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  CK drops his boots from the table and looks at me like he’s won the lottery.

  Jimmy Page, he says.

  I decide it’s best to look suitably impressed. Huh, I say.

  But Mackie leans in. Who the fuck is Jimmy Page?

  I don’t believe you, CK says. I don’t fucking believe you.

  Then CK turns right back to me and says, So?

  And I say, So?

  Which is a mistake, because then he says:

  All right, so do you know who’s playing drums? On this song? Who put sticks right onto the pads on this song?

  CK, I tell him, you got me, you know? This time you really got me, man, because I don’t know who played the lead guitar and I don’t know the guy who’s singing and I sure as hell don’t know who’s playing the drums.

  The airy-fairy guy’s singing something about the Roly Poly Man now.

  And I tell CK: Okay, was it like Ringo Starr or what?

  CK moves his lips nice and slow, like he’s the teacher and I’m the retard, and he says: John Bonham.

  Mackie burps out the kind of mad laugh at CK that only a guy’s partner can make and stay standing. Me, I have to walk the line.

  Roly poly roly poly roly poly he sang.

  So I say: Uh, CK, help me out with this one, okay? Like, who is John Bonham?

  You guys. That’s all he says, shaking his head and closing his eyes. You fucking guys. His hand rubs at his temple, hurdy gurdy he sang, and sooner or later the song ends, and CK reaches over and spins down the volume on a Pepsi commercial all the way to off.

  How many times you heard that song?

  CK—

  I start to tell him something, but Mackie says: Too many.

  Fuck you, man, CK says to Mackie, and then to me: Fuck you too. You just don’t get nothing, do you? That song is poetry, man. You know what poetry is? That’s these pretty words that mean something. Poetry, man. And not just this I-love-you, will-you-love-me bullshit. The guy is telling us something. The song means something. Poetry.

  He pulls the shotgun, a Remington Combat 870, up from its case and sweeps the radio, the filthy ashtray, and a folded newspaper from the tabletop like bread crumbs. His left hand dumps double-ought buckshot shells across the chipped wood surface.

  Don’t you get it? Don’t you ever get it?

  He shovels one of the shells into the shotgun and grabs for another one.

  The song is about death, he says.

  Then he pumps the shotgun, chambers the first shell.

  This is when Mikey walks into the room. Or maybe I like to remember it that way. We could have waited twenty minutes more, for all I really know, but that’s what I remember: those words, CK loading that shotgun, and then Mikey walking into the room.

  Mikey is wearing a suit and a tie. Mikey is carrying one of those dull silver briefcases, the Haliburton hard-shell drug-dealer thing, and he looks at CK and he looks at Mackie and he looks at me and he says:

  Hey.

  That’s what else I remember. He said: Hey.

  To which he got the greetings all around.

  Hey.

  Hello, Michael.

  Mikey, good to see you.

  The last is CK, and right about now I’m almost convinced that Mikey is going to sit in the folding chair on the far side of the table and he is going to open his suitcase and he and CK are going to do their deal.

  Mikey even reaches for CK’s hand and the two of them have a kind of shake across the table, as if the shotgun isn’t there for all to see.

  Whatcha got? CK says. Which for some reason Mikey doesn’t like, since he sort of glances at the Haliburton and yakety-yak goes that smoke alarm in my head. I know then that whatever he’s got is loaded.

  I got what it takes, he says.

  Mikey, CK says. His knuckles rap the table, once. Mr. Berenger wants me to thank you for the Chapel Hill thing.

  Mikey leans back in his chair, takes a look around at Mackie, me, the rest of the room.

  No problem, he says. And he angles forward, hands out, fingers flipping at the latches of the briefcase. Just doing my job. Like now—

  And I don’t know who draws first, Mackie or me, but we’re both out of our seats and pointing our pistols down on the guy.

  Don’t you fucking dare, CK shouts. His hand’s on my forearm, no way I can shoot unless it’s now. Put down that piece, Mackie. Don’t you dare. Don’t you even think that you could dare.

  CK pushes me away.

  You got some talking to do, don’t you, Mikey? You got something to say? Am I right? Tell me I’m right. I like to be right. I get angry when I’m not right.

