Gundown Read online

  “Thanks again.” Jewel waited a minute, and then took care standing. She was steady enough. Clutching the shirt to her chest, she hurried to the restroom. In the privacy of a stall, she took off the remains of her top and pulled the T-shirt on.

  At the sink, she dampened a paper towel with cold water and wiped her face. Feeling better, she checked out her new look.

  Her chest bore “The Alliance,” its letters created with a checkerboard of pinks and tans and browns. The shirt wasn’t pretty, but at least it covered her. She touched the logo with a fingertip—one spot matched the color of her skin.

  Back in the lobby, the redhead asked, “Are you all right?”

  Because she had been a help, Jewel smiled and said yes.

  Red offered a brochure. “Maybe you’d be interested in the Alliance?”

  “Sorry, I’m not buying anything, and I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Oh, we’re not selling anything, just trying to, ah . . .” She shrugged and grinned. “This’s gonna sound really corny, but we’re trying to make the world better.”

  Jewel snorted. “You want to do that, start with a great big match.”

  Red laughed. “It’s all in the brochure.”

  Jewel took it. A silver square reflected her face. A caption said, “You’re looking at someone who can make life better.” At the bottom was a smaller version of the Alliance logo.

  Probably a con that promised to turn your life around quick and easy-peasy, all-you-gotta-do-is-believe-and-buy-our-salvation-program-complete-with-a-free-DVD-only $29.95.

  Red handed her a slip of yellow paper. “This is about tonight’s rally. I hope you’ll come. It’s free.”

  Not meaning it, but not wanting to cloud the sunny woman’s enthusiasm, Jewel stuffed it and the brochure in her purse and said, “Sure.” She checked her watch. “Damn, they’re gonna fire my ass.”

  • • •

  A knock sounded on Mitch’s door. He opened it, and a man dressed in jeans and a Windbreaker stepped in. His gaze swept the room—Mitch sensed power coiled to spring.

  What he’d been told was true; Hank Soldado did not look like someone you would want to mess with. Broad in the shoulders and thick-chested—the man looked like he’d swallowed a barrel—he was in his early thirties and had dark brown eyes, black hair, and ordinary features that Mitch thought were pleasant but not striking. But then Soldado’s gaze settled on Mitch with probing intensity.

  Mitch offered a handshake. “Mr. Soldado, I’m Mitch Parsons. Pleased to meet you.”

  Soldado’s face eased as he smiled and shook hands. “Call me Hank. And let me thank you for all the things the NRA does.”

  Mitch held up his hand to dismiss that thought. “Well, it’s not doing anything today. I’m here as a private citizen, not as a member of the NRA board, but what I want to do is in the interests of you and me—hell, of anyone who wants to hold on to their rights as an American.” Mitch handed him the Time magazine with Noah Stone on the cover. “This man is your mission.”

  Hank studied the magazine. “I saw this guy on posters in the lobby. He’s a Pied Piper? Charming rats?”

  Anger burned in Mitch’s gut. “He and his Alliance are erasing the Second Amendment.” He took a deep breath and tried to cool down. “The reason you’re here.”

  “And Stone . . . ?”

  Mitch grabbed the magazine and threw it across the room. “The Alliance’s preacher. Time isn’t far wrong in calling him a Pied Piper. A half million people have joined the Alliance, most of them in its home state, Oregon. The politicians it backs win elections. It’s stronger than the old Tea Party movement was.”

  “The NRA’s—I mean, your interest?”

  “He got Oregon to ban guns a year ago. We’ve challenged our asses off and the ban is still there. And it looks like it’ll spread to Washington and California.” He wanted to spit. “To start with.”

  Hank’s eyebrows rose. “I think I’d have heard about a ban on guns. The NRA would have exploded, and the press wouldn’t have been far behind.”

  Mitch waved that off. “Technically, I guess it’s not a ban, but the result is the same. They slap you with an automatic felony conviction if you get caught with an illegal lethal firearm. And they confiscate them when you enter the state. We’ve kept quiet about it because we don’t want it to spread.”

