Stress by Loren D. Estleman Read Free Book Online Page B

material we’ve got rusting on parade grounds and in museums on Vietnam, the whole damn peninsula would break off and sink. Only that’s not how we do war now.”
    Joe Piper wiped his nose on his sleeve and waited. Christ, he was getting to hate the people he had to work with. Between the redneck hawks and niggers with razors, the wild-eyed Irish revolutionaries his Uncle Seamus used to bitch about sounded like bankers. The business was filling up with psychos. Just the kind of people you wanted to put behind a gun that fired 1,145 rounds per minute.
    “…hear of Billy Brock?”
    Angell was looking at him now, ice-crystals glittering on his pale eyelashes. Jesus, it was cold. “Who?” Joe Piper had quit listening. He had heard the where-we-went-wrong-in-Nam speech before.
    “General Sir Isaac Brock. You won’t see the name next to Napoleon and Kutuzov, but he pulled off something no one could before or since: force a North American city to surrender itself to occupation by a foreign army. In August 1812 he lobbed a couple of four-pounders across the river from the Windsor side, hit a tree on East Jefferson, and the next thing you know the Union Jack was flapping over city hall. One shot from the seventy-five mounted on this Sherman would’ve made a hell of a difference.”
    “Not as much as an ICBM, but they didn’t have them yet either.”
    “Not the point. Return fire from a couple of dozen flint-locks would have at least made the Brits sweat a little. As it was the commander in charge of Fort Detroit didn’t do so much as fire a musket in its defense. That’s the kind of mentality we’ve got running the Pentagon now. Fifty thousand dead in twelve years and in went the towel. The Romans lost sixty-three thousand at Cannae and went on fighting for nine more years and wound up throwing Hannibal clean out of Europe.”
    “Shitty damn shame.”
    “Who’s your customer?”
    The question surprised the gun dealer. “Forget it, Homer. You don’t have the temperament to peddle your own merch.”
    “If I did we wouldn’t know each other. Are they commies? Because if they are the deal’s smoke. It’s bad enough they own the rice paddies in Saigon.”
    “Worse than commies. Black Panthers.”
    Angell nodded almost imperceptibly. “Great military organization. The discipline is admirable. You don’t just put on that black beret and call yourself a Panther. Their boot camp stands up beside any in the world. Except the Dutch, of course.”
    “Of course.” He wondered if the wooden shoes got in the way of the drills. “Twelve hundred’s the offer.”
    “Eighteen. At that price you have to score your own ammunition.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “It’s a legitimate purchase. Just walk into any sporting goods store and lay your money down.”
    “You have to sign for it at the counter. I haven’t written my name on a piece of paper in three years.”
    “What about IRS?”
    “I retired from the cement business in sixty-nine. Signed everything over to my wife. She lists me as her dependent. Fifteen hundred apiece, ammo included. That’s the last trip to the well. My ass fell off ten minutes ago.”
    “I hope for your sake the marriage is airtight.” Angell stepped over and stuck out his hand. “How soon do you need delivery?”
    “I’ll let you know.” Joe Piper grasped the hand, grateful for the moment that he had lost most of the feeling in his fingers. Later, when they thawed out, the aftermath of Angell’s crushing grip would be agony. “The feds are too busy roasting Nixon’s nuts to haul you over anyway.”
    “They should’ve let him finish what he started in Cambodia.

Chapter Seven
    P AUL K UBICEK REMINDED C HARLIE B ATTLE A LITTLE of his uncle; but only superficially.
    Since his stroke in 1971, Anthony Battle, three-time professional wrestling Heavyweight Champion of the World, had spent most of his time in the eggshell vinyl Strat-O-Lounger in the extra bedroom in his nephew’s apartment,