no; I mean, yes—at least, I think so! What is—it’s a Archon thirty-eight; just a little thing, officer.”
“Step out the vehicle, Miss!”
“Oh, God!”
The ensuing ten minutes were, Jane later admitted, the most telling, frightening minutes of her entire life; the officer putting her through a litany of questioning that would have warmed the cockles of the hearts of the ancient Spanish Inquisition before he finally, somewhat reluctantly, admitted satisfaction with her answers and took the handcuffs back off, much to Jane’s relief.
“You’ve got a gun Licence, sure, but it ain’t, technically, a Licence t’personal carry—y’got’ta get one o’them special from the Precinct, OK? Don’t do it quick, either: do it now, OK?”
“Yes, officer, I certainly will, just as soon as I leave the Club t’day; that OK?”
“It’ll do, but don’t forget; and don’t forget the drivin’ citation later this month, neither.”
“—er, yes, right, sure, officer; can I, er, go now?”
“Yip.”
“Thanks.”
—O—
The gunclub, on her eventual arrival half an hour later, seemed to Jane’s eyes after her recent experiences the epitome of the Heavenly Gates leading straight to the gold-paved sidewalks of Paradise itself. She having, as she entered the front door, a vivid recollection of reading Moore’’s ‘Paradise and the Peri’ and feeling as if she now knew exactly how the Fairy felt at the poem’s climax.
Having pre-scheduled an appointment it was only a matter of ten minutes before Jane found herself in one of the row of cubicles facing the targets down-range, the pop and bang of other customers’ present showing their expertise on either hand; her pair of ear-protectors feeling uncomfortable on her head but clearly performing their contracted duty.
“Didn’t realise guns were so loud!”
“Oh, yes,” Sam Fairford, the instructor, nodding knowingly. “dam’ loud, pop your ears no trouble; so always wear ear-protectors at all times, except, of course, when need arises in real life—thieves, burglars, bums of all sorts, tax collectors, an’ the like. But that’s why you’re here anyway, ain’t it?”
“Well, I suppose so.” Jane feeling completely out of her comfort zone. “Never owned or handled a real gun before, but the times necessitate the need, eh?”
“Ummph! OK, let’s get down t’business—first, how t’handle a loaded gun—first you—”
The following twenty minutes were full of the usual precepts relating to the use of firearms—don’t shoot yourself, don’t shoot your companion, don’t shoot innocent passers-by, don’t shoot the official attendees of the Law, and finally don’t let children get hold of the weapon so they can go and play at cowboys with it, to the detriment of almost everybody within range.
“What range does this thing have?” This question asked rather anxiously by Jane as she looked at her instructor holding the weapon under discussion, barrel carefully pointed at the floor.
Sam pursed his lips in thought, examining the weapon with a critical, but expert, eye.
“An Archon Thirty-eight? Oh, comfortably five hundred yards, if you’re looking for a hit and kill, with luck! But it, the bullet, will travel much further depending on a variety of local conditions. Whether you fire up in the air, or more or less horizontally, whether there’s high or low atmospheric pressure on the day, and the powder content of the cartridge. Could end up on a good day making, oh, three-quarters of a mile, easy!”
“Good God!”
“Quite!”
Then followed all the necessary details respecting handling a firearm—the safety catch, what it was, what it did, and how to operate same; how to smoothly load a magazine and then rack the slide to put one bullet in the chamber; how to hold the weapon when around other people; not as simple as one might have thought as Jane found out when the weapon slipped through her fingers to fall at her feet when she tried to insert a, thankfully empty, magazine.
“That won’t do, ma’am!” Sam going red in the face with righteous disappointment. “Easiest way t’cause mayhem an’ havoc! Rule Number One, hold the dam’ thing carefully and expertly! It ain’t a toy! Now do it again, this time with your mind focusing on the job in hand.”
Another twenty minutes went by before Sam felt Jane was competent to hold a loaded weapon, though still with a multitude of rules that needed her close attention.
“Load it with the barrel pointed down at the ground; rack the slide slowly but smoothly; when you flick the safety off realise you are in control of a dangerous weapon, not a gift out of a Christmas Cracker. Point the weapon only down range, not to the side or up in the air. When you pull the trigger be aware of the recoil; hold it tight but not overly so. When it does recoil make sure the barrel doesn’t divert in a dangerous direction. OK, go ahead, but when you fire pull the trigger only once—don’t try’n empty the magazine.”
Now that the time had arrived Jane found herself in about the most highly strung state of mind she had ever experienced; all the other earlier experiences that had formed her mature character flickering across her memory like scenes in a bad movie—learning to drive, which itself had been mind-numbingly terrifying in its own way; her first sexual experiences, which had been both annoying, less enjoyable than expected, and rather naïvely shocking; or that time she had lost her mind and entered a course of parachute training, in order to delve into the mental make-up of the main character of a novel she was working on at the time, having to make no less than five solo jumps, every one still etched irrevocably on her mind; and now this.
Crack!
The explosion, though somewhat muffled by her earplugs, was still loud enough to register causing her to wince in pain.
“Yeah, gets ya that way t’start with; y’just got’ta get used to it.” Sam offering what expert sympathy he could. “Now, take another shot, stand easy, mark your target, pull the trigger smoothly, don’t jerk it; and master the recoil ready for the next shot if required.”
A further twenty minutes, making the full hour of tuition she had paid for and Jane, having emptied two magazines, felt she had earned every minute.
“That’ll do for today; coming back next week? Figure you’ll do well, with more practice.”
“Yes-yes, sure.” Jane only half convinced of this. “Next week, sure.”
“I’ll put you down for, oh, Thursday afternoon next week, OK?”
“Great!” Jane hardly feeling as certain as her words indicated, but smiling weakly all the same. “Thanks!”
“No trouble, have a good day!”
But her woes were by no means over; next stop the local Police Precinct on Jamieson Street in search of a Personal Concealed Carry permit. Jane, in spite of all her anonymous Romance novels—or perhaps because of them—held a rather innocent naïve attitude towards normal every day activity; in this case visiting a Police Office with a loaded automatic. Blithely entering the public hall with the gun case in one hand she walked up to the counter, casually opening it to extract the contents—an action which instantly set-off all possible local emergency bells.
