Heaven Help Us (1985)

 

Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake (Mysterious Press 1985)

 

That produced the comfortable laugh of the professional thinking about amateurs, which Pickens ended, in his carefully paced presentation, by balling up the Guerreran flag, hurling it offstage in the same direction as the rifle, and showing another assault rifle lying on the card table. He picked this one up, held it out in front of him, and said, “Gentlemen, the Valmet.”

“That’s that Finnish fucker!” cried a voice.

“Very good,” Pickens told him, grinning as though he didn’t at all mind having his surprise spoiled. “That’s just what this is, the Finnish M-60 Valmet. Essentially, this is the design of the AK-47 adapted to the needs of Finland. It’s like an AK-47, but it isn’t an AK-47, so it isn’t as familiar as you might think, and if you don’t keep the differences in mind, the head you blow off may be your own.”

He had their attention now. Weapons, travel and money were the only things these fellows cared about, probably in that order. Holding the Valmet out, pointing to its features, Pickens said, “In the first place, you’ll notice it’s all metal, much of it plastic-coated, it doesn’t have the AK’s wooden stock or handguard. That’s fine in a cold country like Finland, but we’re going to a hot country, so keep this thing in the shade. The other thing, you’ll notice it doesn’t have any trigger guard, just this little piece of metal out in front here and nothing down under the trigger at all. The later model, the M-62, they added a skimpy little guard on the bottom, and some of you’ll have those, but mostly we’ve got the original, the M-60. And you see also there’s almost no curve to the trigger itself. Now, the reason for all that is, the Finnish troops have to be able to fire this thing with big heavy mittens on, because of the cold you got up there in Finland. And what it means to you is, you don’t have that guard there where you’re used to it, to protect you if your mind wanders. And your finger wanders.”

A voice from the auditorium called out, “Why the fuck are we taking some fucking North Pole fucking weapon to the fucking tropics?”  A lot of other voices growled agreement with the sentiment.

“Well, now, that’s The People Upstairs,” Pickens said. “They make the decisions, I just implement them. They didn’t want to use Warsaw Bloc weaponry because they don’t want anybody saying the revolution’s Cuban supplied. And they didn’t want to use NATO weapons because they don’t want anybody saying we’re fronting the CIA. And maybe they got a price on these Valmets, I don’t know.”

“It’s always the same fucking thing,” cried a disgusted voice. “They want us to fight the wrong fucking war with the wrong fucking weapons on the wrong fucking terrain at the wrong fucking time of the year.”

“You’re goddamn right!” several voices cried, with variants. More and more of them got into the thing, some rising in their places to make their points, shaking their fists, yelling out their professional opinions.

It was becoming bedlam out there. Pickens hunched his head down into his shoulders, and waited for the storm to subside.

It wasn’t easy, dealing with homicidal maniacs.

Heavenly Pursuits (1986)