Devil With a Gun Read Online Free PDF Page A

was built upon. Her argument was based on her own mother’s story—one I hadn’t heard until that day.
    At a time when women were second-class citizens to their hard-working husbands, my grandmother had grown bored of being a housewife and mother. Starting small, she opened a home business for the neighbors, offering cuts and perms and colors at a very reasonable cost.
    After paying for her supplies, she saved every cent, until one day she had enough to lease a small storefront on Main Street. Her salon was the very first business in town not owned and operated by a man. By the time the Sixties rolled around and feminists began burning their bras and shouting louder about equality, my grandma had already proven that women were more than a man’s equal when it came to business. And although time and gravity had made it too uncomfortable to burn her own bra, my grandma saw nothing wrong with looking one’s best while rattling cages.
    â€œYou’re smiling,” says a woman’s voice. “Happy memory?”
    I look up into a face that’s lean, taut, and overly angular. Her cheekbones are sharp with deep-set eyes more almond-shaped than round. Thin-lipped and blunt-chinned, the young woman has the face of someone who finds her calories in cigarettes, cocaine, or vodka rather than onion bagels.
    With a shorter haircut, she would be fierce, almost scary, but her hair is the tri-tone color of honey and falls in soft curls to her shoulders. And yet, there’s something off. But I can’t put my finger on it, so I dismiss the thought.
    â€œI was thinking of my grandma,” I say. “Are you Bailey?”
    The woman nods and holds out her hand. It’s an unusual gesture and slightly awkward, more something one expects of men when they’re trying hard to be grown-ups. I put her in her mid-twenties. I stand and shake. Her skin is rougher than it should be and on the colder side of room temperature. I can feel small bones move beneath my thumb.
    â€œDo you want to follow me to the sink?” she asks.
    â€œActually, I’m not looking for a haircut. I was hoping we could talk.”
    I dig in my pocket for a business card and hand it over.
    Her forehead wrinkles as she reads the card.
    â€œI recognize your name from the paper.” Her gaze lifts to study my face, comparing it to the grinning picture on my card. “I liked that piece you did awhile back on the dead artist. Tragic.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œIt read like you really knew him.”
    â€œI did. Kind of. Part of him anyway.”
    Her lips tighten into a thin line. “Yeah, guys can be like that. What do you want to talk to me about?”
    â€œYou placed a Classified ad in our paper recently. It intrigued me.”
    â€œReally? You read it?”
    â€œThis morning.”
    â€œHuh. Well, I don’t know what else to say about it.”
    â€œIt was written for your father?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAre you hoping he’ll read it?” I ask.
    She looks away and reaches up to touch her eye. I can’t tell if she’s attempting to stop a tear or just flicking away a loose eyelash.
    â€œI never really thought that far,” she says. “I just had to let it out, you know?”
    I nod. “I find writing cathartic, too.”
    â€œAnd you want to talk to me?”
    â€œIf you’ll let me. Maybe we can go somewhere, grab a coffee, see where it takes us.”
    She looks away again in contemplation before bringing her eyes back to mine. Her gaze is deep as if she wants to pull back the curtains of my mind to see what’s going on inside. I worry she’ll frighten the imaginary clockmaker—who, oddly enough, looks a lot like Geppetto from the Disney version of Pinocchio —who keeps all my gears oiled and rolling.
    â€œGive me a minute,” she says and heads to the back room.
    I sit down again and shuffle through the magazines to see which