Let's Talk About Guns

Well, I had to do it. I really did. Anyone who's going to write a novel which employs firearms needs to handle them so they can get a general idea of what they're talking about. Writing a crime novel without ever actually handling a gun is a lot like writing about the Tour De France without ever having ridden a bike. In order to get my savvy together I went to the Los Angeles Gun Club in downtown Los Angeles, an excellent indoor shooting range where you can either rent a gun and buy bullets or BYOG (Bring Your Own Gun).

I went with my friend Alex (aka Axis) not only because he was into it but also because the Gun Club has a mandatory buddy system. There are no lone wolves allowed to shoot - you must bring a friend in order to use the facilities.

Showcases of guns are by the front desk and you're presented with a very large choice of pistols (there may have been rifles, too) to choose from. Axis chose a 9mm. Glock and I chose the Sig Sauer 1911-45, the 1911 because it looked powerful and intimidating.

I saw the legendary .357 Magnum made popular in the Dirty Harry film series and couldn't see myself firing a gun with a barrel that large. I learned later on that the Magnum was originally designed as a hunting pistol meant to shoot deer and other wood creatures and not psychopathic killers in San Francisco.

After a quick safety lesson on how to fire a gun and a brief tutorial on how to load bullets into the magazine we were off and running to the firing range. The Gun Club also had a wild selection of targets to choose from, varying from the standard round bullseye target to a drawing of a zombie girl in a string bikini whose skull and arms were decayed but still managed to have a prodigious set of breasts and legs.

We were given headphones because the combined gunfire blasting from a dozen firing booths is positively deafening! I went first and have to confess that the experience was fairly intimidating at first. My gun felt heavy in my hands and just squeezing the trigger felt like I was shaking hands with Death. And it was!

The Sig Sauer 1911-45 is a powerful piece of work. The gunshots were deafening and with every shot a burst of flame leaped out of the barrel of my gun, followed by the bullet shell flying out of the breech like crazy right by my face. An attendant walked by every five minutes with a garden rake pushing all the spent bullet shells off the floor. Too many bullet shells on the floor would have sent everyone slipping and sliding all over the place.

While I was firing the gun it dawned on me at how frightening and powerful a gun can be and how ridiculously flippant it gets treated on TV shows and the movies. When you see guns tossed around as if they were toys and fired with one hand oh so casually it defies credibility. Once a pistol is held in your hand you realize it takes both your hands to fire it properly.

Axis let me try out his 9mm. Glock and it was a much lighter pistol that was easier to load and fire. The action was a lot smoother than the Sig Sauer but the sheer terror that the SS struck me and the other shooters - people were staring at me with the fear of God, no small feat at a firing range - was enough to sell me on using it again when I return to the firing range.

Like a lot of ignoramuses I expected to see a lot of fatsos in Army fatigues busting caps to their heart's delight but that wasn't the case. I saw a lot of young couples, mostly Asian, making it their Sunday afternoon dating rendezvous having fun shooting zombie targets and laughing. I don't think anyone there fantasized about shooting the President. Sorry.

I'm glad I spent some quality time with a gun, a good, scary one - I honestly believe it helped me with the novel I just completed (out soon!). Any asshole can write about guns as if they're just an average tool like a monkey wrench but they're nothing of the sort. When a gun's fired it seriously demands the drama it's inspired through the years in books and film. Like shaking hands with Death.

After The Kiss, A Murder

“Kiss me, detective!” she hissed.
I grabbed Jill by the waist and pulled her towards me, her soft, warm body pressed hard against mine. Her lips were hotter than the Sahara, her burning tongue entering my mouth and scorching the cavern-like insides. I could smell her sex, the musky invitation whispering, “Take me tonight!”

“How about that cup of java you promised me?” Jill fetchingly teased.
“The kitchen’s to your right”, I jabbed my thumb to the revolving door. “Heat up the percolator, sweetness, and make it snappy!”
She left the room, her tight yellow shift dress switching away, her brassy red hair tantalizing me like a devil’s crown.
I lit up an unfiltered Chesterfield and walked over to the hi-fi, clicking on my favorite Les Baxter album. Baxter was always guaranteed to bring out the tigress in any woman!

