Do They Know I'm Running

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Twenty-One

“WHERE’D THAT THING COME FROM?”

They were back at the old farmhouse, the one Efraim’s people lost to the county. Manure and pond scum tanged the air, the trees thick with the twiddly chirp of sparrows, the screeching caw of blue jays. Godo was supposed to teach the crew how to clear a house today, show them how it got done in the Suck, the Green Monster, the Gun Club: the Corps. What for, exactly? Never ask a question you’d rather not know the answer to.

Vasco’s crew had a history of takeovers, restaurants a favorite, the occasional home invasion. They’d put all that aside for low risk, high return: the mover scam, the mortgage hustle, the copper rip-off, none of which paid out like before, not with the economy in a ditch. Apparently they wanted to go back to what they once knew best, just kick it up a notch. Old dogs, new tricks. I’m here to train the dogs, Godo figured. Just don’t let it go beyond that. Once Tio gets back, the family can wash its hands of these losers for good.

Puchi and Chato played coy the whole drive out, all glances and giggles, homely sisters with a secret. Now with the trunk popped, Godo could see what the secret was: an AK-47, a real one from the looks of it, not a semi-auto knockoff or a kit model. They were surprisingly hard to find in the States, unless you wanted to pay through the nose. Everywhere else, third world especially, they were common as kickstands.

Puchi lifted the rifle from the trunk. “Some guy, told us he worked security in Iraqistan? He sold it to us, in the parking lot at People’s Fried Chicken. You know, over in Richmond, near the Empress?”

Godo felt like somebody’d plucked his spine. Worked security, he thought, contractors, and the black SUV throttled up to the checkpoint, honking its horn, Godo getting smack from the driver, giving it right back as the broad-shouldered muj in the flowing abaya sauntered up, Gunny Benedict stepping forward-

Shake it off, he told himself.

He refocused on the Kalashnikov, recalling the distinctive chug of the weapon, remembering too, hitting the deck, inhaling dirt as incoming rounds chewed up nearby concrete. You could always tell the ones coming straight at you by the crack.

He said, “What’s the Empress?”

Puchi sighted the weapon, aiming across to the barn. “Card room, man. San Pablo Dam off-ramp, see it from the freeway. You know the one.”

Guess I do, Godo thought. His memory felt like chowder sometimes.

On closer inspection he confirmed it wasn’t a jigsaw model, rigged together from a parts kit like Efraim’s M16s. The hand-guard, pistol grip, buttstock all looked authentic, even battle-scarred, virtually identical to the ones he’d seen over there. It had full auto, the true mark of illegality, with the thirty-round banana clip, a felony in California, even by mail. “You bought this in a parking lot?”

“Man, you gotta check this place out.” Puchi settled the gunstock on his hip, striking a combat pose. “Like a fucking bazaar. Freaky how much hardware moves through that place.”

Chato, smoke-eyed, scratched at his ear, adding, “Chicken’s for the pits, though. They do something weird with it.”

Godo had heard that more than a hundred thousand Kalashnikovs like this one, not to mention tens of thousand of Glocks, all intended for the Iraqi police, had vanished. Poor controls, shoddy oversight, squirrelly paper trails. Some cases, the guns found their way to the mujahideen, meaning the U.S. helped arm the insurgency, the kind of story that made you want to cry, that or kill somebody. It didn’t surprise him to learn at least a few found their way back here.

“You said the guy who sold you this worked security?”

“That’s what he told me, yeah.”

“He say what company he was with?”

Puchi shrugged. “Didn’t think to ask.”

“Harmon Stern Associates, that name ever come up?”

Chato, back from his chicken reveries: “This thing good as what you carried?”

Godo sighed. The kid had a Chihuahua for a brain. “What are you talking about?”

“I hear you guys secretly wished, like, you had AKs, not M16s.” Trying to sound in the know. “Don’t jam so easy. Heavier round.”

Godo assumed he was mimicking the guy they’d bought the gun from. “It’s not as accurate,” he said. “But yeah, you can rough them up, drag them through a swamp, pour sand down the barrel, even set the damn things on fire, they don’t get touchy like a sixteen. Had to clean my piece at least once a day over there, twice sometimes.” Back to Puchi, “How could I meet this guy, this security dude, one who sold you this thing?”

Puchi did something with his lips, a creepy pout of a grin. “We’re supposed to meet him again tonight, talk about scoring more of these, depending on how we like this one.”

Godo recalled Happy’s warning: Don’t get talked into anything. Did this qualify? He couldn’t help himself, he wanted to meet this character, this fella who worked security in Iraqistan. This guy who sold banned guns out of his trunk in the parking lot of a second-rate fried-chicken house.

Goading, Chato said, “So you gonna show us how to dice the pie or what?”

“Slice,” Godo corrected. He felt a migraine clawing at the backs of his eyes. “The phrase is ‘slice the pie.’”

They collected the rest of the weapons from the trunk and trooped inside the empty farmhouse. Godo took possession of the AK. Glancing around until he remembered the lay of the place, he marched them down a back hall, chose a bedroom, squared himself in front of the door.

“This spot right here? It’s called the fatal funnel. Most dangerous place in the house.” He snapped his fingers, rousting Chato from a daydream. “Stand clear till you have at least some idea what you’re up against. Use the wall as a shield.”

He demonstrated as he spoke, flattening his back against the plaster. The migraine flared white and red behind his eyes.

“First thing? Check does the door open in or out. That dictates how you sweep the room. This one opens in. Stand on the side closest to the knob-why?”

Puchi and Chato just stared, breathing through their mouths. Efraim said softly, “Fatal funnel.” Godo loved the guy.

“Specially if the room’s dark and the hallway’s lit? Do not and I mean do not lean across the doorway to reach the knob. Okay. Tuck your weapon in tight against the body. Soft-check the knob.” He lowered his voice to a hush. “Gentle. Don’t give yourself away. If it’s not locked, turn, push-don’t slam it open, that’ll just make it snap back.”

He let the door glide back in a slow easy arc.

Chato screwed up his face. “Why not just kick it in? Show the motherfuckers who rules.”

Godo wanted to butt-stroke him with the AK. He turned to Efraim. “You tell him why.”

“Fatal funnel.” It came out sounding almost philosophical.

“And if the door’s not locked,” Godo added, “why risk getting your ass shot?”

“Fuck you both,” Chato said. “I seen it: Check out YouTube you don’t believe me. Motherfuckers are kicking in the fucking doors.”

Godo decided to wrap the rest up quick: Step back from the doorway to prevent getting your weapon snatched, give yourself room to fight; shoulder your piece, crab-walk in a half circle across the fatal funnel, sweeping the room in twenty-to thirty-degree angles. “Do not cross your legs as you move. You trip, you’re dead. Shuffle, fast-hey knucklehead, Chato, heads-up, this is slice the fucking pie-the longer you’re exposed in that doorway, the more likely you end up dead. Be aggressive. You see something? Shoot. Check foreground, background, ceiling, floor-fast, fast, you linger, you’re dead-then move to the next slice.”