“Gun! Gun! Gun!”
This yelled at the top of his voice as the officer behind the counter, though protected by a bullet-proof glass screen, still stumbled backwards while unholstering his own weapon. Within seconds Jane found herself the cynosure of all eyes, those being no less than five other officers all with weapons drawn and pointed squarely in her direction, bullet-proof screen or no intervening.
“NO-NO! I only want a permit!” This explanation hardly doing anything for her position, but the only thing she could think of off the top of her head.
The ensuing half hour outdid anything that had gone before—screamed orders, handcuffs, a small dirty smelly holding cell, and a series of angry Police officers ranging through mere constables, sergeants, Inspectors, to someone so highly placed everyone else acted as if he were a Crowned Head of State. Interviews, attendance of a series of Attorneys each heralding ever direr results for her actions, more interviews, shabbily dressed individuals who must have held some kind of official rank but never said what, more interviews, and finally after uncountable hours of suffering and uncomfortable waiting, a final decision that she would be allowed to leave, but under strict conditions, the most serious being that her hardily earned firearm was temporarily confiscated for everyone’s safety, including her own.
So ended her day.
—O—
It took a full fortnight before Jane recovered her errant pistol, though not before suffering a variety of lectures from a series of official representatives who all clearly looked on her as having something sadly lacking in her intellect, Romance novelist or no as they had swiftly found out with sneers and outright contempt. But finally she did recover the Archon Thirty-eight; though by this time it rather represented a tool of Satan Incarnate in her imagination than otherwise. Next stop, the wide open sparsely populated spaces of suburban plains and woodland surrounding the western borders of the city for some private exercise in handling and shooting her weapon.
Not wishing to take an odyssey to Arizona or parts even further distant next morning Jane steered her sedan along a few country roads in the immediate vicinity of her home town before, reaching what she fondly thought of as a bona fide seemingly deserted country lane, she felt she had gone far enough, though the higher skyscrapers of the city were still easily visible on the horizon behind her.
Parking beside a wooden-barred field gate she wasted no time in clambering over into what she took to be authentic wild countryside, though to other mature eyes clearly only a well kept field. Twenty yards further over the land sloped gently to a wooded tinkling stream that appeared to give as much privacy from prying eyes as one could hope for—at least Jane thought so, picking the spot for her imminent activities.
She dipped into an old shoulder bag, retrieving first her gun followed by one of three magazines she had brought. Then glancing round she picked her target, a tall tree thirty yards off whose trunk seemed bare and strong enough to take the impact of a bullet without too much damage.
“Should be able t’see the fragments of bark flyin’.” She thought, happy with her choice.
But all from this point on began to unravel, like a reel of film that had been accidentally dropped on a declining slope. While trying to insert the first magazine something of a minor unknown nature, but determined to make its presence felt, stopped the long mag from sliding in as required at the first few, increasingly annoyed, attempts; resulting in the only possible outcome, the weapon slipping from her fingers, hitting the ground at her feet hard so ejecting the only half inserted mag, and then firing, a bullet having been left overnight in the chamber that Jane had not realised was there.
Jumping back with a gasp of horror she glanced all round, but no-one appeared to be nearby to hear this first mistake of the day. Making a quick survey of her person, just to make sure there were no visible wounds or trails of blood, she stood still taking deep breaths to bring herself back to as near a calm aura as still remained within her grasp.
“G-d’d-m!”
Holding the weapon with a much firmer grip the magazine seemed to insert itself this time round with almost mocking smoothness; after which she found herself trembling from head to foot for no particular reason she could account for. Hoping for the best she took another series of deep breaths then, feeling the time had come, pulled the trigger for the first time in nearly three weeks.
Crack!
Not having looked at the distant tree, her expected target, but the body of the automatic and her hand gripping same as she fired Jane had to re-focus for a second before peering at the tree in an unsuccessful attempt to note where she had hit it—in fact nowhere, apparently.
“G-d’d-m!”
Peering nervously all round for a second time to see if any passing stranger had witnessed this inept attempt she felt glad that all seemed well in this respect at least. Shaking her head she paused to take stock of her next move.
“What happens now? Do I reload? No, should’a done so automatically, I hope!”
Shuffling her stance on the short-cropped grass by the edge of the line of trees she took a far more careful aim this time, breathing slowly and quietly, keeping a beady eye along the length of the weapon’s top edge, trying bravely to focus on the tree so very very far away.
Crack!
This time she did see where her shot hit, but it was on the trunk of a tree two metres to the left of the one she had aimed at, bark flying in splinters where the bullet had impacted.
“What the f-ck!”
Stepping back a couple of paces Jane paused again to ponder her next move.
“Every bloody thing but what I want t’hit!”
Sighing dolefully she returned to the fray, aiming this time with probably too much determination for her next, third, shot disappeared without trace leaving no visible sign of having hit anything at all anywhere within a 180 degree panorama before her.
“F-ckin’ hell!”
Beginning to feel a close relative to the Ancient Mariner of yore Jane took yet another deep breath preliminary to facing her self-imposed task yet again.
Crack!
This time she did hit the tree she had targeted, to her enormous relief.
“At f-ckin’ last!”
But this was just a false forerunner to what came immediately after; noticing some sort of subliminal movement across the wide field to her right-hand Jane swivelled to peer across the grass; and what she brought into focus made her blood run cold. Heading across the wide field in her direction were two men, dressed as if natives of the land in dark jeans, checked shirts, loose waist-length coats, topped by wide-brimmed Stetsons; but what caught Jane’s attention primarily were the shotguns each held, barrels pointed earthwards but still in her general direction.
“Oh, sh-t!”
Both stopped around ten yards away, the taller grey-haired man examining her with a gimlet eye.
“What’s ya doin’, Miss? An’ make it good!”
Taken aback so unexpectedly Jane found herself at a loss, opening and closing her mouth soundlessly.
“Come along, Miss! What the hell’re y’up to? Must be somethin’, sure.”