  Hank said, “That’s legal?”

  “They think so.”

  He scowled. “Damn. That’s just wrong. We’ve got rights.”

  Mitch’s insides eased. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Did you ever hear what Wayne LaPierre said back at the 2014 CPAC conference? ‘There is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns, and handguns we want.’”

  “Amen to that. I gotta hand it to you, standing up like this on your own. I’m with you.”

  Pleased, Mitch shrugged. “I just want to help support the people, my customers. I own a couple gun stores, do some gun shows.”

  “You told me there’s a meeting here where this Noah Stone is going to be?”

  “He’s speaking tonight at McCormick Place, a big rally for the Alliance. You can see what he’s all about there.” Mitch frowned. “I’m going with you, but it’s gonna be hard to keep still when he spouts his crap.”

  “I’ve got some sympathy for that.” Soldado strode to the magazine and picked it up. He studied the cover and then said, “So what do you want to do about this guy?”

  Mitch took a deep breath. This was going okay, and Soldado was a real pro. His service as a Military Police officer in Afghanistan and an Illinois state trooper showed. “First, I want to find a legal way to take him down. For instance, a lot of our people say that his Alliance is actually a church, a religion—you know how rabid our opponents can get, so it could be true. If it is a religion, we sic the Feds on them for political participation by a nonprofit. You’re an investigator, maybe you can find some evidence.”

  “So you just want a little private-eye work? I ask because you wanted to know if I carried.” He opened his jacket, and there was the butt of a pistol sticking out of a holster.

  Mitch came to the decision he’d been putting off. Only a coward would hold back from the ultimate in the defense of his country. “Well, like we used to say in the Boy Scouts, be prepared. You’re a soldier, a lawman. I assume you have, ah, in the line of your duty you’ve, you know . . .”

  Hank nodded and gazed out the window. His tone was cold and flat when he said, “There are bad guys who won’t hurt anybody anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.” He could have been talking about the weather.

  We’re coming, Noah Stone, we’re coming at you.

  A Shooter Strikes

  Jewel slipped the dictation printout into a file folder, leaned back in her chair, and closed her aching eyes. She had really cranked to make up the time she’d lost at lunch, and still it had taken until—she glanced at her watch—shit, almost seven o’clock to finish transcribing the deposition. The sky was darkening; the receptionist had gone. The other legal secretaries’ cubes were empty and the partners’ offices dark except for Mr. Reese’s, the senior partner waiting for a hard copy.

  She took the file to his office. He faced his big window, feet up on a credenza, leaning back in his oversized leather chair, probably thinking what a great man he was. She tapped on the door frame. “Mr. Reese? The Henderson deposition is done.”

  He swung around, the corners of his lips turned down like he had a bad taste in his tight little mouth. “Bring it in.”

  As she put the deposition on his desk, he stood and walked around to her. His slump-shouldered, potbellied body made his thousand-dollar suit look like a Kmart blue-light special. She said, “Will that be all, sir?”

  “No. I need to speak to you about that”—he pointed at her chest—“that garb you’re wearing.”

  “I can explain—”

  “The organization you’re touting there has caused se
rious trouble for our West Coast clientele.”

  Hell, their West Coast clients were always in trouble; their nails were manicured, but their hands were dirty. Although they were squeaky clean compared with the Chicago bunch.

  Her boss’s bunch.

  She plucked at the Alliance T-shirt. “Well, it’s not mine, really—”

  “And you returned from lunch an hour late.”

  “Not a whole hour, and I was attacked by—”

  “There are no acceptable excuses for either your tardiness or that . . . outfit. Completely unacceptable.”

  She looked at the floor so he wouldn’t see her panic. She couldn’t lose this job. She’d been incredibly lucky to find it; too many law firms in this city didn’t see black and legal secretary as words that could go together. She said, “It won’t happen again, sir.”

  “I know it won’t. Clean out your desk.”

  Fear turned her stomach. Why was he doing this? Yeah, he was a jerk, but he’d never been a total ass. She looked up. “Please, Mr. Reese, can’t I do something?”

