The Guilty - Jason Pinter [48]
"Then you'll make a fine beat journalist. Live with exposed
brick and take the subway because you can't afford taxis."
"That's not why I do this job."
"Of course it's not," Jack said. "But in any industry, the
money level rises as the talent itself does. The better you are,
the more you're needed. And when the money comes, so does
love. It might not be the forever kind of love people with shitty
mortgages have, it might not last until you die, but it's good
enough to make you smile every once in a while. And that's what
life is about, in the end. When you stare into the abyss, you want
a smile to come back at you. Even if it's just sometimes."
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"I have that," I said. I felt a pressure on my chest. I took a
sip of beer and swallowed it down.
"You try to make everyone happy, you wind up making
nobody happy. Anyway," Jack said, raising his glass, "here's
to the story. Let's find out more about this asshole, and hopefully put an end to it. Keep digging, Henry. Just don't stand
too close to the hole."
22
I needed to find out who might have gotten hold of an authentic 1873 Winchester, and how. Thankfully Jack had managed to pull together a file of many major gun collectors and
museums. It was a haystack, to be sure, but one of these haystacks either sold their needle, or had it stolen. Jack had given
me another thread, and now I needed to pull.
I went to the office, turned on my computer and ran a
search for "Winchester 1873" and "stolen."
Only 149 hits came back. I searched through every entry,
looking for anything that could be a piece of thread. Most of
the articles were police and newspaper reports of replica Winchesters stolen from gun shows. No help there. I wasn't
looking for a replica. Whoever was using that gun was using
the real deal. None of the 149 hits went anywhere that looked
promising.
I ran a new search, this time for "Winchester 1873" and
"museum." Over four hundred responses came back. I refined
my search by adding the words "authentic" and "working."
Now we were down to thirty-two hits.
I sifted through each entry, arriving at the estimation of
fifteen museums in the United States that listed authentic
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Winchester 1873 rifles among their collections, along with
some sort of reference to the gun being in working condition.
My first call was to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and
Museum, located in Waco. I got an automated system, pressed
zero for the operator. A nice woman with a wonderful Southern drawl picked up the phone.
"Ranger Museum, how may I help ya?"
"Hi, do you still have an exhibit featuring the Winchester
1873 rifle?"
"Gun that won the West, we surely do. It's open from nine
ayem to six pee-yem. Day passes are a dollar fifty, yearround pass is twelve dollars. That's the better deal, y'ask
me."
"How long have you had that rifle?"
"Oh, heck, I've been here three years and it's been here
long as I have, I'd have to ask for sure though."
"And you've had no other rifles come and go since then?"
"Why no...may I ask your interest?"
"That's okay, I appreciate the help." I hung up.
I called ten more museums. Each one could currently
account for their Winchesters, and had seen none go missing
in recent memory.
Then I dialed the twelfth number on my contact sheet, the
Museum of Outlaws and Lawmen in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
"MOL Museum, this is Rex speaking."
"Hi, Rex, I'm calling because I read somewhere that you
have an authentic, working Winchester 1873 rifle in stock. Is
that true?"
"It ain't in stock," Rex said, "this is a museum, not a
sidewalk sale, son."
"Sorry, but you do have one."
"Why yes, sir, we do."
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Jason Pinter
"Just one?"
There was a split second of silence before Rex answered,
and I picked up on it.
"Why, yes, one's just about all we need."
"Have any rifles come in or left the museum for any reason
over the last year?"
"Listen, you care to tell me what all these questions are
about?"
"I was just wondering..."
"Our gun is here, it's in great shape and it looks a lot better