Cut to the Bone(41)

“How’s that?”

“‘Hey, Annie, there’s, uh, trouble in paradise,’” she mimicked.

They both laughed.

“So you don’t think he wants out,” Emily said. “Or that there’s another woman.”

“I read people pretty well, and I just don’t see it,” Annie said, shaking her head. “But you say he’s hiding something. Particularly this Alice, whoever the hell she is. Hmm.” She perched her chin on her small fists, thinking. “Does he refuse to talk about it? Or does he talk about it without saying anything, then move to safer topics?”

Emily tapped her nose.

“Oh, hell, my husband does that all the time,” Annie said. “I have to keep steering him back to the point when he’s telling me something he thinks I don’t want to hear. Didn’t Jack do that?”

Emily shook her head. “Jack told me everything on his mind. Everything. Precisely and to the point, the minute it occurred to him.”

“Was that good or bad?”

“Good.” Her ears colored. “Though sometimes I wished he’d just, uh, you know . . .”

“Shut the hell up.”

“Yeah,” Emily admitted. “When he died, I was so ashamed of those thoughts I couldn’t stand myself. Now I want Marty to open up that way, and he isn’t.”

“Two men,” Annie said. “Two ways of dealing.”

“I know,” Emily said. “And that’s fine by me - everybody’s different. But this isn’t just ‘dealing.’ Something’s bothering him terribly, and he doesn’t want to tell me. Something about him and this Alice.”

“So bug him till he comes clean.”

Emily looked at her.

“Cans of worms and sleeping dogs,” Annie said. “I get it, hon. But if it bothers you this much, you need to take the risk. Can’t fix a sink till you know where it leaks.” She covered her mouth, yawned mightily.

“Up late last night, were we?”

Annie grinned. “If you must know, hubby was the principal and I was the naughty student . . .”

“Stop!” Emily said, slapping her hands to her ears. “That image will ruin me for life!”

Annie’s laugh was full-throat. She walked to the gun safe, spun the dial, pulled out a violin case. “Because you did such a good job today,” she said, flipping the brass latches, “I’m going to let you shoot my Tommy gun.”

“Holy cow!” Emily said, scrambling to her feet. She knew all about the legendary Thompson Sub-Machine Gun - aka tommy gun, chopper, gat, and Chicago typewriter - from endless hours of watching The Untouchables with her dad. But she’d never seen, much less fired, Al Capone’s equalizer. “Where on earth did you get it?”

“Aforementioned darling hubby,” Annie said, holding it up. The 1928 Full Automatic gleamed from Cutts compensator to finned barrel to oiled walnut stock to signature drum magazine holding fifty fat rounds of .45 ACP.

“God, it’s beautiful,” Emily moaned, running her finger along the polished blued steel.

“I’ve wanted one since I was a kid,” Annie said, ensuring the chamber was empty. “A genuine tommy from the Roaring Twenties, not a reproduction. Unbeknownst to me, he searched for three years till he found this. Rusty and dented, but real. He sent it to an expert for full restoration and gave it to me last night as an early birthday present. I was thrilled.”

Only Annie would prefer machine guns to diamonds! “So that’s why you volunteered for the principal’s office,” Emily said, grinning.

“Would I wear a plaid skirt and Mary Janes otherwise?” Annie demanded. “Here.”

Emily blinked in astonishment as she accepted the weapon. The Kel-Tec weighed five pounds. This beast topped twelve.

“Fourteen-point-four with ammunition,” Annie said, correctly interpreting Emily’s expression. “They used to make guns like Sherman tanks.”

“Hurray for progress,” Emily said, sighting down the barrel. “I wouldn’t want to lug this an hour, let alone all day.”

“Me neither,” Annie said. She nodded at the Osama bin Laden target at the end of the shooting lane. “Cock the bolt and let ‘er rip. Remember it’s full automatic and it’s going to jump.”

Emily nodded, re-donned her ear and eye protection, aimed, and pulled the stiff trigger. The tommy chattered. Four seconds later the drum was empty, white smoke curling toward Osama’s blown-out turban.

“Wheeeee!” she said, laughing.

“There’s a lot to dislike about the old days of police work,” Annie said, handing her a second dram. “Racism and sexism. Routine brutality. Lousy pay and low professional standards. But man they had a good time shooting.” She coached Emily through the loading procedure. “I’m going to make you an expert with Mister T.”