Nadja strolled up to the counter of the hardware store, placing down a handful of random things.

“Find everything alright, miss?” asked the friendly average Joe working the counter.

“Da. Can you tell me…does this paint stick well to metal?” she asked, lightly drumming her right index and middle finger on the cap, in a strange nearly simultaneous pattern, ever so slightly apart. He noticed her highly manicured nails in glossy black, with a blue line down the middle, all of them slightly rounded off to a teardrop point except those two, battered and rounded to the fingertip.

“I’ve never used the metallic rose gold before, but that brand is one of the best. It sticks to nearly everything. You get things done yourself, don’t you?” he asked with a friendly smile.

“And what leads you to this conclusion?” she asked, looking annoyed.

“Pink paint, painter’s tape, metal shelf Pilaster strip, hacksaw, JB-weld quick set, grip tape, and tin snips. You got one hell of a DIY closet project going and judging by the nails, you’d rather do the work yourself than hire someone. My wife always has her nails done, those look expensive but impractical for contracting work. You’re winging it, not afraid to scuff up a little, and you want things done your way, or you’d just spend a little money and have a handyman do it. You got the money. I’m guessing the handyman didn’t see your vision, and disappointed your expectations, so you said: screw it, I’ll do this myself.” He finished.

“You’re very good. My father usually hires the…help. They have been nothing but a failure and a waste of money. I cannot explain to them the simplest thing, so I take care of it myself.” She said with a cold honesty, drumming those two short nails almost unconsciously on the lid in a rapid 1,2 motion. "I have the perfect handyman in mind, he has just not taken the job yet."

“Bass player?” he asked as she looked confused.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“That two finger technique. You got that almost mechanical. I’m a drummer in a little garage band, I know rhythmic patterns when I see it. The two short nails, the timing, not to mention the Goth look and the hoodie. I’m guessing technical death metal.” He asked. She blinked and looked lost.

“Something like that. Technical death does describe it well. Something I just learned myself. How much for the…closet project.” She asked.

“$71.88” he said cheerfully. “Inflation, right?”

“Keep the change.” She said, laying down a hundred.

“Generous, but we can’t accept that. We’re not allowed to take tips. We can donate it to one of the charity buckets. We have one for the children’s hospital and one for the local police dinner."

“Children’s hospital…all of it.” she said with a hint of force to that order, leaving abruptly.

Mike poured a metal tumbler full of cold brew from the tiny fridge, sitting down at his work station. Tanner gave him a hug as she passed through.

“I’m borrowing the bike, I gotta get some fresh air and get out of your hair while you do your thing. I know you do this alone.” She smiled.

“Some things you just do better solo. I’ll teach you the process some day, but for now we just need ammo, and this is a very technical process. Takes longer to explain than it does to do it, and even that isn’t quick.” He sighed. She leaned down and kissed his head.

“Plus your stuffy old music kinda blows and I know you, it helps you work. I’ll give you a few hours, do some scenic riding, and maybe pick up a few things on the way back. Have fun.” She said, stepping out of the U-haul box.

“I said fuck off.” Nadja grumbled as her driver backed away and left her hotel room, locking the door and leaving her to work station. She took a sip from the paper cup of drive-through coffee, setting it on the bed stand, a row of weapons and cases covering the bed, and the wooden dresser table covered in perfectly arranged tools. She cracked her knuckles and put in her earbuds, playing the soothing symphony of a full orchestra, classic Russian opera. She clamped down one of the new pistols, a Ruger 5.7mm in full black, and carefully stared at the silver marker line on it, lining up the tiny little hacksaw and gently making shallow scrapes on the trigger guard.

Mike pressed play on the CD player hanging from the shelf, smooth blues echoing out as he flipped the CNC lathe on, pressed go on the program marked “7mmx11 casings” and watched the cutter move, peeling chips off the shiny magnesium rod behind the blast-proof polycarb window. He grabbed one of the pre-made alloy casings from a plastic screw sorting container with paper labels on each space. Mike placed the casing on the digital scale checking the notebook numbers and lining up each round that passed, setting a few in a cardboard box marked “out of spec” and moved on.

Nadja held up a small piece of the steel pilaster strip, carefully rounding the snipped edges with a nail file as she felt it for smoothness. She pinched it in slightly with a pair of pliers, to narrow the channel a touch more, forming a sort of trigger-covering channel. She placed it on the pistol’s trigger to ensure a lightly snug fit, capping it like a molar and lengthening the trigger by about 60 percent. The trigger cap stuck down well past the now missing bottom of the plastic trigger guard. She nodded with self-approval, stirring the glue vigorously and dabbing it with a toothpick into the metal trigger-extender before squeezing it on with pliers and carefully scraping away the excess glue. She sat back, gently placing it on the bed stand with her coffee, and proceeding to clamp down the much more menacing MPA Defender 5.7mm pistol, grabbing the hacksaw again to cut off the guard.

