JACOB
“Four weeks? Is that the best you can do? Isn’t there another shop around town that can get the weapons faster?”
The older gentleman behind the counter stared over at me with one big yellow eye, his eyebrow rising so far up his head, I worried it would get lost in his receding hairline. His jowls hung loose and swung as he shook his head in disbelief. Leaning over so that his arms folded over themselves on the counter, he lowered his voice and asked, “Son, I know you passed all the background checks I’ve done, and you look relatively normal, but is there is a particular reason you want these weapons? I thought you said they were for hunting.”
Yeah, I thought, like I actually need a semi-automatic for hunting deer. I’ve never hunted a day in my life and even I knew that line of crap was bullshit. You would think the lie would alert him to the fact that these weapons weren’t for what I was claiming, but I went along with it regardless, hoping he didn’t pick up on the anxiety I was feeling.
“They are for hunting. It’s just that the trip is scheduled to take place in a week and a half and I can’t let my friends show me up.” Shrugging a shoulder, I flashed him the practiced smile I’d always used as a priest. “You know how it is out there. Men thinking that they’re better somehow because their gun is bigger.”
His eyebrow pushed higher. Still speaking low, he was half laughing when he answered, “You do know that the size of your gun says nothing about the size of your dick, right?”
I rolled my eyes, but played along. “Yes, I know that. I’m not out there to pull it out and brag that mine is bigger than theirs.”
“Yeah, but much like a man’s cock, it’s not the size that matters but what you do with it. In bed, it’s all about rocking a woman’s body and making her scream, but when it comes to shooting bullets instead of come, it’s all about bringing the animal down as quickly as possible while ensuring it feels as little pain as possible.”
We stared at each other for a few silent seconds before he pushed up from the counter and ran a hand through his thinning hair. Breathing out, he looked up at the large clock on the wall and back at me. “I tell you what, it’s getting late and I need to close the shop for the night, but I can make some calls and see if I can find what you’re looking for at another store in the area. Why don’t you come back in a few days and see what I found?”
I didn’t like the idea of waiting to confront my brother. With half a mind to just drop it and find another store, I also remembered it would mean another background check, which had the potential to alert some authority somewhere that I was up to something. Sadly, the truth was that if Jericho had controlled the parish for this long, the damage was already done. But still, I wasn’t able to just walk away and let him continue whatever game he was playing against the town.
Rushing over there without arming myself would only leave me dead and buried in some shallow grave somewhere, so I had no other option that to do as this man asked and come back to see what he could find for me.
“Do you think the other shops would have what I need?”
Shrugging a shoulder, he moved away from the counter to file away the catalog he’d used to help me select the weapons I would need. “Don’t know. With all the bullshit that’s going on in this country right now, the particular weapons you’re looking for are in hot demand. That’s good for us because we suck up the profits, but it just means that people like you have to be patient for the manufacturers to send out more shipments.”
He turned back, his eyes darting between the door and me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you out any faster, but I really do need to be shutting down for the night. You can look around yourself at other stores, but I’m pretty much certain you’ll have the same issues everywhere. I have some resources that aren’t available to the public. Let me look around for a few days and then you can come back to talk to me. Does that sound good to you?”
Exhaustion withered my shoulders, not to mention the weight of defeat that was crushing me. What the hell was I thinking? That I could rush into a store and walk away with a damn armory in one night? Even in a country as gun crazy as this, it wasn’t a possibility. One week wasn’t a lot of time to wait. I’d done it for Father Timothy when he needed to get me the information on the music director and priest. I could do it again, in that fucking hotel room, biding my time with the bodies of whatever woman was willing to undergo my fury just to get herself off for the night.
It was too bad I sent Erin…or Erica?... off on such bad terms. Her brand of romance would have been perfect to work out the frustration I was feeling.
Letting out a deep sigh teeming with all the negative thoughts and feelings whirling inside me, I thanked the guy and made my way out of the store to step out onto the sidewalk that had been busy when I stepped in earlier that day.
I didn’t know how much damage Jericho had already caused in that small, rural town, and I didn’t know how much more he could cause while I waited for the guns I needed. What I did know is that I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that I could return to that place with anything less than a full truck of guns and the bullets to go with them.