Duma Key(180)

"Wireman," I said, and grabbed his shoulder.

" No, Edgar, I can do this."

I can do this. How those words clanged in my head. I forced myself to speak slowly, loudly, and emphatically.

"Wireman, shut up. There's an alligator. It just came out of the pool."

Wireman was afraid of snakes, Jack was afraid of bats. I had no idea I was afraid of alligators until I saw that chunk of prehistoric darkness separate itself from the decaying stew in the old pool and come for us, first across the overgrown concrete (brushing aside the last surviving, tipped-over lawn chair as it did) and then sliding into the weeds and vines trailing down from the nearest Brazilian Peppers. I caught one glimpse of its snout wrinkling back, one black eye squeezing shut in what could have been a wink, and then there was only its dripping back protruding here and there through the shivering greenery, like a submarine that's three-quarters under. It was coming for us, and after telling Wireman, I could do no more. Grayness came over my sight. I leaned back against the old warped boards of Heron's Roost. They were warm. I leaned there and waited to be eaten by the twelve-foot-long horror that lived in John Eastlake's old swimming pool.

Wireman never hesitated. He stripped the red basket from Jack's hands, dropped it on the ground, and knelt beside it, flipping back one end as he did so. He reached in and produced the largest handgun I had ever seen outside of a motion picture. Kneeling there in the high grass with the open picnic basket in front of him, Wireman gripped it in both hands. I had a good angle on his face, and I thought then and still think now that he looked perfectly serene... especially for a man facing what could be seen as a snake writ large. He waited.

"Shoot it!" Jack screamed.

Wireman waited. And beyond him, I saw the heron. It was floating in the air above the long, overgrown utility building behind the tennis court. It was floating upside down.

"Wireman?" I said. "Safety catch?"

"Caray," he murmured, and flicked something with his thumb. A red spot high on the pistol's handgrip winked out of view. He never took his eyes from the high grass, which had now begun to shake. Then it parted, and the alligator came at him. I had seen them on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic specials, but nothing prepared me for how fast that thing could move on those stub-legs. The grass had brushed most of the mud from its rudiment of a face, and I could see its enormous smile.

"Now!" Jack screamed.

Wireman shot. The report was tremendous it went rolling away like something solid, something made of stone and the result was tremendous, as well. The top half of the alligator's head came off in a cloud of mud, blood, and flesh. It didn't slow down; to the contrary, those stubby legs seemed to speed up as it ran off the last thirty feet or so. I could hear the grass whickering harshly along its plated sides.

The barrel of the gun rose with the recoil. Wireman let it. I've never seen calm like that, and it still amazes me. When the gun came back to dead level, the alligator was no more than fifteen feet away. He fired again, and the second bullet lifted the thing's front half to the sky, revealing a greenish-white belly. For a moment it seemed to be dancing on its tail, like a happy gator in a Disney cartoon.

"Yahh, you ugly bastard!" Jack screamed. "Fuck ya mutha! Fuck ya GRANDmutha!"

The gun again rose with the recoil. Once again, Wireman let it. The alligator thumped down on its side, belly exposed, the stubs of its legs thrashing, its tail whipping and tearing up grass and earth in clots. When the muzzle came back level, Wireman pulled the trigger again, and the center of the thing's belly seemed to disintegrate. All at once the ragged, flattened circle in which it lay was mostly red instead of green.

I looked for the heron. The heron was gone.

Wireman got up, and I saw he was shaking. He walked toward the alligator although not quite within the radius of the still-whipping tail and pumped two more rounds into it. The tail gave a final convulsive whack against the ground, the body a final jerk, and then it was still.

He turned to Jack and held up the automatic in a shaking hand. "Desert Eagle,.357," he said. "One big old handgun, made by badass Hebrews James McMurtry, two thousand-six. Mostly what added the weight to the basket was the ammo. I tossed in all the clips I had. That was about a dozen."

Jack walked over to him, embraced him, then kissed him on both cheeks. "I'll carry that basket to Cleveland if you want, and never say a word."

"At least you won't have to carry the gun," Wireman said. "From now on, sweet old Betsy McCall goes in my belt." And he put it there, after loading a fresh clip and carefully re-engaging the safety. This took him two tries, because of his shaking hands.

I came over to him and also kissed him on each cheek.

"Oh gosh," he said. "Wireman no longer feels Spanish. Wireman is beginning to feel positively French."

"How do you happen to have a gun in the first place?" I asked.

"It was Miss Eastlake's idea, after the last cocaine skirmish in Tampa-St. Pete." He turned to Jack. "You remember, don't you?"

"Yeah. Four dead."

"Anyway, Miss Eastlake suggested I get a gun for home protection. I got a big one. She and I even did some target practice together." He smiled. "She was good, and she didn't mind the noise, but she hated the recoil." He looked at the splattered alligator. "I guess it did the job. What next, muchacho?"