Hot Revenge Box Set 4

Klempner

A quick trawl of some of the greyer websites I use from time to time quickly produces what I want: contact details for an arms merchant who isn’t too fussy about inspecting, or even asking for, documentation or licences relating to either his merchandise or his clientele. Online, it seems ideal, but when I arrive at the address, I’m unimpressed.

I could be in the set of some clichéd hack movie. The side alley is dark and damp. The building is of the would-fall-down-but-is-held-up-by-the-dry-rot variety. It’s even better as I enter.

The proprietor has, apart from a serious case of halitosis, a gold tooth. Why I have no idea. It glints from among a sundry dental collection in black, brown and yellow. Apart of course from the three which are missing altogether from the front. Maybe he lost them in a fight. Or perhaps they ran for cover from their horrible housing.

Having wandered into the area wearing my don’t-mind-me-I’m-a-tourist uniform, I’m beginning to regret the cream linen suit. Stained jeans and a dark tee-shirt would have been more appropriate.

Or perhaps a wetsuit.

I move carefully, preferring not to brush against the walls or furniture, and wishing it were as easy to close the nostrils as the mouth.

Toothy snaps fingers at me. “Sua permissão para comprar.”

I allow confusion to cross my face. “I’m sorry, do you speak English? I want to buy a gun. You were recommended to me.”

His features display a running battle between Irritation and avarice.

The opportunity to sap the ignorant but wealthy foreigner…

“I talk English small, yes.” He holds out his hands, fingers wriggling in a Gimme gesture. “Your permit for gun?”

Making a show of taking the paperwork from my wallet, I unfold it, stroking out the creases, It’s part of the ‘toolkit’ Dakho routinely runs up for me. I’ve no clue whether it is completely fake or a copy of something he hi-jacked from elsewhere. It could even be the genuine article. But he’s never let me down yet. In any case, it’s good enough to pass Toothy’s cursory examination.

“Okay, you want gun for nice English tourist. To protect, yes?”

“That’s right.” I award him a small smile. “To protect myself.”

Toothy sniffs with a sound like bad plumbing, then heads for a door, jerking his thumb at me to follow.

In the next room…

Ah-ha…

That’s more like it…

variety of merchandise. Pistols and revolvers share one display. Rifles fill another. Grenade launchers rub shoulders with anti-tank weapons.

hand to the rack of handguns…

those…” I aim a finger… “Those…” I head for a display of

me a better view of his putrescent teeth than I would like.

agree. “You want to make a sale

snorts again, produces a key and

All the goods are new, still with manufacturers’ stamps and tags, but they look like knock-offs, and not very good ones. The paint is shiny and the metal

when

‘sport’

but as I eye the manufacturer’s mark and heft the thing in my hands. The weight’s wrong and the balance is off. “This

raises a thumb.

Hmmm…

a firing

“Senhor?”

I hold up the weapon to my shoulder, mime aiming and firing it with

crooks a finger, leading me through the back into what looks to be a bricked-up alleyway: a long narrow street, perhaps two

and cardboard outlines; some fixed to frames, others dangling from strings, swinging in

“Ammunition?”

card soft with age, speckled with mould. Even as I snap

Fucking fake…

Go through the motions…

make my point

take 20 rounds. As

Probably jam anyway…

shoulder, the action on the trigger isn’t as

Burred?

Unfinished surface?

target at the far end of the alley, a paper cut-out of a six-foot human figure, aiming for the heart, firing three rounds in quick succession. At this range, were it a genuine AR-15, Paper-Boy

I give it another go. One round veers off to

Fucking waste of time…

hard enough to stagger him backwards as I propel the barrel at his chest. “You going to show me the real thing now? Or do I have to get annoyed? I’m not here to be ripped

sets the ‘AR-15’ to one side. Perhaps you want

of keys, he unlocks a second cabinet. And it’s a completely different collection. The weapons inside are old and clearly second-hand. Pretty they’re not. But this time, it’s the real