Retirement Projects

  Chapter 18

 

  I called up Victor Carogna.

  “A gun, Ducelis? You want a gun? What happened – somebody cut ahead of you in line at Safeway?” The son of a bitch. Now that I knew, I could hear the smugness in his mucusy tobacco voice, the superiority that can be conveyed only by the carnal knowledge of someone else's wife, or so I assume. But I was cool, and stuck to my script. Just a little target shooting on the side, to keep my hand in. I didn't tell him what the projected target was, and how I was fantasizing about shooting his pendulous earlobes off.

  “Well, let's get down to specifics,” he said. I could hear the cigarette smoke curling around the telephone. “You won't be needing anything fancy, I assume, if you're just going to be blowing holes in paper.”

  “I'm fond of the Glock 17,” I told him.

  “Jesus Christ, Ducelis! Whatyya, got a gang war on your hands over there? That's way too much gun. You're going to draw a lot of unnecessary attention to yourself at the range. How about that little Saturday Night Special I took off the 6th grader at the bowling alley? It's a .22. Inexpensive ammunition, very little kick.”

  “Don't you have something bigger? I don't like those cheap little popguns. You know they're not accurate and they're not safe either. Don't they blow up a lot?”

  He wouldn't budge, though. “No, no. I've fired this one myself. It's a nice little piece. I have no idea where the kid got a gun like that. Just the right size for you.” Was he mocking me? “And I can't say I like the idea of you waving a Glock 17 around, or even some old .38. You've got a lot of buried resentment, Ducelis. We've talked about that. You're the kind of guy comes home from work, has a drink or two, and takes out his whole family. Luckily you don't have one.”

  “And I don't work, either,” I reminded him. But all he would agree to was the .22. Well, I knew he knew I was a good shot, and that was the point. A .22 short in the right place will do just as well as a .357 Magnum, I reminded myself. Nothing wrong with a little finesse. Besides, I wasn't going to pull the trigger. All I had to do was convince him I was crazy enough or bitter enough to do it. I thought the remark about buried resentment was promising in that regard.

  Once we got the gun thing decided, he wanted to talk about the doilies he was crocheting with a series of historic anti-personnel mines on them, like the legendary Claymore and the clever and lethal Bouncing Betty. Why is it so hard to get knitters to shut up about their projects? Then he had to put Margaret on the line for a chat. I felt a certain comradely connection as she rambled on about her new recipe for gnocchi, insisting that I had to come back to Cupertino to try it out. I wanted to ask her whether she knew her doting husband was out mulching illicit tomatoes when he wasn't devotedly rolling her wheelchair around their polished hardwood floors. But I liked her too much and she sounded too cheerful. I assured her we'd do it one of these days, although it seemed unlikely that she'd feel as friendly toward me once I'd set my plan for her husband rolling.

  When I'd hung up, it felt as though something had been resolved, even though all the action was still to come. I was moving, at least, and there even seemed to be a kind of momentum, a tide sweeping me toward something definitive. It seemed that fate was about to crochet me into some pattern or other, and I was interested in how it would turn out. Better than The Scarf, I hoped. Although I was nervous, and still couldn't believe that anything would really happen, other than the usual inconclusive talk, I thought it was a better feeling than sitting around the apartment like another dusty ball of yarn.