Finding her voice at last Jane attempted to explain her actions as best she could.
“Practice! Target practice. New gun, want experience with it—target practice.”
The men exchanged glances full of a clear lack of belief in this patently pathetic excuse, the younger coming to the fore by way of reply.
“Ma’am, we, my father here an’ I, own this here land, an’ you’re trespassin’ some shameful!”
“Trespassing!” Jane hardly as yet understanding the meaning of the term.
“And we own an’ operate a trailer park,” The older butting in, obviously somewhat annoyed. “just a hundred yards beyond this creek an’ trees. We’ve had no less than six irate phone calls from tenants sayin’ someone’s opened up on ‘em like t’the Shootout at the OK Corral, bullets flyin’ every which way over their heads an’ in’ta the bodies o’their trailers—you bein’ said instigator o’said tribulations. What ya got t’say about thet, then?”
“Oh, God!”
The elder man stepped forward with an authoritative bearing, swinging his shotgun in a meaning way as he did so.
“Lose the automatic, stand easy, an’ let my son relieve you o’the necessity o’continuing this farrago any further; the cops bein’ on their way as we speaks, OK!”
“Oh, God! Not again!”
—O—
Inspector David Galworthy, of the 3rd Precinct, Temmington City, sat behind the desk in his poky office regarding his latest victim with the eye of a hungry Lamia.
“That all y’got’ta say?”
“It’s the truth, by all that’s holy, Inspector.” Jane batting for her freedom as she very well understood. “I was just out there, in the middle of nowhere I thought, trying to get in some practice with my new pistol, that’s all.”
“Strange way of doin’ so—shootin’ up a innocent trailer park t’the detriment of all the tenants. Bullets flyin’, so I’m reliably informed, all-ways, left right an’ centre!”
“Oh, don’t exaggerate so, Inspector!” Jane finally losing her cool at the absurdity of it all. “I only ever got off four dam’ shots, an’ three of those missed. —er, that is, missed what I was aiming at; and I don’t believe for a minute the tenants’ trailers were shot up as much, by a long way, as they say, so there!”
Galworthy continued to look dubious.
“And there could only have been two stray bullets, anyway!” Jane picking at finite details. “—‘cause that’s all of my shots that went awry. Two, no more!”
The interview lasted another half an hour, but finally Jane was free to go again; though her pistol was once more retained under authority of the Precinct until further notice which hipped her no end.
“Again? Ain’t I ever gon’na get that dam’ gun t’myself at all?”
“Not till you understand how to use it properly, legally, safely, ma’am.” Galworthy coming to the fore with determination and grit. “Up till now you’ve just been a danger to everyone within range under all circumstances. Have you thought of giving it up—this idea of using a gun—and just throwin’ it over, for everybody’s ongoing safety?”
Jane shook her head, bravely standing up for her viewpoint at the last.
“I want to own a dam’ gun; I need to own a dam’ gun; an’ I’m dam’ well allowed to own a dam’ gun in this State,—y’know, that dam’ Amendment, can’t recollect its number at the moment—whatever nonsense to the contrary you think, so there!”
Galworthy gazed at his supposed victim balefully for a full minute before leaning forward; pressing a button on his intercom with more venom than was entirely necessary he pointed at the officer who entered at this summons with a cold eye.
“Bates, see this lady down to the street door, an’ make sure she uses it an’ don’t let her back in for any reason whatever, OK?”
“Huh! Goodbye yourself, Inspector!”
—O—
Another fortnight passed before the Archon Thirty-eight and Jane were once more re-united as a viable team; Jane gazing at the newly re-acquired weapon with less than sisterly love, it must be said.
“Dam’ thing, more dam’ trouble than it’s worth by a long mile, dam’mit!”
Prior to this much wished for reuniting with her weapon she had suffered a brainwave; possibly, she imagined, providing the answer to all further worries and criticisms. Namely, setting out to sea, into the wild wastes of Clovis Bay on the wide inner curve of which Temmington City lay, to shoot to her heart’s content surrounded only by uncharted miles of open water—what, she thought, could be more safe than that?
Suiting the thought to the action she rented a small motorboat the same day she received her pistol and the next day was as far out in the Bay as was provident before the wild untamed steep Atlantic stream might endanger her unnecessarily.
In the run-up to this maritime expedition she had constructed three small floats of thick wood with thin two-foot high poles in their centres sporting small cloth flags as targets. Her idea being she would throw each overboard, let them float to reasonable distances then, surrounded by nothing at all that could in any way be said to be in danger, let fly at them with her pistol. What could go wrong!
She was by no means so far out in the Bay as to be entirely at sea; the coastline of the inner curving Bay being clear on the left horizon; in the opposite direction, looking towards the actual Ocean itself, a bank of cloud could just be made out on the extreme horizon but apparently of no real problem to her as she sat in her boat. As to other vessels the only one in sight seemed to be a small steamer, possibly a trawler, some miles to the east though certainly heading in her general direction.
“Must be, oh, two meb’be three miles off! Well out’ta range, at least I think so. What was it the gunshop owner said? Range meb’be three-quarters a mile with a fair wind? Ah, nuthin’ t’worry about there.”
As the first of her released targets floated serenely away from her boat Jane inevitably felt pressed to make the obvious association.
“Looks mighty like a dam’ periscope! What if? Nah, couldn’t happen, could it? Hmmph! Knowing my luck it dam’ well could in a dam’ heartbeat.”
Taking this thought to heart she paused to gaze all round the compass, searching for any sign of previously ignored or missed maritime objects, natural or unnatural, there might be within range.
“Huh! With my luck I’ll probably hit a dam’ whale with my first shot, an’ it’ll surface like Moby Dick, an’ sink me!”
Putting this morose idea aside, not without a deal of mental effort, she focused on the now distant float, aiming her pistol as best she could in the slightly rocking boat.
“Dam! Can’t get a steady shot at all; this lark ain’t as easy as I thought it’d be.”
Crack!
Nothing—no sign of the bullet having hit either the float or the sea surface anywhere near the target.
“Mmph!”
