Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(93)
At his first stop, a cafeteria-sized table covered with black rifles, with a few wooden-stocked rifles thrown in, the dealer, one of the Hemingway look-alikes, asked, “See anything you like?”
“I don’t want to burn ammo for the noise of it,” Dunn said. “I’m looking for precision. Out to a thousand yards or so. Starting to do that.”
“Huh. What’s your budget?”
Dunn shrugged: “Cash, up to a grand, maybe a little more.”
“You do look like the precision type,” the man said. He turned toward the back of the room and pointed: “See that POW/MIA flag? Will Gentry had a nice-looking Remington 700 Long Range last night. His table’s right under the flag. Don’t know if he’s still got it, but that’d get you out to a thousand yards for a dollar a yard. Depending on the barrel, of course.”
Dunn nodded: “Thanks.”
“Tell him Bunny sent you,” the man said.
* * *
—
GENTRY WAS ONE OF THE SKINNY KIND, blue suspicious eyes under a black ball cap, which coordinated with a black T-shirt and black jeans. The cap showed gray stars and stripes on the black background, in an American flag design, overprinted with the words, “GUN SAFETY—Rule #1: Carry One.”
He nodded at Dunn: “What can I do you for, my friend?” West Virginia accent, not quite Southern, but not midwestern, either.
“I’m a beginner thousand-yard shooter. Got a piece of property where I can just about reach out that far,” Dunn said. “Bunny told me you had a Remington 700 Long Range that I might like.”
“I do,” Gentry said. “In a seven-millimeter Remington Mag. It’ll poke holes at a thousand yards all day long. Let me get it for you.”
* * *
—
HE WALKED DOWN THE TABLE to a stack of gun cases that was sitting against the back wall, pulled out a solid black case, popped it open. Dunn liked fine machinery, but had never been part of the gun world. Gentry was: he lifted the rifle out of the case—snaky-looking, like the dealer, a skinny weapon with an over-long barrel. Gentry turned it in his hands, stroking it, fondling it.
A fat scope was mounted on top of the rifle.
Gentry passed it over the table and Dunn took it, hefted it, looked through the scope at an exit sign at the other end of the arena. “How many rounds been through it?”
Gentry shrugged. “Don’t know, but the barrel’s good. I took it out last week.”
He went back to the case and pulled out a folded piece of tan paper. Unfolded, it was a target, with five seven-millimeter holes grouped in a space that could be covered with a bottle cap. “An inch and a quarter off a bench at two hundred yards,” Gentry said.
“Good shooting,” Dunn said. He looked through the scope some more, worked the action, stuck his thumbnail in the chamber and peered down the muzzle end of the barrel, which was clean as a surgeon’s scalpel. He said, “I don’t have a huge amount of money to spend here, but I do have cash.”
Gentry wagged his head once: “With that scope, I need to get eleven hundred.”
“Bunny thought I could probably get it for under a grand—I mean, it’s used.”
“Used, but perfect,” Gentry said.
“Look, I know that’s a fair price, with the scope, if a little high, but I don’t have that kind of money with me . . .” He was lying, he had almost two thousand dollars in his pocket.
They went back and forth a bit and Gentry finally agreed to take a thousand even, with the scope, and to throw in two boxes of his own hand-loaded 7mm: “If you can’t punch up a target at a thousand yards with this gun and my ammo, then you need to learn how to shoot better,” Gentry said, but with a smile.
Dunn paid cash and Gentry gave him a card and packed up the gun. “Don’t go shooting any DC schoolboys with it,” Gentry said, with a quick barking laugh.
He wasn’t looking at Dunn, which was good, because Dunn flinched.
Got himself together and said, “That’s something else, isn’t it? That whole DC thing?”
“There’s some goofy motherfuckers out there, bro,” Gentry said. He passed the case over the table. “Have a good time with it. Treat it right and it’ll be your best friend.”
* * *
—
ON THE WAY out, Dunn lingered at a table of handguns, the rifle case in his hand. The woman selling the handguns spotted him as a buyer, rather than a looker, and hurried over and asked, “What can I sell you?”
“Maybe nothing,” Dunn said. “But I’m working over in Baltimore on a contractor crew, we’re tearing out some old houses. Not a good neighborhood and it’s getting to be almost dark before quitting time. I got a house gun, but I’m kind of looking around for a decent piece that I could actually carry in my pocket. You know, without people looking at me, knowing what’s in there.”
“Baltimore. Whew,” the woman said, blowing air. She was wearing a bright blue T-shirt that showed a target face with a cluster of bullet holes around the ten-ring, and the words, “Yes, I do shoot like a girl.” She said, “Baltimore’s not a good place for an honest white man. I’ll tell you what, and I’m not just selling here, I got exactly what you need. Exactly.”