Colonel Rutherford's Colt Read Free

palm. He felt the weight of the story accumulating inside his head. “Tell you what,” he said to Ms. Snow. “I’ll take the gun on consignment this weekend and the next. For the show they got over in North Bend. If I move it before I leave North Bend, I’ll cut myself twenty-percent commission. If it don’t move, I’ll make you an offer and you can do what you want.”
    â€œI suppose that’s reasonable,” Ms. Snow said hesitantly.
    â€œIt’s a helluva lot more than reasonable!” Rita scraped back her chair and came over. “We don’t take nothing on consignment.”
    â€œWe can do this one,” said Jimmy calmly. “We got enough we can help someone out once in a while.”
    â€œJimmy!”
    â€œWe going to move the goddamn Beretta, Rita!” He fished out a handful of twenties from the cash box. “Here. You go on ahead and celebrate. And get us a room at the Red Roof.”
    He thought he could feel the black iron of her stare branding a two-eyed shape onto the front of his brain. She grabbed the bills and stuffed them in her shirt pocket. “I’ll leave you a key at the desk,” she said. “I’ll be at Brandywines.” She expressed him another heated look. “You better sell the damn Beretta.” Then she stalked off, shoving aside a portly balding man wearing a camo field jacket and pants.
    â€œI didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Ms. Snow said, but Jimmy gave a nonchalant wave and said, “That’s just me and Rita. We got what you call a volatile relationship.”
    â€œOh.” Volatile relationships did not appear to be within the scope of Ms. Snow’s experience.
    Jimmy began writing a receipt. “You better tell me what this Borchard fella looks like ’case he tries to pass himself off as someone else.”
    â€œThat’s not his style. He’ll come right out with who he is. He expects everyone’ll be impressed.”
    â€œYeah, but . . .” Jimmy stopped writing. “Supposing he sends one of his men to buy it? Whyn’t you hang around, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee? You can tell me if you spot someone familiar.”
    Ms. Snow faded back from the table, clutching the purse to her stomach. “No sir,” she said. “I won’t deal with those people. That’s why I gave you the gun. So I won’t have to.”
    â€œAll right.” Jimmy finished with the receipt. “But I’m going to need your information. That way I can check with you when I get a buyer.” He handed her a business card and she scribbled down a number and an address.
    Ms. Snow pivoted out from the table, smooth as a dance turn, then stopped and glanced back, affording Jimmy a view of a sleek flank sheathed in flimsy, flowered blue. “I should be home most of the weekend if you need to give me call,” she said, and smiled her cherry smile. “Thank you so much . . . for everything.”
    â€œI’ll be in touch real soon,” Jimmy said.
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    * * *
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    It was in Cuba where the palm tree grew. Jimmy sat facing away from the table, head bent to the Colt, turning it in his hand. Cuba a long, long time ago. Ten years after the Spanish-American War. No, he’d have to make it fifteen years after, because John Browning had not even made a prototype of the Colt before ’09. The man who originally owned the gun, Col. Hawes Rutherford, had been posted as a captain to Havana in 1901, where he served as an interpreter . . .
    Interpreter, Jimmy decided, wasn’t enough of a job for Col. Rutherford. He had to be a powerful man, or else he wouldn’t be able to manipulate people the way Jimmy wanted. A liaison, then, between various American missions and the Cuban government. That would do the trick.
    Over the course of a decade, thanks to his nefarious dealings with the corrupt Cuban officialdom, Colonel