Gun Machine

THE HUNTER ate a little more, sat within a dark stand of trees in order to gather himself for a short period, and then slept for a while.

He awoke from troubled sleep with a shock, as if a dream had run him through with a spear.

Looking up and quelling some trembling in his hands, the hunter found a few stars and the moon to judge the time by, and he calculated that his appointment was imminent. He took his bag and checked through its contents—even with the gun and some things appropriated from the hardware store, he still felt worriedly undertooled—and then rose and began to walk, shaking the damp cold from his legs with some difficulty. Once his thighs and calves loosened up, he slipped into the deep growth abutting the designated meeting point, shifting to the slow and exaggerated steps of woodcraft training and approaching in silence and invisibility.

There were three people at the meeting point.

The hunter smiled. They still huffed and shuffled like three nervous boys in their early twenties. The meeting was obviously going to be more protracted than he would have liked, but it looked as if it’d make up for it in amusement.

He emerged onto the path, allowing them to see him. Their joint reaction pleased him to an almost guilty extent.

“Hello,” he said. “The gang’s all here, I see.”

They all looked sick to one degree or another.

“It’s been a very long time since we all stood in the same place,” said the hunter. “I wonder why you have all arrived to make me feel so special tonight.”

Westover slowly extended a hand, a slip of paper in his fingers. The hunter, regarding him with condescending humor, took it, slowly.

“That,” Westover said, “is the name and address of the police officer in question.”

“Do we know anything about his habits?” the hunter asked, noting that the location was a good two hours’ walk away.

“No social life,” said Turkel. “He spends his nights reading and listening to music, apparently.”

The hunter pocketed the slip. “Excellent. So, shall I be on my way?”

“I think we have to talk about how this ends,” said Westover.

“How it ends? With the death of the man whose address you just gave me.”

“Really? That ends all this?”

“That depends,” said the hunter, “on what you mean by all this. What I mean is that I expect this man’s death to hamper the investigation to such an extent that it effectively concludes it.”

“I’m unclear on that,” said Machen.

“If I may,” said Turkel to the hunter. The hunter gave him a broad, mocking smile and bade him continue with a grand sweep of his hand. Turkel swallowed hard and continued. “Tallow is the case, at this point. He’s submitted no paper report that I’m aware of. Tallow’s death erases enough information to cripple further investigation. And, frankly, he seems to be the only one interested in pursuing it. I suspect he’s mentally ill. There is another issue involving one of the guns removed from a storage facility, but investigatively it’s—”

“A dead end?” The hunter chuckled.

“—going to be unproductive,” Turkel said, faint disgust in his face as it turned to the hunter.

“There we have it,” said the hunter. “The death of this man concludes the difficulty in front of us. But I don’t speak of an end to all this. There is work yet to be done.”

“What work?” said Westover.

“My work. It has been undone, and must begin again. My keep has been breached, and my work dismantled and stolen. I strongly doubt that I will ever recover all the pieces, and in any case they may be too tainted to weave back together. I must begin again.”

“If we’re understanding you correctly,” said Machen, “your…collection took the best part of twenty years to put together. But the work is done.”

“Really?” The hunter chuckled again. “Have you all achieved your great ambitions? Dreams all come true? Is there nothing more you aspire to? I doubt that. I don’t think that, for you three, greed was something you could don in your young winters and then shrug off like an overcoat in a warm room. Do you really mean to tell me that there is nothing left that you want? You, Mr. Machen. You could yet be running the great financial mill of this city. In twenty years you could be the mayor. Mr. Turkel here is not yet commissioner, is he? Mr. Westover—well, I shudder to think of what horrors he has still to achieve. Although, if I’m honest, I’m not greatly impressed by the security around his home.”

“You don’t want to stop,” said Machen in a flat voice.

“I don’t want to stop. I have a thing to finish. And since you three also have things to finish, I feel that it works out well for all of us.”

Westover said, “What would it take to make you stop?”

The hunter laughed, surprising even himself.

“It’s a serious question,” said Westover. “It comes with the promise of substantial remuneration and whatever other facilitation you might require.”

“We can begin in the region of half a million dollars in nonconsecutive used bills,” said Machen.