"You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Rachel," Pembleton said.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe," Rachel said.
"What the hell are those two talking about now?" Lewis said.
"I have no idea," Bayliss said.
"So you're saying you do like guns, then?" Pembleton said.
"I dunno, I guess. You know, maybe I could show you what I saw. Then you'd believe me. Here, give me your gun, and—"
"That's a good idea—a demonstration—but I'm not giving you my gun. Use your binoculars instead."
Rachel looked disappointed and for a moment seemed inclined to pout and try to get her way through being cute or girly, but that quickly disappeared. She said, "I could do that, but it wouldn't really be too accurate of a recreation, would it?"
Damn, Frank thought. Wordlessly, he took his gun out of its holster. He slid out the clip and checked the chamber to make sure it was empty. He put the clip into the pocket formerly occupied by his handkerchief and handed the gun butt-first to Rachel. She took it gingerly and looked surprised at how heavy it was, making it clear that she had no firsthand experience with weapons.
"I can stand up, right?" Rachel asked timidly. "Can I stand in front of the table so you can really see?"
"Sure," Pembleton said. He watched as she walked around the table, her hand curled around the grip of the gun, her index finger around the trigger.
"Okay, here's what I'm going to do: first I'll show it to you from the front, then from the back, so you can see what I saw."
"Go ahead."
"Okay." Rachel held the gun, pointing it at the wall. "So the wall is Meldrick Lewis. I'm Luther Mahoney. I've got the gun on Meldrick Lewis. You're Michael Kellerman. You come in and put your gun on me. You talk to me and I get the idea that maybe I should lower my gun." Rachel lowered her arm but kept her elbow crooked. The hand holding the gun wavered up and down slightly so that sometimes it was pointed at the ground, sometimes pointed at the wall. "Notice that I'm standing kind of unsteadily. Luther Mahoney was shaky from the beating, I could see that. But all of a sudden he goes still, like he's gathering some inner strength. But to contrast the rest of his body going slack, his arm tenses, and that's how I could tell that he was about to make a sudden move to raise the gun and shoot Meldrick Lewis. And luckily before he can, Michael Kellerman shoots him. And see, he only lets go of the gun after a few seconds. He had a good grip on the gun."
Rachel demonstrated this, and then fell to the floor, only letting the gun go in the last second before she hit the floor.
She got up and said, "Imagine if the scenario had been different. Imagine if Luther Mahoney were intending to drop the gun, watch how it would be instead."