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"Don't you have a date? I thought you'd be coming with Neil."
"I'm meeting him there. That way he's free to do anything he wants. I'll bring the jewelry tonight and maybe help you do something with your hair. I can tell I'm going to have to dress you."
"Vera, I'm not helpless."
"Of course you're not helpless. You're completely ignorant when it comes to clothes. I'll bet you've never even had your colors done."
I gave a little noncommittal shrug, trying to look like I had my colors done sometimes twice a week.
"Don't bother. You're a Summer. I can save you the fifty bucks. You shouldn't wear black, but to hell with it. You'll look great." She paused to study my face. "Very becoming, those bruises… especially the one turning green." She began to ease the plastic bag back over the outfit, unlit cigarette bobbing from the corner of her mouth. "How's it feel to spend twenty-four hours a day with a hunk?"
"You mean Dietz?"
Vera sighed and rolled her eyes. "No, I'm talking about Don Knotts. Never mind. You probably like him because he's competent, right?"
"Well, yeah. Isn't that the point?" I said. "You know what puzzles me? How come I'm surrounded by bossy people? Rosie, Dietz, Henry… now you."
"You're cute, you know that? You think you're such a hard-ass."
"I am a hard-ass," I said defensively.
"Nell's going to love you. Have you called him yet?"
"I haven't had a chance. We just got back."
"He's only coming tonight to meet you. Just remember. Don't eat."
I squinted at her. "How come? This is a retirement di
"Suppose you want to go to bed with him."
"I don't," I said.
"But suppose you did."
"What's that got to do with eating di
She was losing patience with me, but stopped to spell it out. "Never go to bed with a guy after a big meal. Your stomach will pooch out."
"Why would I go to bed with a guy I can't have a big meal with first?"
"You can eat later, when you're married."
I had to laugh. "I'm not getting married later, but thanks for the tip."
"You're welcome. See you tonight."
I found Dietz sitting out by Darcy's desk, leafing through a pamphlet on uninsured losses. I took the outfit downstairs with us, tucking it carefully in his trunk when we reached the parking lot. "There's no way I'm wearing any body armor under this," I said.
Dietz made no comment and I took that for assent.
On our way to the firing range, we stopped by the gun shop and spent an hour bickering about guns. He knew far more than I did and I had to yield to his expertise. I left a deposit on an H K P7 in 9-millimeter, filling out all the necessary paperwork. I ended up paying twenty-five bucks for fifty rounds of the Winchester Silvertips Dietz had insisted on. In exchange for my compliance, he had the good taste not to mention that all of this was his idea. I'd expected to find it galling to take his advice, but in reality, it felt fine. What did I have to prove? He'd been at it a lot longer than I had and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
Dietz drove up the pass in his little red Porsche like a man pursued. Maybe we were practicing for a car chase later on. The Porsche was not equipped with passenger brakes, but I kept my foot jammed to the floorboards in hopes. From where I sat, it looked like one of those camera's-eye views of the Indy 500, only speeding straight uphill. I was wishing I believed in an afterlife, as I was about to enjoy mine. Dietz didn't seem to notice my discomfiture. Since he was totally focused on the road, I didn't want to spoil his concentration with the piercing screams I was having to suppress.
The gun club was deserted except for the range-master, to whom we paid our fees. The May sun was hot, the breezes dry, scented with bay laurel and sage. The rains wouldn't come again until Christmastime. By August, the mountains would be parched, the vegetation desiccated, the timber primed for burning. Even now, looking down toward the valley, I could see a haze in the air, ghostly portent of the fires to come.
Dietz set up a B-27 human silhouette target at a distance of seven yards. I'd been practicing with the Davis at twenty-five yards, but Dietz just shook his head. "A.32's designed for self-defense inside fifteen yards, preferably inside ten. The round has to penetrate deeply enough to get to the vital organs and blood vessels, eight to ten inches in. The Silvertip has a better chance of getting far enough to make a difference."
"Nice business we're in," I said.
"Why do you think I'm getting out?"
I loaded the magazine on my little Davis while he detailed an exercise he referred to as a Mozambique drill. He had me start from the guard position: pistol loaded, round chambered, safety on, finger off the trigger, pointing at a forty-five-degree angle downward. "Bring the pistol up to shooting position and fire two quick shots into the upper chest, level with the sternum. Do a quick visual check to see where you've hit and then fire a third more careful shot into the head right around here," he said, indicating his eye sockets.
I put on my ear protectors and did as I was told, feeling self-conscious at first under his scrutiny. It was clear that in the years since the police academy, my skills had deteriorated. I'd come up here often, on an average of once a month, but I'd begun to think of it almost as a meditation instead of schooling in self-defense. Left to my own devices, I'd been neither rigorous nor exact. Dietz was a good teacher, patient, methodical, suggesting corrections in a way that never made me feel criticized.
"Now let's try it with your gun in your purse," he said when he was satisfied.
"How do you know all this stuff?"
He smiled faintly. "Weapons are a passion of mine. My first formal training in defensive pistolcraft was a class designed for certifying security guards to carry weapons on the job. The practical shooting part was minimal, but it did give me a fair grounding in the laws related to firearms. I went to the American Pistol Institute after that." He paused. "Are we up here to work or chat?"
"I get to choose?" I said.
Apparently not. He had me try the.45, but it was too much gun for me coming off the.32. He relented on that point and let me continue with the Davis. We went back to work, the smell of gunpowder perfuming the air as I concentrated on the process. I'd ceased to think about Mark Messinger as a person. He'd become an abstract-no more than a flat, black silhouette seven yards away-with a paper heart, paper brain. It was therapeutic firing at him, watching his midriff shred. My fearfulness began to fall away and my confidence returned. I fired at his paper neck and hit an inky artery. I pretended to tattoo my initials on his trunk. By the time we packed up and left the range at noon, I was feeling like my old self again.
We had lunch at the Stage Coach Tavern, tucked up against the mountain with a stream trickling down through the rocks close by. Live oak and bay laurel kept the tavern shrouded in chill shade. The quiet was undercut by the gossiping of the birds. Only an occasional car climbed the grade out in front, heading for the main road. Dietz was still vigilant-sca
We'd ordered the chili verde, which the waitress brought: two wide bowls of fragrant pork and green chili stew with a dollop of cilantro pesto on top and two folded flour tortillas submerged in the depths. This might be as close to heaven as a si