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…

a satisfying variety of merchandise. Pistols and revolvers share one display. Rifles fill another. Grenade launchers rub shoulders with anti-tank weapons. A bazooka nestles in one corner, shoved close to a rocket launcher. Stacked crates are marked up for the old L2 grenades

offers out a hand to the rack of

“Those…” I head

eyes slit, but he grins, giving me a better view of his putrescent teeth than I would like. The gold tooth winks at me. “Perhaps you not

“You want to make a sale

a key and

not very good ones. The paint is shiny and the metal polished, but it’s cheap civilian

when my

‘sport’ if

at random, I take a lightweight semi-automatic rifle from the rack. It purports to be an AR-15, but as I eye the manufacturer’s mark and

Toothy raises a thumb.

Hmmm…

a firing

“Senhor?”

praticar? Testar?” I hold up the weapon to my shoulder, mime aiming and firing it with a couple of Bang Bang

a bricked-up alleyway: a long narrow street, perhaps two hundred yards long, contained between the high brick

yards apiece, targets invite assassination: paper and cardboard outlines; some fixed to frames, others dangling from strings, swinging in the slight breeze. Some are

“Ammunition?”

soft with age, speckled with mould. Even as I snap off the

Fucking fake…

Go through the motions…

my point

take 20 rounds. As a precaution, I only load

Probably jam anyway…

the trigger isn’t as smooth as it should be. As I squeeze back, something

Burred?

Unfinished surface?

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 should have three neat holes puncturing his chest. As it is, if he were a real enemy,

off to the left. One drops low. On the third shot, the weapon

Fucking waste of time…

back at Toothy, 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 off by some cheap

now. You not tourist. Perhaps…” He sets the ‘AR-15’ to one side. Perhaps you

not. But this time, it’s the real McCoy: AK-47s and AKMs. Soviet-made rifles, built for fighting wars. Not sophisticated, and lacking most of the bells and whistles of many of the modern ‘improved’ designs, but