Free The Cold Spot by Tom Piccirilli

keep up with the boxing to stay fit. He set up a heavy bag, speed bag, and some wrestling mats in the garage. Lila stocked most of her guns out there in a couple of wide lockers that she kept locked. While he worked the bag, skipped rope, or shadowboxed, she’d oil her weapons over on the workbench, pull them apart, and snap them back together. His old burglary tools were wrapped up in a gym bag stashed in the crawl space.
    She asked him, “You ever handle a pistol besides mine that night?”
    “Not many,” he told her. “But I know guns. A couple of guys I used to run with were purveyors. Suppliers, not hitters. They taught me a lot.”
    “You want to learn about shooting?”
    “I think I know all I need to.”
    “You might be surprised. You’re in Mississippi now, sweetness.”
    “People bleed here if you shoot them in the leg just like they do anywhere else. I’m almost sure I’ve seen a practical demonstration of that someplace.”
    “I reckon I recall seeing something along those lines myself.”
    She didn’t push any further although he knew that his hatred for firearms ran counter to everything she knew. Her father had taught her how to shoot when she was three—goddamn three. But between his mother’s murder and having seen Jonah tapping Walcroft, he had an aversion that almost bordered on phobia.
    He was a driver. No driver he’d ever heard about carried a gun, at least not on the job. A wheelman sat in the car, kept his nerve, and waited for his crew even as the alarms went off and the sirens whipped closer.
    After he’d finished his workout he stood there pouring sweat, watching her while she finished cleaning her .38. He reached around her and picked up the bottle of gun oil and said, “This have any other uses?”
    “Hell, we got us some cherry, cinnamon, and scented oils for just those kind of improper thoughts and unsavorish doings.”
    “I don’t remember the cinnamon.”
    “No? It was a wedding present from Judge Kelton.”
    He frowned and licked his teeth, the taste already in his mouth, and said, “If you don’t ever want my mood to sink, please don’t tell me things like that.”
    “Just give me a minute to put my sidearm away and we’ll work on that sinking mood, see if we can’t elevate it some.”
    “I have complete faith,” he said, and it turned out not to be misplaced.
             
    Another time, she stood in the center of the mats and said, “You want I should show you some moves?”
    “I’ve got the moves, thank you anyway.”
    “Ain’t talking about those, which are adequate at best.”
    “Hey, now—”
    “I’m talking about these.”
    She got behind him, reached forward and wrapped her right arm around his neck, thrust his chin aside with the back of her hand, and flipped him backward over her hip. He rose five feet into the air and came down flat on his back. It stunned him and his head swam. She got on top of him, turned him over, cuffed him, and pinned him so he couldn’t breathe. With his vision starting to go black at the edges, maybe five or ten seconds from passing out, she finally climbed off.
    He lay there groaning for a while until he got his breath back. He realized, with a swelling sadness, that somewhere inside her she resented how their first meeting had gone—if he hadn’t gotten the drop on her, she would’ve kicked his ass. He sputtered and gasped. “You really think I’m only adequate?”
    “But with a touch of potential in some areas,” she said, and left him cuffed on the mat while she yanked down his sweatpants and took degenerate advantage of him.
             
    After a year of trying, they drove up to St. Louis to see a specialist. The tests included a lot of unholy acts against him, Chase thought, including the forced and unnatural congress with a Dixie cup, but when he complained about these misdeeds against his flesh Lila got the giggles so bad she nearly flopped off the chair.
    Easy for her to dismiss. But