A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [96]
Porter’s eyes widened. “Springfield!” he cried.
“Browning!” she exclaimed.
“Luger,” he cried.
“Smith & Wesson,” she said.
“Remington Viper,” he cried.
“Glock. Don’t forget Glock!” she said.
“Markov, Walther!” he retorted with a double.
“H and K,” she said.
“Mauser parabellum,” he cried.
“Anschutz,” she sang.
“Magnum! All sorts of mags,” he cried.
“I quit, you win,” Maud said. “Mags are it.”
King Porter was breathing hard and smiling at winnership.
“You start thinking about a few Sandis, or Debbies or Tracis on the cover.”
“What about Dixie?” he said, miffed. “I’m not turning Weaponry into a pornographic sex magazine.”
“Sex?” she said. “What the hell do you think this is all about, King? Guns are the little people’s sex machines. Hell, they are nothing more than the extension of a cock. Bang! The ultimate orgasm! Guns make pissants at the end of the bar as big as Hulk himself. Guns equalize the oppressed in his never-ending battle with the oppressor. Guns are empowerment!”
For a moment King Porter was in a little clapboard church in a gully by the creek at a footstomping tirade by its preacher. He snapped back to consciousness.
“The Combine is sending some designers to work on Weaponry. Maybe we’ll have a miss bang-bang beauty pageant. Let’s sell fifty thousand of them from newsstands and not hide them inside our raincoats. Let’s get ads from Ford trucks and Seagrams and AT&T instead of all those chewing-tobacco ads. Let’s have stories written by real writers.”
Maud was tipsy. She managed to get into the elevator. King watched the circle. The Ferrari took off at a volume that shook the leaves on the trees. Maud Traynor’s red Ferrari screamed down the Alamo’s long driveway and onto the highway. King stood watching on his balcony and taking a few puffs from his inhalator, his baby blanket for years. Hope the bitch is found in scattered pieces at the bottom of a ditch, he wheezed to himself. Suppose she doesn’t run off the road, he thought; maybe I’d better tip off the state patrol there’s a dangerous drunk on the road.
The red tide of liberals was poisoning the country. No longer was he able to use “friendly persuasion” to make certain commies didn’t get on university teaching staffs and the subjects were kept pearly clean. No longer could he visit the local sheriffs and see that things were open for the gun clubs and shooting programs. It was even getting difficult to sway local and state government officials.
The colors outside flamed along with his red orange mood. His capacity to terrify had slithered away. He was in eternal battle, often with his own board.
And came the final humiliation, of exiling AMERIGUN to a puny reconverted hundred-year-old hotel. The Alamo! He had named it, and the Alamo would be heard from again.
King stared out to the land sloping down from the Alamo. He had plans of his own for the acreage he’d optioned all around. One day the Alamo would be the center of an AMERIGUN heritage park!
Great battles of our history would be reenacted. He, King Porter, would lead the first charge up San Juan Hill. Charge!
Kiddie rides on trains or a river would take them through virtual battlefields; Belleau Wood, the Normandy invasion, Iwo Jima, where a kid could plant a flag, Yorktown, and well…even Gettysburg.
And…and…and the Hall of the Great Gunfighters. For a dollar a kid could buckle up and fast-draw with a laser pistol against Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and…and…and…Doc Holliday.
And…and…a very subdued, shrouded building depicting the demise of John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd and a scad of Mafia gangsters including Capone and…and the guy in the Texas tower sniping people on the ground…
And the heroes, the buffalo hunters and men who tamed Indians and the West. John Wayne, Jesse James, Davy Crockett!
And the kids could buy a replica