It was kind of nice to go into the stores and try on the new-smelling clothes. I got a couple pair of slacks and a sport jacket, some shirts and ties and a couple pair of shoes — nothing really fancy.
About one o’clock, I bagged on back out to the Avenue and dropped into Sloane’s pawnshop. Sloane had a lot of new stuff in it as well as the usual sad, secondhand junk. I thought I could see the influence of Claudia there. I land of halfway hoped she’d be there so I could see her again.
“Hey, Dan,” Sloane said, “be right with you.” He turned back to the skinny, horse-faced guy he’d been talking to. “I’m sure sorry, friend,” he said, “but five dollars is as high as I can go. You saw the window — I’ve got wristwatches coming out my ears.”
“But I ain’t tryin’ to sell it,” the man objected with a distinct, whining Southern drawl. “I’d be in here first thing on payday to get it back. I jus’ gotta have ten anyway. Y’see, m’car broke down and I had a feller fix it fer me, and now he won’t give it back to me ‘lessen I give ‘im at least part of the money. That’s why I just gotta have ten for the watch anyway.”
“I’m just as sorry as I can be, friend, but I just can’t do a thing for you on that watch.”
“I noticed the prices you got on them watches in the window,” the man said accusingly. “I didn’t see no five-dollar watches out there.”
Suddenly I remembered another five-dollar watch not too long ago.
“I’m really sorry, friend,” Sloane said, “But I just don’t think you and I can do business today.”
“That there’s a semdy-fi’-dollar watch,” the man said holding it out at Sloane and shaking it vigorously, “an’ all I want is for you to borrow me ten fuckin’ dollars on it for about ten measly little ol’ days. Now I think that’s mighty damn reasonable.”
“It could very well be, friend, but I just can’t do ‘er.”
“Well, mister, I’m agonna tell you som’thin’. They’s just a whole lotta these here pawnshops in this here little ol’ town. I think I’ll jus’ go out and find me one where they don’t try to screw a feller right into the damn ground.”
“It’s a free country, friend,” Sloane said calmly.
“You just ain’t about to get no semdy-fi’-dollar watch off’n me for no five measly fuckin’ dollars. I’ll tell you that right now. And I can shore tell you one thing — you ain’t gonna get no more o’ my business. And I’m shore gonna tell all the fellers in my outfit not to give you none o’ their business neither. It’ll be a cold day in hell when anybody from the Hunnerd-and-Semdy-First Ree-con Platoon comes into this stingy little ol’ place!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, friend.”
“Sonnabitch!” the man growled and stomped out of the shop.
Sloane looked at me and giggled. “I get sonofabitched and motherfuckered more than any eight other businessmen on the block,” he said. “Stupid damned rebels! If that shit kicker paid more than fifteen for that piece of junk, then he really got screwed right into the ground.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Doesn’t do any good. They’d a helluva lot rather believe that I’m trying to cheat them than that somebody else already has. That way they’re smart, and I’m the one who’s stupid.”
“That’s a GI for you.”
“Yeah. He’s got all the makings of a thirty-year man. Chip on his shoulder instead of a head. What can I do for you?”
“I thought I’d look over your guns.”
“Sure — right over there in the rack behind the counter. Gonna decide which one to take on the hunt, huh?”
“No, I thought I might buy one, if we can get together.”
“Well, now. A real cash customer.” He hustled on ahead of me to the rack. “Here’s a good-looking .270,” he said, handing me a well-polished, scope-mounted job.
“Little rich,” I said, looking at the price tag.
“I can knock fifteen off that,” he said.
‘No. Thanks all the same, Cal, but what I’ve really got in mind is an old Springfield .30-06 military. That’s a good cartridge, and I’ve got a little time to do some backyard gun-smithing.”
“Just a minute,” he said, scratching his chin. “I think I might have just the thing.” He led me back into the storage room and pulled a beat-up-looking rifle down off the top shelf. He looked at the tag attached to the trigger guard and then ripped it off. “I thought so,” he said. “It’s two weeks past due. That bastard won’t be back.” He handed me the gun. “I’ll let you have that one for thirty-five dollars. It’s a real pig the way it sits, but if you want to take a little time to fix it up, you’ll have a good weapon.”