Pausing to regard her pistol, wondering if it had reloaded properly and looking to where the ejected casing had unexpectedly flown with a loud clatter into the bottom of the boat, Jane returned her gaze to the now even more distant float.
“Not a dam’ hope now! Oh, well, here goes!”
Crack!
Her supposition proved correct; again the bullet had vanished into infinity leaving no trace behind.
“G-d’d-m! Is it me? Am I really that dam’ bad?”
Giving a glance to where the second expended casing had joined its brother in the boat’s slightly waterlogged bilge, she once more aimed at the far distant float, then changed her mind.
“G-d’d-m thing’s far away as dam’ China now!”
Lowering her weapon she bent to pick up the second of her improvised floats, pausing with it in hand while deciding exactly what to do with it to best advantage.
“This side, I think; make a change at least. Oh, God!”
This exclamation brought about by the sight, as she looked to the open sea on her right side, of a large grey ship of menacingly military character with a nasty looking large gun on its foredeck sitting on the water only forty yards or so away; all query thereupon being answered by the brash noise of a loudhailer crossing the intervening waves with a grating order.
“Cease and Desist at once! This is an order. This is the American Coastguard, lower your weapon and prepare to be boarded. Any opposition will be met with deadly force!”
“Oh, God!”
—O—
Another month passed inexorably in the Eternal rhythm of things before Jane was again re-united with the Archon Thirty-eight; the weapon by now buckling under a criminal record longer than that of America’s present Most Wanted!; it to her eyes now assuming the shape, form, and nature of something deriving from the Black Arts themselves.
“Why in hell did I ever think this was a good idea?”
But Life being what it is, and the pistol now being inexorably in her possession once more—though for how long lay, she well knew, in the hands of the Gods—what was now required was some serious forward planning. The outcome of this being, a week later, an expedition into the far west of the State to Havender Hills and Forest, haunt of the black bear and those who hunted such in season, and mostly out too if truth be told. What were the odds, she pondered, of her hitting a stray hunter while practicing out there? Pretty slim, but on the other hand what was an unfortunate hunter one way or the other in the scheme of things! At worst, on hearing the wild cries of agony delineating the latest faux pas in her shooting career, she could cut and run without making the acquaintance of the party of the first part, ie, the wounded hunter; relying on the thick undergrowth and trees to hide her identity as she made her getaway.
And so late morning found Jane in the middle of what to her appeared an unending mass of trees, bushes, and hilly slopes intersected only by a few barely visible trails after she had left the single tarmacked road and her sedan.
“Jee-sus! Could be in the middle of Arizona for all I can tell!”
But luck was finally on her side, after a lengthy default of its duty in this direction; a nice open glade, far from any sign of civilization or sound of nearby passer’s-by came to hand, Jane set down her haversack, retrieved the well travelled pistol, checked that it was loaded, realising at the same time this was a stupid and dangerous thing to have done on her part—carrying a pre-loaded weapon around willy-nilly for no good reason.
“Oh, well, live an’ learn!”
The next step was targets, and as the only solid objects anywhere around were the trees these were summarily chosen.
“If I miss one, sure t’hit another!” being Jane’s philosophical take on the matter.
And so the morning progressed, through midday and a lunch of cheese sandwiches and cola, the ensuing early afternoon and further on still until, glancing at her watch and noting it was already half past three, she ceased operations.
“Must’a emptied at least six mags! And hit the majority of what I aimed at, too!” This thought spreading a warm glow of achievement through her body as she tidied up, not forgetting to retrieve the used mags that lay all round in the grass at her boots.
“Don’t wan’na leave any evidence; cops find ‘em they’ll be beating on my door within the dam’ hour, bet’cha!”
But here Nemesis, having a quiet day and coming across Jane out of the blue and recognising a ready-made victim when She saw one, felt like playing games with her.
Jane had bent to pick up the last of the used empty mags when she sensed rather than saw a slight movement to her left hand. Straightening and turning her head in that direction every single atom in her anatomy jerked in unison, like an atomic bomb going-off. Around thirty yards off, having obviously just exited a dense thicket of undergrowth, a large black bear stood on all fours regarding her with what Jane could only feel was an entirely unnecessary interest.
“F-ck!”
The black bear, of a wholly needless size, so Jane thought, regarded her with an evil glint in its dark eyes; Jane stood still, unable to think rationally on any level; the bear took a pace towards her; Jane took two slow paces backwards away from the bear; the bear paused to consider the situation before making its mind up and taking another pace towards what it clearly was beginning to regard as its midday meal; Jane, rather more automatically than with rational intent, raised her pistol to point it at the animal, realising in so doing she wasn’t at all sure if she had re-loaded a fresh mag or not; the bear, being a veteran of the forest and mean-minded hunters over the years, took note of this impolite gesture, thought about various options then chose safety over the tickling need for an easy snack, turning to slide quietly and gracefully back into the primeval forest from which it had so gratuitously exited only a couple of minutes before. Jane, frozen to the spot, waited what seemed like an hour but was probably only a minor part of a minute before turning on her heels and making distance like a rocket-propelled missile for her car and safety.
Back at her sedan, found after a wild half hour when she primarily imagined she had lost her way but thankfully hadn’t, she considered her next move in her drive to master the Art of shooting an automatic pistol.
“That went well, relatively; thinks I’ll come back out here in a coupl’a days an’ do the same again! Can’t hurt. But not this dam’ area—place’s swarming with dam’ bears like a dam’ zoo! Wouldn’t be surprised if a dam’ Prehistoric Lizard was the next dam’ citizen of the wild that chose t’consider me as its next meal if I come back here t’this location!”
This, however, seemed to have marked a much-awaited turning point in her activities; the next few expeditions, to differing parts of the forest, went without hitch or hinderment, she getting in some much needed practice that did, in fact, result in a rapid increase in her ability to fire her weapon smoothly, carefully, and with the likelihood of actually hitting her target on any five out of seven shots. Success all round, in fact!
“Yippee!” Was her cry on her final excursion to the forest. “I think I’ve got it!”
—OOO—
Part Two.