  CK bends down and he’s almost close enough to kiss Mikey but his front teeth are cutting into his lower lip so that it’s white.

  Say it, Mikey. Whatever you been saying to the Feds, say it to me. But Mikey just tries to stand, loses his balance, trips on the chair, and falls.

  CK slowly shakes his head no. He raises the shotgun from the table and pumps, ejecting the shells one after another, and they spill across the floor with a sound like little muffled bells. Mikey is stumbling away from the table, the overturned chair, and CK is walking toward him and he’s taking his time and the shotgun seems to glow in the sunshine and his shadow is streaking across the brick walls and I wonder whether I want to see this. CK jabs the shotgun barrel into Mikey, into his chest, into his stomach, and he tells him: Say it. Say it. Until he’s slapping at Mikey’s face with the barrel and Mikey starts to cry and CK tells him: Say it. Finally CK slams the barrel into his face, and an arc of blood flies into the wall, wet paint, and then Mikey is down on the floor and CK is standing over him and he tells him: Say it.

  I see Mikey start to say something and CK is shaking his head as if he’s saying no and then he’s bending down toward him, dropping the shotgun to the floor and taking something from his pants pocket, and Mikey just watches as CK cuts him once, then again, and when CK flicks the screwdriver past his face, Mikey doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, and now the furniture slams and Mackie is walking around the table, across the room, and when he gets there CK shows him the screwdriver, and Mikey is bleeding on his arms and hands and a little on his neck and CK says nothing. Nothing but: Say it.

  He stabs the screwdriver into Mikey’s stomach and the sound is soft and wet, and there’s this push of breath and there isn’t much blood at all, so CK slides the screwdriver into Mikey’s stomach again, then into his shoulder, and this time Mikey shudders and his back bunches up and he seems to moan and the blood bubbles and then he says: Oh.

  Mikey rolls onto his stomach and I think he’s starting to die, just a little, and he looks around the room but there’s nothing there, an overturned waste can and crumpled papers and burned-out stubs of cigarettes, the scattered wreck of the radio, and blood. Mikey’s blood.

  They kick him for a while and then he starts to crawl and the blood smears beneath him, and I look at CK and I look at Mackie and I look at Mikey and Mikey is trying to say something through his ruined teeth.

  Her, he’s saying. No, that’s not it. He’s saying something else. He’s saying: Hurt.

  Somewhere along the way, his briefcase got knocked to the floor, his briefcase got kicked open, and I decide to look inside and there’s nothing there, no gun, no money, nothing at all but a picture of Mikey and his wife and his kids.

  That’s when I decide to say no, to tell CK to stop, but the word won’t come, the word can’t be said, and since I can’t say no, I look out the window for a while, watch the sunlight sitting on the grass, and when I turn back around CK is putting his boot to the back of Mikey’s head and it presses once, twice, and Mikey’s bloody lips widen into a kiss, a full-mouth kiss on the concrete floor, and then CK stomps downward and the sound is like nothing I have ever heard.

  The sound is on the radio. I’m listening to the radio and it echoes inside the room and it plays song after song after song and all of them are the same, and Mikey is singing along.

&
nbsp; CK wipes off the screwdiver and looks at Mikey. Mackie smokes his cigarette and looks at Mikey. Me, I’m just looking at Mikey, and when CK sticks the screwdriver into Mikey’s ear, there’s this scream, a scream that goes on and on and it won’t stop, it’s like a song, it is a song, the words are loud and the words are clear:

  Hurdy gurdy hurdy gurdy hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang.

  mr. ex

  In the sad old bad old days, and I’m talking about the sixties and the seventies, there weren’t any real players in the weapons game: just the good guys and the bad guys. Meaning the Americans and the Russians. Coming in a distant third, hard to believe but it’s true, was Mexico, doing its best to suck up to Uncle Sam while keeping those taco-country dictators and revolutionaries alive. Then there were the European wanna-bes, the Germans and the Austrians and the Italians and the fucking French, who would sell munitions to an invading army just east of the Seine if it meant cold cash.

