4 Shot Off The Presses Read Online Free

lot about Brick. He’d only been with the paper about two months. He worked nights, laying out the pages for the sports department. From what I had heard, he was kind of a weird guy. He brought a four-course meal into the paper every night to cook in the kitchenette – usually that included some sort of game animal as the main dish – and he was a rabid Pittsburgh Steelers fan. That was enough for me to dislike him without even speaking to him.
    “You don’t like MAG?” I directed the question to Brick warily. Seriously, what were his parents thinking when they named him Brick? I had to wonder if that was his real name. One of the other reporters had tried to adopt a penname of Turk a few months ago – but he was laughed at so much he had dropped it relatively quickly. Maybe Brick had done the same thing?
    “That group’s whole goal is to make sure that no self-respecting man can own a gun,” Brick replied bitterly.
    “Man? Or person?” I didn’t like his tone.
    “Does it matter?”
    Apparently not to Brick. “I thought they were only against assault weapons and large magazines,” I finally said, mostly to fill the uncomfortable silence. I wasn’t sure what my stance on gun control was, and I wasn’t really in the mood to discuss it with a guy named Brick.
    “That’s an invasion of my privacy,” Brick said angrily. “I have a right to protect myself. The Second Amendment gives me that right.”
    “Do you have an assault weapon?”
    Fish looked up curiously. “Yeah, Killer, do you have an assault weapon?”
    “That’s none of your business,” Brick said coolly. “As a law-abiding citizen – and a veteran – I have the right to arm myself anyway I see fit.”
    I glanced down at Brick’s camouflage pants and combat boots and then let my gaze wander up to his broad shoulders and aggressive stance. He was actually pretty short – only about two inches taller than me – which put him around 5’7” tall. I had a feeling his aggressive people skills had something to do with Little Man’s Syndrome. I was used to dealing with it when I interacted with Derrick, so I was familiar with the sudden fits of rage that accompanied the malady. I realized, pretty quickly I might add, that I had no inclination to argue with Brick – even if I thought he was probably a prime example of someone that shouldn’t own a gun.
    “Yeah, it’s your right.”
    Fish smirked at me and then focused on Brick. “You said you were a veteran?”
    “Yeah,” Brick nodded. “Now you have a thing about veterans?”
    “No,” Fish shook his head quickly. He was clearly nervous around our new employee. It was interesting – and something I was going to file away for future reference (or blackmail material when I didn’t want to cover a specific story). “I was just wondering if you know any snipers?”
    “Why?” Brick was obviously a guy that didn’t trust anyone. He had a certain air of paranoia wafting around him.
    “Because someone just took a shot at a driver from a freeway bridge over on Cass,” Fish said. “I’m assuming, with your knowledge of weapons, you would know how hard of a shot that was.”
    Brick visibly relaxed. “Oh, yeah, I would think that’s a pretty hard shot. How open is the bridge?”
    I described the area to him and waited.
    “It’s wide open?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I guess it depends,” Brick said finally.
    “On what?”
    “Whether it was a specific target or not.”
    That actually made sense. “Say it was a specific target. Say the shooter picked out a specific person in a specific vehicle.”
    “They you’re probably looking at someone that either has military training or has spent a lot of time practicing.”
    “What if it was random?”
    “Then you probably only need someone with a basic knowledge of how a gun works and a little bit of luck,” Brick replied matter-of-factly.
    Well, that opened up the suspect pool drastically.
    “So, basically, you’re saying we need to know