First Class Killing

Chapter 6

THEWOLFBOROUGH SHOOTING RANGE WASN’T much more than an opening in the trees at the end of a long dirt road. It was easy to spot Tristan leaning against a Porsche-aPorsche? -in the lot down at the open field that served as the pistol range. As far as I could tell, he was the only living organism there at ten-thirty on a Friday morning. I pulled into the space next to his and climbed out.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Sorry. Since when do you drive a Carrera?”

“It’s Barry’s, and you’re changing the subject. Don’t even think about screeching up at the very last second when you go to Moon Island to take your range test. They don’t like that, and you’ll get all flustered, and you won’t shoot straight, and you won’t pass the test, and you won’t get your license, and I’ll feel like a failure. I have a personal stake in this. In fact, when are you scheduled?”

“The week after next.”

“I’m going with you. I’ll pick you up. We’ll get out there in plenty of time. That’s what we’ll do.”

Tristan had switched into his shooting instructor role, one he obviously took seriously. I had been amazed when he’d told me he could teach me to shoot. Tristan didn’t exactly exude machismo. But he had grown up in Wyoming and when he’d told his parents he was gay, his father decided he needed to know how to defend himself and taught him all about guns. It turned out he needed less protection from the rednecks than from his own mother. She disowned him and tossed him out.

When my old instructor had left town, Tristan had happily volunteered to take over my firearms instruction and help me prepare for the test. Not only was he an excellent teacher, he had lots of guns. He also had accepted without question my vague explanation that I just wanted to learn how to shoot. Most important of all, he refused to charge me for his services.

“What’s today’s lesson?”

“Large-caliber weapons.” We walked out to the shooting range and the setup area, which looked like a long, covered picnic table, on which Tristan had displayed his usual array of small arms, ammunition, targets, and headgear. He picked up a big revolver with a long barrel, something Billy the Kid might have worn strapped to his thigh. “You’ve got the twenty-two under control. Let’s see how you do with this baby.”

He offered it to me, and I wrapped my hand around it. Thanks mostly to Tristan’s impressive array of handguns, I was beginning to know the weights of the various calibers. In the month we’d been shooting together, this was the heaviest I’d held.

“It’s a Forty-four Special,” he said. “It will be even heavier with these.” He handed me a box of shells. “Load it. Get ready to fire.”

I opened the box and emptied out a few rounds. The shells were large, about as big around as my little finger, which made them much easier to work with than those slender.22-calibers. I slipped one into each of the six chambers.

“On the range!”Tristan yelled out from behind me. We were the only ones around, but he was a stickler for safety and doing everything according to the rules, a fact that I found reassuring. He waited for me to put the gun down and step back before walking out and slapping a couple of standard paper bull’s-eye targets onto the holders.

I still had the first target I’d ever hit, the flimsy documentation of my faltering early steps to learn to shoot. I kept it in a place where no one could see it, which was the perfect metaphor for my complicated relationship with firearms. The instructor I’d been working with had told me the tight cluster of small holes I’d made on my first attempt, though not in the bull’s-eye, was evidence of a steady hand. He’d called me a natural, which meant I had an innate ability for something to which I had traditionally claimed an aversion. Not a “repeal the Second Amendment” passion. I hadn’t grown up around guns and had no use for them. But learning to shoot was part of my training, a necessary arrow in my quiver of professional skills, and I had decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. I just hadn’t been prepared for how much I would like it.

Tristan positioned the targets where he wanted them. When he came back, I was ready. I picked up the loaded weapon and donned my headphones. I waited until he put his on, then assumed my stance-feet shoulder-width apart, both hands on the pistol, arms straight in front.

“Single action first.” Tristan’s voice was clear, held close to my ear by the headphones, which were intriguingly designed to filter in all sound except explosive gunfire.

I pulled back the hammer until it caught and placed my finger gently on the trigger.“Firing on the range!” I yelled, waited a beat or two, and then squeezed.

The sound was muffled. The kick was not. The explosion drove my shoulder back and the barrel of the gun straight up. I peered through the lingering smoke and saw that I had missed the target completely. Judging from where the gun had ended up, the round had probably gone over the stand and lodged in the dirt and grass berm that formed the back perimeter of the range.

“Wow.”

“Keep firing,” he said. “You have to compensate for the extra kick. Aim lower this time than you would normally, and remember it’s all in the way you pull the trigger. Squeeze gently. Single action again.”

I cocked the hammer, moved my feet two inches farther apart, and settled in, trying to lower my center of gravity. I used the sight to aim below the target and squeezed off a round.

“There you go, love. That’s much better.”

