J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (18 page)

California had a ten-day waiting period on the purchase of any firearm, but it wasn’t hard to get a couple handguns on short notice. Paul did his homework and drove across the border into Nevada, though on the way there he stopped at a branch of his bank and withdrew $3000.

In the state of Nevada only Clark County, which encompassed Las Vegas, required handguns to be registered. So he headed up toward Tahoe and found a small gun shop in suburban Reno. It was a seedy little place, and with a few hints and a fifty-dollar bill, while the shop’s owner did look at Paul’s driver’s license, he didn’t make note of the fact the name and address Paul wrote on the shop’s forms was nothing close to that on his license. And he only pretended to run a background check on Paul.

Paul had done his homework on the internet and bought a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer P226 for what the shop’s owner called a
home piece
. He also bought a smaller P250-Compact for a
carry piece
, plus a thousand rounds of cheap full-metal-jacket practice ammunition. Real stopping ammunition would be a different matter.

He stayed in a cheap motel. It had a small dinette and Suzanna showed up and cooked dinner for him. He returned to his parent’s house the next morning, decided to stay there only one more night. They had to be looking for him, and with their resources it wouldn’t do to press his luck.

Paul had thought long and hard about real killing ammunition. Katherine had told him silver burned a demon’s flesh like a hot poker. But he couldn’t afford ammunition with slugs made entirely out of silver. He was hoping to find a gunsmith that could make sliver-plated lead slugs for him on special order. And that meant he’d have to order it from a gunsmith in the bay area, because he’d have to return later to pick it up.

He started in Oakland, went to every gun shop he could find, then worked his way down the east bay toward San Jose. He stayed away from large, well organized shops, focused on small, seedy little places, of which there were plenty. In each he carefully identified the owner, then asked him if he knew of a gunsmith that could make custom ammunition, for a price. He got a lot of strange looks, but got one or two names and phone numbers. He called the numbers, spoke to the smiths, and when he told them he wanted silver-jacketed hollow-points, he got a wide range of varying reactions. One fellow answered him with silence for several seconds, then hung up the phone without a word. Another said, “I don’t do crazy shit for nut cases.” The third name on his list said, “Don’t ever call me again, ass hole.”

He’d worked his way all the way down the east bay, had covered San Jose and started working his way up the peninsula, always staying in cheap motels, never in the same place two nights in a row. He was religious about not leaving any credit card or ATM tracks until just before leaving an area, and then he withdrew enough cash to last him for quite a while.

It was late afternoon of the third day of his search when he parked his car on the street in front of a shop with a sign that read,
South-bay Guns and Ammo
. Like so many of the other places he’d tried, outside it looked small and seamy. It was just as seedy on the inside, a long row of glass display cases running down the right side with handguns displayed under glass, and racks of rifles on the right wall behind the cases. Along the left wall were racks of ammunition, clothing, holsters, cleaning kits, all sorts of paraphernalia.

A fellow, who looked to be in his mid-sixties, sat on a stool behind the counter at the back, wiping his hands on a cloth. He had shoulder length gray-blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, three or four days of stubbly beard growth, and wore an old army fatigue jacket with an NRA cap on the top of his head. He looked up as Paul walked through the door. “What can I do for you?”

“I need some custom ammo,” Paul told him, “and I was wondering if you could recommend a smith who could make it for me.”

The man continued to wipe his hands on the oily cloth as he looked Paul up and down carefully. “I’m a smith,” he said. “What kind of ammo you looking for?”

This was the point where Paul would get the strange looks and unhappy reaction. “Silver jacketed hollow-points.”

The man’s eyes narrowed and he didn’t stop wiping his hands. Paul felt a little tickle at the back of his spine, as if the man were looking through him. Then the man nodded and asked, “Why silver jacketed?”

Paul shrugged. “I have some special kinds of varmints that’re real hard to kill. Silver helps. It kind of  . . . poisons them, burns ‘em, you might say.”

The man nodded slowly, cautiously, his head moving up and down several times, his eyes evaluating Paul carefully. “I know just what kind of varmints you’re talking about.”

