The Old Gray Wolf Read Online Free Page B

parked by the left rear fender of a sleek Cadillac. Something white. It’s a purse! The woman whose handbag had been pinched was occupied with a fidgety little girl and several bulging plastic bags that she was stuffing into the Caddy’s trunk—which was why she had not noticed the brazen theft.
    Write this maxim down in blood and commit it to memory:
    On or Off Duty, a Gritty Ex-Chicago Cop
    Does Not Hesitate to do His Bounden Duty.
    In less time than it takes to tell about it, Scott Parris was on a dead run after the purse thief. Sad to say, Charlie Moon’s best friend was well past the flower of his youth, and carrying about sixty pounds more than the young man he was chasing. Add to that the fact that the grade was slightly uphill and what it summed up to was No Contest—the skinny criminal was putting an increasing distance between them. By the time Parris was within a stride or two of the Cadillac, he was puffing like an overloaded pack mule ascending La Veta Pass. Too winded to think and relying entirely on instinct, he wished that he … had a rock to throw at that thieving bastard . But he did not, and popping a shot at a petty perpetrator’s back was not strictly kosher, so the cop improvised right on the spot by grabbing the nearest object at hand, which was a can of black-eyed peas from a lady’s shopping cart. (That’s right—the very same lady whose purse had been snatched.)
    On this occasion, unlike the last, both the mother and the daughter were aware of the blatant thievery.
    Blissfully unaware of their wide eyes and gaped mouths, and recalling his days on an Indiana high school football team, Parris got a firm grip on the can with his trusty right hand, slowed to a light trot, and prepared to assume the classic stance and make that once-in-a-lifetime pass.
    Outraged, one of the victimized citizens (Momma) yelled, “You bring that back, you big fat thief!” The other (sweet little Betsy Lou) commenced to jump up and down and scream shrilly, “Call the po-leece, Momma—call the po-leece!”
    Was Scott Parris jarred by this verbal abuse? Not a bit. Your sure-enough, steely-eyed quarterback does not allow himself to be distracted by murderous threats from the hulking defense, much less flustered by rude yells from the bench, away-team fans with bloodlust in their hearts—or the opposition’s wild-eyed cheerleaders who would dearly love to beat him to death with pink pom-poms.
    The GCPD chief of police stopped dead still, raised the hefty (sixteen-ounce) can of black-eyed peas over his beefy shoulder, made a hasty estimate of where his uncooperative receiver would be when the missile arrived—and let ’er fly . Being a realist about his athletic prowess, Parris figured his chances of hitting the target were about one in twenty. Which, given the dismal twilight visibility and the decades that had passed since he’d last launched the ol’ pigskin, was somewhere on the yonder side of optimistic.
    But the over-the-hill athlete had given it all he had— look at it go !
    Up into the glare of a parking-lot light, to an apogee where it paused for an infinitesimal instant, then down … down … down.
    Clunk!
    Thud—thud!
    Why both a “clunk!” and a “thud-thud!”?
    An understandable query from those with Inquiring Minds. A detailed explanation is hereby provided:
    The “clunk!” was the satisfying (to Parris) sound of the can smacking the fleeing miscreant squarely on the back of his lice-infested skull.
    The initial “thud!” was made by the fleeing thief’s body as he slammed face-first onto the parking-lot pavement.
    Which raises the delicate issue of the secondary “thud!”
    It happened like this. The spot that Scott Parris had selected for his game-winning pass was on a patch of what is popularly known as black ice, which is not a nice place to get set up for a long