Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

shotgun. Bradley had never seen him without it. It was like a limb. Felipe was white-haired and walnut-faced and wore a black eye patch.
    At the far side of the cove, Bradley saw that pallets had been leaned up against the rocks, each one with a paper human silhouette target affixed. A hundred feet offshore bobbed a sleek sportfisher manned by two men who were now sitting on the fighting chairs and smoking. Down at the waterline was a small dock beside which five men squatted on their haunches. As Bradley and Pace and the four gunmen walked out onto the sand, the squatting men stood up and studied them.
    Bradley introduced Herredia to Ron Pace as Señor Mendez, deputy chief of worldwide operations for Favier & Winling Security. Herredia offered his hand and considered him with a black stare. Pace swung his hand in a big arc like a rube and told Señor Mendez he’d heard a lot about him.
    Bradley flinched inwardly as he shook Herredia’s hand and received a brief, formal hug.
    Old Felipe gave Bradley a partially toothed smile and thoroughly ignored Ron Pace.
    One of the pistoleros set the wooden gun box on the spool table, and Pace unlocked it and opened it.
    He took out the Love 32 and presented it to Herredia. Herredia was a big man with big hands, but his index finger fit through the trigger guard with room to spare.
    “It’s heavy.”
    “Yes, sir,” said Pace. “I’ll show you why.”
    Herredia’s eyebrows were bushy and when they rose upward in the middle he looked soulful, and when they lowered into a glower he looked capable of anything. Now they were level as he looked to the men at the shoreline.
    Bradley watched them shift their weight uneasily, as if they wanted to walk away but also wanted to stay together, their attention divided between the men in the boat offshore and what was going on around the big cable spool. He could not hear the words but their voices were anxious and speculative.
    “What is this?” asked Herredia. He stabbed a finger at the widened cooling comb atop the barrel of the automatic.
    “Let me explain,” said Pace. “It’s called the Love 32.”
    “A gun named Love?”
    Bradley listened as Pace launched into the same presentation he’d given a few days ago at Pace Arms. He stated the gun specs, then explained the name of the Love 32. Herredia looked at Bradley blankly at the mention of Murrieta.
    “The thirty-two-caliber bullet is weak,” said Herredia.
    “You can say that one thirty-two-caliber bullet is weak,” said Pace.
    “I did just say it.”
    “Watch, Señor Mendez.”
    Pace set the pistol on the spool and tapped out the frame pins with his pocketknife punch. He opened the frame and made the small adjustments with the needle-nose pliers. He reassembled it, then ejected the regular clip and replaced it with the big fifty-round magazine.
    Bradley noticed the sharp twinkle in Herredia’s eyes as it dawned on him what he was seeing.
    Herredia was nodding as Pace released the telescoping graphite butt from the back side of the frame. Bradley saw that Pace was ignoring his audience now, having drawn them so completely into his drama. Pace pulled out the butt and it clicked into place with authority and he held the gun as anyone would hold a pistol, but the graphite brace fit firmly into the crook of his elbow. Pace raised and lowered the weapon to make sure the brace was the right length. The fifty-shot magazine protruded from the handle with an artful, lethal curve.
    “Fifty thirty-two-caliber bullets are never weak,” said Pace. “Señor Felipe, do you know about muzzle-rise in a full automatic weapon?”
    “He knows everything about all weapons,” said Herredia.
    “I doubt that, but keep your hand on the top of the barrel, old man, or you’ll blow yourself into eternity. Which I suspect will feel a lot shorter than most of us like to believe it will.”
    Bradley winced inwardly again, but Felipe was smiling. Pace handed the weapon to him. He grasped the pistol