Over Chyna’s head, the footsteps on the steel floor were as hollow as voodoo drums. As best she could tell, he stopped in the dining area.
*
Vess isn’t prone to see omens and portents everywhere he looks. A single hawk flying across the face of the full moon, glimpsed at midnight, will not fill him with expectations of either disaster or good fortune. A black cat crossing his path, a mirror shattering while his reflection is captured in it, a news story about the birth of a two-headed calf—none of these things will rattle him. He is convinced that he makes his own fate and that spiritual transcendence—if such a thing can happen—ensues merely from one’s acting boldly and living with intensity.
Nevertheless, the large butcher knife makes him wonder. It has a totemic quality, an almost magical aura. He carefully places it on the counter in the kitchen, where the light lays a wet sheen along the weapon’s cutting edge.
When he picked it off the blacktop, the blade had been cold but the handle had been vaguely warm, as if with the anticipatory heat of his grip.
Eventually he will experiment with this strangely discarded blade to determine if anything special happens when he cuts someone with it. At the moment, however, it doesn’t provide him with the advantage that he needs for the work at hand.
He has the Heckler & Koch P7 snug in the right-hand pocket of his raincoat, but he doesn’t feel that even it is adequate to the situation.
The two lads behind the cashiers’ counter are not in the war zone of a big-city 7-Eleven market, but they are smart enough to take precautions. Not even Beverly Hills and Bel Air, peopled by wealthy actors and retired football stars, are any longer safe at night either for or from their citizens. These fellows will have a firearm for self- protection and will know how to use it. Dealing with them will require an intimidating weapon with formidable stopping power.
He opens a cabinet to the left of the oven. A Mossberg short barreled, pistol-grip, pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun is mounted in a pair of spring clamps on the shelf. He pops it loose of the clamps and lays it on the countertop.
The magazine tube of the 12-gauge is already loaded. Although he doesn’t belong to the American Automobile Association, Edgler Vess is otherwise always prepared for any eventuality when he travels.
In the cabinet is a box of shotgun shells, open for easy access. He takes a few and puts them on the counter next to the Mossberg, though he is not likely to need them.
He quickly unbuttons the raincoat but doesn’t take it off. He transfers the pistol from his right-hand exterior pocket to an interior, right-hand breast pocket in the lining. This is also where he places the spare shells.
From a kitchen drawer, he withdraws a compact Polaroid camera. He tucks it into the pocket from which he just removed the Heckler & Koch P7. From his wallet, he removes a trimmed Polaroid snapshot of his special girl, Ariel, and he slips it into the same pocket that contains the camera.
With his seven-inch switchblade, which is tacky from all the work for which it was used at the Templeton house, he slashes the lining of the left coat pocket. Then he rips away these tattered fragments of fabric. Now, if he were to drop coins into this pocket, they would fall straight to the floor.
He puts the shotgun under his open coat and holds it with his left hand, through the ruined pocket. The concealment is effective. He does not believe that he looks at all suspicious.
He quickly paces back to the bedroom, then forward, practicing his walk. He is able to move freely without banging the shotgun against his legs.
After all, he can draw upon the nimbleness and the grace of the spider from the Templeton house.
Although he doesn’t care what damage he does to the birthmarked cashier with the ashen eyes, he’ll have to be careful not to destroy the face of the young Asian gentleman. He must have good photographs for Ariel.