“But Quirk or I may shoot you someday.” Hawk finished his salmon and turned the big bright grin at me again. “If you can, man. If you can.” Hawk pushed the plate away, and stood up. “Got something to show you,” he said. I sipped at my beer while he went to the closet and brought out something that looked like a cross between a shoulder holster and a backpack. He slipped his arms through the loops and stepped back from the closet. “What do you think?” The rig was a shoulder holster for a sawed-off shotgun. The straps went around each shoulder and the gun hung, butt down along his spine. “Watch this,” he said. He slipped his coat on over his naked skin. The coat covered the gun entirely. Unless you were looking you didn’t even see a bulge. With his right hand he reached behind him under the skirt of his suit jacket, gave a brief twisting movement and brought the shotgun out. “Can you dig it?”
“Lemme see,” I said. And Hawk put the shotgun in my hand. It was an Ithaca double-barreled 12 gauge. The stock had been cut off and both barrels were cut back. The whole thing was no more than eighteen inches long. “Do a lot more damage than a target pistol,” I said. “And it’s no problem. Just go buy a shotgun and cut it down. If we have to go to another country I ditch this and buy a new one where we going. Take me an hour maybe to modify the mother.”
“Got a hack saw?” Hawk nodded. “And a couple of C clamps. That’s all I need.”
“Not bad,” I said. “What you going to do next, modify an Atlas missile and walk around with it tucked in your sock?”
“No harm,” Hawk said, “to fire power.” The next morning I got up early and went up and burgled Kathie’s apartment while she was at the laundromat. I was neat about it, but sloppy enough to let her know someone had been there. I wasn’t looking for anything, I just wanted her to know someone had been there. I was in and out in about five minutes. When she came back I was leaning in the doorway of the next apartment house wearing sunglasses. As she passed I turned away so she wouldn’t see my face. I wanted her to spot me but I didn’t want to overact.
I used to know a guy named Shelley Walden when I was with the cops who would get spotted tailing a guy through a rock concert. I never knew why he was so bad at it. He had a small, innocuous look about him and he wasn’t clumsy, but he couldn’t keep out of sight. I tried to run this stakeout like Shelley would have. If she spotted me when she went by she didn’t let on. I knew Hawk was somewhere behind her but I didn’t see him. When she went into her apartment I walked casually across the street and leaned on a lamppost and took out a newspaper and started to read it. That would have been Shelley’s style. The old Bogart movies where he pulls back the curtain and there’s a guy under a lamppost reading a newspaper.
I figured she’d see that someone had been rummaging in her apartment and that would get her nervous. It did. About two minutes after she went in, I saw her looking out her window. I was looking surreptitiously over my newspaper and for a moment our eyes met. I looked back down at the newspaper. She knew I was there. She should recognize me. It was sunny and I wasn’t wearing my Irish walking hat. No mistaking me for Rex Harrison. She had reason to be nervous about being spotted. She had phony passports and stolen guns in her bedroom. That would be enough to bust her. But I wanted them all. She was the string and they were the balloon. If I cut her off I lost the balloon. She was all the handle I had. What she should have done was sit tight, but she didn’t know that. She would either call out the shooters again, or she’d run. She sat in her apartment and looked at me looking at her for nearly four hours, and then she ran. Hawk had been right. The shooters must be getting wary of me. Or maybe I’d cleaned them out. Maybe all the shooters the
“Lemme see,” I said. And Hawk put the shotgun in my hand. It was an Ithaca double-barreled 12 gauge. The stock had been cut off and both barrels were cut back. The whole thing was no more than eighteen inches long. “Do a lot more damage than a target pistol,” I said. “And it’s no problem. Just go buy a shotgun and cut it down. If we have to go to another country I ditch this and buy a new one where we going. Take me an hour maybe to modify the mother.”
“Got a hack saw?” Hawk nodded. “And a couple of C clamps. That’s all I need.”
“Not bad,” I said. “What you going to do next, modify an Atlas missile and walk around with it tucked in your sock?”
“No harm,” Hawk said, “to fire power.” The next morning I got up early and went up and burgled Kathie’s apartment while she was at the laundromat. I was neat about it, but sloppy enough to let her know someone had been there. I wasn’t looking for anything, I just wanted her to know someone had been there. I was in and out in about five minutes. When she came back I was leaning in the doorway of the next apartment house wearing sunglasses. As she passed I turned away so she wouldn’t see my face. I wanted her to spot me but I didn’t want to overact.
I used to know a guy named Shelley Walden when I was with the cops who would get spotted tailing a guy through a rock concert. I never knew why he was so bad at it. He had a small, innocuous look about him and he wasn’t clumsy, but he couldn’t keep out of sight. I tried to run this stakeout like Shelley would have. If she spotted me when she went by she didn’t let on. I knew Hawk was somewhere behind her but I didn’t see him. When she went into her apartment I walked casually across the street and leaned on a lamppost and took out a newspaper and started to read it. That would have been Shelley’s style. The old Bogart movies where he pulls back the curtain and there’s a guy under a lamppost reading a newspaper.
I figured she’d see that someone had been rummaging in her apartment and that would get her nervous. It did. About two minutes after she went in, I saw her looking out her window. I was looking surreptitiously over my newspaper and for a moment our eyes met. I looked back down at the newspaper. She knew I was there. She should recognize me. It was sunny and I wasn’t wearing my Irish walking hat. No mistaking me for Rex Harrison. She had reason to be nervous about being spotted. She had phony passports and stolen guns in her bedroom. That would be enough to bust her. But I wanted them all. She was the string and they were the balloon. If I cut her off I lost the balloon. She was all the handle I had. What she should have done was sit tight, but she didn’t know that. She would either call out the shooters again, or she’d run. She sat in her apartment and looked at me looking at her for nearly four hours, and then she ran. Hawk had been right. The shooters must be getting wary of me. Or maybe I’d cleaned them out. Maybe all the shooters the
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