Brian Johnston watched the television to a Dirty Harry movie that was at least twenty years old. He remembered the time when the movie first appeared on the big screen. He heard the doorbell ring and he was prepared to send them on their merry way. But the curiosity was killing him and knowing full well what happened to the proverbial cat, he answered it.

"Yes, can I help you?" Brian asked, as he swung the door open with a sharp jab. Send this loser away was what he had in mind. He hid his pistol behind his back and hoped that the man didn't notice.

The man in a long black trench coat and a t-shirt and blue jeans stood, somewhat transfixed in the entrance of the apartment. His hands were clasped evenly in his jacket pockets, hiding something as equally as Brian was hiding his gun. "I hope you can. Are you Brian Johnsten, homicide detective for the 121st precinct?"

Brian held his arm out, blocking the man's entrance into his apartment. He cocked his gun backward. "Yes, I am. Now, lissen, punk, I don't know who you are or what you want but I suggest you make your business clear to me right this minute or I'm going to have send you home."

Before Brian had a chance to blink or even breath in the slightest degree, the man produced another .38 special automatic gun pointed straight for the police officer's heart. "Prepare to die, asshole!"

The man fired the gun pistol once, aimed for the police officer's heart. He sent the cop sprawling backwards to the back wall. He knocked his head against the wall, before he died. His last conscious thought was that this asshole could make his day.

Colleen screamed, crawled up in a ball on the couch. She ran to the kitchen for the telephone to dial 911. She never made it.

"Your ass is grass, bitch!" The sound of the report of the gun drowned out whatever he had said to her. The bullet found true its source, as he fired at her back. He watched with happy glee, laughing like a hysterical hyena, as she slumped to the floor, as a deadweight.

Before the man in the long trench coat exited the apartment, he helped himself to a beer in the fridge. The night had gotten to a good start.

---

Greg Miller lay awake in bed, enjoying the moments that resided between consciousness and unconsciousness. It was an hour before he had to actually awake before his morning shift started. Something prevented him from sleeping. Perhaps it was his sixth sense that something sinister was lurking about the neighborhood. He looked out the window to his apartment, listening to the black birds chirping whistfully in the morning breeze and the trees and leaves swaying in the comfort of the wind. The mood was so pictoresque that it just had to be captured on film, he thought of the moment.

This activity of admiring the morning was largely duplicated in his high school days, when he only dreamed of becoming a cop, rather than living on the fantasy. Sleep rarely found him when he had to prepare all night for a test or finals. Now, he didn't know why he didn't wait for the alarm clock to stir him. In retrospect, he mused that if he were to relive his high school 'glory' days there were a number of things he would do differently. Ask more girls out, be more social, get better grades. If only... His world was full of 'if onlys'.

Stephanie, his wife of nine years, stirred awake, too. Perhaps he was making too much noise in bed. Whatever. They had made love the night before, as they always did this time of the week, and her face was positively aglow with new energy and passion. She had that look in her eyes, that inner glow, that she wanted the experience to be repeated but if asked, Greg would have to decline her invitation.
He ignored the bell ringing, predicting that the man on the other side of the door was selling something, like a televangelist or some sort of low life creep like that.

Maybe if he ignored the ringing the creep will crawl under whatever rock he crawled out of. He was too damn tired. An old Beatles classic from their late period crept into his mind as proper homage to one of rock's great tragedy.

She climbed on top of Greg, her arms around him in a warm touch. She kissed him softly on the cheeks, then pulled down the covers from his naked body, and continued to kiss his hairy chest. He noticed first off that there was new passion in her soft touches.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she asked, as she stopped her loving touch. "You seem troubled. Is anything I can to help?"

He sighed. "I doubt it. Something's up. I can feel it. It's nothing. It's--"

"I know just the thing that can cheer you up. There's an art auction at the local church. I know we don't go to church as much as we should. Lord, some people go all the time, every week, every Sunday, and most go to confessional. That must be a God awful experience, pouring your guts out to a guy you don't even know. But I think it would be good for both of us and the money goes to charity. And you know, as well as I do, that any piece of art can liven up this apartment. We might also meet some very nice people there, too. So, what do you say?"

"Sounds good to me." Since he was already up, he turned off his alarm, so he wouldn't have to do it later.
It was at that moment that the telephone rang. They both looked at the other, waiting for someone to answer it but when neither did, Greg reached over to pick up the receiver.

"Hello. Miller."

There was a short pause on the other end. Greg waited and was about to repeat what he had just said.