I took it out into the shop where the light was better and checked the bore. It looked clean, no corrosion. The stock was a mess. Some guy had cut down the military stock and then had painted it with brown enamel. The barrel still had the lathe marks on it. I glanced at the receiver and saw that it had been tapped and drilled for a scope. The bolt and safety had been modified.
“All right,” I said, “I’ll take it.”
Sloane had been following my eyes, and his smile was a little sick. He hadn’t noticed the modifications before he’d quoted me the price. I wrote him a check and tucked the gun under my arm. “Pleasure doing business with you, Calvin,” I said.
“I think I just got screwed,” he said ruefully.
“Win a few, lose a few, Cal baby,” I said, patting his cheek. “See you around. Don’t take any semdy-fi’-dollar watches.”
A man creates a certain amount of stir walking up the street with a rifle under his arm, but I kind of enjoyed it. I put the gun on the floor in the back seat of my car and went on down a couple blocks to the gunsmith’s shop. I bought a walnut stock blank, scope mounts, sling-swivels, a sling, a used four-power scope, some do-it-yourself bluing, and a jar of stock finish. Altogether, it cost me another forty dollars. I figured I’d done a good day’s business, so I went into a tavern and had a beer.
About an hour or so later the phone rang and the bartender answered it. He looked up and down the bar. “I don’t know him,” he said, “just a minute.” He raised his voice. “Is Dan Alders here?”
It always gives me a cold chill to be paged in a public place — I don’t know why. It took me a moment to answer. “Yeah,” I said, “that’s me.”
It was Jack. “You gonna be there a while?” he asked.
“I suppose.”
“Sit tight then. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. I got somebody I want you to meet, OK?”
“Sure,” I said. “How’d you find me?”
“I called Sloane. He said he could see your car, so I figured you might be at a water hole. I just called all the joints on the Avenue.”
“Figures,” I said.
“Say,” he said, his voice sounding guarded, “didn’t you have a tomato over at your pad last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Pick her up at that foreign flick?”
“Sure,” I said. I thought I’d rub him a little. “There was one there for you, too — a blonde, about five eight, thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, I’d say. I threw her back.”
“You son of a bitch!” he moaned. “Don’t waste ’em, for Chrissake.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t like foreign flicks,” I told him.
“Not a word about any other women when I get there with this girl, OK?”
“Sure.”
About half an hour later, Jack came in with a tall, very attractive brunette. He waved me over to a booth and ordered a pitcher and three glasses.
“Dan,” he said, “this is Sandy. You remember — I told you about her. Sandy, this is my long-lost brother, Dan.”
“Hello, Dan,” she said quietly, not really looking at me. She seemed frozen, somehow indifferent to everything around her. She concentrated on her cigarette.
“Hey,” Jack said, “I hear you broke it off in Sloane.”
“He quoted the price,” I said a little smugly, “I didn’t.”
“He claims he could have got fifty bucks for that gun.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s a pretty butchered-up piece.”
“What do you want it for if it’s such a junker?”
I’m going to rework it. New stock, dress down the barrel, and so forth, and it should be a pretty fair-looking rifle.”
“Sounds like a lot of work to me,” he said dubiously.
“I’ve got lots of time.” I shrugged.
We went on talking about guns and the hunt. Sandy didn’t say much. I glanced at her from time to time. She seemed withdrawn and seldom looked up. She was quite a nice-looking girl. I wondered how she’d gotten tangled up with a son of a bitch like my brother. Her hair was very dark and quite long — almost as long as Clydine’s, but neater. She had long lashes which made her eyes seem huge. She seemed to smoke a helluva lot, I noticed. Other than lighting cigarettes, she hardly moved. There was an odd quality of frozen motion about her — as if she had just stopped. She bugged me. When I looked at her, it was like looking into an empty closet. There wasn’t anything there. It was like she was already dead.