Summer was running out of impetus, leaves beginning to turn various rainbow shades, as Jane sauntered along Berkeley Boulevard the main shopping and office thoroughfare in Temmington City; first stop Ruggerson’s Gunshop where she meant to fill her quota of new ammo magazines along with boxes of their needed contents; the proprietor by this time being almost a respected old family friend.
“Hi’ya, Jane!” Ruggerson always happy to see a regular paying customer. “What ya want t’day? I got spices from Ind, oils from Araby; cinnamon from distant Ophir; or sandalwood from Nineveh!”
“Two boxes of Fairchild thirty-eight hollow-points; two boxes of same brand, jacketed; an’ four boxes of Temperson thirty-eight Magnum, thanks. Four empty mags, as well.”
Ruggerson raised an expert eyebrow as he turned to examine the contents of the shelves behind him. “Plannin’ t’re-kindle the Old Spanish War, or what?”
“I’m still just a beginner in this idle hobby, as you well know, Mister.” Jane grinning in turn. “Got’ta get my practice in if I want t’rival Calamity of the same name, don’t I?”
“Har!” Ruggerson agreeing as he fetched box after box to lay on the counter-top. “This-all’s gon’na cost, y’know. Just come in’ta a inheritance from a rich Aunt who’s kindly kicked the bucket recently, or what?”
Jane shook her head sadly.
“No such luck, but I live in hope, thanks. No, the latest title I presented t’Heartthrob’s come up trumps in the selling line, going like hotcakes on the Romantic novel market, I’m not exactly sure why, but I ain’t grumbling none.”
But, having a customer to hand and being the long-term provider of sustenance to the hungry masses as he certainly was, Ruggerson couldn’t resist the temptation to puff his stock further while the opportunity beckoned.
“What about changing up to a Sterig point Forty, now you’ve got the hang of the Archon? Part exchange, won’t cost you more’n, lem’me see—two hundred dollars?”
Jane smiled at this brazen attempt at pushing old stock, even she being well aware of the old-fashioned nature of the weapon proposed.
“Ha-ha, Bert! A Sterig Forty? I’ve been reading-up in my spare time, y’know. A Sterig Forty? Who was the last owner? Buffalo Bill, or maybe Annie Oakley? Nah, I’ll pass, thanks.”
Bert grunted humorously, though with a tinge of disappointment.
“Oh, well, got’ta try, ain’t I. Get rid o’the dam’ thing yet, mind. Y’wouldn’t believe the natur’s of some as comes in here requirin’ all sorts’a strange outré weapons. Just last month a man, big fella with strange eyes, asked outright for the latest Bren!”
Jane’s response, one of complete blankness, quickly showing his anecdote had fallen on deaf ears, Ruggerson swiftly changed the subject.
“RangeDisk’ve come out with an improved Thirty-eight cartridge—eighty grain instead of the norm seventy. Give ya a bigger bang for your buck, as they say. An’ who isn’t partial to a bigger bang when offered, I asks you!”
Grinning broadly, only just holding back outright laughter, Jane shook her head.
“No thanks, fine as I am. Could do with a couple of cleaning cloths an’ one of those long thin pin things for cleaning the barrel.”
“Cleaning brush! Yeah, get you one from the top shelf over there, gim’me a mo’.”
As she contemplated the growing number of purchases on the counter before her an esoteric thought entered her mind.
“What about telescopic sights, Bert?”
Ruggerson frowned deeply, clearly non-plussed at the possible significance of this query out of left field as far as he was concerned.
“Sights, for why?”
“For my dam’ Archon, of course!”
Getting to grips with the situation, and knowing well by now the state of mind of its instigator, Ruggerson shook his head strongly.
“No-no!”
Jane frowned on her part, giving the shop-owner a wide eyed stare.
“What d’you mean—no?”
Sighing softly Bert went into his quiet teach the children gently mode.
“Archons’, all automatic’s such as it, don’t have or need sights. They don’t have slide grooves to hold such so’s y’can’t fit any. You just aim by line of sight an’ the little knobbly thing at the end of the barrel.”
Having experienced the difficulty of doing just that with her own practice sessions out in the wilds Jane was less than impressed.
“Well, if so, it’s a lack that ought’a be addressed, my opinion. Should I contact the manufacturers, or will you?”
Bert here turned to examine the row of shelves behind him, giving him the opportunity to roll his eyes in private.
“I’ll make a note, ma’am; get back t’you in due course, OK?”
Five minutes later she was back out on the crowded sidewalk, both shoulder-hung bags uncomfortably heavier than when she had entered the store; even the capacious pockets of her short sports jacket pressed into service to hold the excess of her purchases.
“Where next? Alicia’s Arbor, of course!” Jane nodding in satisfaction as she headed for this famous Ladies Emporium where everything a lady could ever wish for was on show ready to be bought by the aficionados of Grace and Style in the City.
Here too she was eagerly recognised as a customer of note.
“Good morning, Miss Margrave,” The sales lady getting off to the proper smooth start. “What may we do for you today?”
Jane considered the question in depth.
“Margitson’s bras’, two, in my size; Bellingham’s panties, four, in that lovely shade of pink you showed me last visit; and Letitia’s teddies’, short, two, light cotton, pale blue, thanks.”
A visit to a Ladies’ lingerie shop was far greater, for any woman, than a mere quick in and out purchase. No, it was more in the line of a Princess on a State Occasion, being shown all due deference and polite attention requisite to the amount of hard cash the proprietors knew one was capable of shelling out at one go—in Jane’s case, sadly, quite a fair amount hence the respect on offer, as well as free coffee and biscuits while one sat in the private show-room being attended by a team of eager subordinates under the eagle eye of the shop manageress.
Jane examined the plethora of camiknickers first.
“French?”
“Oh, yes, Miss!” The Manageress quick to acknowledge this needful necessity of the best of stylish origins. “Only the worthiest of the French fashion ateliers, as one knows from one’s previous visits, ma’am!”
“The stitching seems a little intrusive in these particular ones.” Jane being picky just to establish her dominance in the procedure. “Think I’ll choose the Ursula range items instead, in more or less the same style, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, madame.” The Manageress well aware of her own responsibilities in the game. “And—?”
