Female Novel
Chapter 33
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, butwhen 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 thewould-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 glintsfrom among a sundry dental collection in black, brown and yellow. Apart of course from the three whichare missing altogether from the front. Maybe he lost them in a fight. Or perhaps they ran for cover fromtheir horrible housing.
Having wandered into the area wearing my don’t-mind-me-I’m-a-tourist uniform, I’m beginning to regretthe 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 toclose the nostrils as the mouth.
Toothy snaps fingers at me. “Sua permiss?o para comprar.”
I allow confusion to cross my face. “I’m sorry, do you speak English? I want to buy a gun. You wererecommended 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 permitfor gun?”
Making a show of taking the paperwork from my wallet, I unfold it, stroking out the creases, It’s part ofthe ‘toolkit’ Dakho routinely runs up for me. I’ve no clue whether it is completely fake or a copy ofsomething he hi-jacked from elsewhere. It could even be the genuine article. But he’s never let medown 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…
… the walls are lined with racks and shelves and mountings displaying a satisfying variety ofmerchandise. Pistols and revolvers share one display. Rifles fill another. Grenade launchers rubshoulders 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 as well as their smoke and stun cousins.
My host offers out a hand to the rack of handguns… “Senhor…”
“No, not those…” I aim a finger… “Those…” I head for a display of assault weapons.
His eyes slit, but he grins, giving me a better view of his putrescent teeth than I would like. The goldtooth winks at me. “Perhaps you not just nice English tourist,” he drawls.
“Perhaps I’m not,” I agree. “You want to make a sale or not?”
He snorts again, produces a key and unlocks the display.
It’s not too impressive. All the goods are new, still with manufacturers’ stamps and tags, but they looklike knock-offs, and not very good ones. The paint is shiny and the metal polished, but it’s cheapcivilian junk designed for rich idiots that want to go hunting on staged 'safaris'.
Not my preferred option when my own neck’s at risk.
Would it still be ‘sport’ if lions could fire back?
Picking one 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 heft the thing in my hands. The weight’s wrong and thebalance is off. “This supposed to be the genuine article?”
“Is good gun, senhor.” Toothy raises a thumb. “Melhor qualidade. Bestest Quality.”
Hmmm…
“You got a firing range?”
“Senhor?”
“Lugar para praticar? Testar?” I hold up the weapon to my shoulder, mime aiming and firing it with acouple of Bang Bang noises..
“Ah… Sim, senhor.” He crooks a finger, leading me through the back into what looks to be a bricked-upalleyway: a long narrow street, perhaps two hundred yards long, contained between the high brick
walls of adjacent buildings, and blocked off at the end.
At intervals of several yards apiece, targets invite assassination: paper and cardboard outlines; somefixed to frames, others dangling from strings, swinging in the slight breeze. Some are humansilhouettes, concentric circles marked on the chest. Many are home-made: printed off, then pinned toboards.
“Ammunition?”
He passes me a box, the card soft with age, speckled with mould. Even as I snap off the magazine,feeding in the rounds, it doesn’t feel right. The spring is spongy and soft.
Fucking fake…
Go through the motions…
I’ll make my point in a minute.
The mag should take 20 rounds. As a precaution, I only load 18…
Probably jam anyway…
Setting the ‘AR-15’ into my shoulder, the action on the trigger isn’t as smooth as it should be. As Isqueeze back, something clicks that shouldn’t…
Burred?
Unfinished surface?
I pick a 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 should have
three neat holes puncturing his chest. As it is, if he were a real enemy, he’d have a nasty limp andwould have dropped his coffee.
Adjusting the sight a touch, I give it another go. One round veers off to the left. One drops low. On thethird shot, the weapon jams.
Fucking waste of time…
I shove the useless heap of junk back at Toothy, hard enough to stagger him backwards as I propel thebarrel at his chest. “You going to show me the real thing now? Or do I have to get annoyed? I’m nothere to be ripped off by some cheap grifter who thinks I’m an easy mark.”
“No, senhor. I see now. You not tourist. Perhaps…” He sets the ‘AR-15’ to one side. Perhaps you wantthis?” He gestures. “Come. Come see.”
Back indoors, from his bunch of keys, he unlocks a second cabinet. And it’s a completely differentcollection. The weapons inside are old and clearly second-hand. Pretty they’re not. But this time, it’sthe real McCoy: AK-47s and AKMs. Soviet-made rifles, built for fighting wars. Not sophisticated, andlacking most of the bells and whistles of many of the modern ‘improved’ designs, but rugged, reliableand easily maintained.
Toothy has quite a range on offer. Given the number of similar weapons I saw on my visit to Juliana’sapartment, they’re common in the area, so I suppose it’s no surprise.
Scanning the choice, I mutter to myself. “That’s more like it.”
I finger a AK-47, the famed Kalashnikov. God alone knows how many were made, but whoever ownedthis one, went through a lot with it. The wooden stock is worn smooth. The paint is polished clear downto bare metal in places.
It’s a classic weapon, and with good reason, designed by a soldier-cum-engineer who had a clearunderstanding of what is needed when your life depends on the weapon you’re using. The only realproblem with the model is blowback and recoil, which can make the accuracy doubtful. Still…novelbin
I hover over the display. I could choose the Kalashnikov’s more modern cousin, the AKM. Toothy hasseveral on display. But the main advantage of the model is simply the longer-range sights. But the partsare cheaply made and I don’t care for them. Besides, I’ll be working up close for this operation, sothere’s not much to be gained.
Then I spot…
Ahhh…
… the AK-74…
… Another child of the AK-47, but adapted to a smaller round and a higher muzzle velocity.
I pluck it from the rack. Turning it over and around, giving it the once over.
The magazine snaps cleanly off, and after a cursory check of the chamber, the bolt slides smoothlyback, then forward again, with the small snapping sound of perfectly meshing components.
I snap my fingers at Toothy. “Ammo?”
“Sim, senhor.” He bobs his head fishing out another cardboard carton or rounds, this one clean, freshly-labelled and with a manufacturer’s batch stamp I recognize.
Stepping outside, targeting Paper-Boy again, I aim, fire and this time, three holes appear within an inchof each other, low-centre in his ribs.
The aim’s a touch off for me, but the sights are easily adjusted later. Meanwhile…
Sucking my teeth, I aim a trifle higher and a tad to the left, and fire again. This time the shot makes aneat puncture upper-left in the chest. And the next. And the next.
I look the rifle over again, hefting it in my hands, getting to know it. But it’s only a cursory inspection,more for Toothy’s benefit than mine.
It’s a weapon of course. It’s only function is the taking of life. But this weapon has saved its owner’s life,and I’ll not guess how many times. It’s well-cared for and God knows how much service it’s seen.
Second-hand be damned
Pre-loved…
“I’ll take it. Now, what else do you have in that display?”
*****