“Pull!”
Ben sidearms an orange disc up into the dun-colored morning with a handheld skeet launcher. The trap Frisbees quickly out over the fog-wrapped field, it’s really moving, as beside him Gary Chambliss tries drawing down on the target. The clay pigeon flies right, describing a lazy arc back to earth, then . . .
BOOOOM!
The disc splits into two distinct halves, each pinwheeling into the mist on opposite, wounded vectors. Ben slides the safety muffs down from his ears, necklacing them at his throat.
“Winged it.”
Still holding the double-barreled shotgun, Chambliss lifts one of his own earmuffs.
“What’s that?”
“You need to lead the target more. Don’t aim for where it’s already been, but for where it’s going to be. That’s why the bird’s getting away from you.”
Chambliss levers open the twelve-gauge and two spent shells pop from the breech with a hollow thoomp! to fall black and smoking into the trample of dead grass at his feet. He slides a fresh cartridge into each barrel and snaps the gun shut. Ben fits another clay disc into the thrower, wrestling with the spring-action arm until it has clicked into position.
“My turn.”
The mayor’s new chief of staff relinquishes the shotgun with care. Ben hands the awkward launcher to Chambliss and the man gives the contraption an experimental, slow-motion bounce, testing the heft of the thing in his hand. He indulges in a full-body shiver for warmth.
“Thanks, by the way, for making good on the . . . and for doing it so quickly too, Ben . . . on the second installment of our agreement from before. And for taking this meeting today. You’ve been real accommodating so far, what with this new role over at the mayor’s office.”
Ben smiles blankly and waits for the ask.
“You know the mayor thinks, and I think it too, that this M.A.P.S. effort is the future of the city. Of the whole state, even. It’s big. And I want to make sure you and I are in lockstep as things start happening. I gotta be honest with you, Ben, when I say I don’t know the construction business from Adam’s mother-in-law. But I do know you’ll be dealing with a lot of moving parts, a lot of contingencies. You’ll have a whole mess of things on your plate trying to bring this project off. So I want you to think of me as your silent partner. Someone who can grease the gears, so to speak, and make things happen. Or even put a little sand in them, case you need to buy a little time with Terry or the oversight committee.”
“Sort of an all-purpose, industrial lubricant.”
Chambliss actually snorts.
“Funny. An effort big as this one, though . . . on occasion you’re liable to find yourself in a rough spot. And I can help smooth things out. This is all I’m saying.”
“Well I certainly do appreciate it Gary. Thanks a mil.”
“Of course there needs to be a little something in it for me.”
“You’re acquiring a taste for the honeypot.”
“I don’t hafta tell you Terry doesn’t like surprises.”
Ben cracks the action on the shotgun, double-checking it’s been properly loaded.
“God I love this gun.”
“It’s a beautiful firearm. Twelve gauge?”
Ben nods.
“Antique?”
“Nineteen-oh-two. A Parker Brothers VH-grade side-by-side with a satin black walnut stock. In the fifties someone had it refinished at the Remington factory.”
Ben steps to Chambliss, balancing the break-action over his forearm while hugging the gun butt with his elbow.
“See these rainbow-looking swirligigs on the casing? To get that pattern they had to take the gun apart and bake the metal in cyanide. It’s hard to do well, but it makes the thing worth a fucking fortune.” He snaps the weapon shut and the briefest of vibrations steels through his forearms. This is a deadly-type tremor known mostly to hunters and target shooters and it has a palliative effect on his current temper. “Now why do you suppose they’d cook a gun casing like that? With poison?”
He can see the message registering in the lard behind Gary’s stare. Chambliss stands his ground. But his gaze has fallen to Ben’s trigger finger.
“To harden the metal. See, these old guns were made of alloys that were just a bit more malleable than today’s. Not enough carbon. They needed some method to toughen the outer shell while leaving that softer inner core to absorb the everyday stresses. All that shooting can tax a gun’s constitution.” Ben bends his knees, bobbing and weaving his head until he’s recaptured Chambliss’s gaze.
“Boom!”
The man’s face bleeds white with distemper but, to his credit, Gary barely flinches.
“It’d be a shame,” Gary whispers, “watching you fail.”
“And you right along with me. Terry’s staying as far away from M.A.P.S. as he can. At least until you and me prove to him it’s a slam-dunk. You’ve quit the city council, Gary, so if it all goes to Gomorrah he’s only got you, Gary-Goddamn-Chambliss, for blaming. And in this town, quitters and losers don’t move up, in business or in politics.”
“Don’t push me.”
Ben mimics the man’s earlier snort and a faint nebula of dragon breath curls from his nostrils.
“Didn’t Terry warn you? Working for the mayor involves all kinds of unforeseeable stresses. It doesn’t do to be too soft. Terry thinks, and I think it too Gary, that for a marshmallow like you it’s the best move there is. Might just toughen your exterior up a bit.”
Chambliss starts squabbling but Ben has already slid the safety muffs over his ears. He turns back to the tree line.
“Pull, you rat-fink motherfuck.”
• • •
He pictures life without Becca and feels like Dorothy’s tin man, his heart hollowed to nothing but echoes. She’s hiding some secret and he needs to know what it’s all about. But he’ll want to be a better man, or at least try to be, in order to deserve the knowing.
This break with Chambliss is a step in the proper direction but just the first one. He’ll have to tell it all, all the petty bribes and cheats Ben has doled out over the years to get ahead. She won’t like what he’s been holding back. That he’s a phony and a cheat and a backbreaker to boot. Ben has never told Becca about the night Cecil was hurt, how he was the one who caused the accident. She won’t like any of it. But this is the only way he can think to get close to her again and he’ll gladly suffer the consequences.
He’s fretting like how a woman might but so damn what. Long as she doesn’t leave him.
This is where his head is at when Ben walks into the kitchen later that evening. It’s time for a reset. He’ll do it soon. Tonight. Hell, he’ll do it right now. Better to rip the Band-Aid off quick. Except Becca’s already waiting for him at the dining table, her fingernails tap-tap-tapping the handle of a coffee mug and her face writ with worry.
She beats him to the punch.
“We need to talk.”