Closure (Jack Randall) by Randall Wood Read Free Book Online Page A

Little Dipper, but he was off a little. They were more like ladles, his wife had joked. She was right. But his daughter would stare at them with intent interest when they put her to bed, and that had made it worth the effort. She was usually long asleep before the stars lost their glow. He looked around his daughter’s room. The plants were still alive. Paul must be taking care of that, too. The room was the same, no one had moved anything. The toys were still on the floor with shoes and books among them. The little clothes still hung in the closet. The night-light glowed in the hallway to keep the monsters at bay should a nocturnal visit to the bathroom be necessary. SpongeBob grinned at him from a poster. Who would have thought that little kids would find a talking yellow sponge so entertaining? Sam had watched a few episodes with his daughter, both of them stretched out on the floor. He laughed when she did; she seemed to get it, he was obviously too old. The clock she had just learned to read claimed it was 3 a.m. when Sam pulled his daughter’s blanket over him. SpongeBob was still grinning. Sam thanked him and fell asleep, curled in a ball on the tiny bed.
    •      •      •
    Deputy Chief of Staff Charlie Parker was in the Roosevelt room of the White House with Senator John Harper and his many aides. Why the man had to have an entourage of ten people everywhere he went was beyond his scope of understanding. Most things about the Senator were. A senior Republican from the state of Georgia, John Harper fit the bill of the stereotypical southern politician. He was big on God, justice, and of course, the topic of the meeting, guns. The Senator had a long and close relationship with the gun lobby. Anything that was vaguely related to the Second Amendment drew his attention. He had fought waiting periods, Teflon bullets, trigger locks, and background checks; all with success. The bills had either been defeated, or negotiated to the point of ineffectiveness. His current target was the President’s new crime bill. The first bill had been defeated before it had even reached a vote. It was offered as a campaigning tool; so the President could be seen as tough on crime, yet hamstrung by Congress. It had worked. The President had won the election, and the party had picked up some seats in the House. Now that the President was in his second term, the bill had been rewritten bigger and broader. They were now going after the big prize: handguns. The Senator was pulling out all the stops to defeat it.
    It was Charlie’s job to find a way to make it happen.
    “Senator, these figures are a year old, but they still can’t be denied. Last year we had over 21,000 handgun-related deaths in this country. If we take away the suicides and the deaths ruled accidental, that still leaves us with over 19,000 handgun deaths. We have around 65 million handguns in this country, with a death rate of 13.7 per 100,000. That’s three times the rate of Canada. On top of the homicides, this also shows that handguns are used nine out of ten times in robbery, assault and rape. The American people are tired of all these loophole-filled laws, Senator. The President wants this bill passed.”
    “Charlie, I understand that the President would like me to get on board, but I just don’t think I can. His bill is placing all the blame on a few violent people. What about all the other law abiding gun owners? Besides, you aren’t going to stop people who are prone to violence just by taking away their guns.”
    “No we can’t, but we can make them less lethal. The study states it’s not the fact that they are violent; it’s the fact that they have easy access to handguns when they decide to be violent. The guns don’t kill people, people kill people line is crap and you know it. The truth is, people without guns injure people, and people with guns kill them.”
    Senator Harper smiled. He had heard that line before and he attempted to