He turned, walked toward the back of the shop and called over his shoulder at Paul, “Come back here with me.” Then he shouted, “Shirl. I got business in back. Watch the front.”

Paul followed the man. A plump female in a faded moo-moo, about the same age as the fellow, but with frizzy, unkempt hair, passed them going the other way.

The back room appeared to be a combination gunsmith workshop and storage room. The fellow bent down and retrieved a large box from a shelf against one wall. He dropped it on a workbench and it thudded heavily. “I got lots of experience with the kind of varmints you’re talking about. Had some trouble with them myself, upon occasion. But full silver jacket is expensive, and silver’s soft, with a low melting point, so the slugs can deform in flight. I make a lead hollow-point with a dusting of silver and iron powder mixed in, and then a copper jacket to keep it from deforming at high velocity. Keeps the cost down and it’s just as effective. Inside the varmint the slug deforms and splits the copper jacket, exposing the varmint to the silver and iron. If you need shotgun ammo I also make double-ought buckshot with the same formula.”

Paul asked, “Why the iron powder, sir?”

The man grinned and winked. “No sirs around here fella. Name’s Clark Devoe.” He stuck out his hand and Paul shook it. He continued, “And the iron’s for them other varmints. Fuckin’ fey can’t be hurt by lead, and the silver only hurts ‘em a bit, but cold iron brings ‘em real grief. The silver’s mostly for the nether nasties. Hurts ‘em bad, sometimes’ll even stop ‘em cold.”

When the private line in McGowan’s study rang, only a select group of people had that number so he always answered it. He picked up the handset and said, “McGowan here.”

“Mr. McGowan. It’s Clark Devoe.”

“It’s good to hear from you Clark,” McGowan said cordially. “What can I do for you?”

“Something kind of funny happened in my shop today. Young fellow come in. Nice looking kid, handsome, clearly a practitioner, though he looked like he’d been in a nasty fight recently and got the worst of it. Limped a bit. He bought a couple thousand rounds of my special nine millimeter. Wouldn’t have thought twice about it because, like I say, he’s definitely a practitioner. But after he left I got to thinking, and he didn’t know shit about the right kind of ammo. Didn’t know shit about hurtin’ fey. So I thought I should let you know.”

McGowan carefully described Paul Conklin, including the location of a deep gash on his forehead that had been stitched shut only a few days ago.

“Ya,” Devoe said. “That’s him to a tee. Did I do wrong, Mr. McGowan?”

“No, Clark,” McGowan said. “You didn’t do wrong. In fact, the young fellow is in some trouble, though not of his own making, and I’m glad to see he’s taking this seriously now. Our trigger-happy Russian friends think he’s a rogue, but the little people are on his side so Colleen and I believe they’re wrong.”

“Karpov?”

“Exactly.”

“Fucking Russian bastards.”

“Exactly.”

“And you say the little people are involved?”

“Two of them gave up their traditional neutrality to protect him.”

“Holy shit!” Devoe said. “I ain’t never heard of that before. Anything I can do to help?”

“Not right at the moment, Clark. But if you ever come across the young man, and he needs help, and you can assist him, I’d take it as a personal favor if you did so.”

“Certainly, Mr. McGowan. Be happy to.”

“And Clark, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone else.”

“Sure ‘nough, Mr. McGowan.”

Paul spent a couple of afternoons at a gun range in the Livermore valley practicing with both Sigs. None of it was new to him so it didn’t take long to go through a thousand practice rounds. And by the time he was done he knew both weapons well. He wasn’t going to be demonstrating any fancy marksmanship, but at twenty-five feet he could put five rounds in a target the size of a man’s chest in just over two seconds.

He’d purchased a lightweight windbreaker specifically designed to conceal a shoulder holster—he’d been surprised to learn there were whole lines of apparel designed to conceal weapons. He didn’t have a concealed carry permit, had learned it was virtually impossible to get one in California, so the gun weighing heavily under his armpit was highly illegal. The fifteen round clips he carried were also illegal in California, but he justified the danger of arrest with a variation on his new motto: better illegal than dead.

