tomorrow after the services. Got to feed them.'
'Others will do this for you.'
'I'd rather help,' Alma said. 'What else am I going to do? Sit and
think? I sure don't want to think. If I don't stay busy, keep my mind
occupied, then I'm just going to go stark raving crazy. You know what
I mean?'
Heather nodded. 'Yes. I know.'
'The word is,' Alma said, 'Jack's going to be in the hospital, then
rehab, for maybe months, and you and Toby are going to be alone. Are
you ready for that?'
'We'll see him every day. We're in this together.'
'That's not what I mean.'
'Well, I know it's going to be lonely but--'
'That's not what I mean,
either. Come on, I want to show you something.'
Heather followed Alma into the master bedroom, and Alma closed the
door.
'Luther always worried about me being alone if anything happened to
him, so he made sure I knew how to take care of myself.'
Sitting on the vanity bench, Heather watched with amazement as Alma
retrieved a variety of weapons from concealment.
She got a pistol-grip shotgun from under the bed.
, 'This is the best home-defense weapon you can get. Twelve-gauge.
Powerful enough to knock down some creep high on PCP, thinks he's
Superman. You don't ? have to be able to aim perfectly, just point it
and pull the trigger, and the spread will get him.' She placed the
shotgun on the beige chenille bedspread.
From the back of a closet Alma fetched a heavy, wicked-looking rifle
with a vented barrel, a scope, and a large magazine. 'Heckler and Koch
HK91 assault rifle,' she said. 'You can't buy these in California so
easy any more.' She put it on the bed beside the shotgun.
She opened a nightstand drawer and plucked out a formidable handgun.
'Browning nine-millimeter semi automatic. There's one like it in the
other nightstand.'
Heather said, 'My God, you've got an arsenal here.'
. 'Just different guns for different uses.'
Alma Bryson was five feet eight but by no means an Amazon. She was
attractive, willowy, with delicate features, a swanlike neck, and
wrists almost as thin and fragile as those of a ten-year-old girl.
Her slender, graceful hands appeared incapable of controlling some - of
the heavy weaponry she possessed, but she was evidently proficient with
all of it.
Getting up from the vanity bench, Heather said, 'I can see having a
handgun for protection, maybe even that shotgun. But an assault
rifle?'
Looking at the Heckler and Koch, Alma said, 'Accurate enough at a
hundred yards to put a three-shot group in a half-inch circle. Fires a
7.62 NATO cartridge so powerful it'll penetrate a tree, a brick wall,
even a car, and still take out the guy who's hiding on the other
side.