“Panties! Such a nuisance to decide on, usually.” Jane, oozing superiority, pitching for the team like a professional. I always think Jelliers’ are the top of the range, only my own opinion of course, but there. Do you have them in that adorable shade of Regency Pink I saw on my last visit?”
The manageress gave a Valkyrie-like glance to one of her waiting minions, who responded in an instant as required.
“Yes, madame, in our private stock; I can fetch them instantly. Does madame require a two or four pack?”
“Four, I believe, thank you.”
“Immediately, ma’am.”
As the assistant shot off to regions unknown in search of the exclusive items the Manageress turned to another topic.
“Bras’, ma’am?”
“Yes, certainly.” Jane nodding agreement. “You have my size still?”
“But of course, ma’am; on our strictly Private Register. Sandhers’, Mikelson’s, Aragons’, or Bellisimars’?”
“I think Aragons, the last ones I bought proved very comfortable.”
“I am glad to hear it, ma’am.” The Manageress almost sweating pride at every pore. “Patrice, the Aragon range, if you please.”
Another flash of departing movement as second hard-pressed assistant dashed away to search the stockpiles of the establishment, leaving jane with only her last decision to make.
“Do you still have any vials of Scheherazade’s Mist, by any chance? Such an exquisite perfume, don’t you think?”
The manageress, by now in an almost uncontrollable state of ecstasy, nodded eagerly.
“A single vial remaining, ma’am; you knowing how, ah, intimate, how extraordinary, how delicately superb, it is. A trifle expensive, one has to admit, but so very beneficial all the same, of course. Alicia, you know where it is stored; Miss Cloronne will give you the key. Anything else, ma’am?”
Jane was about to rise, having finished the last of the delicious iced cookies, but recalled at this last moment an important addition to her wardrobe.
“Gloves.”
“Gloves! Of course, ma’am! How could we have almost forgotten?”
Jane considered the available choice, flicking through her memory like a computerised list.
“Sandrina’s lemon antelope, I believe will fit the bill. You know my size.
“The manageress merely smirked in reply, nodding at yet another waiting assistant who departed without another word being said, wholly understanding the purpose of her role in the situation.
“Lemon is so—in—today, is it not, ma’am?” The manageress making small talk like a veteran. “Or does one think the pale lavender is beginning to approach the same level?”
“I’ll stick with Lemon.” Jane sure of her taste in this matter. “Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I know what I like; and what I like is what I like, thanks.”
Furrowing her pencil-thin brows trying to follow the logical course of this intricate remark the Manageress finally gave up, not having the will-power to pursue the matter to its finite end.
“Yes, of course, ma’am; quite! Will that be all?”
“Reckon so.” Jane admitting defeat at the last, not being able to recall anything else in the clothing line she especially needed post haste. “Will the bill come to anything extraordinary?”
The Manageress, faced with this often-asked query from worried customers who had, even if unknowingly, gone too far, rose to the challenge like a heroine.
“In these matters there is the merely ordinary, ma’am; then there is the exclusively superior! One expects a certain level of style, manufacture, taste in design, and the joy of wearing the select, the elite, items in Public so overshadowing all round as one parades the Boulevard, does one not, ma’am. For which, sadly, one has to pay an, er, a particular, an elevated, cost—wholly returned to one in the entire exclusivity of one’s attire a la mode, as it were. I shall have the bill made up instantly, ma’am!”
Out on the sidewalk, having perused the presented bill, turned a trifle pale, but bucking-up bravely knowing the profits from her latest unexpected best-seller would just about cover the outrageous amount, and now hauling a solidly constructed thick paper carrier bag containing her new treasures, Jane began to experience that weary sensation normally associated with a really well satisfied Lotus Eater of Old.
“Do I have anything else t’do? Oh, yeah, the Bank!”
Heading along the Boulevard, expertly dodging between the passing crowds, she was suddenly confronted with the line of tables and chairs outside Georgina’s Restaurant, many already host to customers enjoying the balmy late Summer air and various cold drinks or cocktails to taste. It was the work of a moment for her to requisition a spare table, dumping her accumulated luggage at her feet before waving to a nearby waiter.
“Pot of coffee, and three of those darling vanilla cookies with the violet icing, thanks.”
She had only time to adjust her seating, placing her bags by her boots or under the table, not without automatically giving the nearest other customers a baleful and sadly uncontrollable examination to see if any showed signs of immediate criminal intent towards her purchases, before the waitress returned with her order.
“Perhaps a Pernod, as well, thanks. Is a buttered croissant or two out of the question, do you think?”
“Not at all, ma’am.” The waitress being a hardened example of her kind, flashing a weary if cold smile lasting the required two and a half seconds that custom and politeness required. “Jam on the side? Raspberry, strawberry, lemon curd, or marmalade?”
Faced with the delightful choice Jane found herself in a quandary.
“Raspberry’d be nice—no, it wouldn’t—I think—no, that is—oh, I’ll have the marmalade, thanks!”
“Yes, m’m.”
The following ten minutes could only afterwards, in Jane’s eyes, be termed exquisite in every way. The dark deeply flavoursome Columbian coffee, from single plantations, was perfect; the cookies, a speciality of the House, were enough to make a seasoned gourmet cry in ecstasy; while both together made for that textbook level of enjoyment only ever associated with one's first entrance through the Pearly Gates into the gold-paved streets of Paradise itself.
But Paradise on Earth is often hard, indeed impossible, to find and the sidewalk outside Georgina’s Restaurant this particular day proved no exception. The interruption when it came was sudden, crude, unexpected, and wholly terrifying to all around. The figure of a medium-sized man dressed in dark grey slacks and similar anorak with its hood up, though long unruly hair showed through, stopped beside the row of tables, he showing his teeth in a wide grimace.
“Bums! Ya bums! I’ll dam’ well show you luxury an’ entitlement, ya bums!”
Pulling his left hand out of his anorak pocket this move immediately revealed the large automatic in his hand. Raising it to almost head height and holding it in a strange tilted manner he commenced to fire, though not quickly or with any obvious expertise, as if the activity was wholly new to him.
