The retractable steel baton snapped out like a whip,
suddenly three feet long with a hard knobby tip that West pointed at Bubba. She drew slow circles in the air, like a fencer.
“Put it down and leave,” she commanded Bubba in her police tone.
“Fuck you!” Bubba was really losing his temper now because he was losing his nerve. He had seen weapons like hers at gun shows and knew they could be mean.
“Bubba! You quit right now!” screamed Weasel, who ran a clean business.
Brazil noticed that the manager was most upset but did not get one step closer to the trouble. Brazil was casting about, wanting to help.
He knew better than to get in her way. If only the. 380 was loaded. He could shoot out this goon’s tires or something, perhaps cause a diversion. West caused her own. Bubba raised the tire iron again, this time completely dedicated to connecting it with her car, because he had committed himself. It no longer mattered what he felt. He had to do it, especially now that Weasel and a gathering crowd were watching.
If Bubba didn’t carry out his threat and avenge his injured nose, everyone in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region would know.
West smacked the bony part of Bubba’s wrist with the baton, and he howled in pain as the tire iron clanked to the parking lot. That was the end of it.
W “Why didn’t you arrest him?” Brazil wanted to know a little later, as they drove past Latta Park in Dilworth, close to where she lived.
“Wasn’t worth it,” she replied, smoking.
“He didn’t damage my car or me.”
“What if he takes out warrants on us, for assault?” The thought was weirdly appealing to Brazil.
She laughed as if her ride-along hadn’t lived much.
“Don’t think so.”
She turned into her driveway.
“Last thing he wants is the world knowing he got beat up by a woman and a kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” he said.
Her house was as he remembered it, and the fence was no further along.
Brazil asked no questions, but followed her through the backyard to her small workshop, where there was a table saw and a vast collection of tools neatly organized on pegboards. West built bird houses, cabinets, even furniture, it appeared to him. He had done enough odd jobs around his house during his life to have a healthy respect for her obvious ability. He found it a strain to even assemble K-Mart bookcases.
“Wow,” he said, looking around.
“Wow what?” She shut the door behind them and turned on a radio.
“What made you decide to do all this?”
“Survival,” she said, squatting to open a small refrigerator. Bottles rattled as she brought out two long-neck Southpaw Lights.
Brazil did not like beer, in truth, even though he drank it from time to time. It tasted rotten and made him silly and sleepy. He would die before he let her find this out.
“Thanks,” he said, screwing off the cap, and tossing it in the trash.
“When I was getting started, I couldn’t afford to hire people to help me out around here. So I learned on my own.” She opened hard cases and got out guns.
“Plus, as you know, I grew up on a farm. I learned whatever I could from my dad, and the hired hands.”
“What about from your mom?”
West was disassembling the pistols as if she could do it in her sleep.
“Like what?” She glanced across the table at him.
“You know, domestic stuff. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids.”
She smiled, opening a tackle box stocked with gun- cleaning paraphernalia.
“Do I cook and clean for myself? You see a wife anywhere?” She handed him a cleaning rod and a stack of patches.
He took a big swig of beer and swallowed it as fast as he could, trying not to taste it, as usual. He was feeling braver, and trying not to notice how good she looked in her gray T-shirt and jeans.
“I’ve done shit like that all my life, and I’m not a wife,” he said.
“What do you know?” she asked as she dipped her rod into a small brown bottle of solvent.