Jon Talton - Dry Heat

I couldn’t tell if he was directing that at me or at Yuri, but as if the Russian could hear us, he veered off to the left on a side street. The Hummer strained against simple physics, and for a moment it was on two wheels. This is it, I thought. But somehow he made the turn. I pumped the brake and took the turn at fifty, hearing the wheels scream and-I swear-something like rivets popping somewhere in the chassis. But the Olds felt steady once we were going straight again. I pushed it, and we came within a car length of the black Hummer.

In an instant, the Russian made a right and tore across a lawn. I hesitated only a second. He crashed through a stucco wall, which didn’t hold him. I followed. My peripheral vision caught a large patio, expensively outfitted with one of those outdoor grills that was bigger than our kitchen. A poolside flashed by. Then we were enveloped in green.

“I played here just last week,” Peralta said. “Dammit, he’s going to ruin the grass.”

The Hummer sped out onto the Gainey Ranch golf course. Only the dust storm prevented the potential carnage of a foursome in his path. He plowed through a rough and went due south, cutting tracks into the fairway. I avoided the rough and followed.

“Put the top down!” Peralta commanded. He had already pulled the hand release on his side and I popped the lever above my head. Then I depressed the button on the dash and the roof went away, propelled by forty-year-old mechanics and a stiff wind. I coughed from the dust. Then I saw Peralta’s white shirt and slacks levitating, and he was standing. His tie was blown back over his shoulder and he had the shotgun in his hands.

“Hang on!” I yelled and punched the accelerator. The Olds advanced to within maybe ten feet of the Hummer’s rear end and Peralta let loose a shot. The rear window became a spider’s web. The second round shattered the glass entirely. But the Russian cut sharply, and when I moved to keep up with him, Peralta fell back into his seat. The Hummer went through a low hedge, over a curb, and into a parking lot. In the rearview mirror I could see a forlorn groundskeeper chasing us, cursing us.

The Olds’ tires hit the asphalt with a yelp and we were moving again. I followed the Hummer back to the west through pricey residential streets, tasting dust and particles in my mouth. Then we turned on Scottsdale Road again, neatly avoiding the stop sticks, which sat useless several blocks to the north. I glanced at Peralta, who was cradling the shotgun.

“Are you still using those hot loads that are against department regulations?” he demanded. Hot loads were custom bullets made for maximum stopping power. The downside: sometimes they could go completely through the suspect and take out three civilians and two walls. My gunsmith assured me that wouldn’t happen with the ones I carried.

“Are you?”

I said, “Yes. I need an edge. I’m just a bookworm, remember.”

“Good,” he said. “Get me close again.”

I glanced at him, and there was a look in his eyes I had only seen two or three times in our twenty-five years of friendship. Something primal, bloody-minded, and irrational, as if his riff about the Aztec blood coursing through his veins was not entirely hyperbole. He was close to a cop killer, even if the cop had been a female computer nerd. He was operating on something not well understood in university lecture halls.

Getting close again wasn’t easy. We flew south into denser parts of Scottsdale, past Lincoln, McDonald, and Chaparral. But traffic was heavy, the visibility was worse, and the Russian kept changing lanes every few seconds. I could see red and blue lights behind us, but they kept falling back. The Olds didn’t handle with the precision of a sports car. Instead, it surged. But it was ultimately fast, inevitable. I understood why the drug dealer liked it, besides his passion for preserving a little history of the automotive age. But it was a crazy fast thought, one I would only remember later. We were going so fast.

At Camelback, the Hummer struck a glancing blow at a Scottsdale Police cruiser; the big rig barely slowed while the front of the car was trashed. We swerved through the intersection, debris snapping against the floor of the Olds. The Russian took the oncoming fast lane across the Arizona Canal bridge, then came back into the southbound lanes. I followed. Fifth Avenue flashed by, obscured by dust. Particles tried to get under my eyelids, clung to my lashes. Lines of SUVs, minivans, BMWs, and old heaps were left behind.

“Goddamn it, David,” Peralta shouted. “We’re going to lose this cocksucker again!”

Indian School Road and Old Scottsdale were coming up fast. There were no police units in sight.

“No, we’re not!” I shouted back. “Buckle up, goddamn it!”

It was a millisecond of opportunity, and only a fool would have tried it. I would never have done it. But I did. The Russian had to brake suddenly to avoid a gargantuan Escalade that was stuck in the middle of the intersection. He jerked right, slowing again to keep from flipping into the Starbucks. I put on the power and slid left around the Escalade. I forced the wheel hard to the right, catching the rear end just before it fishtailed. A truck was coming west on Indian School. I beat him through the rat hole that had opened in traffic. Suddenly I was just ahead of the Russian. I said good-bye to the Olds and rammed into the Hummer’s left fender. The car jerked. The eerie sound of sheet steel being crushed and bent filled the air. The steering wheel bit back at my hands as the Hummer threatened to push us aside or over. I saw Peralta gripping the dashboard. But I was not unarmed: the 442-cubic-inch engine of the Oldsmobile was under my control. I fought to keep the wheel to the right and slammed my foot into the gas.

Brick and glass came up fast. Then a sound like an explosion.

We were suddenly in a stationary world. I stared at the ruined front of an art gallery. My collarbone ached against the trusty shoulder strap. Give me a couple minutes and I might have thrown up.

“David!”

I focused on the big man next to me. It was Sheriff Peralta.

“Shit!” He fell backwards against me before the first burst of fire raked across what was left of the Oldsmobile. Then he rose quickly and fired three rounds from the shotgun. I unfastened the belt and pulled on the door handle. Miracle: the door survived, and opened like its first day in the showroom. I rolled out onto the pavement, feeling glass puncture my knees. Peralta scuttled out behind me. And for a long thirty-second count we huddled against the side of the car. Then Peralta mouthed “Go,” and I came around the backside, toward the carcass of the Hummer. My arm rebelled against the weight of the Colt, which at first shook in my hand. I moved fast behind the Olds’ rear bumper, knowing Peralta was going around the front. But nothing was left in the Hummer but the remains of the airbags. We sprinted through the debris of the gallery toward the back door, which lay open. I tried to remember everything from the academy, two and a half decades ago. But my legs were rubbery and holding the gun in a combat stance seemed to take superhuman effort.

We came into the alley. Somewhere over my shoulder sirens were coming. The alley was empty. But it wasn’t. The wind yielded the briefest moment of clarity, and a man was running, maybe two blocks away. There was no time. Peralta was too slow. I holstered the Python and ran like hell. I kept close to the buildings, as if I could dive to safety if the man ahead of me decided to send a magazine of bullets my way. In another life, in a seaside city, before Lindsey, I had been a runner. Ran every night. Now I felt the damage in my right knee. But I remembered a few tricks. After my initial burst, I settled into a stride I could sustain. I closed the gap. The man didn’t see me.