Peter Preston was due to leave for Europe the next day and had a few errands to run before he kissed America a regretful goodbye. The first was a labour of love, the next was a matter of duty. The love object was in the finely moulded shape of a plastic Tommy Gun that made a pleasing rat-tat-tat noise when you pressed the trigger. The kind of gun that decent parents wouldn't let you own on account of it was a weapon of war and anyway it was cheap plastic and would break the selfsame Christmas morning that you got it. Besides, the damn thing was too noisy. That was why Pete's parents had refused to buy him one. That was why, when he was passing a garden in the neighbourhood, he could not resist the shiny black plastic with the red tip which lay unattended whilst the owner was indoors eating his milk and cookies.
The raid had been a masterpiece of timing. Into the garden, a guilty glance at the kitchen window, a hurried snatch and then a dash. Within a minute he was running down the road and no one was following him. The love affair had lasted all summer. The gun had been hidden in the garden away from his parents and bought out for the street war games that made up part of the day's entertainment. But now the summer was over and Pete was leaving and what the hell, he might as well get the illicit liaison off his conscience. So he went over to the same garden and after another nervous glance at the window, runs to the middle of the lawn, drops the gun and runs out again.
The duty part came next. It was time to sy goodbye to his grandma. His parents had insisted on this one - an onerous task but worth the pat on the head for the five dollar bill she would give him, all teary eyed at the loss of her favourite grandson.
Shit, her favourite grandson. She had about ten others to drool over as well as a few granddaughters. The Preston's were a fertile family, originally from English yeoman stock although Pete's "mom" was actually from Wales, dad having come across her when he was posted to Britain. She had instantly but shyly fallen for stocky brylcreemed American but it had come as some surprise to her when she had seen his tattoos on her wedding night which showed two dogs fucking. Pete's dad had been apologetic. He had naturally been drunk and could not remember asking to have it done although his buddies had sworn he had. Anyhow there was no long term harm done. He began to wear pyjama tops in bed and she bore him three sons, of which Pete was the eldest. Dad had since undergone expensive and painful skin grafts to have the tattoos altered. They were now simply two dogs with lopsided grins, for reasons best known to themselves. About once every month he would call the boys together and warn them solemnly that if any of them ever got a tattoo he would break their arms off and feed them to the dogs. Pete's youngest brother, being so young, could never work out whether he meant the dogs on his chest or not. Pete encouraged him in this belief, saying it was why they were always smiling. Pete had, in actual fact, been the only one of the brothers who had seen the original design in its glory.
Pete tried to slick his hair down before knocking on his grandma's door.
"Who is it?" said a voice inside.
"It's me," he called.
"Who's me?"
"Peter!"
"Peter? I don't know any Peter."
"GRANDMA!!!"
"Oh Peter," she said, fumblng with the door catch and letting out an odour of Campbell's tomato soup, incontinence pads and disinfectant, "why didn't you say?"
She ushered him in to the kitchen and sat him down to the usual treat of milk and stale brownies.
"So," she said, "you're going tomorrow."
"Yep," he replied, his mouth full of cookie mulch.
"Everything packed."
"Mostly."
"Looking forward to it?"
He shrugged.
"Mom's pleased."
"Well she'll be able to see her family. Unlike me of course. Since you're all going away."
She began to cry. This was what Pete had most feared, such displays of emotion being tricky to deal with.
"It won't be long grandma."
"That's what your father said. It won't be long. But when you get to my age you don't have long."
The tears began to pour out and Pete had to endure interminable hugs. Pretty soon his hair was well and truly slicked down as her eyes fairly bled all over him. Then, when it seemed that he was going to end up like a sodden rag the tears suddenly stopped. She became more businesslike, reaching into her purse for a five dollar bill which she handed to him with a demure peck on the cheek.
All in all the visit had taken half an hour and Pete was suffering from mental exhaustion at playing the role of dutiful grandson. What was needed was some refreshment. He decided to take the five dollars for a walk to the drugstore.
