The Vultures. Mark Hannon
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“Well, growing up in Machias, I did a lot of target shooting and hunting as a boy, but I’ve never had much experience with handguns.”
Good, Pat thought. A country boy, been around guns before and not some nut job. Sounds young. “Ok, Doctor...”
“Call me Charlie...”
“Ok, Charlie, I’m Pat, by the way. So, do you have any handguns of your own?”
“I’ve got a .45 automatic that was my dad’s in the Army, and a state police issue .38 Special.”
“Interesting. How’d you come by the state police weapon?”
“It was given to me by a state trooper out of the Batavia Barracks after I operated on him in the ER.”
“Huh. When was that, doc?”
“Four years ago, in the summertime.”
“Trooper Van Dyke?”
“Yes, it was.”
Brogan remembered. Phil Van Dyke got into a confrontation with a Road Vulture way out on 33 in Corfu, and the biker pulled a gun. The biker died, but Phil laid there a long time before anyone came by and found him.
“Phil finally came back to work two years ago. He was lucky to be alive.”
“He’d lost a lot of blood when they got him to us. You guys lined up to give. I think we went through...ninety-six pints before it was all over.”
There was a pause, then Pat said, “Yeah, but he made it. Anyway, are those the weapons you want to shoot with?”
“Yes, yes, I would. I’ll bring ammunition for them, of course. I’d like your advice on their cleaning and care, Pat, especially as they’re both gifts. Will you be bringing any guns?”
They’re weapons, not guns, Pat thought, this guy’s never been in the service. “Yeah, I’ll be bringing my service weapon, a .38 Smith and Wesson snub nose. I can always use the practice.”
16.
HR brought Tom into the used bookstore, his blonde hair bouncing with enthusiasm as he approached the old man in the worn suit.
“Hey man, c’mon over and meet Carl Vincent! He’s the founder of the World Worker’s Party.”
The older man nodded at them and continued speaking to three other students, “The party was in the right to support the USSR’s invasion of Hungary in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is the responsibility of worker’s states to fight the capitalist revanchists, just as the Vietnamese are fighting American imperialism today.”
Vincent looked over at the two youths. “Well, hello. From your picture in the World’s Worker paper you must be HR, the party’s leader on campus,” he said, shaking hands with HR. “And this man?”
“Tom Brogan, sir. I’m a friend of HR’s.”
“Well,” Vincent said, “I’m glad to see the movement is so active on the U.B. Campus. You know, I used to live and work in Buffalo, years ago. I worked at Wickwire Spencer in Tonawanda. Where do you two work?”
“I’m a warehouseman at A.M. & A’s downtown,” Tom said.
“I’m a writer,” HR said.
“I see,” Vincent said. “We’ve got to expand our membership amongst the workers. Although it’s great that the students are responding to the party’s message, the only thing that will bring down capitalism is victory in the workplace. The idea must come from the shop floor. You must get me some of your writings, HR, while I’m in town.
“When I was working at Wickwire, there was a dispute about Korea. I had worked there for two years and I was making headway among the steelworker’s local there. When Truman invaded Korea, the bosses whipped up the McCarthyites in the plant and they ran me out for handing out pamphlets about the real reasons the U.S. was at war. Your writing, young man, must always tell the truth about the capitalist motives if we are to get anywhere with the working people, particularly in this town where so many send their sons overseas.”
Tom thought about the other guys at work. Most of the older ones were all for the war, even agreeing with the “bomb them back into the Stone Age” rhetoric. The younger ones were worried about getting drafted, getting killed. They didn’t say much in front of the older guys, and they sure weren’t going to any protests. He didn’t know about these World Worker’s Party guys, but this war was so fucked up. Maybe those guys destroying the draft records were right. Maybe if Rory…Tom dropped his head and promised himself to call his parents to see how Rory was doing.
17.
Pat pulled into the parking lot at the Northtowns Rod and Gun Club and saw a guy in his late thirties in khakis and a plaid Pendleton shirt removing two black boxes from his trunk. Gotta be him. Brought both weapons, really wants to get into this, he thought. The man shut the trunk and, spotting Pat, smiled and waved. Pat picked up the two boxes of shells from the front seat and got out.
“Dr. Kraft?” Pat asked.
“Charlie Kraft,” the man said with a smile as he put out his hand. “Glad you could make it today.”
“Pat Brogan,” the policeman said. “I see you’ve already got your shooting glasses on,” he said, nodding towards the yellow tinted safety glasses as they walked into the range.
“Yeah, I figured they were worth the money as much as I like to shoot.”
The doctor showed his pistols and ammo to the clerk and paid for them both. When asked for id, Pat showed his new County Investigator’s badge and pulled the .38 snub nose off his hip.
“Aisle 6, gentlemen,” the clerk said, and handed them their targets. Once in the stall, the doctor carefully opened up the box with the .45 in it and placed a box of ammunition to the side on the table.
“Ok if we shoot the .45 first?” Charlie asked. “I’ve only fired it once, and I couldn’t hit anything until I moved the target within 10 feet.”
“You probably won’t hit anything until you get real close,” Pat said with a small shiver. “When they’re brand new, they’re fairly accurate, but after firing around 50 rounds the barrel starts to get loose. You could put a .45 in a vice and still miss at just about anything but point-blank range.”
“I’ve read that. Always made me wonder why the Army would equip soldiers with such an inaccurate gun.”
“Stopping power. They first issued them during the Moro Uprising in the Philippines around the Turn of the Century. Used them to stop drugged up guerrillas their .38s wouldn’t bring down.”
Pat looked down, thinking, as the doctor loaded the .45’s clip. The lieutenant shot him in the shoulder and blew his arm off, he thought, remembering a German who charged them in a hallway with a bayonet. Blood, muscle, cloth all went flying and he went flat on his back. Then we bashed his head in with our rifle butts.
“No, the .45 will stop whoever you hit with it, wherever you hit him, Charlie.”
“Ok, I’ve loaded two clips. Why don’t you go first, Pat, and show me what works best?”
Pat stepped up to the table, put on the earmuffs and picked up the .45.
“Move the target as close as possible, Charlie. Good.” Pat gripped the pistol tightly, aimed for center of mass and fired off two rounds rapidly. One just nicked a corner of the target’s elbow and the other the edge of the paper on the left. Pat looked again and adjusted, firing two more rounds, which ripped big holes in the paper to the silhouette’s right. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he fired the last three rounds, one of which hit the outline of the head, another the neck and the third drilled the target’s mid-sternum.
“Wow,” the doctor said. “Just like you said, not accurate, but