Death Sentence

36

He was out and rolling before the Monday morning rush. By seven he was crossing the Wisconsin line. A little while later he left the divided highway and switched off the headlights. Snow lay in deep drifts on the verges: the countryside looked like something in a calendar photograph, sunlight on rolling fields of snow, the occasional farmhouse on a far hilltop. The world was new and clean.

The shop hadn’t opened yet and he sat in the car until restlessness prohibited it; then he walked through town and back while the cold stung his ears and came inside his coat. From a block away he saw Truett limp to the door and unlock the security gate and roll it up. Truett unlocked two or three bolts and perhaps a burglar alarm and finally went inside; two minutes later Paul entered the cluttered shop.

“Morning.”

“Hello there. Mr. Neuser, isn’t it?”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“Pride myself,”Truett said. His moist eyes peered up at Paul and then he continued on his rounds, switching lights on. “What can I do you for?”

He’d thought of half a dozen lies during the night and rejected them; finally he’d settled on the simplest story and rehearsed it until it was smooth. “I was talking to my brother-in-law about my last visit up here. I mentioned that Luger I saw in your collection. The .45. He got very interested — he’s a gun buff and he served in Germany with the Occupation after the war. Anyway it’s his birthday coming up and I wondered if you still had the thing for sale. I don’t see it here under the counter.”

“Sold that one a few weeks ago. Just a few days after you were here, matter of fact.” Truett still had the folded newspaper under his arm; now he limped around behind the counter and put the newspaper down before he reached up to pull the switch-strings of the ceiling fluorescents.

It was a Milwaukee newspaper. That relieved Paul. If Truett didn’t get the Chicago papers he probably wasn’t aware of the ballistics reports; details that small wouldn’t be printed in Milwaukee papers or reported on Milwaukee television, he was sure.

“That’s too bad,” Paul said, trying to keep his feelings out of his voice. “It’d make such an ideal birthday present for Jerry.”

“I sure am sorry, Mr. Neuser. Maybe there’s something else I might turn up. Got a nice World War Two Walther in the back room, practically mint condition, the old double-action P .38 model...”

“No, Jerry really got excited over that forty-five Luger. Say, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Truett. Maybe the fellow who bought it from you wouldn’t mind turning a quick profit on it.”

“Well...”

Paul opened his wallet and counted out bills. “Of course you’d be. entitled to a finder’s fee and a commission.” He spread the fifty dollars on the glass. “Do you happen to have the name and address of the fellow you sold it to?”

“Well sure I do. Have to take down all that stuff for the Federal registration, don’t I.”