* * *
Dornford T Cornfold took the bus as usual that morning. The only difference that anyone who cared - which no one did - would notice was that he was shouldering a large canvass holdall which seemed very heavy. A light bead of sweat clung to his forehead like machine oil as he sat down, panting slightly. The journey was not a long one. Mentally he ticked off the familiar landscapes as he passed them. There was Gaines' drugstore and the poster hoarding with the picture of Bibi Ederson, the Hi-Brite Gum girl, who caused him to remember last night's passionate encounter with Lula Belle Jenkins-Wilson. He had picked her up in Nelson's Bar, where he had gone to ease his mounting depression. She described herself as a resting actress and eyed the contents of his wallet - two weeks severance pay - with interest.
Lula Belle Jenkins-Wilson was five parts English, ten parts Welsh, eighty four parts Texan and one part pure blood Oglala. She had a voice which grated to his Northern sensibilities but what she lacked in sophistication she more than made up for in enthusasm. He had taken her to his apartment and they had talked for a while.
"You married?"
"No," he said, "Never got round to it."
"I wouldn't bother. Men ain't made for monogomy."
Dornford, who had not had a woman in months, let alone lived with one, felt unable to comment.
"S'not much of an apartment. You earn much in your job?"
He shook his head.
"No me neither. You ever read those statistics that give the average wages for the USA? I do and brother I'm always way below them. I bet you are too. You know what that means? Somebody out there is making a lot more than us to make up that average. What do you do anyhow?"
"I don't do anything now. I got fired."
"That's a shame. A guy with nice gentle eyes like yours."
"That's why I was fired. Too soft."
"Yeah? Well it takes all kinds honey. I should know."
As he gazed at the face of the beautiful young woman in front of him and could not believe that she was the kind who did know. Lula Belle extinguished what had been her sixth Marlborough and kissed him gently on the lips. What followed was what Dornford would consider to be the finest night of his life, rendered only slightly less perfect by the fact that Lula Belle Jenkins-Wilson had helped herself to the contents of his wallet before leaving whilst he slept.
Dornford dragged his holdall off the bus and entered the office complex where Burgess, Watkins and Dreimeyer were situated, on the eighth floor. The doorman gave him a familiar nod of recognition, glancing only briefly at his heavy load. He took the lift to the eighth floor and immediately encountered Nancy Folkhard as the lift doors opened. Miss Folkhard gave him a puzzled smile. She had in fact never failed to give Dornford a friendly smile every time she had met him. She had even, on occasion, stopped to chat to him for a few minutes, work permitting. She watched as he stooped down, reached into the bag, drew out a colt automatic and shot her point blank in the chest. She was dead before she hit the floor, the same smile on her face.
Dornford then began moving though the office, firing at random at his former colleagues who fled screamng and shouting. Glen Roedel made it to the fire escape before a bullet tore a chunk out of his shoulder, causing so much damage that from then on he always had to ask for help when lifting of reaching for any moderately heavy object above his head. Mandy Ricewater, whom Dornford never liked took a shot which lodged in her lower spine. Her recovery and the subsequent abandonment of her wheelchair eighteen months later was adjudged a minor miracle.
In all he left two dead, three severely wounded and one complete and utter nervous breakdown in his wake before he decided to concentrate his attention on the street below. Strangely, the one person he would have liked to encounter was his former boss, Mr Otis Dabney. Mr Dabney was, at that very moment, being examined before his pre-op by Elmer Whittingham-Smith, Chief Surgeon at Saint Mark's General. It was the worst case of haemorrhoids that Smith had ever seen, aggravated by Dabney's near addiction to vitamin and iron supplements. The examination caused him to shriek in pain.
"Watch what you're doing doc willya. It feels like someone shot me up there."
Smith thought the patient was prone to exaggeration.
Meanwhile Dornford Cornfold had taken his Ruger and proceeded to sight it onto the pavement below. He took a shot at Mrs Doris Whalens and her baby causing chips of concrete to fly up around her feet. She screamed and pushed her pram as fast as her five foot, two hundred and forty pound frame would carry her. The next shot grazed the ear of one Slim Sharky, a minor thief and junky. His surprise was no less than that of Dornford Cornfold, who had in fact been aiming at Ben "Pops" Horton, a wily old newspaper vendor who had short changed him on numerous occasions.
