The Vultures. Mark Hannon

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 big holes.” Hard to fix those wounds, even if they were on the periphery, he thought.

      “Yeah. Take your time, use a two-hand grip and fire a couple of rounds, see what you’ve got, adjust and fire again.” Put out rounds until they stop coming at ya, Sergeant Dunaway used to say.

      They shot for an hour, comparing the three pistols for accuracy. When they showed the target sheets to the range clerk, he nodded in admiration. As they left, Pat asked, “Want to get a beer, Doc?”

      Checking his watch, Charlie said, “Ok, but I can’t stay long.”

      “No problem, I got stuff to do, too. Follow me.”

      Pat led them out of the suburban parking lot down to a bar near the city limits with a giant black horse hanging over the front entrance. Inside, it was dark and cool, and Pat was relieved there wasn’t anyone who might be a student inside. The doctor carefully poured a Michelob into a pilsner glass while Pat sipped a Schmidt’s draft.

      “That was good Pat,” Charlie said. “I know it’s not real combat shooting, but I appreciate you showing me how you guys do it.”

      “Yeah,” Pat said, a flood of sudden skirmishes during the war coming to mind. “Sometimes your mind gets so sharp you think you can hit a mosquito on a branch, and sometimes, nothing goes where you aim it... it all happens so fast.”

      “Hmm. I guess I’ll probably never know.”

      “You’re not missing anything,” Pat said. “Hell, if you’ve worked on shooting victims, you’ve had to keep your wits together under pressure.”

      “Yeah, the ER can get pretty hectic when they bring a shooting victim in.”

      “Where’d you work in emergency rooms, Doc?”

      “Columbus Hospital downtown and Sister’s on Main Street. Sister’s used to get a lot of stabbings on weekends, especially when it was hot.”

      “You ever work at the VA, Doc?”

      “I did a rotation there when I was in med school.”

      “See any guys in there come back from Vietnam?”

      “No. This was several years ago,” the doctor said, thinking of the men Pat’s age who were long missing limbs and eyes.

      “My oldest boy got wounded over there. He’s in the Philippines now, at Clark Air Force Base Hospital.” Pat watched the bubbles rise in his glass. “They say he’s going to Walter Reed next.”

      “How... badly was he hurt, over there?”

      “A commie mine got Rory,” he said, turning the base of the beer glass.

      “What are his injuries, if I may ask?”

      “His left eye’s gone. They, they’ve got to rebuild his face. Left arm’s gone below the elbow and his leg below the knee. They can get him artificial limbs. They think he can hear, but they’re not sure how much his brain works. He’s in pain all the time, doc. His face... the way he’s all tore up, he can’t talk.

      “I was talking to a sheriff’s deputy that was over there. They’re doing what they call ‘hamburger cleaning’ now – they don’t even close the wounds until they’re sure he won’t get some infection. My boy hurts all the time, Doc. Rita and I want to visit him, contact him somehow, but we can’t we call the Philippines to find out how he’s doing, and the people at Walter Reed don’t know anything.”

      They sat for a good ten seconds in silence. Pat felt embarrassed about blurting all that out to this young guy he’d just met.

      “Shit, I’m sorry, Doc. I must sound like an idiot talking like that.”

      “No, not at all, it’s ok. I’ve had to talk to a lot of family members whose relatives get injured. My oldest boy is fourteen and the prospect of him going to Vietnam terrifies me.”

      “Yeah. I thought I’d seen it all in the war, but when your own boy gets...”

      After a few more moments of silence, the doctor finished his beer. “Well, I’ve got to be going, Pat. Thanks for coming with me...care to do it again? Firing that .45 is tricky, like you said.”

      “Yeah, yeah, sure. Just make sure you clean it with the Hoppe’s when you get home, Doc. Gimme a holler next time you want to go shooting. You’ll get more accurate with practice, but not much, with that weapon.”

      They both rose and shook hands. Charlie reached for his wallet, but Pat waved him off saying, “Nah, it’s on me.”

      The doctor left, and Pat stood there, contemplating another beer. Checking his watch, he paid and left, then headed home to call Walter Reed with Rita again to see if they had any updates.

      18.

      Pat was sorting through the boxes on his new desk when District Attorney Daniel Butler strode into the outer office. He was muttering to himself when he picked up the phone messages from the receptionist, dropped a file on one secretary’s desk and then stopped in front of Pat’s desk.

      “Patrick. How’s it going so far?”

      “Not bad. Got my shooting qualifications taken care of, parking permit and keys to the investigator’s car. Right now, I’m organizing the office stuff.”

      “Good, good. We’re busy here, but I’ll try to keep breaking you in easy. Cases that should be pieces of cake for an old pro like yourself – insurance frauds, gathering witnesses’ statements, background checks, matters of that sort. I’ll keep you working a lot with A.D.A. Roth. I believe you and he go back to the pinball investigations under my predecessor Mr. Stone. That will be good, I think the two of you will make a good team. Have you met everyone here in the office?” he said, waving a hand around the room.

      “Yes, СКАЧАТЬ