  Now we all know that the U S of A doesn’t peddle armaments, not our government, no way, just like we all know there’s no such thing as cancer. In the Reagan years, we were shipping maybe $100 billion in weaponry a year. Overseas. To our friends. Like Iran and Iraq. For a while there, Interarms, based right across the Potomac River from Our Nation’s Capital, snug in a complex of waterfront warehouses in Old Town Alexandria, was the arms dealer for the so-called Free World. They had something like 700,000 shoulder weapons and sidearms in storage, right there in Old Town, and banked annual sales in tens, maybe even hundreds, of millions of dollars. Interarms sold you the guns that Interarms wanted to sell you, which meant that Interarms sold you the guns that the CIA and the State Department wanted them to sell you. But once the Israelis and the Brazilians and, hell, probably even the Polynesians got involved, it was everybody’s ball game. The guns were there, the money was there, and all you needed were the people in the middle, the ones who could get the guns for the money, trade the money for the guns.

  Enter the Adnan Khashoggis of the world, cutting deals for a hundred helicopters here, fifty jump jets there, assault rifles and machine pistols in the gazillions. Somebody’s always got a revolution brewing, a war going on … or they’re getting ready for one. Talk about a growth industry. This arms thing is even better than drugs.

  And where there’s a big time, there’s always a small time, always somebody who can fill in those little cracks in the apocalyptic pavement. When Gerald Bull is peddling his supergun to the Iraqis, and BNL Atlanta is helping the American taxpayers foot the bill, well, hey, who’s really going to care about a backwater sale of a few LAWs to the IRA?

  Enter Jules Berenger. That’s Mr. Berenger to you. And:

  Enter UniArms, Incorporated. My employer. Right across that same Potomac River and right down the street from that same Interarms, Jules Berenger sets up shop. But his outfit, UniArms, is something like the factory outlet, the place for buyers on a budget: Guns R Us.

  And it’s inspiration: What better cover for an illegal arms operation than a legal one? The man’s got good lawyers and even better accountants, must have six different sets of books, but he’s also got business sense, not to mention balls the size of Brooklyn.

  I follow CK into the waterfront warehouse of UniArms with the usual sense of amusement, wonder, disbelief. There is a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Parlor right around the corner, boutiques, bookstores, artists’ nooks, and all the other sights for the tourists and shoppers who stroll through this placid and precious place they call Old Town, oblivious to the city block of steel and brick and aluminum siding that wears a street number and a little logo that says nothing. Certainly oblivious to what’s inside. The loading docks face the Potomac, and we’ve parked the cars on that side and entered through the usual frenzy of afternoon activity. Crates are coming in and crates are going out. Crates line the loading docks and tower along the walls in bricklike stacks. Crates ride forklifts out and in, out and in, and the warehouse floor is a maze of—what else?—crates, the spare concrete cluttered with folding chairs, tables,and a few warm bodies wandering around with their clipboards, checking, filling out forms, checking again, filling out more forms. The crates are packed with fashionable firepower: assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, riot guns, pistols, ammunition, and more ammunition. Forget about the UniArms complex farther south, down beyond the Beltway toward Richmond. There are enough weapons right here on the floor to start an insurrection, a minor war. This little city, this Old Town, sleeps without any idea about what kind of combat machine is sitting in its midst.

  The warehouse is always strangely quiet, almost peaceful, and cool. At the far end, an angled staircase leads to the upper floors, more storage and then accounting and then the loft that houses the executive offices. I nod hello to the security guys and some people on the floor, and then I notice who’s sitting over there on the couch, by the water cooler and the stairs:

  Mutt and Jeff with an attitude. And painted black.

  The first one’s lounging back, a scraggly little twerp with a glued-tight smirk, must weigh a hundred and twenty pounds wet and this is no lie: He’s got the bandanna tied tight to his skull, he’s got the sweatshirt, he’s got the black sweatpants, he’s got the gold chains, he’s got the sleepy eyes and the hand in his crotch, digging away at his nutsack like he’s some gangsta rapper—Ice Pick, Ice Dick, whatever. The other one is hidden; he’s there but you don’t see him. You want to look at the other guy instead and you have to pay attention, you have to notice, you have to lock this one in your sights and hold him. His clothes are dark, nondescript urban camouflage. His ball cap is pulled down hard, the brim right on top of the sunglasses, and he’s got those long woolly dreadlock things for hair and a surly sort of smile. The little one’s dark like chocolate, but this one’s nearly vanilla. He sits dead still. His hands are folded neatly in his lap and I know he’s carrying and I also know he won’t hesitate to use what he’s carrying.