  He swept his gaze down her body and back. It felt like she was being stripped. “Well, you are a good worker . . .”

  He widened his stance, put his hands on his hips, and glanced down. There was a bulge at his crotch. The letch grinned at her. “Perhaps there is something you can do.”

  Man, this was her day for dirtbags with eager pricks. She should have known. Her looks and body had made her a target since she was twelve. Anger steamed inside her.

  She smiled up at him and stepped closer until her breasts touched his chest. He rubbed against her, and she forced herself to keep her smile from collapsing.

  Wait for it . . .

  He said, “All right. This one time I’m willing to make an except—”

  She spat in his face, wheeled, and stomped out.

  He screamed, “You’re fired.”

  “Too late. I just quit, asshole!”

  She ran to her desk as he yelled, “Slut!”

  She whirled to face him. He wiped at her spit with the silk hanky he kept in his breast pocket, a sick look on his face. Looked like he was going to barf. Good. She’d sue the bastard for sexual harassment, and then . . . The silence of the office got through to her. There were no witnesses. There was no way to prove what had happened.

  Knowing who the firm’s clients were, she decided suing wasn’t a good idea. God damn the man. She turned to her desk, her workplace for three years. She picked up her picture of Chloe. It was just a snapshot from her fourth birthday party, cake icing on her nose above the grin that always came with her giggles, but she was clearly the most beautiful child in all the world.

  And now . . . with no paycheck and the pink she had to buy for Timmy’s addiction, in a few weeks there wouldn’t be enough in the bank to cover the rent, much less food. Fear stirred again. She denied it with the thought that she could surely find some temp work. She had good skills. No problem.

  Yeah, right—she was in deep shit.

  Reese’s voice came. “You’re not gone.”

  Jewel swept her gaze over her desk for things to take with her. A yellow piece of paper caught her eye; the redhead at the hotel had given it to her. It said, “Want a better life? The Alliance, McCormick Place Grand Ballroom, 8:00 p.m.”

  Yeah, she wanted a better life. But who’d believe anybody could really make it happen . . . Actually, the redhead at the hotel had seemed to. And she’d been pretty cool about helping a half-naked crazy black woman.

  Jewel slumped. She didn’t want to go home right away, where she’d have to pretend to Chloe that everything was all right. So she’d go to this thing, kill some time, chill a little.

  She called Juana and said, “I’m going to be later than I told you. Can you stay with Chloe?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re an angel. Let me say hi to my sweetie and tell her what’s happening.”

  Reese’s hand reached past her and cut off the call. “Get out.”

  Holding back a sob, Jewel stuffed Chloe’s picture into her bag and left to catch a bus for the Alliance rally.

  • • •

  Mercury-vapor lamps atop tall poles turned away night outside McCormick Place, the gigantic commercial complex near Lake Michigan. Inside the Grand Ballroom lobby, Hank and Mitch joined stragglers hurrying to enter before the Alliance program began.

  Music reached Hank from speakers flanking a bank of entrance doors to the ballroom. The feel of it told him that the songwriter had smiled when he wrote the tune. And a tune it was, a sweet melody backed by foot-tapping rhythm.

  Yeah, just like the old-time revivalists who used uplifting hymns to set up the sheep for a shearing as they flocked into the tent. But the people entering here didn’t look sheep-like. They held their heads up and moved with vigor. They looked like people you’d call on to get things done. Hank wondered what the city would be like if it were filled with people like that.

  Inside, Hank found a colorful throng pulsating with the music’s beat. Banks of lights flooded a sea of seats surrounding a stage, and huge video screens hung from the ceiling. The place was packed—even the aisles were full. Everyone stood; the liveliness in the place was almost palpable.

  Mitch said, “Jesus, look at ’em. It’s a revival meeting.”

  Yeah, it did have a flavor of worshippers high on belief. Above the stage, screens showed the band. Like the music, the musicians smiled.

  Hank searched for recognizable faces. And dangers.