I parked my carcass on the plaid sofa, trying to tame my primitive ardor for the time being. What was I going to tell Chief Connell? What was a private detective doing romancing a murder suspect, albeit one with 38-24-36 measurements?
I weighed all my options while the guilty temptress was in the kitchen brewing that precious joe.

“Everything under control in there, baby?” I called to the closed door. I took another perfunctory drag of my smoke as I heard footsteps stomping down the hall towards my apartment.
BANG BANG BANG! A fist pounded against my door.
“Something tells me that’s not Chicken Delight”, I rakishly chuckled.

BANG CRASH! The door cracked open, giving way to a metal claw. I pulled my Smith & Wesson out of my shoulder holster and aimed at the breaking door because I knew exactly who it was. By the time I reached my deduction he demolished my door and came charging at me.

It was Jeremiah, the murderous Danish seaman who already threatened me the other day at Fisherman’s Wharf. Corpulent and standing at 6’6” tall, the peg-legged psycho with the iron claw glared at me.
“This be the last time you get in my hair, shamus!” His bushy black beard bobbed on his ruddy-complexioned face. “Now you give me what I came for, or I cut you up like skipjack, yah!”

“I told you once and I’ll tell you again, Squarehead, I don’t have your damn golden gizmo!” I pointed my heater at his monstrous Scandinavian demon’s head. “Stay where you are!”
“Yah, I tink not, snooper!” he charged at me. Before I could squeeze a few shots at him he pulled the pistol out of my hand with his claw. The gun flew across the room and smashed into my African Fertility God statue, toppling it over.

“I finish you, yah, like I gut minnow!” His yellow separated teeth gleamed. He picked the lapels of my Brooks Brothers suit with his claw and lifted me up by the throat with his one good hand, choking me. I tried kicking him hard in the groin but all I could hit was his damned wooden leg.

“Hah, Hah. Hah! You squirm like eel, dis goot fun!” He hacked phlegm as he laughed. “For de last time, where is the dingus?”
“Let me down ya big ape and I’ll kick it loose!” I wheezed, losing my breath.
Jeremiah loosened his grip on me and dropped me onto my plush thick piled rug. That bastard - my fall aggaravated an old football injury! I almost hit my head on the tinted glass coffee table.
“Hokay but no funny stuff or I kill!”

I was about to try something clever when the revolving door opened. There stood a thin, shapely man without his red hair and yellow shift dress on, in his underwear holding a gun in one hand and a percolator in the other. Fooled again by a pro! The doll was a dude!
“Okay, boys, reach for the ceiling, nice and slow, both of you!” he yelled.

“Angel”, I froze in shock, “Is that you?”
“You didn’t really think I was a woman, did you? I’m after the golden gizmo just like Olaf over here!”
“But, but, but, I thought we had something real!” I exclaimed in horror.
“Listen, sailor, I’ll do anything to get that golden booger, ANYTHING. Besides, that dress certainly does things to my figure!” he swung his hips. I thought I was going to get sick all over my expensive thick piled rug. Les Baxter played on in the background.

“Ugh, you’re that nelly who hangs around the docks, I know you, I fix you like I fix him!” Jeremiah yelled.
“Don’t make a move! I’m walking out with the dingus, not you, fish!”
“Ach, you fish, not me! I walk out wid dingus, girly boy!”
“Not a chance, butch!”

While these two maniacs argued I quickly grabbed my expensive table lamp and smashed the top half of the bulb, taking the base with its exposed wires and smashed it against the percolator in Miss Jill’s hand. The combination of spilled coffee and live electric wires made Jill go into a seizure. The lights in the apartment flickered like crazy.

“Now you give!” Jeremiah lunged towards me with his thick peg leg.
I stood between him and the former Miss Jill who was still flopping around like a gutted fish. I pushed Jeremiah towards Jill and his hook caught to the handle of the percolator. They twitched in a lover’s clutch of electrocution, both bodies hung together and twitching to their electric death.

I kicked the plug out of the wall and watched as both bodies fell to the floor, very cold, very blue, and very dead.

I walked over to the hi-fi, turned off Les Baxter and turned to the telephone. I picked up the receiver and dialed Chief Connell’s personal hot line.
“Hello, Connell? It’s Goldsmith, yeah, me”, I looked down at the two corpses, sailor and drag queen, clutched together in death. “Buckle up your seat belt, Skipper. I’ve got your killers ready for delivery”.