Читать книгу That Crazy Perfect Someday - Michael Mazza - Страница 18

11

W ith dawn hours away, I stand on the crest of a bridge that spans a narrow channel feeding into the bay, the Ringside duffel Pac tossed inside my trunk heavy in my hand.

Christian’s still bittersweet in my head. I could tell by his embrace, a tentative “best friend” hug before we split off to our cars in the parking lot of Cordoba’s Mexican restaurant after the zoo, that he’ll never ping me again. Maybe it’s for the better. I mean, is a relationship that tweaks my brain in all kinds of stupid, love-sorry directions what I need right now, at this critical time when I’m staring down gold? I should be asleep, conserving every bit of energy for the big day, but if I leave Jax’s guns in the Charger’s trunk until I get back from Down Under, it’ll be eating at me on every wave.

Behind me is a marina. Yachts stand still in the mirror-black water, their white hulls wavering with reflected moonlight. The bag’s straps are twisted twice around my hand so I can handle the weight of the three empty pistols that I checked and double-checked to ensure they weren’t hot. I lower the duffel onto the concrete and stare down at the water, holding my phone flat out over the railing to read the water’s depth—twenty-five feet. Nobody fishes here anymore. Ocean acidification killed off the sea life: coral bleached and died; polychaete worms, crustaceans, and mollusks that once lived in the soft sediment are mostly gone; and, except for a few straggling species not worth a fisherman’s time, there’s little chance of snagging a firearm.

When I crouch down and unzip the bag, the moon gives the gunmetal a silky luster, so the blued steel almost appears radioactive. I remove the first weapon and finger the trident embossed on the pistol’s black grip. It’s hefty in my hand—Jax’s standard-issue Beretta M9. With the safety on, I stand and point the gun at the water, check the magazine and chamber one last time, and, when I see that they’re clear, I extend my arm over the rail, open my fingers, and let go—splunge!

Next is Jax’s SIG Sauer P232, double-action, 9mm short. I lock my elbows out over the railing and tighten my hands around the grip. Aiming down at the water, I close my eyes and run my mind back to when I’m twelve—the day after Jax comes home from a six-month mission on the Arabian Sea. I’m standing with him and this very weapon in the indoor firing bay at the Coyote Gun Club, red earmuffs huge on my head, watching the white shark target he and I hand painted in bright blue tempera whiz down the target holder’s motorized assembly and lock in place twenty-five yards down the range.

“Deep breath,” Jax says over my shoulder. “On your own time. The fish won’t swim away.”

I’m aware of my heart and the sweat on my palms. I focus, my finger resting on the trigger: a three-two-one countdown, kickback, and a ferocious pang that returns a ringing shockwave off the concrete.

“Kill shot!” Jax shouts, gloating to the beefy range officer, who shares his amusement. “Smack in the gills!”

The odor of gunpowder wizzles up my nose, and I smile a jittery smile, searching for Jax’s approval, the pistol’s crazy raw power making me think twice about ever firing a gun again.

I open my eyes and let my fingers go loose. The Sig drops thirty feet into the channel, but this time with a dictionary plunk!

Finally, the most stunning weapon of all, a silver Browning HP Renaissance exquisitely engraved by the Turkish company Tug˘ra Gravür. I know this because Jax made a big deal out of it when he brought the Browning home from a gun show. “Art on steel,” he told Mom and me in the kitchen while we faked interest and repaired a broken Chinese blue-and-white vase he bought for her in Hong Kong. “Two years, it triples in value.” The frame and slide are decorated in a floral pattern with leafy tendrils so intricate even a gun hater would appreciate it. No, seriously, this thing should be in a museum. Jax said he would never fire it because the value would drop into the toilet, so I waffle, my ear catching a distant buoy bell, my conscience urging me not to send it to the water below. I take a last glance across the black sheet of the Bay and the wobbly lights of Naval Air Station North Island, and return to the Charger with the duffel strapped over my shoulder. I open the trunk and hide the Browning behind the carpet in the rear driver-side wheel well. It’s late, and I think it’s best that I put some sleep and a few waves behind me. Then I’ll reconsider its fate.