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me. “How many rounds in the magazine of the Love 32?”
    “There are two ways to answer that. As you see it now, the magazine holds eight thirty-two-caliber ACP rounds, and one in the chamber if you want. It weighs twenty-nine ounces, it’s seven and three-sixteenths inches long, blowback operated, with an alloy frame, sixteen grooves of right-hand rifling, and a trigger pull of four and a half pounds.”
    I drop the magazine to the bench top, rack the Love to make sure the chamber is empty, then close the slide and lower the hammer and hand the gun to Smith.
    “It’s heavy.”
    “There’s a reason for that.”
    Smith hefts the gun, then aims it one-handed at the station four target fifty feet away. “But the balance is good.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I don’t love the thirty-two ACP load,” says Bradley. “It’s slow and it doesn’t hit hard.”
    “There’s a reason for that, too,” I say. “The load, I mean. Why I chose the thirty-two ACP.”
    “Sounds like you’ve got all sorts of reasons, Mr. Pace.”
    “Just Ron is fine.”
    “Ron. The Ron of Reason.”
    “Just a few reasons, actually. Want to fire it?”
    “I don’t want my people carrying thirty-twos, I can tell you that right now. I don’t care how good a deal you’ll make me.”
    “Fine. Just fire it. Glasses on the bench there.”
    I get some ammo from the gun safe and thumb the shells into the magazine. Bradley slaps the magazine home, stands and plants eight bullets in the black at fifty feet.
    What a sound. Just like the old days. Even fancy acoustics can’t keep a handgun from sounding like a handgun. I inhale the wonderful smell of exploded gunpowder and watch the brass bounce and roll around the carpet.
    “Dope trigger,” he says. “Those four and a half pounds are smooth as butter.”
    “Here.” I reload the gun and hand it back to him. I listen to the sound of music as eight more circles of light appear in the black body of the enemy.
    He pops the magazine, checks the chamber, safes the gun, and tosses it to me. “I still can’t arm my men and women with it, Ron. Try stopping a drunk, three-hundred-pound Tutsi warlord with this thing. Or some cranked-up Detroit carjacker.”
    I nod and look at the target, then back at Bradley. “Appearances are deceiving.”
    “Stopping-power isn’t.”
    “Watch this.” I give him a wry look and glance at my fake Rolex. Then I set the gun on the bench and use a punch from my pocketknife to push the frame pins through. Then I pry the frame apart, exposing the inner firing and reloading and eject mechanisms.
    “You can use an eight-penny nail for that matter,” I say. “Toss me those needle-nose from off the box there, will you?”
    I catch the pliers midair and swoop them down into the body of the Love 32. I invert the trigger bar pin, remove the catch spring, reposition the detente notch of the extractor, and reverse the block plate and line up the witness marks. It takes twenty seconds, and another fifteen to position the frame and drive the pins back in with the punch.
    “Less than a minute,” says Bradley.
    “It was exactly fifty seconds. My personal best is thirty-six, but that was after two beers. After three beers, my time went up fast.”
    “Really? Will it really fire full auto?”
    “Behold.” I remove the extra-capacity magazine from the lacquered box and push in fifty rounds. This takes a little time, but we say nothing. I slam it home and now the Love 32 has eight inches of gracefully curving clip extending below the grip.
    Then, holding the gun in my right hand, I cup my left hand over the back of the frame near the magazine release, and I simultaneously depress two inset buttons. This releases the telescoping graphite butt. It’s like the retractable handle on a piece of rolling luggage, but of narrower gauge and shorter. Fully extended at fifteen inches, the rubber-backed butt can then be braced against the crook of the shooter’s elbow, rib cage, or even hip. It