Chapter Eleven
JULIA and Jim reached the mall ten minutes before closing. They had to run to the sporting-goods store. The man who worked there, however, was happy to help them. Retired from the police force for a dozen years, there was nothing he liked better than to talk about guns. His name was Barker. Of course, right away he asked them what they wanted the guns for: hunting bird, deer, rabbit, shooting cans, protection.
“Protection,” Julia said. “What would be better, a rifle or a shotgun?”
Barker scratched his tan, leathery, crewcut head. “Ordinarily you’d want a pistol or revolver; something you could put in the desk drawer beside your bed.”
“But isn’t there a waiting period for buying a handgun?” Jim asked.
“Yes,” Barker said. “There is a form that has to be filled out. We check whether you’ve been convicted of a felony, things like that. But you can usually pick up the weapon within two weeks.”
“That’s no good,” Julia said quickly. “We need a gun tonight. Two of them.”
“Somebody hassling you, young lady?” Barker asked, giving her a shrewd look. He was not an idiot like Lieutenant Crawley. He could see she was tense.
“Yes,” Julia said.
“If that’s the case, you might be better going to the police,” Barker said. “They know how to use their guns, and they know when not to use them.”
Julia forced a smile. “We’re not trigger-happy, sir. I mainly want it to feel safe. You understand. I’m sure I’ll never fire it.”
“How old are you?” Barker asked.
“Eighteen,” Julia lied. She turned to Jim. “But my boyfriend’s buying the guns. He’s eighteen, too.”
“I have I.D,” Jim said.
“You’ll need I.D. and money,” Barker said, leading them to a rack of weapons. “If you’re buying this for protection, I’d recommend a shotgun. It doesn’t require the accuracy of a rifle.” Barker picked up a shotgun and handed it to Jim. “That’s a Remington twelve-gauge pump action. There are two main types of shotguns—pumps and semiautomatics. Pumps are usually the kind you see on TV. You have to pump before you fire. With semiautomatics you just pull the trigger.”
“How many shots can this fire before you have to reload?” Julia asked.
“Five,” Barker said. “You can get an extended tube that will give you more shots. But you’d find that unnecessary for most purposes.”
Jim handed Julia the shotgun. It was surprisingly heavy. She had never used a gun in her life. Her mother had said that people who bought weapons for protection were like people who went to Las Vegas to make money.
“When you sit down at any gambling table, you have to understand that the house has the advantage. In the long run, you are bound to lose.”
Julia had asked her to explain, but her mother’s answer was as abstract as her analogy was confusing. Her mom felt that the fear that drove people to buy guns drew violence to them like magnets.
“You get two things in life, Julia—what you really want and what you really fear. This may not seem true to you now but it’s always the case. Always.”
Julia sometimes wondered if her mother had wished for an early death.
Julia wondered what she secretly wished for.
“It sounds like a semiautomatic would be better if you only have to pull the trigger,” Julia said.
Barker shook his head. “Most policemen prefer a pump action. There are less things that can go wrong. A pump action won’t jam on you. Also, they’re cheaper. This shotgun here runs two fifty. A semiautomatic would cost you another hundred. Remington’s a solid brand. You’re holding the first gun I ever bought my daughter, young lady.”
“How old was she when you gave it to her?” Julia asked.
“Ten. She’s thirty now, and the worst she’s shot is a Coke bottle.”
Barker was still trying to feel them out. He didn’t like the fact that they wanted the guns immediately. He had his radar out, Julia could sense it. But there was one thing about radar, it didn’t tell you a thing if you didn’t give it a target. Julia closed the discussion.
“We’ll take two,” she said. “Along with two boxes of shells.”
Barker gave them buckshot—triple lot, he called it, very heavy steel pellets. Barker warned them that if they hit someone at close range, they’d blow them wide open. Julia quickly picked out a new jacket for Jim. It was big and warm and completely snow-white. Jim paid for the stuff with a credit card.
The mall was only an hour from the liquor store on Barnes. Jim drove straight toward it at high speed. Julia wanted to get there early, in case Frank and his buddy decided to pull the job before eleven. She wondered what Amy was doing that very moment and how she had found out Frank’s name. But most of all she wondered if Scott was still alive. She felt that he must be. If he’d died, she believed his ghost would come to her, come to say goodbye.
Of course, her mother had not come to her.
As they approached the lake near the liquor store, Julia gazed out the window at the moon reflecting on the water. The moonlight affected Julia deeply. It seemed to condense her sense of time into a tight ball, from which she was able to experience everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours as if it were all happening now, in the present.
She relived the experience of riding in the car with her friends, the dizziness when she rubbed Jim’s sore neck, the horror of Scott’s shooting, the hatred of the kid who had done the shooting, the agony of waiting for Scott’s operation to finish, the comfort of Jim’s companionship, the anxiety of her aunt’s pursuit. She experienced all these things outside a logical sequence. The experiences were all one, not separate from one another. They were interwoven like the threads of a tapestry. Yet there was a core idea to the experiences, around which all the others formed. It was her hatred for Frank. Since she first glimpsed him in the pond, she had hated him with a feeling so strong it seemed to have a life of its own.
I dreamed of a bloody lagoon with a monster lurking in the depths. I sent Scott down under to deal with it. I sent Scott into the gas station to his death. I sent him to Frank. But I did not see Frank in the lagoon. I was alone with the monster in the end.
The reflection of moonlight on the water turned to blood. Julia tried to shake herself from her vision. She tapped Jim’s shoulder. “Do you see that?” she whispered.
He glanced over and paled. “It’s red.”
She turned to him. “You can see it?”
He nodded.
“You have to get away from me.”
“I can’t,” Jim said.
“Why not?”
“I love you,” he stated simply.
“That’s not good.”
“It’s not bad. Why don’t we go somewhere else tonight?”
It was her turn. “I can’t. I have too much hate.”
Mom said love is stronger than hate. He may be stronger than me.
Julia prayed that Jim could save them both.