Swan Dive

the gun’s frame to keep the cylinder swung out and safe. I slowly drew the four-inch Combat Masterpiece I had carried.
    He said, ”No, sir. You’ll use my weapon. I’ll be handing you the cartridges as appropriate. Please keep the barrel pointed downrange at all times and deposit the spent casings in the can.”
    I returned my piece to its holster and took his, keeping my fingers through the frame as he had.
    ”We’ll move downrange now to the seven-yard line. You’ll be firing twelve rounds from there.”
    We came to a stop at the target distance from which over half of the actual police gun battles are fought. ”All six shots have to be fired one-handed, double-action. Do you understand what that means?”
    ”Yes.”
    ”You can practice a few dry-fires with the weapon if you want.”
    ”No, thanks.” He doled out six bullets to me, and I loaded them.
    ”You may fire when ready.”
    I put my left hand in my pants pocket, assumed a bent-L arrangement with my feet, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I inhaled again, aimed, and began to exhale, pulling the trigger without cocking the hammer. I repeated the procedure, including the deliberate breathing, five more times.
    ”Make it safe.”
    I swung the cylinder out, and we walked to the target.
    He said, ”Four tens, a nine, and an eight.”
    Back at the seven-yard line, I fired another string of six. Five tens and a nine.
    As we moved to the fifteen-yard line, he said, ”You have any prior experience?”
    ”With guns?”
    ”Uh-huh.”
    ”Military Police. Mostly forty-fives.”
    He nodded.
    ”Weapon as finely balanced and maintained as yours would make anybody look better.”
    Another nod.
    I fired my next three strings single-action, two-handed, with my feet spread wide and my shoulders and trunk hunched down in what’s usually called the combat stance. My point total came to 289. We returned to the bungalow, and the officer certified my score in a logbook.
    He handed me the necessary paperwork and shook my hand. ”Hope we’ll be seeing you again in five years, Mr. Cuddy.”
    I said thank you and decided it was the first time he’d actually smiled since I’d met him.

    After the second ring, I heard, ”Nancy Meagher.”
    ”As a watchful taxpayer, I’d like to know why you’re not guarding the common weal in court.”
    ”Oh, hi, John. As a matter of fact, I should be, but after I broke my neck to catch the dawn shuttle back from La Guardia, the judge I’m trying before was in a fender bender this morning and still hasn’t arrived.”
    ”Will this screw up dinner tonight?”
    ”No way. Just drop by a little after six-thirty and see the guard in the first-floor lobby. I’ll come down as soon as he tells me you’re here.”
    ”See you then.”
    ”Oh, John?”
    ”Yes?”
    ”Thanks for calling.”
    ”Don’t thank me. It’s good to hear your voice.”
    ”Bye, John.”
    I hung up the receiver and looked at my watch. Plenty of time for a quick lunch and a visit before going in to the office.

    I’m glad about Nancy, John.
    ”Me, too. I think.”
    There’s always going to be some uncertainty, you know.
    ”I know.” I laid the baby tulips, mixed yellow and white, longways to her, just outside the shadow the marker threw.
    You’ve seen enough of people who won’t move forward with their lives.
    I thought of what Roy was doing to Hanna and Vickie and said, ”I’m working on a miserable case, kid. Divorce.”
    I thought you didn’t do them.
    ”So did I. But it’s a favor for Chris Christides.” Chris. Chris and Eleni.
    ”Right. She’s no better, though. In fact, she’s much worse. In a wheelchair now and so old, old and worn.” I squatted down beside the flowers. The topmost bud had opened a little, and the wind off the harbor bent the petals, like a moistened finger on the page of a book. ”Remember how Chris used to revolve around her, spend all his time describing what new American thing she’d seen or learned?”
    My mother used to say that.
    ”What?”
    That you know you love people when you think of past times in terms of events in their lives rather than your own.
    ”I’m not sure Eleni and Chris qualify anymore.”
    Oh, I’m sorry.
    ”Yeah, me too.”
    I looked down the slope to the water. Two people with nothing better to do on a Monday than sail seemed to be racing each other as a low-slung, enormous freighter of some kind, black except for the rust patches, sloughed past them. The sailboats,