He didn’t need the car any more so he stashed it at his parents place, then caught BART back into the city. It was time to find Katherine.

Paul’s biggest problem now was he needed advice and information on this magic stuff, and he didn’t know where to turn. The Russians wanted to kill him, and so did the old man and the hippie woman. The little midgets—leprechauns, he reminded himself—were apparently on his side, but how did one go about contacting leprechauns? That left Katherine. She was the only—practitioner, they apparently called themselves—that wasn’t trying to kill him on sight. But how to find her?

She was a doctor of some sort. He knew that much. So he tried the yellow pages: nothing.

Next he tried calling hospitals: the one where she and he had fought it out with the Russians and the demons, and a couple more in the area. He was repeatedly told, “I’m sorry, we don’t give out information over the phone.” But finally, speaking to a receptionist, she responded with, “Oh! Dr. McGowan. You mean the child psychiatrist.” He got the phone number of her office, but they wouldn’t give out the address.

If Katherine answered the phone, he’d simply tell her the truth. But if she had a receptionist he didn’t want to give out his real name, because, for all he knew, Katherine might not take the call. So before calling the number, he carefully considered various scenarios for how it might go.

“This is Dr. Katherine McGowan’s office. How can I help you?” Katherine’s receptionist sounded like a nice, middle-aged woman.

“Hello,” Paul said. “My name’s Tim Armstrong.” Paul had decided any simple name would do. “I’d like to see if I can arrange for an appointment with Dr. McGowan, for my son.”

“And the reason for the appointment, Mr. Armstrong?”

“Well  . . . I’m not sure how to explain this. You see, Jack’s been pretty normal, up to a few months ago.” Paul reached back into his own memories, remembering how his parents had reacted to his visions. “He’s eight, you know. And he’s  . . . well  . . .”

“Mr. Armstrong. Eight year old boys experience all sorts of difficulties growing up, some serious and some not. I assure you, Dr. McGowan has seen and heard it all.”

Thinking of the hoodoo in hell he and Katherine had faced, Paul was tempted to say something like,
You bet your ass she has
, but instead he said, “Well  . . . Jack’s started seeing things, things that aren’t there. And his mom and I are really worried.”

“I believe Dr. McGowan has handled similar cases, Mr. Armstrong. Though, I should add, I myself am not privy to her patients’ confidential information. I assume you were referred by a colleague of Dr. McGowan’s.”

“Ya, one of the doctors at California Pacific. I don’t know his name. My wife got the referral, and she’s out of town on a little family emergency. Why don’t we make an appointment for an initial consultation, and we’ll bring that information with us when we come.”

He pressed for an appointment sooner rather than later and played up the distraught parent angle rather heavily. She let him fill in for a cancellation and made the appointment for two days hence, then gave him the address of Katherine’s office. He had no intention of keeping the appointment, thinking of his new motto: better paranoid than dead.

He bought a wig at a costume shop, shook it around a bit to tousle it. He wasn’t about to attempt to become a master of disguise, but anyone looking for him would likely overlook some hippie fellow with unkempt, shoulder-length hair.

The next afternoon he found one of those fancy coffee-internet places across the street from Katherine’s office. He bought some coffee and parked his butt at a small, inside, window table where he could keep an eye on Katherine’s building. A little after six that evening, she and a middle-aged woman, whom Paul assumed to be her receptionist, emerged from the front of the building. They stopped on the sidewalk and chatted for a moment, then the receptionist turned and walked one way while Katherine walked the other.

It wasn’t hard to keep up with Katherine. She wore a cream-colored dress that was really just a giant sweater. It hugged her figure tightly and ended just above her knees, with dark-brown, opaque stockings that completely covered her legs, and long, spike-heeled boots. The spike heels prevented her from walking too fast, and he tried not to pay too much attention to her very nice figure as he stayed about a half block behind her. He followed her to a parking garage that advertised:
No daily parking, monthly and yearly permits only
. She got in the elevator and he lost her there.