Free The Feud by Thomas Berger Page B

it. I need that gun permit.”
    Harvey threw back his big head. His police-chief’s cap had ventilating wickerwork below the cloth crown. He said, “I’ll tell you, Dolf. You want a good self-defense weapon, you do better to get yourself a twelve-gauge double. You don’t need a permit for that. You’re legal ‘slong as you carry it broke open and unloaded and you don’t cut it down or conceal it. Heck, you could be going trap shooting, perfectly legal. But I tell you this, anybody sees what you’re carrying, they ain’t gonna give you any trouble.”
    “Unless they drill you from ambush!” said Jack. “Bushwhack you.”
    Tony said, “You know who might have a distributor cap? Shorty Rundle. He’s got everything down in that junkyard. And he’s always around on Sundays, ‘cause he lives there. I’m gonna go see. O.K. to use your bike, Jack?”
    “It’s yours, isn’t it?”
    “I gave it to you,” said Tony. “You know that.” He went into the garage.
    Harvey said, “I got to get on over to the ball field now, Dolf. The kids been coming there lately of a Sunday to play touch football, and they get in trouble sometime if you don’t watch ‘em.”
    Tony shot out of the garage on the bicycle he had ridden for years and only recently given to Jack, and pedaled rapidly up the alley. Bernice was fond of both of her brothers, who were some distance from her in age and of course experience of life. Jack was good-looking enough to be a real lady-killer when the time came. When she was eighteen and he ten, Bernice used to wrestle with him: sometimes she could feel that his little thing, pressed against her in some hold, was hard as a nut.
    Harvey went toward the cruiser. Jack followed, asking, “You want me to interrogate these people, Chief? Maybe they will remember something when the dust settles.”
    “You leave them alone,” said Harvey. He opened the door of the car, and then looked over at Bernice for the first time. “You want a lift to the bus stop?”
    She gave him a dazzling smile. “Why sure, if you don’t mind. That’d be real nice.”
    “I thought you were staying for supper,” said Jack, surprised by this new move.
    Bernice wrinkled her nose. “Gee, I’d of liked to, but somepin came up.” She went to her father, who was still staring dolefully at the car. “It turns out I got to go back to town now, Papa, and Harvey’s gonna gimme a lift to the bus, so you don’t have to, and anyway your car’s on the fritz now, ain’t it?”
    He nodded sluggishly. “Sure, Bernice. Now you just take care.” This thing was hitting him hard.
    “It’ll all come out all right,” Bernice said, patting him on his fat back. She had seen her mother talking to Mrs. Kunkle, from across the alley three houses down, and she did not want to approach them, for Mrs. Kunkle suspected her of having done it with Mr. Kunkle, who taught civics at the high school, whereas Bernice was innocent for once, having only let him kiss and feel her sometimes after hours, so as to get a passing grade. She now asked her dad, “Tell Mama for me. I got to go now.”
    She went to the cruiser and got in. Harvey did not look as old as her father did, maybe because he had no kids. His wife was known as a sickly person and was hardly ever seen out of the house.
    Harvey remained silent until he pulled out of the alley onto the street. Then he said, “I hear you been doing all right for yourself, Bernice, and I’m glad to hear that.”
    “Oh, I ain’t in the poorhouse yet, Harvey. I’m still working on my first million, but I got nice friends.”
    A striped rubber ball came from nowhere and rolled across the street, half a block ahead. Harvey drove to it, stopped the cruiser, and got out. By this time a kid about ten years of age had come running from between the houses. He skidded to a halt when he saw the police car.
    Harvey said, “You know better than that, Willis. You oughtn’t play ball so it comes into the street. You