“I know. I understand.”
Beasley opened his mouth to say something else, then snapped it shut again. Sun streamed through the window, refracting through the jugs of fake blueberry and maple syrup stuck to the table, making them glow like stained glass. A waitress delivered hash browns and country--fried steak to a chubby couple in the booth beside us. From the parking lot outside came a crunching sound, a station wagon backing into the bumper of a dirty, white Honda.
“Well, then.” Beasley swallowed the last of his coffee, tucked two creamers into his pocket, and laid a $10 bill on the table. “Then I wish you all the luck in the world, Caroline. And safe travels to Mexico.”
“Thank you, Beamer.” I leaned over and kissed the grizzled hair on his skull, and then I was gone.
Forty-eight
* * *
There is no waiting period to buy a gun in Georgia.
No need to secure a firearms permit. You can waltz right in, select the one you want, and carry it out fifteen minutes later in a plastic bag.
There is one catch, though: you have to have a Georgia ID. Gun stores won’t sell to anyone flashing an out-of-state license. I sat in the parking lot of Sonny’s Sporting Goods for more than an hour, pondering this problem.
Sonny’s is a warehouse forty minutes due east of Atlanta. An eleven--aisle superstore, like a surreal Target just for guns. WE BUY AMMO BY THE TRACTOR TRAILER LOAD! announced a banner hanging above the registers.
I had walked the aisles in wonder. Camouflage pants and T-shirts were stacked near night-vision goggles. An entire section was devoted to quivers and crossbow accessories. Plastic bins separated elk whistles from squirrel calls, hog squealers from Canada-goose flutes. I picked up a white tube labeled a Double Reed Cajun Squeal, wondered what kind of swamp animal it was designed to lure.
And then there were the guns.
The entire back wall of the store was lined with them. Scopes and sniper rifles hung suspended. Handguns were laid out on brown felt trays inside glass cases. Everything from tiny, silver Berettas, to Texas Defender derringers, to an antique Colt .45 with a walnut grip and a stamp from General Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. MORE THAN 12,000 GUNS IN STOCK boasted another banner. I couldn’t tell how the guns were organized. I only knew that with this many on display, what I was looking for was bound to be here.
“Help you, miss?” A big, bearded man behind the counter.
“Oh, no, thanks. Just browsing.”
I walked the entire perimeter of the store, then stationed myself near checkout, watching how it worked, pretending to engage in an involved conversation on my cell phone. Four cash registers were open and humming away. The cashier closest to the doors was ringing up an overflowing cart of trout-fishing tackle. Not of interest. The next was explaining to an irate customer why his 20-percent-off coupon wasn’t valid on duck waders. But at the third register, a customer was waiting to buy a gun. He had to fill out a two-page form on a clipboard; the cashier took his answers and typed them in. After several minutes, the official FBI seal appeared on her screen, along with a large green rectangle ringing the word PROCEED. The customer handed over five crisp $100 bills. The cashier ran an orange marker over them. Waited. Looked satisfied and stuffed them into the register. Some sort of anticounterfeit check? The man walked out of the store sixty seconds later, whistling and swinging a plastic bag.
I retreated to my car to watch the front door and think. Sonny’s seemed busy for a Tuesday afternoon. An almost exclusively male clientele came and went, revving and reversing pickup trucks into bus-size parking spaces. My compact rental car sat dwarfed between a Chevy Silverado and a rusted-out Dodge Ram.
Around dusk, a Toyota Tacoma with Rockdale County plates pulled into the spot opposite me. One headlight had stopped working, and the truck bed was piled high with firewood. A lean man wearing a flannel shirt and frayed work pants hopped out. He looked my age, maybe a few years older. He walked around the back of his truck, yanking on the ties securing the wood, tightening them down. I watched how he dragged his feet as he worked, and how he kept his shoulders hunched, like a dog that’s used to getting kicked. I scanned his face, hoping to see kindness there, but the light was gone and he was too far away.
Now or never.
I swung my car door open.
“Hey,” I called. “Hey there. Could I trouble you for a minute?”
? ? ?
FIVE MINUTES LATER he was bent over my car engine, checking the oil.
“I feel so silly that I couldn’t even figure out how to open the hood.” I giggled girlishly and clapped my hands together. “When that warning light came on, saying to check the oil, I didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness you were here.”
He had his sleeves rolled up, his finger looped through the top of the dipstick to wipe it clean. When he leaned back over the motor to reinsert it, I placed my hand lightly on his arm. He flexed his biceps through the flannel, bulking it up for my benefit. This was going well.
“Everything looks fine, ma’am. Start up the engine again, let’s see what she says.”
I slid behind the wheel of my perfectly operational car and turned the key. “You fixed it!” I beamed at him.
“Sometimes those dashboard lights act up. I didn’t do nothing. Your oil’s good to go.”
“I’m so relieved,” I purred. “How can I thank you?” I slid back out of the car, watched him drink me in. My lips were painted ruby red, and I was wearing a blond wig and hip-hugging jeans tucked into my stiletto boots. The sartorial equivalent of the Double Reed Cajun Squeal, expressly designed to lure the human male.
He licked his lips like he’d been shown the promised land.
“What’s your name?”
“Um. Britt. How ’bout you?”