Sunken Graves by Alan Lee (life books to read txt) 📗

your sidearm in a courthouse again, or if you ever pull it on me again, I swear to you, deputy, I will stick the barrel up your ass. I’m not speaking figuratively, Rowe. I’ll rape you. With a gun.”

He gave the bailiff a shove and walked away, determined not to wince at the agony between his hips. Passing a trash canister, he tossed the pistol inside with a clang.

Poor Deputy Rowe was forced to fish it out later, trying to delay his tears.

46

Jennings used a tooth pick to scrape dried mud from his phone’s charging connector. He tried for an hour to get the phone to power on, but it never obeyed. The device was dead. He used the apartment’s phone to call his insurance for a rental car.

He was setting the dirty prosthetic into the bathtub for cleaning when his computer beeped with an incoming email.

He had a message from the local gun dealer.

The shotgun suppressor Jennings ordered had arrived and was ready at the gun dealership. He’d forgotten about it.

A man at Enterprise called to say he was in the parking lot with a rental car. Jennings attached his running prothesis—the blade—and walked out to sign papers. The blade made people uncomfortable, he knew, but it was better than crutches.

He drove the little Nissan to the gun dealership on Peters Creek Road. The man behind the counter threw him a nod. He wore a veteran’s vest and hat.

“Where’d you serve?”

“Afghanistan,” said Jennings. “You?”

“Caught the last part of Vietnam. Didn’t have to go through hell like some of the boys. Are you in a group?”

“A group?”

“Support group. For veterans and…” The man nodded at Jennings’ prosthesis.

“I’m not in one.”

“Come back when you’re ready. It helps.”

Jennings pressed on quickly, his frame of mind not robust enough to swap stories. “I have a shotgun suppressor waiting.”

“Oh, that’s you. I thought it seemed odd, the short ATF wait. Special forces?”

Jennings presented his DD 214 and drivers license to the dealer. His status as retired Green Beret cleared a lot of red tape.

“I was just looking at your new toy.” The man slid off his stool and walked stiffly to a safe room behind the counter. “I never tried a suppressor on a shotgun, you?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t work as well as a pistol’s, what I hear.”

“I don’t need the shotgun silent. Just reduced,” said Jennings. “I need a barrel threading kit, too.”

“What model shotgun?”

“BT-99.”

“Well, son, I’m not sure that’s gonna work. A BT-99’s got a rib.”

“Just the same, I’d like the threading kit if you have one.”

Jennings ducked the man’s further questions about his shotgun and the war in Afghanistan. He paid and got back into his car, fighting down agitation. All the guns and knives on display stirred his insides.

He heard gunfire during the entire drive home.

Using his apartment phone, he called Hathaway and she answered on the first ring.

“I was going to leave a voicemail,” he said.

“I’m between classes.”

“It’s been a long couple days and I need to think. Can we meet tomorrow instead?” he said.

“I moved too quickly. I shouldn’t have kissed you. That was aggressive, I know.”

“The kiss was great. Perfect. And I formally request more. A lot more. But until I deal with Peter Lynch, I’m no good to anyone.”

“It’s probably best if I didn’t come by later today, anyway. I’m just coming out of a long-term relationship, so kissing isn’t a good idea for a while,” said Hathaway.

“Rats. How long?”

“At least until you work up the courage to ask me out on a real date.”

Jennings smiled at his phone.

She continued. “You’re going to deal with Peter? That makes me nervous. What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Once I figure it out.

On his kitchen table, the shotgun suppressor box was ringing like a silent alarm.

47

That evening Jennings sat on his bedroom floor, surrounded by his disassembled prosthetic leg, his shotgun, and the pieces of his new suppressor.

He’d cleaned mud from the prosthetic socket, rinsing out the lock, and scrubbed the shin tube and the foot. Both his sneakers were washed and drying in the kitchen. He rolled a new liner up his sore left leg, followed by a sock to compensate for muscle atrophy. He rose to sit on the bed. Slid the socket over the leg/liner/sock. Stood and stomped the artificial leg until it clicked into place. It was locked in, hard to dislodge unless you wrestled a giant in the mud.

He walked the apartment and heard some grit in the joints. Took a rag and pot of warm water to his room, sat down, unscrewed the shin tub from the foot and socket, and cleaned both ends. Set the shin tub aside to dry. The sight of his leg lying in pieces still churned his stomach.

President Gerald Ford’s left leg was artificial, Jennings reminded himself. Stonewall Jackson had fought in the Civil War without an arm. And Franklin Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down. He could do this.

He turned his attention to the shotgun suppressor, which he’d taken apart to examine. He was pleased with the quality of the materials—stainless steel and aluminum. The assemblage was thicker than a pistol or rifle suppressor, but the principle was the same; hot gas erupting from the barrel was given extra room inside the suppressor to expand, reducing the pop. He reassembled it, inserting rods into the alignment notches, sliding the baffles into place, and tightening the caps.

Now the suppressor had to be attached to his grandfather’s shotgun. Defacing a Browning purchased in the 60’s was absolute sacrilege but his mind was set.

Jennings crutched through the cold dark to the maintenance workshop across campus. He searched through the tools until he found what he needed, locked up, and crutched back.

He removed the long rib above the shotgun barrel and set it aside. Using a hacksaw, Jennings cut off the front rib post. He sanded the remaining burrs with a file. Next he fitted the sharp angular cutting tool into a