Crack!
The first bullet thankfully flew high to hit the sandstone frontage of the Restaurant well above the customers’ heads. The anonymous youth had obviously arrived with the intent of starting a full-scale massacre, but in a City like Temmington such a criminal act could only expect instant opposition in return—after all, what were Concealed Carry Permits meant for?
Jane was therefore by no means the first to return fire, she having to lower her coffee-cup before scrabbling in her pocket for her Archon thirty-eight while someone else at a distant table was far quicker off the mark.
Crack!
This return defensive fire seemed wholly unexpected by the accoster, he staggering back a few paces, not hit physically though he did get off a second shot—
Crack!
—which hit the edge of the nearest table to him, thankfully unoccupied at the time. Before he could recover Jane came to the help of the first defender raising her own weapon to head height, holding it in both hands with a tight grip, aiming carefully at the moving target before getting-off her first shot—which, to her amazement, seemed to have hit the attacker towards the right side of his chest, for he staggered even further back, hand holding his own weapon waving wildly in the air.
Bang!
Another explosion, this time several shades louder than the previous ones, echoed over the milling crowd; now, reasonably, starting to seek safety wherever they could but mostly just getting in each others’, and the prospective defenders’, way.
The attacker, in response to the heavier artillery of this third defender, had doubled over for a few seconds before seeming to reach his second wind, regaining his previous standing stance though his gun hand was apparently now shaking uncontrollably. But now was the moment, and all three defenders, brought to the point of action against their wills as was the case, had taken these fractions of seconds to make sure of their next shots.
Crack!
Bang!
Crack!
The unknown assailant, standing some thirty-five feet or so away from Jane, staggered, then folded like a bundle of loose laundry disappearing from Jane’s sight as he collapsed on the sidewalk. The first-firing defender now making himself widely known, walking through the tables to stand by the fallen criminal.
“OK, folks! It’s all over, he’s kicked the bucket! Someone’s shot got him in the head; most of his brains, what dam’ little there ever were, have left the building—all over the paving-stones here! Sorry about that! But there’s no more danger now!”
The crowd of customers, somewhat mollified by this news update, were all the same still intent on seeking safety as far away from the scene of calamity as was possible, Jane discovering this when she found herself dragged away against her will and instincts by the crowd moving along the sidewalk. Two minutes later, nobody seeming to have noticed her own gun, which she immediately replaced, hid in fact, in her jacket pocket, Jane felt able to slink back to the Restaurant if only to retrieve her personal goods still lying by her abandoned table. In the midst of doing so it suddenly came over her that the other defenders, two men, now standing over the deceased culprit discussing their next move, could take the ensuing credit for the late drama themselves; such being a good moment for her to quietly disappear, a certain thought running inexorably through her head as she turned away.
“I get mixed up in this, it’ll be sayonara for good t’my Archon, an’ probably my freedom for the next few years too when Inspector Galworthy finds out I was involved!”
Fifty yards further along the wide street she jumped in her skin once more when a police car, traveling at high speed and letting everyone know it was doing so by way of a loud wailing siren, passed like a black and white flash. Swallowing her beating heart again Jane proceeded on her way, all the time glancing at passer’s-by thinking each one was eyeing her suspiciously as if perfectly aware of her earlier involvement in the Restaurant shoot-out. Taking slow deep breaths she tried valiantly to put this unwanted guilt complex to the back of her mind as she went on, her next destination the Bank and a hefty withdrawal on her part for all kinds of necessary domestic expenses.
But certain other citizens of the City, of a decidedly lower class altogether, also had wishes to make withdrawals from the same Bank but not by using the classical official methods, at the same time as Jane unwittingly approached the main entrance. The first she realised something dodgy was afoot being when two men, heavily clothed in dark attire, wearing full-head wool masks and carrying shotguns and long round heavy-looking canvas bags, exited the entrance at high speed obviously making for a large powerful sedan sitting at the sidewalk edge, one side door already slightly ajar awaiting their imminent arrival.
Realising instantly what was going forward, and just as quickly overcome by a feeling of immense anger at these bozos stealing her—her—money, Jane dropped her carrier-bag for the second time that day, this time retrieving her pistol with lightning speed gained by more practice than she really felt was necessary though useful when in the lurch and seeking any stray port in a storm. In short she opened up on the duo of robbers before they had any idea they had left a potentially tight spot heading for their personal Elysian Fields of safety only to instead step right into Hades’ Realm with all its attendant consequences.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Pausing after this mag-dump, while taking all due note of passer’s-by, she smoothly ejected the spent mag, reloading with a fresh one and racking the slide all considerably within at most two seconds raising her weapon to continue the fray where she had left off. But further work proved unnecessary, both robbers now lying on the pavement writhing in agony. As she gazed at her victims, all sorts of feelings coursing through her mind, the sedan beside her burst into life at the same moment as she heard a faint crack, something then whizzing past her left cheek with an evil swish of displaced air. Recognising she had been shot at on her own part she swivelled round to face the car, saw through the open side-window the driver engrossed in trying to both drive and shoot her at the same time, and fired twice herself with a steady aim and control. The car jerked to a halt, the driver having automatically trodden on the brake pedal, as his head jerked sideways before slumping over away from Jane and all, for the second time that day, was over.
This time it was blindingly obvious there was no way out for Jane; she would have to stay and face the outcome whatever transpired, and would probably have to admit to her involvement in the earlier restaurant battle too—heigh-ho!
“What a dam’med f-ckin’ day!”
—O—
“This necessity you obviously labour under, Miss Margrave,” Inspector Galworthy at his best in his office later that evening. “of needing to visit me at every hour of the day, every dam’ day, is gettin’ just a little out’ta hand, don’t you agree?”
“Ho-bloody-ho!”
“No need for sarcasm, I’m sure.” Galworthy ready with an apt rejoinder. “After all you have, yet again, sprayed the local community on no less than two separate occasions with all the ammo you could lay hands on at short notice. That Archon of yours must be feeling like a War veteran by now, surely!”