“Mike chucked-up a small brass bullet into a small hand drill bolted to the bench like a little drill press. Spinning it up and gently filing, he adjusted the point from a blunt nub left by the lathe cutoff tool, into a sharp point, and then switched to some rolled up sandpaper to polish the end to a mirror shine. He placed it on the scale and set it in a row with the others in the plastic box marked “armor piercing”

Nadja placed the zigzag shaped piece of bent and crimped pilaster strip on the Ruger’s grip, forming a new trigger guard wide enough to clear the new extended trigger, hand bending it with a gnashed expression and then checking it again to make sure it was perfect, before vigorously stirring the glue’s 2 part mix, already lined up on the paper plate. She dabbed the guard with some of the glue, sticking it in place and grabbing one of the several pre-cut pieces of grip tape, to secure it on to the handle and frame. She eyeball-checked for straightness and gently placed it on the stand with the sights down like tripod legs, balancing it upside-down as the glue cured.

Mike, opened the door of the CNC lathe, picking out the bits of scrap from the bottom and lightly brushing the chips off the cutting tool. He placed the brass nub into a plastic bowl of similar ones, and scooped the crumbs into a plastic bag with a label reading “casing scraps” and sat it in a plastic container with other bags labeled “magnesium”, “Alloy copper”, “lead”, and “aluminum” respectfully. He opened a whipped crème container full of empty 22 hornet ammunition shells that had been poured full of lead and marked “Hollow point stubs” and placed another one in the jaws of the machine, closing the door and running it again. He took one of the freshly home-made jacketed lead hollowpoints and placed it in a hand made die, pulling down the lever and rounding the nose, dropping it into another container, and repeating the process.

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Nadja carefully trimmed the painter’s tape with scissors, placing it on the Ruger’s exposed barrel in the middle of the slide with gold tweezers from her nail kit, gently pressing it down and placing it on a baking tray with some other parts already covered in the green tape. She walked outside on the hotel balcony, placing the tray down on the glass table, covered in cardboard from the gun show boxes. She stood, smoking a cigarette and shaking the spray-paint can aggressively, and then gently whisping streaks of flat rose gold metallic paint on the tape covered parts. Trying not to get any runs or tear a nail through the blue medical gloves on her hands and end up with paint on them. She flipped on the hair dryer and began carefully warming the freshly painted parts.

Mike began wiping down each one of the bullets and casings with isopropyl alcohol, black butchers disposable gloves on his hands to keep the oil off the rounds. He wiped down the hand press a second time letting it dry before pressing one of the bullets into the solid magnesium explosive casings, checking it with wiped down calipers and then dipping the end of the round with gloss black nail polish before placing it in the row of armor piercing rounds. He closed the cap on the bottle of alcohol, savoring the familiar smell that reminded him a little too much of high proof vodka.

Nadja took a swig from her bottle of Russian vodka, dousing some of it on a paper towel to clean off the tiny bits of overspray on the freshly painted metal, blowing on it to dry, as she touched up the scrapes on the handle with flat black nail polish. She made a smirk of satisfaction and nodded to herself, applying more strips of the black grip tape to cover the rough areas where the new home-made guard met the manufactured polymer handle, holding it out in her hand as if drawing to fire, the slide and barrel still outside with the magazine, pink paint curing in the open air. Holding the empty grip, she made a playful pew sound.

Mike stared intensely as he tapped the tiniest bit of silvery gray powder into a funnel and down into one of the empty 22 hornet brass cases, until the scale numbers matched his notebook. He carefully, with tweezers, placed the brass turned cap into the case, moving it to the hand-press and crimping it down hard, adding it to the bowl marked “Tungsten powder, 240 grain subsonic pistol/carbine” and leaned back for a smoke break, lighting one up and turning on the vent fan as he placed the bottle of tungsten powder back in the drawer. He sighed with relief, lining up a row of shorter magnesium casings out, and placing one of the newly crimped bullets in front of each, changing the press die to the one for pressing in the bullets to the cases. He took a moment to enjoy his cigarette as the blues solo started and Mike just savored it, looking at his creations, taking it in and feeling the obsessive compulsive relief of flawless work done, and he returned to his work.

Nadja racked the slide on her new pistol, enlarged trigger and guard, accents of Champaign pink colored paint, the strange familiarity of it as she placed two fingers on the trigger and pointed it out across the city landscape, savoring the nostalgic success of her completed masterpiece. She closed her eyes and drifted into the violin solo in the earbuds, slowly pulling the trigger and dry-firing the pistol, cocking it and repeating the action several times to get a feel for it, satisfied with her adjustments to the longer trigger and the lightened trigger-pull, that with the slightest pressure delivered the joyful click of the firing pin falling. She racked it again several times, alternating fingers to pull the trigger.

Mike smiled at the Styrofoam bullet holders, each row lined up like a spectrum of options, 45 cased 7mm, hollowpoints, subsonic, armor piercing; 9mm cased 7mm, hollow, subsonic, armor piercing, and the same predictable pattern in the straight cased 7x7mm, all gleaming in a hand sanded silvery white casing with polished and waxed brass and copper tips, obsessively lined up with the table edge for Tanner to see. He returned to the Fostec Shotgun in the gun vise, a green cloth preventing scratches, and the dust cover removed. He gave the anodized receiver a final oil polish before gently guiding it back in its place.

