The foot-chase ended instantly.

His Browning .9mm cleared its shoulder holster smoothly in a brisk motion of economy mixed with grace, index finger tensed against trigger; cold steel clasped by clammy palm. He waited for the tumblers in his head to click and spin; bringing just the right moment when bystanders would open a nanosecond long deadly corridor, down which he’d send hot judgment.

Nothing existed in this moment but the shot.  There was him, the prey, and his Browning. He was deadly; which flushed him with pride and shame, because he somehow felt less than human, and more a machine.

Time slugged, stopped. Sweat trails wormed down his face.     

He could yell freeze; wanted to – mostly. He’d be ignored, as always, and a tiny part of him was pleased about this.  Like a hardened bit of taffy that doesn’t dissolve quickly enough, his silence curdled his stomach.

Tumblers spun, clicked, locked. The moment happened and the deadly corridor opened.

So natural to him was this, he didn’t even remember pulling the trigger.

His Browning reminds him with dull, receding booms, the smell of ozone mixed with hot metal, and shell casings clattering to the pavement. Bullets lifting the fleeing body off its feet reminds him as they helped his quarry defy natural physics and take flight.

He’d once again fired his gun, shot another human, despite best intentions.        

Gravity quickly re-established its dominance, and the body crashed down to gray, cracked, concrete earth. A man who used to live, breathe, walk, run, landed in a crumpled heap of limp bone and sagging skin in a puddle of its own blood.

Nothing moved; not even a death twitch, which he’d seen now and then. The unfortunate runner was no more of this Earth, ferried across the River Styx on a boat of hot lead.

His weariness in the eternal chase showing in every bone as he creaked. Browning pointed down, to the right; trigger finger flush against the barrel but still ready, just like he’d been taught, he broke into a brisk jog, approaching the corpse. From his sports coat he withdrew and flashed his I.D. to the advancing beat-cops.

“Paul Seymour,” he stated flatly to the lead, a young, fit black cop who held himself tense and eager, “from the 34th. My partner Sam Baker is back at O’Doul’s Liquor, waiting for the coroner.”

The cop, whose nameplate read “Andrews”, raised his eyebrows as he took the badge and gave it a perfunctory glance. “No shit? Homicide?”

Seymour shook his head. “Manslaughter. Tried to knock over the store and empty the register. Old man pulled an old Smith & Wesson from under the counter, and this guy,” he nodded to the sack of wet meat cooling at their feet, “blasted away with a Magnum big enough to be your daddy. Don’t know which shot got the old guy; we’ll leave that to Ballistics.”

Andrews nodded, handed the badge back to him, which Seymour promptly returned to his jacket pocket. Nodding to his approaching blue brethren as he turned, he said, “I’ll get my boys to set a perimeter.”

Seymour nodded limply. “Thanks.” He reached a hand – which he distantly noticed was trembling – into his other shirt pocket, extracted a pack of Pall Malls, and tapped a lone cancer weed into his palm. Replacing the pack, he stuck it into his mouth and lit up quickly, snapping alight a silver, battered old Zippo butane lighter his pop had once given him.

Finished, he stowed the lighter as he knelt next to the corpse. Snagging a handkerchief from his pants pocket, he pulled a bulging wallet out of the dead man’s back pocket.

He flipped the wallet open, greeted by a leering, brutish license mug. “Bobby Samuel Longtree,” he muttered tonelessly, “from Clifton Heights, New York.”

He gazed at the dead body, which – thanks to the cooling autumn weather – hadn’t yet began to bloat and stink. “Long way from home, Bobby,” he mumbled, “a long way from home.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

A soft tongue clucked just over his shoulder. “Got scumbag, yeah? He no more rob little people like me, yes?”

Seymour glanced over his shoulder; though he already knew who spoke – it was Mr. Yim, a small grocery shop owner, imported from Hong Kong. Even though his glance was brief, he knew the expression, seen it too many times before – owlish eyes wide and scared, face pale, hands ringing fretfully in front of him – but somehow glad that it wasn’t him dead, and the dead man on the sidewalk was one less person to threaten his livelihood.

Not one less human being. One less threat.

“Yeah, I got him,” he answered crisply, his face ashen, still staring at the corpse. He didn't look away from the dead anymore. “And no – he won’t be robbing you anytime soon.”

He felt rather than saw the big nervous smile spreading on the Asian shopkeeper’s small round face, but couldn’t muster up any irritation. After all, it could be Mr. Yim who was dead, not the liquor store clerk, right?

Couldn’t blame him. Couldn’t blame anyone, not even the guy with the gun.

 “Big bonus tonight, yeah?”

Wordlessly he stood. “Maybe.”

The cigarette smoking in one hand, he walked towards the brick wall of Mutual Funds & Trust. Turning around, he leaned back, sagging against the brick, his fatigue seeping from every pore.

“What he do? He bad man?” Mr. Yim’s insistent, sing-song voice yammered on.

He closed his eyes, feeling the inevitable crash of his adrenaline. He then looked down again, at the face of a murderer.

A face frozen in abject terror.

He looked away, the setting sun stinging his eyes. He dragged on his cigarette, pushed off the wall, and shuffled away as the sun’s dying rays descended on the city.

“No.”