“Childish, Inspector, childish! I have every certificate necessary, having used my weapon in perfectly acceptable and reasonable ways under stress.”
“Yeah-yeah.” Galworthy sounding as if this explanation had no staying power whatever, shuffling papers on his desktop as if this action was of paramount importance. “We’ve got your gun again, of course; have t’mate it t’the various bullets recovered from both scenes—”
“Sh-t!”
“Don’t despair,” The Inspector raising a pale smile for a fraction of a second. “The Bods down in Forensics tell me they only need to do a couple of sample firings of your weapon then, me agreeing, you can have it back in an hour or so.”
“Oh, well!”
Galworthy studied a particular document on the desk before him for a few seconds, wrinkling his lips as if tasting a too sour sauce the while.
“Your certificates are up to date, sure; you fired within reasonable legal boundaries; and the results are all perfectly acceptable; got nothing concrete to hold you on or to requisition your weapon for. So, if you spend a while out in the Waiting-room downstairs someone’ll be along to hand your Archon back, OK?”
Jane sneered broadly, feeling by now the World was treating her like a child.
“Glad t’hear it! Do I get my bags, with all my purchases and mags an’ ammo back too?”
“Yeah, the whole what-all, just have patience.”
“Haar!”
The Waiting-room, on the ground floor of the Precinct reflected all the comfort and warmth of its distant sister at Pennsylvania Railroad Station—cold and characterless with a high ceiling and nothing eye-catching within view to interest the mind, except for a chill rumbling echo whenever anyone spoke above a low whisper—boredom incarnate, in fact. There was not even a public cafeteria providing much needed hot drinks and provender; all Jane could do, she fairly quickly understood as Time passed by, was sit still and quietly fall into a mild trance.
Eventually, but long after night had fallen, Inspector’s Galworthy’s prophecy finally came true; A middle-aged rather overweight officer appeared carrying a wide brown paper bag, pinpointed Jane from a distance and strolled over with a haughty air to stand over his seated victim.
“Miss Jane Margrave?”
“Yeah, y’got my goods?”
The officer, clearly used to a far more submissive attitude, especially from women, of those who generaly came within his official purview looked for a moment as if he had been kicked in a delicate place without warning before taking a deep breath and commencing to get his obviously onerous duty out of the way in double-quick time.
“Got your gun here, all certified; dam’ big weapon for a woman!”
“None of your business!” Jane recognising this snappy attitude to be the only way she would get through to this ape. “So, gim’me!”
The officer almost hissed through set teeth but settled for jabbing a handful of documents at Jane.
“These need signing, all’a them! Some in various places; make sure y’do so properly or it’ll just mean me takin’ your dam’ weapon back t’storage an’ you can come in at a later, much later, date for it, OK! Your general goods’re lying out in the Lobby right now, pick ‘em up on your way out.”
“Sh-t!” But she grabbed the various sheets of paper, resting them on her knees while she dragged a pen from her jacket pocket; the officer obviously disappointed he hadn’t been given the chance to deny he had a spare pen on his person.
Five minutes later Jane found herself out on the sidewalk, now lit by streetlights in the otherwise enveloping dark of night. Her shoulder-bags and carrier-bag, full of her earthly goods, had indeed awaited her in the Public lobby, having been deposited there in an ill-formed pile by another certainly dis-interested member of the Force’s team. But all was in order and now all she needed to do was walk the two blocks back to where her sedan awaited her.
All was well for the first few minutes, it taking all of ten minutes for her to make her way back to the intersection of Jamieson Street, wherein the Precinct lay, and the nearby upper length of Berkeley Boulevard. But communication between the two was by way of a much lesser thoroughfare, Arnold Street, host to a double row of sleazy cafes, butcher’s shops, rundown newsagents, and dark entrances to blocks of shabby hotels of the one-night stand variety. Needless to say the street-lighting was less than efficient along this seeming avenue aiming towards Avernus, nobody at all in sight as jane entered the long curving street.
Almost instinctively she dug her left hand deep in her pocket, grasping the Archon automatic in a firm grip, feeling all the easier as a result; she having made sure immediately on leaving the Police Precinct it was fully loaded and ready for action, taking into account how the earlier part of her day had gone.
An action which proved its worth less than two minutes later when, having passed one of the dark entrances to an anonymous building she suddenly heard footsteps hurrying up behind her. Swivelling round she saw a medium sized man in shabby clothing approaching at a rapid jog, a long metallic blade held low in one hand reflecting a streetlight as he did so. Instantly realising what was unfolding she faced her advancing attacker, speaking in a loud voice.
“F-ck off, bozo! I’m armed!”
“F-ck you, b-tch! Gim’me everything ya got, then we’ll see whether I lets y’off with a kiss or meb’be sumthin’ more-hee-hee! Come on!”
Continuing his approach while raising his weapon to waist height he obviously expected his victim to fold in terror at any second. Knowing by this time in her career as an armed member of respectable Society what was necessary, and indeed the only possible response, Jane pulled her automatic free, grasping it in both hands while pointing it firmly at her assailant’s midriff, pulling the trigger twice.
Crack! Crack!
The man, stopped in his tracks, let out a deep gasp, dropped his knife, swaying as it tinkled on the hard pavement, then slowly collapsed to the sidewalk himself. A few preliminary writhes and squirms of his flailing limbs then all was silent and motionless, except for a dark pool of liquid quickly spreading, staining the ground round his chest. Bending down for a closer examination Jane was faced with a pair of staring eyes which told her everything she needed to know about his present condition.
“G-d’d-m! Dead as a dam’ Dodo!”
Rising to her full height again Jane took a moment to consider her next move, but this was made almost automatically for her with the approach, from the far end of the otherwise still empty street, of a Police vehicle doing its nightly patrol. Placing her own weapon on the paving by her boot and stepping away Jane raised an arm to gesture at the passing vehicle, which indeed came to a halt a few yards from her.
“B-gg-r! Looks like Inspector Galworthy’s gon’na have a much later night than he expected! Probably never see my dam’ Archon ever again after this either, for sure now! D-m’mit!”
The End.