"Greg, it's me. Captain Horowitz. I'm sorry to wake you up so early and all but I've got news that can't wait. And it's of the worst kind."

"Give it to me straight."

"Brian Johnsten is dead."

Greg didn't know how to respond. How does one react when they find out that their partner is dead? He was too masculine to cry. He had a thousand questions to ask but they all faded to nothing in the brief moments on the telephone.

"What happened? How did he die?"

"That’s the easy part. An intruder came to his apartment and shot him and his wife in cold blood."

"What about the intruder? Any leads on him?"

"No trace of the guy."

"Call me back if you get any leads. Thank you, Horowitz."

Greg hung the phone up and got ready for work.

---

Greg Miller parked his Honda Accord, '96 model used, in the underground parking garage of the Coroset Garden apartments and exited the car with a bad mood. The apartment building was sealed off with yellow and black police crime tape and police squad cars and ambulances were parked on an angle across the front of the aging building. Now, the whole neighborhood knew that a murder took place, Greg thought as he approached the apartment.

When he entered the lobby of the apartment, he noticed that police officers were taking photographs of the body and dusting for fingerprints. The apartment was a mess, a sign of a slight struggle. The body of Brian Johnston lay in a pool of his own blood, along with his wife a couple of feet distant. His dead eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, while his wife was face down on the blood-stained carpet.

A homicide detective from the 121st precinct approached Greg and introduced himself. He was clothed in a black three-piece suit and a tan overcoat. "You may not know me but I've heard a lot about you. You're a legend in many of the New York precincts. My name's Carter. Jack Carter. I've been assigned as your new partner. Sorry about Brian, though. He was a great man but you don't need me to tell you that."

"I don't know much," he said, walking over toward the two bodies. He wanted a closer look at Brian. He looked into the cop's dead eyes and looked away. Oh, Brian, what have you gotten yourself into this time? "Tell me, Carter, what do we have here?"

"Simple murder. An unknown assailant rang the doorbell. Johnston let him in. Said assailant shot him and his wife. We suspect that he used a .38 caliber gun but we're not sure yet. We have to run it through ballistics first. We just bagged a gun found near the body of Johnston."

"Got any suspects so far?" Greg asked, as they moved away from the dead body.

"No. We haven't caught anyone yet, if that is what you mean. Why? You figure Johnston has any enemies that might be helpful?"

"Only the typical ones. Common hoods but they are a thousand. I guess he made a lot of enemies in his line of work. Criminals who want revenge on him for sending them to the big house. But no one particular enemy comes to mind."
Carter placed his hand on Greg's shoulder. "Rest assured, we'll get him for you. We won't let this get away unscathed."

Greg waved the hand away. In his time of mourning, he didn't want to be touched. "No, I'll get him. Personally."
"Right."

The two walked out of the apartment, as the forensics team came in to haul the bodies away to the morgue.

"Y'know, Carter," Greg said, leaning against the metal railing on the sidewalk. "No matter how many times I see murder cases like this it still makes me sick to my stomach. I'm not squeamish. I don't have a weak stomach like some of these sorry excuses for a police officers but it gets me. Especially when it is someone close to you, like Brian was to me."

Carter lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings in the air. "I can't say that I feel your grief but I feel that I do. I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"When we get the report back from ballistics, we'll be able to trace who the gun belonged to and then, we'll see if the bullets in the bodies match with the gun."

"I think you'll find that the murderer wouldn't be stupid enough to leave his gun behind," Greg said. "I happen to know for a fact that Brian owned a .38 caliber special automatic gun. It was his favorite gun because he said it gave him the most expedient results in firepower. I know for a fact that that was his gun found by the body."
Carter relinquished the cigarette to one hand, between the fingers, and put some of the ashes into the garbage can.

"I have a theory already on this one. It could be a cop killing. There are any number of criminals out there who would love to kill a cop. Hell, there are people off the street who would love a stake in that."

"Could be. But who are you that you can make theories without probable cause? What experience do you have?"

"I worked on the Sniper case. Common hood picks off people with a high powered rifle from atop a building and sometimes in the window of a skyscraper. He used the JFK angle. I chased that motherfucker who killed women and children first and common businessmen onto the Empire State Building and shot him. Or else, he would have done the same to me. I'm very thorough."

"I'm impressed."