Within about thirty seconds the street had emptied and Dornford was faced with the realisation that many men must face at some time in their lives. This was simply the fact that five thousand dollars worth of ordnance in a canvas holdall does not prevent you from being a lousy shot. It was at that point that young Peter Preston came round the corner oblivious to the carnage that had taken place eight floors above and intent on spending his grandmother's five dollars at Gaines' drugstore. If he noticed anything it was that the street was eerily quiet for the time of day. Dornford watched him pass by the entrance to Burgess, Watkins and Dreimeyer but, no doubt depressed at his poor marksmanship, he forebore to press the trigger. Peter continued along the street, puzzled at the lack of cars. He looked up at the poster hoarding of Bibi Ederson the Hi-Brite girl with longing, a feeling which was banished by the thought of what he could buy at the drugstore.
Inside the drugstore, Geoff Gaines was holding court with his cronies around an old black and white TV which was blessed with an intermittent signal.
"Move it to the right. No not that way ya goddamn idiot. That's worse."
Pete was about to ask for three Hostess Tootsie Rolls and six packs of Topp's bubblegum cards when the television came into focus. There was the same street that he had just walked along. Only now there were squad cars and reporters.
"Turn the sound up you lunkwit."
Pete watched local newsreporter Kent Melmnoth in fascination as he proceeded to relate the news..
"Just twenty minutes ago this ordinarily busy office thoroughfare was terrorised by a crazed gunman who is credited with at least three killed and an unknown number of critically wounded victims. The gunman, one Dornford Cornfold, was recently fired from Burgess, Watkins and Dreimeyer and took his revenge by entering the building with his own personal arsenal and shooting his former colleagues. Eyewitnesses also reported that he attempted to shoot passers by in the street. Fortunately no one was hit.
A witness who saw the killer enter the building was doorman, Harry Ellis. Mr Ellis, you saw Mr Cornfold. How would you describe him?
"Oh he was the same as always, except he was carrying this heavy bag."
"Didn't that seem suspicious to you?"
"I figured he had taken a lot of work home. He was a hard working guy."
"What makes you think that?"
"You notice things when you work on the door. You get to see what people are really like."
"Did you notice anything different about Mr Cornfold today?"
"No he was pretty much the same as he usually he is. Mr Cornfold's a nice guy. Not like some of them. Always a smile for you like nothing was too much trouble."
"I see. Just a regular guy?"
"Sure. Just like me or you."
"So can you account for his actions today?"
"Look who knows why people do things. Maybe he was under a lot of pressure. Like I said, he looked like he was carrying a lot of work with him."
"Er thank you Mr Ellis."
Pete didn't hear anymore as he dashed outside and threw up a glass of milk and three stale brownies.
Shortly after the newscast Dornford Cornfold surrendered and was charged with murder. Six months later to the day, after a brief trial, he was found guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree and was given the death penalty. Within a week his lawyer had filed an appeal. Ten years later, still on death row, he met and fell in love with one Melanie Krasny, who frequently corresponded with inmates as a hobby but confessed her surprise "at the way things had turned out". They were married that spring. A reporter who remembered the shootings requested an interview with Dornford, which was granted. The years in prison had given him a sanguine approach to life. He was clearly a much changed and happy man. Asked if he regretted his past actions he replied.
"There isn't a day I don't think about the deeds I have done and go down on my knees and ask God and the relatives of the deceased to forgive me but what prison has taught me is that there is a purpose to everything in life. Yes I did wrong. I know that and that I should be punished but in a strange way being put in prison led me to Melanie. You might say we were fated to meet."
Three months later his last stay of execution was turned down and he was executed by lethal injection. As part of the recovery process, to bring closure to their grief, the relatives of the murder victims were asked by their group psychiatrist to attend. All did so except for the wife of Nestor Minkes who felt that she had moved on sufficiently all ready and besides she didn't like needles.
As for Pete. He left with his parents for Europe day after the shooting. He had tried to tell his parents about the incident outside the Burgess, Watkins and Dreimeyer building but what with the move and everything they were only half interested in the story of a mass murderer who might have killed their son. Might haves take a poor second place where packing is concerned.