Persuader

shouldn't wake you," Beck said. "He figured you looked pretty tired last night. So he offered to drive us instead."
    "OK," I said. Thought: Did Paulie find my stash? Did he tell them yet? "You want coffee?" Richard asked me. He was over by the machine, rattling cups in his hand.
    "Black," I said. "Thanks." He brought me a cup. Beck was peeling off his coat and shaking water off it onto the floor.
    "Bring it through," he called. "We need to talk." He headed out to the hallway and looked back like he expected me to follow him. I took my coffee with me. It was hot and steaming. I could toss it in his face if I had to. He led me toward the square paneled room we had used before. I was carrying my cup, which slowed me down a little. He got there well ahead of me. When I entered he was already all the way over by one of the windows with his back to me, looking out at the rain.
    When he turned around he had a gun in his hand. I just stood still. I was too far away to use the coffee. Maybe fourteen feet. It would have looped up and curled and dispersed in the air and probably missed him altogether.
    The gun was a Beretta M9 Special Edition, which was a civilian Beretta 92FS all dressed up to look exactly like a standard military-issue M9. It used nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition. It had a fifteen-round magazine and military dot-and-post sights. I remembered with bizarre clarity that the retail price had been $861. I had carried an M9 for thirteen years. I had fired many thousands of practice rounds with it and more than a few for real. Most of them had hit their targets, because it's an accurate weapon. Most of the targets had been destroyed, because it's a powerful weapon. It had served me well. I even remembered the original sales pitch from the ordnance people: It's got manageable recoil and it's easy to strip in the field. They had repeated it like a mantra. Over and over again. I guess there were contracts at stake. There was some controversy. Navy SEALs hated it. They claimed they'd had dozens blow up in their faces. They even made up a cadence song about it: No way are you a Navy Seal, until you eat some Italian steel. But the M9 always served me well. It was a fine weapon, in my opinion. Beck's example looked like a brand-new gun. The finish was immaculate. Dewy with oil. There was luminescent paint on the sights. It glowed softly in the gloom.
    I waited.
    Beck just stood there, holding the gun. Then he moved. He slapped the barrel into his left palm and took his right hand away. Leaned over the oak table and held the thing out to me, butt-first, left-handed, politely, like he was a clerk in a store.
    "Hope you like it," he said. "I thought you might feel at home with it. Duke was into the exotics, like that Steyr he had. But I figured you'd be more comfortable with the Beretta, you know, given your background." I stepped forward. Put my coffee on the table. Took the gun from him. Ejected the magazine, checked the chamber, worked the action, looked down the barrel. It wasn't spiked. It wasn't a trick. It was a working piece. The Parabellums were real. It was brand new. It had never been fired. I slapped it back together and just held it for a moment. It was like shaking hands with an old friend. Then I cocked it and locked it and put it in my pocket.
    "Thanks," I said.
    He put his hand in his own pocket and came out with two spare magazines.
    "Take these," he said.
    He passed them across. I took them.
    "I'll get you more later," he said.
    "OK," I said.
    "You ever tried laser sights?" I shook my head.
    "There's a company called Laser Devices," he said. "They do a universal handgun sight that mounts under the barrel. Plus a little flashlight that clips under the sight. Very cool device."
    "Gives a little red spot?" He nodded. Smiled. "Nobody likes to get lit up with that little red spot, that's for sure."
    "Expensive?"
    "Not really," he said. "Couple hundred bucks."
    "How much weight does it add?"
    "Four and a half ounces," he said.
    "All at the front?"
    "It helps, actually," he said. "Stops the muzzle kicking upward when you fire. It adds about thirteen percent of the weight of the gun. More with the flashlight, of course.
    Maybe forty, forty-five ounces total. Still way less than those Anacondas you were using.
    What were they, fifty-nine ounces?"
    "Unloaded," I said. "More with six shells in them. Am I ever going to get them back?"
    "I put them away somewhere," he said. "I'll get them for you later."
    "Thanks,"