From the back of a closet Alma fetched a heavy, wicked-looking rifle
with a vented barrel, a scope, and a large magazine. “Heckler and Koch
HK91 assault rifle,” she said. “You can’t buy these in California so
easy any more.” She put it on the bed beside the shotgun.
She opened a nightstand drawer and plucked out a formidable handgun.
“Browning nine-millimeter semi automatic. There’s one like it in the
other nightstand.”
Heather said, “My God, you’ve got an arsenal here.”
. “Just different guns for different uses.”
Alma Bryson was five feet eight but by no means an Amazon. She was
attractive, willowy, with delicate features, a swanlike neck, and
wrists almost as thin and fragile as those of a ten-year-old girl.
Her slender, graceful hands appeared incapable of controlling some – of
the heavy weaponry she possessed, but she was evidently proficient with
all of it.
Getting up from the vanity bench, Heather said, “I can see having a
handgun for protection, maybe even that shotgun. But an assault
rifle?”
Looking at the Heckler and Koch, Alma said, “Accurate enough at a
hundred yards to put a three-shot group in a half-inch circle. Fires a
7.62 NATO cartridge so powerful it’ll penetrate a tree, a brick wall,
even a car, and still take out the guy who’s hiding on the other
side.
Very reliable. You can fire hundreds of rounds, until it’s almost too
hot to touch, and it still won’t jam. I think you should have one,
Heather.
You should be ready.”
Heather felt as if she had followed the white rabbit down a burrow into
a strange, dark world. “Ready for what?”
Alma’s gentle face hardened, and her voice was tight with anger.
“Luther saw it coming years ago. Said politicians were tearing down a
thousand years of civilization brick by brick but weren’t building
anything to replace it.”
“True enough, but–”
“Said cops would be expected to hold it all
together when it started to collapse, but by then cops would’ve been
blamed for so much and been painted as the villains so often, no one
would respect them enough to let them hold it together.”
Rage was Alma Bryson’s refuge from grief. She was able to hold off
tears only with fury.
Although Heather worried that her friend’s method of coping wasn’t
healthy, he could think of nothing to offer in its place. Sympathy was
inadequate.
Alma and Luther had been married sixteen years and had been devoted to
each other. Because they’d been unable to have children, they were
especially close. Heather could only imagine the depth of Alma’s
pain.
It was a hard world. Real love, true and deep, wasn’t easy to find
even once.
Nearly impossible to find it twice. Alma must feel the best times of
her life were past, though she was only thirty-eight. She needed more
than kind words, more than just a shoulder to cry on. She needed
someone or something at which to be furious–politicians, the system.
Perhaps her anger wasn’t unhealthy, after all. Maybe if a lot more
people had gotten angry enough decades ago, the country wouldn’t have
reached such perilous straits.
“You have guns?” Alma asked.
“One.”
“What is it?”
“A pistol.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“You need more than just a pistol.”
“I feel uncomfortable with guns, Alma.”
“It’s on the TV now, going to be all over the papers tomorrow–what
happened at Arkadian’s station. People are going to know you and Toby
are alone, people who don’t like cops or cops’ wives. Some jackass
reporter will probably even print your address. You’ve got to be ready
for anything these days, anything.”
Alma’s paranoia, which came as such a surprise and which seemed so out
of character, chilled Heather. Even as she shivered at the icy glint
in her friend’s eyes, however, a part of her wondered if Alma’s
assessment of the situation was more rational than it sounded. That
she could seriously consider such a paranoid view was enough to make
her shiver again, harder than before.
“You’ve got to prepare for the worst,” Alma Bryson said, picking up the
shotgun, turning it over in her hands. “It’s not just your life on the