Birds of Prey

Luther
Over at the Porta-Johns, it looked like the lines at fucking Disney World, but across the parking lot, there was a guns and ammo store. Could be a bathroom there. He’d murder someone to use it if need be.
Hell, he might murder someone either way.
Luther started across the parking lot. There must be a thousand people here at least. He’d had to park his white van almost a quarter mile away in the third overflow lot. He was hungry, too, stomach rumbling. Hadn’t eaten anything but half a bag of Lemonheads since the morning, and the smell of fresh jerky at a smaller tent outside the larger one was calling to him. Unfortunately, the line to jerky looked more daunting than the lines to the shitters.
Luther stepped out of the cold, falling sun and into Porter’s Guns and Ammo. He didn’t spend much time in gun shops, knives being much more his style, but he did love the smell of well-oiled firearms mixed with the faint bite of gun powder. Got off on it the same way he got off on the down-and-dirty smell of gasoline.
The place wasn’t as crowded as he’d feared. Only a handful of customers browsing the racks of rifles and shotguns, and up at the counter, the owner of the store—a slight man with a faint mustache and large, silver-frame glasses—was trying to sell a revolver to a biker chick wearing a Toby Keith shirt, the words, “We’ll put a boot in your ass…it’s the American way” screen-printed across the back.
Somewhere deep in the building, Luther could swear he heard the muffled pops of gunfire. Then his eyes fell upon a large poster behind the counter.
“PORTER’S FOUR COMMANDMENTS OF SAFETY AT THE RANGE”
1. Treat ALL GUNS as if they are ALWAYS LOADED.
Yawn. Luther quit reading after the first “commandment.” He strolled over toward a break in the counter that lead to a metal door.
“Does this access the range?” Luther asked.
Porter glanced over. “Yeah, but we’re closed.”
“I need to pee.”
“Well, we got about a thousand Porta-Johns out—”
“The lines are too long.”
“Didn’t you see the sign on the front door?”
Luther shook his head.
“Restrooms are only for paying customers.”
Luther reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, slapped a ten-dollar bill on the glass.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
Porter reached under the counter, and must have pressed a button because the door buzzed and made a clicking noise.
“Go on. Take your first right, second door on your left.”
Luther passed through to the other side of the counter and pulled open the metal door.
The gunfire instantly louder.
He moved down a narrow hallway whose walls were covered in posters, the vast majority featuring bikinied hotties holding giant automatic weapons.
The smell of gun powder getting more potent.
He took his first right as directed and dug his shoulder into the second door on his left.
Into the bathroom.
Single stall against the back wall.
Two urinals.
Shit.
One of them was occupied by some Hispanic guy in a designer leather jacket. Longish black hair greased stylishly back. Luther caught a trace of his cologne, which smelled exotic and very expensive.
Luther sidled up to the open urinal and unzipped his fly.
Oh sweet Lord.
Seemed like he peed for twenty minutes.
He glanced over at the man standing next to him, caught his eyes for just a moment, had been anticipating black or deep brown, but they were this clear and perfect blue, like one of those high mountain lakes turned turquoise by glacial silt.
He looked away, back down at the red urinal cake which smelled more like cherries the harder he pissed on it.
“Is there a problem, perra?”
Luther looked back at the man.
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t care for the way you just looked at me. You insulted me with your eyes.”
Luther smiled. “I just looked at you. Curiosity. No insult. Paranoid much?”
The man narrowed his eyes, muttered under his breath, “Yo cago en la leche de tu puta madre.”
Luther didn’t speak more than a few words of Spanish, but he felt pretty confident the man had just said something highly offensive.
“I don’t speak Spanish, amigo,” Luther said. “If you want to insult me, try some English.”
“So you’d like me to translate?”
“Please.”
“I said I shit in your whore mother’s milk.”
The Harpys Luther had purchased were still in their cases in the plastic bag at his feet. In addition to the fact that his dick was hanging out, something told him a sudden reach for the bag would not be the smart play. He had at least four inches on this Mexican psycho, but it was obvious that said Mexican psycho was in tremendous physical condition. This guy was clearly ready to go, and on top of that, there was an unnerving calmness coming over him. Like he was at home in such a situation as this.
It had been Luther’s experience that people who kept themselves calm in confrontations generally fucked other people up. Badly. He needed to diffuse the tension, and then track this man down unsuspecting. It wouldn’t be ideal, but he could certainly murder him in the back of his van. Try out that procedure he’d been dreaming about lately where he crippled the vocal cords so the victim couldn’t scream. Ball-gags worked fine, but it was kind of like fucking with a condom. Sensation muted. He’d love to see the mouth wide open, trying to scream through the mind-destroying pain.
So Luther did something he rarely ever did.
He smiled.
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” Luther said.
“Is that right? Maybe you don’t like a fucking spic taking a piss next to you like the rest of these hillbillies?”
Luther shook off, zipped up. “I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m a little angry at the moment. These army wannabes were hassling me over my hair, and I kind of lost it.”
The man’s face released just a bit of its hard edge.
“Were they wearing camouflage, with—”
“Name tags.”
Now the Mexican psycho smiled. Beautiful set of perfect white teeth. “I ran into those gentlemen myself just a little while ago. Gave a man named Swanson’s shoulder a hard bump.”
Luther said, “I took it a bit further.”
The man raised an eyebrow.
“I broke his nose,” Luther said.
Here came a big, broad smile. “No shit?”
Luther mimicked the elbow he’d thrown ten minutes ago.
“Blood?” the man asked.
“I think it was a gusher. Of course, I didn’t stick around to watch.”
“I hear you. Situation like that, keep your head down and get the fuck out.”
The man zipped up and studied Luther across the divider between their urinals.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luther said.
The man stepped out from behind the urinal and walked to the sink. He turned on the hot water tap and pressed a few squirts of soap into his hands, took his time cleaning them.
“I would shake your hand and introduce myself properly if you were to wash yours,” he said.
Luther wasn’t a handwasher. Never had been. He liked the idea of spreading his germs everywhere. Anytime he found himself in a public pool, he made sure to take a nice long piss.
But he made an exception, did a quick soap and rinse, and then dried off his hands with a few sheets of paper towels.
Then, he offered the Mexican psycho his hand. “Luther. I don’t really do last names.”
The man shook his hand. “Javier. Me neither. What’s in the bag?”
“I bought a couple of Spyderco Harpys,” Luther said. “You score anything?”
“A man is boxing up a Glock 36, custom suppressor, and non-factory clip as we speak.”
“Is that the Slimline model?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve wanted to try that one out. I’m more of a…” he remembered the words Alex had used, “a sharp-edged kind of guy. But I’m always on the lookout for compact firearms.”