Carter smoked the cigarette to the bitter end of the stick. Greg noticed that a lot of police officers had smoked. He guessed that they smoked because it looked cool and it gave them some sort of legal high. He used to smoke a lot when he was younger. He started when he was in high school. He started with Marlboros and then, progressed to Kool Lites. He even tried marijuana cigarettes but after a while they made him feel nausea. His smoking habit lasted for about fifteen years when he decided that it was too dangerous for his health. He quit, pure and simple. He'd rather not contract lung cancer or any other kind of deathly disease. Now, he couldn't understand why anyone would want to possibly kill themselves over those tiny nicotine sticks.

After a while, after pondering the reasons behind his quitting the filthy habit, he said, "Well, there's nothing for us to do here. We better get back to the station and start to file the reports."

With the notions agreed upon with a nod of the head from the novice Carter, the two entered their separate squad cars and headed back to the station to finish their shifts.

---

"Got any other theories about this supposed 'cop killing' theory of yours that you would care to share with me?" Greg asked, as the two police officers sat at the center stools at a coffee shop called the Den on 42nd Street. Greg paged through the New York Times, seeing if there were any interesting crime reports in the paper. It was too early to see what the local reporters had to say about Brian's death. Probably in tomorrow's early edition or today's late one.

Carter sipped his black coffee, with no sugar. Greg's eyes never left the paper. "No, not quite. Not enough evidence yet. We'll have to see what happens when this cop killer, and I'm convinced it is not just a random killing. It could be that he wasn't just after Johnston. Maybe he was after you and he killed Johnston on his way to get you."

"Why would anyone want to kill me?" he asked.

"Who knows? Check your list of enemies. Maybe you ticked off the wrong mob boss and some sort of hitmen wants to off you. Someone like you must have a whole shitload of enemies." Carter finished his coffee and ordered another one.

"Wait here for me. I'm gonna go across the street to grab another paper. This one doesn't satisfy me." Greg stood up and left his half drunken cup of coffee on the counter.

“Gotcha."

Greg exited the coffee shop and sauntered over to the news stand across the street to buy another news paper. The street was crowded with cars, trucks, taxis, and pedestrians who still were not aware of the correct right of way of moving vehicles. Even at this early hour of just before lunch time, New York was a flurry of activity.

For him, an experienced cop, New York City was a dangerous place to live. One never knew when the low lives and cut throats would peek their little heads around the corner and cause a little trouble. He passed numerous bums and direlicts on the street, sleeping in the middle of the day. They were curled up in a ball, with their winter clothes wrapped around them.

---

Creek Dam Cemetery, Upstate New York. Death did not come easy to anyone, especially super heroes. Crisis, the newest paranormal on the street, stood in front of his partner’s gravestone, holding a bouquet of red roses in one hand and his other was clenched tightly in a fist, his face reddened with rage. Sonik, with the ability to project any sound imaginable at horrifying decibel levels, died at the hands of a cop killer in his apartment weeks ago, and Crisis, who could absorb any kinetic energy and redirect it at his nemesis, was still coping with his grief. Only being a recovering alcoholic could be worse than this, he thought.

Placing the roses on the gravestone, Crisis’s memories flooded him. Over the past few weeks, the image of his partner’s last few hours couldn’t be erased from his mind. Each day the memories became more and more painful and he couldn’t wait for the initial grief to be over and done with.

It started months ago when word on the street was that a new crimelord had taken over the city’s drug operations. Crisis and Sonik raided every crack house in the Harlem area, trying to find the whereabouts of this new crimelord. What they encountered even surprised him. The new crimelord, whom they learned was named the King Snake, had a whole battalion of super powered paranormals on his payroll, willing to do away with any interlopers, like Crisis and Sonik. They were defeated and given a warning from the Snake’s subordinates. ‘Stay away or face the consequences.’

With this warning on their minds, they weren’t about to give up, only more determined to end this threat. They received a tip from one of their informants, known only as Alexus, that there were to be a drug delivery at a warehouse in Manhattan. Donning their super hero duds, they were prepared to find out where the King Snake’s hide-out was.

At first, the tide of battle was turned in their favor, once they defeated with the drug dealers who unloaded the truck of cocaine, crack, and other illegal substances. Then, the unexpected happened; they were ambushed by the paranormals employed by the King Snake.

It ended with a drug pusher releasing the rounds in his semi-automatic rifle into Sonik’s defenseless body. He died instantly. Instead of laying waste to his fallen partner, Crisis brought him to the morgue, mourning his loss.

The King Snake could wait for another day. And that day had come now.

“I promise I’ll get him for you,” Crisis remarked, as he took his leave of the cemetery.