The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas

Author:Nick Mamatas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sci-fi
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

14.

“Shook up, huh?” Dennis said. “We’ve been sitting here for ten minutes.” Here being in Dennis’s car, in the parking lot of the Diablo Valley Rifle & Gun Range. The lot was large, and half-full. A not very busy Saturday. The range building was a pair of double-wide trailers, and the range itself outside, and a bit ramshackle—if not for the sounds of gunfire and the metallic taste on Karras’s tongue, he could have mistaken it for a defunct auto-mechanic’s back lot, with clotheslines put up by enterprising unhoused people.

“I want to understand the clientele,” Karras said.

“What’s to understand?” Jerry asked from the rear seat. “Oh, I know. You’re racist.”

“How am I racist?” Karras said. “And it’s only been five minutes.”

“You’re surprised that the parking lot isn’t full of Ford 150s and white guys with trucker caps and beards from Moraga,” said Jerry. “You’re sitting there, counting the people of color, trying to figure them all out. Are the Filipino guys hardcore Catholic reactionaries, the Korean families shopkeepers here to hone their skills for the next race war against the African-Americans? Are the black guys Panthers; will they like you, have they read one of your books?”

“Sounds like you’ve read one of my books,” Karras said. “Anyway, I’m more worried about the cops.”

“Oh, you think there aren’t any Asian cops in the Bay Area,” said Dennis through a chuckle. “Man, you are racist.”

“White ethnic types are the worst racists—‘Blah blah, my grandpa was Zorba,’” Jerry said. “‘Was yours a kung-fu master?’”

“My grandfather was an accountant!” said Karras.

“You’re one of those coastal managerial professional class elites! MPC!” said Dennis.

“I’m a freelance writer. And it’s PMC, not MPC.”

“Ah, an intellectual too,” said Dennis.

“A public intellectual!” Jerry said. “An NPC, reciting whatever NPR tells non-player characters to say.”

“I am going to tell you a secret… Dennis,” Karras said. “A secret only writers know.” He leaned over, nice and close, the tip of his nose tickling Dennis’s ragged curls. Dennis snorted and laughed again.

Then Karras began to speak, his lips so close to Dennis’s ear.

The boy’s eyes widened, the color drained from his face.

And when Karras was done, Dennis muttered Oh, shit to himself.

“What, what?” Jerry wanted to know.

Dennis looked in the rear view mirror and just shook his head. Karras smirked.

“What!”

“Oh, man, Jer,” Dennis said after a pregnant pause. “Michael here, he told me his last year’s income.”

“And?”

“And you made more money than he did last year.”

“I don’t even have a job.”

“I mean your allowance.”

Jerry laughed, and blew air out his lips.

“Happy to whisper it to you too, son,” Karras said. “I’ve also never gotten an income tax refund.” Dennis shook at the sound of that, but Jerry leaned back against the cushion of his seat and folded his arms over his narrow chest. “That just means you’re a class-reductionist. We gonna shoot or not?” he asked.

They were going to shoot. The boys knew their way around the range—one of Dennis’s mother’s boyfriends had taken them target shooting many times, once even to handle full autos and a minigun in Vegas.

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