Right to Die

“One more step back.”
    I complied.
    “Now come at me.”
    My eyes went around the room for a camera or even a lens, but there were enough furnishings to hide it.
    “Come on, like you were going to attack me.”
    I started forward. On my second step Weymond hit a panel in the wainscoting behind her. A handgun shot out on an accordion device, like the boxing glove from a Three Stooges movie. She grabbed the weapon, an automatic, off what must have been a magnetic pad and leveled it at me.
    Standing stock-still, I said, “Bad game, Kimberly.”
    Weymond kept the automatic at serious for a count of five, then let her arm weigh down with it to the comforter. “I don’t think so. He calls it Walter’s Walther. One of his brighter lights, to tell you the truth.”
    I walked toward her. She let me take the gun. A Walther PPK all right. I tested the action. Loaded, one shell jacked into the chamber. Safety off, ready for firing. Christ.
    I made it safe. “Any more secret panels?”
    Weymond swam out of bed, tapping a taller, recessed section of wainscoting on the other side of the bed. An AR-15, the civilian version of the Colt M-16 assault rifle, nosed out.
    I moved to the Colt, bringing it to “present arms,” and sniffing. Fired not too long ago, freshly cleaned and oiled. Locked and loaded, a slick weapon for home defense. But I’d heard M-16s often enough on city streets in Saigon . They make more of a popping noise than the flat crack of the day before.
    I said, “Any others?”
    “A shotgun in the hall closet downstairs. Not so melodramatic, though.”
    “No more rifles?”
    “In the closet in the study. Walter’s got a strongbox or something anchored below the floorboards. But they’re a pain to get to, and anyway I don’t have a key to that.”
    “Just to the front door.”
    The sly smile again. “And the back. Walter’s at some conference. He won’t be home for hours.” Weymond casually showed a lot of leg. “Maybe you could use a little pumping up?”
    “Thanks, but I’m afraid I’d keep reaching for my wallet, looking for a fifty to stuff somewhere.”
    The smile evaporated. “That’s a sexist remark.”
    “Only if taken out of context.”
    I turned to go.
    Weymond yelled after me. “Hey, what about our deal?”
    “Should have gotten it in writing, counselor.”
    I went downstairs and out before she could pump up Walter’s Walther.

= 26 =

    “Now we’re in the middle of March, you’re probably thinking you can shuck that Gore-Tex suit, start training in the kind of clothes you’ll be wearing the day of the race. Forget it. Weather around here stays bad so long, it’s better to keep warm when you run. Less chance of getting some kind of bug, knock you for a loop. Also more chance of losing a couple more pounds, which’ll help your knees and ankles for the longer mileage this next month. So, stay with winter clothes for a while yet.
    “Another thing. You’ve got to start focusing on your diet more. Backtrack from race day. Morning of the marathon, real early like six in the a. m. , eat a banana for potassium. And toast, no butter, for carbohydrates. Some of the world-classers, they carbo-deprive from about race minus ten days to race minus three days, then carbo-load for seventy-two hours. They know what their bodies can take; you don’t. So instead, eat maybe sixty percent carbohydrates for about a week before the marathon. Carbos give you energy, and they also store water a lot better than proteins or fats. Forget anything with alcohol or caffeine for that week. They’re diuretics, and you’d be peeing away water that you’ll be needing during the race.
    “Running the marathon, whether she’s a warm day or cold, be sure to start drinking water early, even before you’re thirsty. The water you drink at mile two is the water your body’s using at mile twelve, and so on. Your system can’t just absorb and benefit from water like a shot of adrenaline.
    “One more thing for today. You’ll be running as a bandit, not a qualifier. Since the officials’ll force you to the back of the pack anyway, take my advice and go way to the back, like the last two or three rows. It’ll be slower for you at first, but then as things start to open up, you’ll be passing people instead of being passed. Sounds like a little thing now, but that’ll psych you up, make you feel like you’re winning rather than losing. Feeling like you’re losing can sap you, wear you down