  CK nods at them and the little one nods back.

  Uh-oh, I say to Renny Two Hand, so soft and so slow. Uh-oh.

  Then we’re past them and climbing the stairs, where Lukas joins up with us. There’s a sweet view of the Potomac and there’s a bunch of herringbones standing around worrying about invoices or receivables or their next cup of coffee. They give us this weird glance when we saunter past them. I never understand these accountant guys, but that’s okay, since they never understand me.

  Jules, that’s Mr. Berenger, sits behind the door at the other end of the hall with the pebble-glassed window marked EXECUTIVE OFFICES, and if the window’s not enough for you, let me just say the words:

  He’s an executive. In fact, he’s about ex-everything: ex-military, ex-lawyer, ex-con, ex-husband. Took him about twenty years, but he finally found his niche. He’s been running UniArms since the late seventies, and life has been treating him well. It should. He found the mother lode.

  Like me, Jules is a businessman. And he takes care of business.

  The guy’s short, built like a brick wall, his features chipped but somehow gentle, like he’s somebody’s grandfather, even though he’s not. At least I hope not. Sometimes only his eyes move: Grey ice, spinning, spinning. A lot of thinking goes on behind those eyes, playing more angles than a bagful of protractors. I tell myself that once we get inside the office, I’m not going to say a thing. Just sit down and watch what happens.

  Jules is sixty years old and, like most guys his age, no matter what he does, he still looks his age. Hairpiece, a little tuck beneath the eyes, the chin, but still the guy looks sixty years old. Acts his age, too. Which means he chases anything and everything in a skirt.

  Now money may not buy much these days, but it can still get you laid. And Jules gets the bang for the buck. Back when I was coming up, there was this blonde named Megan, didn’t have a clue but boy did she have a pumpkin of an ass. Then there was Sherry, only she totaled Jules’s BMW and that was that, and then this Japanese piece of work, Yuki or Yoko, who lasted about a month. T
hen came Connie, she studied massage therapy at the community college, and now there’s Sally, she does decorating for hotels or something, but mainly she just does. This Sally isn’t built, she’s constructed. Body by Fisher, face by Mary Kay. Does she look good? This babe looks like the Indian woman on the fucking butter package.

  CK knocks on the glass, and this voice inside says: One minute.

  CK looks at me and I look at CK and CK looks at me again and then the door opens and out come the suits, single file, three of them, and they don’t look at me and I don’t look at them and then we’re inside.

  Hey, Jules, I say. You’re looking good. In fact he looks like he needs a long vacation. Needs to lose about thirty pounds and that hairpiece, which looks like something the cat dragged through the gutter before he dragged it in. But hey, the man’s the boss. And like my Uncle Mort used to say, if you can’t say something nice about somebody, then shut the fuck up.

  CK throws his ass down on one of the upholstered chairs and Mackie the Lackey does the same, which means that Lukas and Two Hand and I have to stand. Nobody, and I mean nobody but the girls, ever sits over there on the divan.

  For a long time nobody says a word. Jules goes first, that’s the law, so sometimes we stand around like waiters while he makes phone calls or shuffles paper or diddles with himself. Nice work if you could get paid by the hour. Finally, and it’s a long, long finally, he looks up from the Famous Desk like we just walked in the door and he says:

  You don’t look so good, Lane. In fact, you look like you need a long vacation.

  Thank you, sir.

  We got a few little things on the agenda here, then we get down to business. First, accounting says the new numbers add up on this Safari Guns place, the one out in Annandale. Nice work, Lane. But next time a little less drama, okay?

  I nod my earnest yes.

  Now what about this Kazanian deal. The Greek Gourmet? Pita-bread guys?

  So it’s somebody else’s turn to step in the shit.

  Lukas puts on his white bucks and steps forward: Checked them out like you asked, Mr. Berenger. They’re clean.