Nadja sat cross-legged on the bed, aggressively sawing at the barrel of her Saiga shotgun, trying to get the barrel as short as possible before running into something important. 2 piles of ammo jingled behind her, dumped out loosely with their cardboard boxes ripped open, settling and silencing as she freed about ten inches of barrel she didn’t want, tossing it in the trash and hitting the end with her nail file enough to remove the burr. She sighed, grinning and starting to tape off everything she wanted to remain factory black, and leaving what would be Champaign pink after a coat of spraypaint. She brushed the metal shavings off her frilly black skirt and onto the bed, not intending to sleep in that one anyway. She looked at her arsenal of toys and picked up her phone, looking devilishly pleased as she typed a reply to a recent text.

Mike turned his head as a message popped up on his laptop screen. He heard the sound of the Bike rolling up, and shortly after, the jingle of keys opening the back door.

“I’m home. Wow, you really got busy in here. Autism much?” she joked, scooting one bullet slightly out of alignment to playfully annoy him a little. He smiled at her, scooting it back.

“I saw that. Have a good ride?” he asked. “I assume you wore a helmet.”

“Uh…that depends. Do you know where the helmet is right now?”

“Yes.” He sighed.

“Then no, I did not remember to wear a helmet. Sorry.” She said, peaking at his screen and looking suspicious. “Mike, I know we’re not like married here, but are you on a dating site?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m working an angle for a potential kill.”

“Oh, please tell me I get to do it.”

“We can do it together, I'll let you take the shot, it’ll be fun. I tracked a phone I thought belonged to a suspect in a local poisoning case, This gal apparently likes to take bartending jobs and put poison in the drinks, slow acting. She just never shows up for work the next day and people die. Just random people, having a drink. Not that I approve of drinking, but it’s hardly worth killing over. 14 deaths, 4 serious hospitalizations. The police closed the case, calling it a suicide, but that’s odd since I keep getting replies to her phone texts. For a dead girl, she’s very chatty and wants to meet me at a bar later. Kinda sounds like she faked her death, doesn't it?”

“So we’re going separate, and I’m backup.” Tanner said disappointed.

“Only until I confirm it’s her, get her in thermals, and we leave the bar. You can make the kill if you want.”

“Aww, you’re the best, Mike. I appreciate the hell out of it. I need a little action, it’s been SOOOOO long since I killed anyone. Can I stab her or do we have to use guns?” she asked playfully, hopping.

“I’m thinking robbery, stab to the heart. Police will be pretty confused when they find out this girl is the Punchbowl Poisoner. Funny how she ends up dead, again.”

“Punchbowl Poisoner? Ugh, who names these killers? The police chief’s kids? So where are we going?” Tanner asked.

“Some place called Neon Lust." he cringed.

“Strip club? Hell yea. Theater and a kill? Hell of a date night. I’m definitely down for some bare tits and a nice jab.”

“We did that Wednesday.” He smirked. Tanner gasped, shocked and holding back the urge to smile for too long, breaking into a grin and silently glaring at him.

“Sir?! Did you just make a sex joke? Michael Spencer Finn, you have become a bona fide pervert. I’m contagious, that’s adorable. I’m so proud of you.” She giggled. “Here I walk in thinking you’re cheating on me with some E-hoe sidepiece, and you’re planning a romantic tandem killing, and making fuck-puns. You’re evolving, Mister Finn.” She said. "You’re becoming something fierce"

“Maybe I’m just finally comfortable enough around someone to be the real me.” He said as another message popped up. Tanner’s eyes got a bit wider as she opened it.

“Oh, well we better not keep miss punchbowl waiting, she’s getting horny as shit. Is that the first picture she’s sent you?”

“No, but it’s the first one like that. Pretty sure that’s flirting, even at my age.” he said looking heated.

“That’s a tramp-stamp bathroom-mirror shot of a star and 2 bullets. With tribal nonsense around it. Really? Aim for the stars? That’s not even a clever caption to a thirst trap pic, I bet she got that tattoo above her full moon literally just to say that to guys. What a hoebag. And the black and white filter? Ugh, so overused.”

Nadja stared in a dreamlike state, at her phone, placing it down on the bathroom counter next to her other phone, one that looked more fitting to her style than the bland white one with the faint tint of blood stained red on the corners of the case. She leaned over the bathroom vanity, touching up her eye shadow. Her shorts rode down, revealing more of the tattoo, the pair of bullets surrounding the red and gold Russian star, and the pair of AK47s below them, with the Russian word for “princess” bannering it together with thorned vines and little pink roses.

“Enjoy the target, Michael. I hope your aim is as good as it used to be.” She whispered to herself in the mirror, giving it a pair of kisses and leaving black lip prints, drawing in lipstick to add the nose cavity and the teeth of the skull behind. A little taunt to the maids.