  • • •

  Tension eased from Jewel as she stood at an aisle seat halfway to the stage. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been stirred by the simple pleasure of music and rhythm. And the T-shirt she wore wasn’t weird; there were a lot just like it. It felt kinda like she was part of something the people around her seemed to feel pretty good about. It was catching.

  She needed a lift. She’d always thought she was ready to do anything to take care of her own, but she hadn’t been this day. On the other hand, she wouldn’t have been too happy living in the skin of somebody who’d give an asshole a blow job to keep a paycheck coming.

  The hell with that. She tuned in to the music and moved with it. A worn-looking Latino guy next to her smiled at her, and damned if she didn’t smile back.

  • • •

  Hank expected a flunky to pump up the crowd by rushing onstage and gibbering about Noah Stone’s wonderfulness, but no such commotion erupted. A silver-haired, average-sized man stepped onto the stage. A spotlight followed him to the center. He stopped there and turned to scan the audience that surrounded him.

  The band ended its song, and the musicians rested their instruments and faced the speaker with expectant smiles. The crowd quieted until only a murmur filled the hall.

  The guy was a real showman. Hank smirked at Mitch, who nodded back.

  The TV screens cut to a close-up of the man the crowd squinted to see. He appeared to be in his sixties, good-looking but not handsome. A full mustache concealed his mouth and made his face sober, serious. His dark eyes glowed with intelligence. And intensity.

  Hank wondered if he was in for a fire-and-brimstone harangue. Then a smile transformed Stone’s face into friendliness, and his eyes sparkled with humor. Hank resisted the pull of the man’s likeability.

  Stone said, “Hi.”

  The audience breathed a sigh.

  “I’m Noah Stone, and I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. And to talk to you about joining me in the Alliance.

  “The reason I want you with me is simple—I want to live a good life in the richest country in the world. But it’s not material wealth I’m after, it’s the things that make getting up in the morning a good thing to do. Shelter. Food. Good air. Good water. Safety. Work to do. Health. Community. Freedom. Is that what you want?”

  The crowd muttered, “Yes” and “You bet” and “Tell me about it.”

  Stone frowned. “But I can’t prosper with a gun held to my head.
I can’t prosper when courts flood the streets with criminals. I can’t prosper when schools are so impoverished that they can’t teach my children. I can’t prosper when corruption is the standard, not the exception. In today’s world, I can’t prosper.”

  • • •

  Jewel clenched a fist and murmured, “Right on.” The Latino beside her whispered, “Es verdád.” Damn right it was the truth.

  Stone moved in a circle on the stage, the overhead screens keeping his face in view. He said, “Like you, I’m willing to work hard to prosper, but I can’t do it alone. You might argue, hey, we’re not alone, we have government and religion to help us. The sad truth is that, despite everything governments and religions do, and sometimes because of what they do, we are steadily losing to a growing crush of problems.

  “It doesn’t even help to be rich. The rich don’t have clean air. Or safety from kidnappers who take them for ransom. Or a healthy world that holds promise for their children.

  “The rich don’t prosper.”

  • • •

  A woman in the third row whose husband’s income was sixty thousand dollars a day pictured her youngest, his backpack oxygen tank and face mask warding off daily asthma attacks caused by toxins in the air whenever he went outdoors. She nodded.

  Stone said, “It doesn’t help to be religious. Yes, a church community can help you bear the burden, and perhaps you’re promised something better after you die—but while you live in this world, prayer and faith are losing ground to crime, poverty, guns, and drugs.

  “Even worse, faiths collide and fanaticism spawns death and destruction. Worshippers are led to murder in the name of God or Allah, and the worst of all human wrongs becomes exalted as a virtuous act.

  “The religious don’t prosper.”

  • • •

  A woman who had lost her husband and her oldest child to a Palestinian suicide bomber in Tel Aviv nodded. Tears spilled as she kept her gaze fastened on Noah Stone.

  Across the arena from the woman, a Palestinian-American bit down hard at the memory of his parents, slain in Gaza by an Israeli Defense Force missile.