Page 165 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

His Brother’s Keeper

Every morning, Harry had to remove the guns from the
safe and put them in the display case, and every evening he had
to reverse the procedure. There were about a hundred guns.
When customers came to inquire about the guns, Harry would
barely talk to them. But none of the would-be gun buyers gave
a hoot about his attitude. Most of them knew what they want-
ed: those little Saturday night specials, easy to conceal. And
bullets. He had to sell them bullets, too. For target practice.
They needed a concealed weapon and bullets for target prac-
tice.

Ed handed the gun to Harry.

“Here. Have a look,” he said. Reluctantly, Harry picked up
the gun by the handle.

“Heavy,” he said, surprised at the weight.

“Surprised me,” Ed said, sitting back down on the couch.
He didn’t seem at all depressed now, talking about the gun as
if it was fun, not at all depressing, this talk about guns and
suicide, not at all like talking about his brother.
“Look,” Harry said, still holding on to the gun, “let’s stop
talking about guns and get serious. You sounded pretty bad on
the phone and I was worried.”

“You were worried,” Ed said, halfway between a question
and a simple statement of fact. “You were worried that…” His
voice trailed off and he buried his face in his hand.

Harry moved over to the couch with the gun still in his
hand. He sat next to Ed and put his free hand around his shoul-
ders. This wasn’t going to be a repeat of the last time, Harry

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