Heavy
"God damn, I need a cigarette."
It was difficult to see anything around him. Darkness, tunnel vision, and gunsmoke lurked in a windless cloud that surrounded his senses. His heartbeat should have been a kettledrum in his ears, but he could hardly even hear himself speak.
Hands barely trembling, the detective replaced a partially spent magazine. Operating in the dark, leaning on training and instinct, he moved quickly through the parking lot. He leapfrogged from the cover of one car before approaching another. One jungle was just as good as another, even if leaves had been replaced by steel.
Safety glass spiderwebbed just above his head and he flattened himself on the blacktop.
In the yellow glow of a lonely overhead light, he saw movement of stark white athletic shoes.
Quickly and quietly, the green glow of his front sight found the splash of red that Nike never intended as a target.
Daylight and thunder, a scream and a curse.
Two more thunderclaps and the cursing stopped.
Groaning, the old man climbed up from the pavement and hobbled to where another man would never learn how to be old.
Holstering, he had that cigarette before calling it in.