Roadwork

The fat man, Mac, and the clerk or proprietor, Harry (as in Dirty Harry), had the gun back together.

“You give me a call when you get that Menschler in,” Mac said.

“I will… but your prejudice against autos is irrational,” Harry said. (He decided Harry must be the proprietor-a clerk would never call a customer irrational.) “Have you got to have the Cobra next week?”

“I’d like it,” Mac said.

“I don’t promise.”

“You never do… but you’re the best goddam gunsmith in the city, and you know it.”

“Of course I do.”

Mac patted the gun on top of the glass case and turned to go. Mac bumped into him-Watch it, Mac. Smile when you do that-and then went on to the door. The paper was tucked under Mac’s arm, and he could read:

Harry turned to him, still smiling and shaking his head. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so. But I warn you in advance, I know nothing about guns.”

Harry shrugged. “There’s a law you should? Is it for someone else? For Christmas?”

“Yes, that’s just right,” he said, seizing on it. “I’ve got this cousin-Nick, his name is. Nick Adams. He lives in Michigan and he’s got yea guns. You know. Loves to hunt, but it’s more than that. It’s sort of a, well, a-”

“Hobby?” Harry asked, smiling.

“Yes, that’s it.” He had been about to say fetish. His eyes dropped to the cash register, where an aged bumper sticker was pasted on. The bumper sticker said:

IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS

He smiled at Harry and said, “That’s very true, you know.

“Sure it is,” Harry said. “This cousin of yours…”

“Well, it’s kind of a one-upmanship type of thing. He knows how much I like boating and I’ll be damned if he didn’t up and give me an Evinrude sixty-horsepower motor last Christmas. He sent it by REA express. I gave him a hunting jacket. I felt sort of like a horse’s ass.”

Harry nodded sympathetically.

“Well, I got a letter from him about six weeks ago, and he sounds just like a kid with a free pass to the circus. It seems that he and about six buddies chipped in together and bought themselves a trip to this place in Mexico, sort of like a freefire zone-”

“A no-limit hunting preserve?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He chuckled a little. “You shoot as much as you want. They stock it, you know. Deer, antelope, bear, bison. Everything.”

“Was it Boca Rio?”

“I really don’t remember. I think the name was longer than that.”

Harry’s eyes had gone slightly dreamy. “That guy that just left and myself and two others went to Boca Rio in 1965. I shot a zebra. A goddam zebra! I got it mounted in my game room at home. That was the best time I ever had in my life, bar none. I envy your cousin.”

“Well, I talked it over with my wife,” he said, “and she said go ahead. We had a very good year at the laundry. I work at the Blue Ribbon Laundry over in Western.”

“Yes, I know where that is.”

He felt that he could go on talking to Harry all day, for the rest of the year, embroidering the truth and the lies into a beautiful, gleaming tapestry. Let the world go by. Fuck the gas shortage and the high price of beef and the shaky ceasefire. Let there be talk of cousins that never were, right, Fred? Right on, Georgie.

“We got the Central Hospital account this year, as well as the mental institution, and also three new motels.”

“Is the Quality Motor Court on Franklin Avenue one of yours?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’ve stayed there a couple of times,” Harry said. “The sheets were always very clean. Fu

“Well, we had a good year. And so I thought, maybe I can get Nick a rifle and a pistol. I know he’s always wanted a.44 Magnum, I’ve heard him mention that one-”

Harry brought the Magnum up and laid it carefully on top of the glass case. He picked it up. He liked the heft of it. It felt like business.

He put it back down on the glass case.

“The chambering on that-” Harry began.

He laughed and held up a hand. “Don’t sell me. I’m sold. An ignoramus always sells himself. How much ammunition should I get with that?”

Harry shrugged. “Get him ten boxes, why don’t you? He can always get more. The price on that gun is two-eighty-nine plus tax, but I’m going to give it to you for two-eighty, ammo thrown in. How’s that?”

“Super,” he said, meaning it. And then, because something more seemed required, he added: “It’s a handsome piece.”

“If it’s Boca Rio, he’ll put it to good use.”

“Now the rifle-”

“What does he have?”

He shrugged and spread his hands. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know. Two or three shotguns, and something he calls an auto-loader-”

“Remington?” Harry asked him so quickly that he felt afraid; it was as if he had been walking in waist-deep water that had suddenly shelved off.

“I think it was. I could be wrong.”

“Remington makes the best,” Harry said, and nodded, putting him at ease again. “How high do you want to go?”

“Well, I’ll be honest with you. The motor probably cost him four hundred. I’d like to go at least five. Six hundred tops.”

“You and this cousin really get along, don’t you?”

“We grew up together,” he said sincerely. “I think I’d give my right arm to Nick, if he wanted it.”

“Well, let me show you something,” Harry said. He picked a key out of the bundle on his ring and went to one of the glass cabinets. He opened it, climbed up on a stool, and brought down a long, heavy rifle with an inlaid stock. “This may be a little higher than you want to go, but it’s a beautiful gun.” Harry handed it to him.

“What is it?”

“That’s a four-sixty Weatherbee. Shoots heavier ammunition than I’ve got here in the place right now. I’d have to order however many rounds you wanted from Chicago. Take about a week. It’s a perfectly weighted gun. The muzzle energy on that baby is over eight thousand pounds… like hitting something with an airport limousine. If you hit a buck in the head with it, you’d have to take the tail for a trophy.”

“I don’t know,” he said, sounding dubious even though he had decided he wanted the rifle. “I know Nick wants trophies. That’s part of-”

“Sure it is,” Harry said, taking the Weatherbee and chambering it. The hole looked big enough to put a carrier pigeon in. “Nobody goes to Boca Rio for meat. So your cousin gutshoots. With this piece, you don’t have to worry about tracking the goddam animal for twelve miles through the high country, the animal suffering the whole time, not to mention you missing di

“How much?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. I can’t move it in town. Who wants a freaking anti-tank gun when there’s nothing to go after anymore but pheasant? And if you put them on the table, it tastes like you’re eating exhaust fumes. It retails for nine-fifty, wholesales for six-thirty. I’d let you have it for seven hundred.”

“That comes to… almost a thousand bucks.”

“We give a ten percent discount on orders over three hundred dollars. That brings it back to nine.” He shrugged. “You give that gun to your cousin, I gaarantee he hasn’t got one. If he does, I’ll buy it back for seven-fifty. I’ll put that in writing, that’s how sure I am.”

“No kidding?”

“Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course, if it’s too steep, it’s too steep. We can look at some other guns. But if he’s a real nut on the subject, I don’t have anything else he might not have two of.”

“I see.” He put a thoughtful expression on his face. “Have you got a telephone?”

“Sure, in the back. Want to call your wife and talk it over'?”

“I think I better.”

“Sure. Come on.”

Harry led him into a cluttered back room. There was a bench and a scarred wooden table littered with gun guts, springs, cleaning fluid, pamphlets, and labeled bottles with lead slugs in them.