The Crooked Street

This all happened in the time it took for the second ball to rise up and drop casually back into Fox’s hand.

“Lead pellets,” Fox told him with a smile. “They give these things the kick of a mule.”

Frost charged across the space between them. He was far bigger than Fox, but size didn’t matter. As Frost leaped, Fox’s foot jabbed like a piston underneath Frost’s rib cage, and the air burst from his lungs. Fox’s arm spun into a roundhouse and hammered the back of Frost’s head, driving him face-first to the ground. The impact shuddered through his skull and bloodied his forehead. Frost rolled away just as Fox’s next kick flew by his head. He staggered to his feet and backed up, gasping for breath and trying to shake off a wave of nausea.

Fox hadn’t even broken a sweat. He tossed the second leather ball up and down in his hand.

“Had enough? I mean, after a while, I’m going to get bored with kicking your ass, Frost. Eventually, the cat always kills the mouse. You know that, right? You’ve got a cat.”

Frost charged again.

Fox’s left leg flew upward, and his whole body followed it around. This time, the kick landed against Frost’s shoulder and threw him sideways against the elevator doors. He slammed hard and had to brace himself not to slip down to the floor of the platform. Blood dripped down his face, mixed with sweat. His broken finger throbbed like the searing burn of a cattle brand. His head spun. He could barely move his arm.

Fox still casually juggled the leather ball in his hand.

“How do you want this, Inspector? Fast or slow?”

Frost smiled and spat out the words. “You just made a mistake.”

Fox cocked his head warily. “A mistake?”

“You missed something.”

“Yeah? What’d I miss?”

The voice came from behind Fox. It came from Fawn.

“I have a gun, too, you son of a bitch,” she told him.

And she began to fire.

Her first two bullets went wide. She wasn’t a good shot. But the next blast from her revolver slammed the meat of Fox’s shoulder, and the bullet exited his body with a spray of blood and ricocheted off the steel of the elevator bank near Frost’s head. Fawn fired one more time, searing Fox’s thigh, before he spun around and whipped the second leather ball squarely into her forehead. It landed like a hammer, and she fell straight back and hit the floor of the platform, unconscious.

Ignoring the screams of pain in his body, Frost launched himself off the elevator bank and crashed into Fox’s back and took him down. He shot an elbow into Fox’s face, buried a thumb in his wounded shoulder, then turned him over and rained down blow after blow with his uninjured fist. Fox took the assault without flinching, but Frost’s strength quickly waned, and the killer wriggled out of his grip and clapped both sides of Frost’s head sharply with his feet. It felt like a tornado in Frost’s brain. He threw his head back in agony, and instantly, Fox squirmed free and was on his feet.

Frost stood up, too. They circled each other like wounded prizefighters. Fox was losing blood that soaked through his black clothes and puddled on the platform floor, but Frost could hardly keep the world in focus.

When he saw an opening, he attacked again. It was a mistake.

Fox nimbly sidestepped his charge and delivered another ferocious kick that landed in the middle of Frost’s back. The impact drove him into the air and off the platform, and he landed in the dust and dirt on the far side of the train tracks. He got up but then collapsed. The same thing happened when he tried again. And then he was finally on his feet, propped against the wall of the tunnel.

Everything began to happen at once. He tried to make sense of it.

A wail sounded, muffled and distant in his ears. He stared into the blackness of the tunnel hole and saw two glowing eyes growing larger and brighter. The BART train whistled, screeched, and roared as it flew from under the bay and closed in on the Embarcadero Station.

Meanwhile, on the platform, Fox bent over Fawn, dripping blood onto her body. He reached for her head. He was going to break her neck.

Frost couldn’t get to them in time. He had only seconds to leap off the tracks and escape the oncoming train. He was frozen with indecision, but then he looked down and spotted his gun where it had landed between the rails. He took two steps, picked it up in his right hand, and tried to steady his arm as he aimed at Fox, but his index finger had swelled, and he couldn’t move it or fit it inside the trigger guard.

The train stormed closer. Its whistle shrieked. Its headlights bathed him in light.

Fox had his hands on either side of Fawn’s skull, ready to twist. She was awake now, frozen in terror, her eyes wide.

Frost threw the gun into his left hand and fired and fired. He was a terrible shot with his other hand, but he got lucky. After missing three times, one bullet shattered Fox’s elbow, and another burned through the flesh of his stomach. Fox howled and fell, writhing on the ground.