“Tammy.” I batted my eyelashes. “I hate to impose on you for -another moment. You must be so busy. But I have another little bitty favor to ask.”
“Anything,” he breathed. He looked as if he meant it.
“You’re going in there anyway, right?” I darted my eyes toward the Sonny’s entrance.
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Well. It’s my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Johnny. He’s a horrible man. He . . . he hits me.”
Britt opened his eyes wide. “That cocksucker. Excuse my French.”
“It’s okay. We broke up months ago. But he keeps following me and threatening me and I . . . I’d feel much safer if I had a gun.”
“Course you would. Let’s go in. I’ll help you pick a—”
“No. See, I can’t buy one. I don’t have Georgia ID. So I was wondering . . . if I made it worth your while . . .”
I watched him register this.
“Oh.” He stepped back. “Oh. No, I can’t do that.”
“Just something simple. For self-defense.”
“No, I—that’s a felony now. Buying a gun for somebody else. They do a background check at the register, ask whether you’re an illegal alien, or a convicted felon, or if you’re buying it for someone else.”
So lie, I wanted to hiss. “I said I’d make it worth your while.” I reached into my back pocket, let his eyes linger on the curve of my jeans. “This is a thousand dollars. Cash.” I handed him an envelope with ten bills inside. “You can take it to your truck and count it if you like.”
He stared at me as if snakes had popped out of my head.
“And there’s another two thousand, when you meet me back here. Easiest three thousand bucks you’ll ever make. Britt? Three. Thousand. Bucks. In and out of Sonny’s in less than half an hour. I’ll give you cash to pay for the gun, too.” I forced myself to smile alluringly. “What do you say? You’d be helping me so, so much.”
I waited, sweat beading between my breasts, dripping down the small of my back, wondering whether he was about to shout for the police.
He licked his lips again. “What kind of gun?”
? ? ?
BRITT TUCKED THE envelope into his shirt pocket. “You need ammo, too? Better off with hollow points. They’ll mushroom, rattle around inside the guy.”
I shuddered. “Fine.”
“Fifty rounds’ll do you?”
“That’s plenty.” I was starting to feel as if I’d placed an overly complicated order with a short-order cook, or a Starbucks barista. Just buy the damn gun, Britt.
“And you really wanna git .357s instead of .38s,” he said thoughtfully. He had a pack of chewing tobacco out now, was working a wad deep down inside his cheek.
“What’s that? A different cartridge?”
“Is your cocksucker ex-boyfriend a big guy? You got a three-hundred-fifty-pound guy on crack running at you, you wanna know you’re packing maximum power.”
I closed my eyes. Was I really standing here, in a rural Georgia parking lot, having this conversation?
“I switched ’em in the gun my wife carries in her purse,” Britt added with pride. “Switched her .38s for .357s. She ain’t never gonna notice. I’d rather she be firing a .357 when some guy’s coming at her.”
His wife. Jesus. He’d thrown out that morsel even as he tried to sneak another peek down my blouse. Sleazy. Not, mind you, that I was in a position to pass moral judgment on anyone at this precise moment.
“I’ll stick with .38 Specials. The smallest box. I’ll meet you right here.”
Britt nodded, spat a stream of tobacco juice, and shuffled toward the entrance.
I settled into my car to wait. Locked the doors. Then jumped back out. If flashing blue lights suddenly appeared, or if Britt returned with a security guard, I shouldn’t be sitting there waiting like an idiot. I ducked my head and walked to a corner of the lot, near a concrete island of dejected shrubs. From there I had a clear view of the store entrance, the vast expanse of asphalt in front, and the highway beyond. I waited. Shivered. The temperature had dropped sharply with the sunset.
After what seemed forever but was in fact twenty-seven minutes, the doors swung open and Britt walked out. I watched. No one followed him. He wove back toward my car. He was peering into the window on the driver’s side, hands cupped around his eyes to cut the glare from the streetlights, when I reached him.
I touched his arm.
He jumped six inches. “Holy crap, you scared me. Where’d you git to?”
“Bathroom emergency.” I nodded toward the shrubs. “Well?”
He held out a bag. I glanced around. A woman was climbing into a truck double-parked at the front curb; a car was reversing on the far side of the lot. No one was close. I had seen no security cameras, but to be safe I shifted position, so we were hidden behind the hulking cab of the Silverado in the next parking space.
“Got you a five-shot revolver,” whispered Britt. “Smith and Wesson, .38 Special. Made in the 1970s, like you asked for. She’s scratched up but she’ll shoot fine. Two hundred and forty-nine dollars plus tax. Decent gun for the price.”
I handed over the second envelope. “Thank you.”
He stood there, smiling hopefully, wide, little-boy eyes above tobacco--stained teeth. “Buy you a beer?”
“Another time.” I was already in the car, strapping on my seat belt, shoving the plastic bag deep inside the glove compartment.
Britt leaned in the open window. “Can I git your number?”
“I think you ought to go on home, don’t you? You wife’s probably got dinner on the table. Use some of your new money, stop and buy her flowers on the way.”
? ? ?
BEFORE BED THAT night I did four things.