Damn, Painless, I mad a right mess out of you. “Stan?”
Grunt…
Oh good,you're up….machine shop open?
Yeah….another few hours.
Great….I'm gonna get a bucket of gas and some rags.
Nines, gas in the safe containers, pile of rags just outside the shop….what the Hell do you need that for…going arsonist?
Naw….just cleaning the shotgun…he, do you still a bunch of dried up modeling clay on the back bench>
Grunt
Thanks…just gonna grab a couple spoonsful.
Silently, he walked up the stairs, trying to be considerate of his teammates. He didn't look like he was sneaking…just bare feet, a briefcase and a blank expression. Hr stepped to his balcony
OK, first let's get all that diesel and soot off you. Damn pretty sight though, weren't it?
Over the next two hours, it was the same routine: wet a towel, clean off the outside, grab another, and push it down the barrel. Eventually, they came clean. Similar procedures on the stock and trigger/fiing pin bits. Taking a 3' dowel with two wooden disks glues in a foot off each end. Put the dowel down the barrel, point it at a bright light. No light shining through it meant no wear on the barrel.
“Good babe…now for your dressing” From the briefcase came a bottle of gun oil and a clean chamois. Every surface got oiled, taking out the dirt and grease from the mechanicals.
Stan opened the outdoor and stood over 99: “I'm about to close shop—you need anything else? Stock need work?”
“Naw, just oil it and rub it a hambone. Never crack. The backstrap Is a little loose, so we may have to overbore some of the screw holes. Rags in the pail and leftover gas in the waste tank, right?”
“Yep, you're getting the hang of this…we'll make you a hero, yet. No laundry is gonna touch that uniform, so I'll spin it in carbon tet. Guerrilla dry cleaning. G'night”
“Night.” Still not used to not hang lights out, but it was growing on him.
With all the cleaning done,time to lube. Gun oil 50/50 with fine clay for the grease. And Q-tips. Dozens of Q-tips. But the trigger carry and the sliding safety got their little dollops. Firing pin was fine, so…done. “Like a good bath, Painless? Better than that chase in an industrial smokestack”
50 shells…plenty, so he closed it up and set aside. Net's Foot oil for the holster. And with a satisfying thump, the shotgun was back home.
Returned all the rags and gas to the shop, and his tools in their places, just like Noah taught hm. Shot geese, mostly, because that way he could dodge any idiot dutch with Punt Guns. All in there place. Then, it came back—just an itch in the back of his head. But he had to check. A secret pulltab in the tool area opened the bottom compartment where two matched pistols lay. Those were Noah's, too. A.I. 'Van Duyck Watches' on the name plates. 99's 'retirement fund. They were two of the six ever made…
From “Noah Munroe—the man, not the writer (1979) by 99
van Duyck has a guard of course. Took lunch every day 11:30. 11:45 Noah brought in his watch to be cleaned and calibrated. So, of course, everything went to Hell. Nervous guy comes up to the Dutchman, and demands all is bulk Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Plus the Sapphire rounds that would be polished for the lens.
Van Duyck was terrified, so Noah spoke first
“You're gonna get yourself hurt if you keep waving that gun around.”
“”Shut up, Nigger…just get the fuck out”
Walking to to front door, Noah spotted the second gunman and getaway car—reporter's eye”
For those of you who haven't read my other works, an explanation is necessary. Noah was 6'9, and a sandwich under 400, it that. Hands bigger than a human head, and a watermelon for a skull.
As he got to the door, the gunman was yelling at the driver, so Noah made his right hand integral to his gun. Van Duyck and the other gunman only heard one scream, and a body flew between them. Police think he might have survived had he not tried to guard his head with his hands, one of which contained 30 ounces of Colt. Skull fracture. Gunman 1 took this as an opportunity to go fully fetal and wet himself.
In exchange for saving his life, van Duyck made my father matching guns. Weird caliber, but it made sense: without changing gunbarrels, it would shoot .41/60 rifle rounds, or a .410 shotshell. No one can fire the damned things without denting their skull. No one but Noah, whose wrist was bigger around than the whole Dutchman. Noah had him screw in place buttplates, one marked D, one P. Noah believed an unused gun is a wasted club, and always wanted to try hunting by pistol. The watch? Rebuilt in Platinum, with new innards. Just opening and closing the watch wound it.
When Noah died, his guns fell into the hands of his executive editor, Samuel Wren. The Wren family left New York 2 years after Noah died Made a fortune in oil, got out, and went into trains. Their lawn was the size of Pikers, it seemed. But their family kept his effects for me: two suits which would fit four of me, a family portrait, a bullet-casting kit, powder grinder and a linen pocket square which had four casting alloys, including lino (hard lead) and lead azide (explosive bullets), his own Linotype press the shotgun and the pistols. Ed Wren told me that Samuel Wren thought I was innocent, and that was true for century and a half I was incarcerated.
“Van Duyck was a genius watchmaker, and made the most complex pistol I;d ever seen” Ed continued “my family has shot one of the pistols every year; no one make .41 Long anymore, so we cast our own. Every gun was shot with a white glove, and it never, NEVER leaked from the breech….but for the impressive part; van Duyck made only six pistols; he took two back to Europe, two more were used twice for duels—the Naked Duel (one combatant, a doctor found that most duelists died of infection from the cloth pushed back into the wounds, so he eliminated the vector). The other duel was the infamous Balloon Duel. Each combatant was in a balloon tethered 1500 feet in the air. When the man accused of sexual impropriety began venting his balloon as fast as he could, to get to the ground and run away. His second shot him in the back of the head for cowardice—later becoming Vice President) Those two are in the Smithsonian; the last two are right here. I tried to give him the guns as a gift, and he refused arguing those pristine revolvers were worth over $10Million.
So there they sit. Like me, totally still and of another time. I'm writing a book on these pistols and their twenty-six hidden compartments.
Thanks for the present, Dad…this is a hell of a lot better than the cookies the guards would eat every Christmas. No clue what I'm going to do with them.