City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

exploded in a geyser of blood, skull, and brains. The impact lifted him as if gravity had been temporarily suspended, and he flew up and back before gravity had its way again and he hit the ground with a hard thud.

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw a sawed-off in the hand of a scraggly man coming toward Don. It never made it. Don fired twice into his chest, dropping him. Next, Don opened the door and rolled to the dirt prone, where he put two more shots into the third man, who had the added misfortune of having his gun snag in his waistband.

By this time, I was out and using the door as a shield as a shot went wild. The shooter saw me take aim and panicked, turning to run as I squeezed the trigger three times, spinning him like a top until he landed in a red-stained heap.

The last one looked into the citrus trees, calculating.

“Don’t make me kill you.” Don said it in a chilly conversational voice. “This is the police.”

He raised his hands, eyes torn between terror and defeat.

Less than a minute had transpired.

Twenty minutes later, the road was crawling with deputy sheriffs, then Phoenix cops, then meat wagons. Victoria’s Nash came screaming at sixty, a cloud of dust behind it, reaching a hard stop. When our eyes met, she ran without even a camera.

“Gene, my God, are you all right?”

“I am.” I gave her the quick story.

She hugged me a long time, and I allowed myself the shakes. My ears were still ringing from the gunshots. Then she went back to her car, fetched a camera, and got to work.

* * *

The next morning’s Republic had us in bold capital letters:

COP, P.I. TAKE ESCAPEES IN GUNFIGHT

Then the decks:

Three Cons Dead

Two Surrender In Bloody Clash

Hero Hammons Brothers

Credited With Stopping

Spree After County Jail Break

Alongside the story was a V. Vasquez photograph. Aside from the cops and meat wagons, I had to say my Ford looked good.

Eight

The most annoying question posed to a Great War veteran was whether you had killed anyone over there. I usually lied and said I was stationed behind the lines in the Quartermaster Corps. Now, however, there was no denying it. Sheriff McFadden assured us the shoot-out was self-defense and that the county attorney wouldn’t even present it to a grand jury.

That didn’t stop violence from pursuing me into the weekend.

Victoria and I went dancing at the Riverside Ballroom Saturday night. A big band from Oklahoma City was playing swing, and Victoria is a good dancer. We did the foxtrot and the new jitterbug until we were exhausted and sweaty, then a slow number placed us in each other’s arms, close. That perspiration only made her more beautiful.

The evening was cold and overcast when we’d arrived at the ballroom. When we came out later it was snowing. Snow in Phoenix! Neither of us had ever seen it, and we goofed around catching flakes on our tongues. That was the best we could do, with most of the snow melting when it hit the ground.

The snow turned to rain as we drove back to town, and when we crossed the railroad tracks on Central, three squad cars went speeding north with red spotlights and sirens. Victoria put down the gas and followed them.

I could only imagine Don’s reaction to me allowing myself to be driven by a woman, but she usually drove us in her car, where she kept her cameras. I tuned her car radio to KGZJ, the new police frequency—the first police radio operation in the state. They were responding to a robbery at the Pay’n Takit market on Virginia Street at Central, almost out of the city limits. We were there in less than five minutes. I stayed in the car while she grabbed her Speed Graphic and walked into the scene.

She would probably mostly be taking photos for the department, which irritated her because the city paid less than the AP or UP, and, because of the Depression, the city didn’t pay on time. It was strange sitting there, as the uniforms milled around in their peaked caps and Sam Browne belts with shoulder straps, then as the night detectives arrived. That used to be my life not so long ago. I might be the one interviewing witnesses, examining evidence, taking notes, and calming people down. Now I was only a civilian sitting in the passenger seat.

Half an hour later she slid in on the driver’s side, handing me her camera to hold, and gave me a quick rundown. It was a stickup gone wrong, with two dead, one of the robbers and a reserve police officer.

For a small city, Phoenix had its share of crime. Earlier that month, Penney’s had been robbed right down the street from my office.

I could see my hopes for the rest of the evening evaporate into the night like water on a summer sidewalk. She had to develop film, give most of the prints to the detectives for their case, and one or two for the wire services, and maybe for Monday’s Phoenix Gazette. She dropped me off at my apartment on Portland and sped toward downtown.

Upstairs, I waited a long time, sitting in the chill air on my sleeping porch, wrapped in a blanket, smoking and replaying the gunfight outside the citrus groves in my head, glad I had retrieved my .45 in time.

Victoria never made it back that night. But I was still sitting there around two when I noticed a match flare up in a dark late-model, four-door Chevy parked against the south side of the parkway. It had been there the entire time I was lounging on the sleeping porch. I stayed another hour, watching. Was it a coincidence, or was I being watched?

On Sunday, I went to early mass with Victoria at Immaculate Heart of Mary church. The Mexican community had built it in the twenties because St. Mary’s segregated its masses. As usual, I