I lowered the gun and felt a warm satisfaction rising. A large, round hole had appeared in the outermost ring of the target. I couldn’t wait to take my range test. There was nothing subjective about it. It was finite and measurable. There was a clear demarcation between passing and failing, and if I accomplished nothing else in this, my first official case, at least I could do that.

“Fire all the rounds,” he said. “Reload, and try it double action.”

The last four shots all hit the target, one actually close to where I’d aimed. I felt more comfortable with each shot, but knew I’d have to build up more arm and chest strength ever to feel truly comfortable with a large gun like a.44. Tristan had been encouraging exactly such a workout program all along, but I barely had enough time and energy to get my running in.

When the gun was empty, I found the release, opened the cylinder, emptied the spent casings, and reloaded. As I was doing that, Tristan was firing an automatic at a target that was twice the distance of mine. When the smoke had cleared, I could see he had fired six shots straight into the heart of his target.

We worked for another twenty minutes, or until I could no longer hold up the heavy weapon. Afterward, we sat at the table, and he showed me how to clean it. The sun, higher in the sky, had baked off the moisture from the day before and warmed the air to a pleasant temperature.

I wanted more information on Angel, but I was afraid of pushing too hard with Tristan. It was just so tempting. He was one great source of information. I decided to test the waters.

“I’m supposed to fly with Angel next week.” I used my most offhand tone.

“That’s too bad. Maybe you can swap off.” He was watching my hands as I worked with the gun. “No, here.” He took if from me and demonstrated. “It’s easier if you do it this way.”

“Do you think the management of this base is aware that there is a prostitution ring flourishing under their noses?”

“Most certainly. But our current management team is of the let-sleeping-dogs-lie tribe.”

“That seems like a dangerous position to take. What if they get caught? Management will look pretty clueless.”

“They won’t get caught.”

“Why not?”

“No one wants to catch them. Can you imagine the headline? ‘OrangeAir Shuts Down Flight Attendant Hooker Ring.’ Besides, they’re careful. It’s like I said yesterday, Miss DQ has made them much more discreet and low-key than they used to be.”

“I still don’t think that just because Angel has a condo at the Ritz, that means she’s a prostitute.”

“It’s not just her. It’s a pattern. These women all live lives they cannot possibly afford. They disappear on layovers, and they show up in the schedule where they have no business being. What else can they be doing?”

“Sightseeing?”

“In Wisconsin? Why would anyone swap onto a trip to Milwaukee three weeks running? It’s one thing to get stuck with that trip, but to go out of your way to get it when you have the seniority to avoid it? They end up in odd places at odd times. It’s because they need to be there to meet their dates. But that’s just my theory.”

“So, they must do a lot of swaps.”

“Tons, and those are all well organized, too.” He peered across the table at me. “Why are you so interested?”

“Curious. You’ve got to admit; it’s pretty fascinating. I’ve never met a hooker.”

“Are we going to have to do an intervention on you? Throw a blanket over you and whisk you off to Bermuda for deprogramming?”

“An intervention?”

“I don’t want you slipping over to the dark side. There’s so much money in being a hooker, and you’re so poor.”

“Do you think I want to be a hooker, Tristan?”

“I think you might have some sort of fascination with the whole bad girl thing. You being such a good girl and all.”

“Sometimes being good is boring.” I finished cleaning the.44 and put it in front of him for inspection.

“I’ve been bad,” he said, squinting down to check my handiwork, “and I’ve been good. Good is better.”

“You’ve been bad? I want to hear.”

“I’m not kidding about this.”

Something in his voice made me look up at him. His face, usually so mobile and animated, had turned in profile to all right angles and sharp corners-his nose, his chin, even his jaw line, which made a sharp turn where it hinged to his skull.

“You’re not serious. Do you think she’s going to convert me?”

“How do you think she got them all organized? Do you think they all just fell into line and happily started handing over a cut? Did you ever hear the name Robin Sevitch?”

“No.”

“She was a spitfire like DQ. One of the first girls to start hooking on the job. She made a lot of money, and when the new regime came in, she didn’t like it much. She said she’d rather turn everyone in than have to pay part of her fee to Angela. Guess what happened to her?”

I swallowed hard and felt a faint stirring in the pit of my stomach. “What?”

“She went to Omaha and never came back.”

“What happened?”

“Supposedly, she went out for a walk by herself along a deserted canal. They found her body with her head bashed in.”

“You think Angel did that?”

“Let me put it this way. She never had another single complaint from the rank and file.” He unzipped the case for the.44 and set the gun inside. “Stay away from Angela Velesco, Alexandra. She is one twisted sister.”