One jungle or another
Sweat stung his eyes, his knees ached, and his lower back barked with every hurried step.
A puff of concrete wall filled his vision before the report reached his ears.
"Fuck!" He scrambled back around the corner of the empty anchor store. The mall had been in its prime during the first Bush administration, and it still clung to life like a stubborn hospice patient. A handful of local businesses still occupied the place, but they were largely cash-only operations with inventory that never really turned. Local gangs invested in trendy fashion shops that never really managed to change trends or be very fashionable.
"I hate this place," he muttered, taking a deep breath and scooting low around the corner.
For the moment, no more shots greeted him as he continued his pursuit.
The last time he'd been to this mall was before Macy's pulled up stakes and shifted to the quieter part of town. Some genius development firm had opened up a newfangled open-air shopping center; a mall by any other name, only this one had shoppers sweaty, cold, or wet between stores. This evening, he had to drop by the old mall to chat up an informant working in a hat store. Everyone knew they washed money for the team who refused to ever wear blue. While talking, the detective spotted the shooter from a case that had been open a few weeks.
The shooter spotted him, too, and everybody's night got ruined.
They'd run through the mall, out an emergency door, across the first floor of a parking deck, and now here they were about to hang a left around the building to start all over again. Luckily, the shooting didn't start until they were outside.
"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, he replaced a partially spent magazine. Operating in the dark, leaning on training and instinct, he moved quickly through the parking lot. He glided from the cover of one car before approaching another. His movements echoed his Army days; one jungle was another, even if leaves had been replaced by steel.
Safety glass spiderwebbed 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.
The evening was shattered again by the detective's 147 grain lightning and thunder, followed by 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 grow to be old.
Holstering, he had that cigarette before calling in.