Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery by Steve Ulfelder

us using our personal cells for calls like this. Budget, you know?”
    “Do I ever. Ten minutes.”
    I worked fast. Parked my truck down the street, alongside the upholstery place, while the pit bull barked.
    I rain-sprinted back to Motorenwerk, tire iron in one hand, stout flashlight in the other. It’s the kind cops use—knurled aluminum barrel, eighteen inches long, packed with four D batteries. It’s as much a club as it is a flashlight. Comes in handy.
    I ran around back, found the unlocked window Josh had described, levered it with the tire iron, climbed into the garage.
    Dark as hell in here. I flashlighted my way to the front, killed the light, rested it on my shoulder.
    Waited.
    Not long. I saw headlights. I heard a heavy splash out front, then a key-scrabble as the office door opened.
    But the office lights didn’t come on.
    Dufresne wasn’t stupid.
    I heard the door close gently, a tiny air-puff really. I heard water drip from Dufresne. Pictured him standing in the dark no more than five feet from me.
    I heard a gun’s slide rack. Dufresne definitely wasn’t stupid—had a semi-auto, with a round in the chamber now.
    Shit.
    I pictured him listening hard, breathed slowly through my mouth. The gun changed things. I decided I had to take a chance.
    I clicked the flashlight on, took loud steps, tried for the same voice I’d used on the phone. “Mr. Dufresne? That you up there?”
    Nothing.
    “You wanna hit the lights out here?” I said. “I banged the bejesus out of my shins once already.” Walked toward the door as I said it.
    It worked. Dufresne couldn’t take the risk, couldn’t walk in pointing a gun at a cop. He had stowed the gun in his raincoat by the time he stepped through the door, reached for the light switch, and said, “I thought—”
    As the lights came on I flicked my heavy flashlight at his forearm, meaning to break it. But I missed, got the meat of his upper arm instead.
    Dufresne was most definitely not stupid. He took one look at me and processed the whole scene before I could hit him again. He reached in the raincoat for his gun.
    I closed fast, head-butted his nose, heard it break. He’d gotten his right hand on the gun, but his hand was hung up in the wet raincoat. I bear-hugged him to keep it there.
    He was strong for a short guy. His left arm hung useless from the shot with the flashlight, and his right hand was tangled up in the gun and the coat, but he fought like hell anyway. He pushed up at my chin with the top of his head, nose-jetted blood into my shirt, stomped at my feet and ankles.
    But his sneakers didn’t bother my work boots. I poured on the bear hug, forced air from him, kept his right arm pressed against his chest.
    Funny thing: As we fought, Dufresne’s foot-stomps going weak, me squeezing and waiting for my chance to knock him out, I felt like I was up in the garage’s rafters and to my left, watching it all.
    That was new.
    I used to forget everything in a fight. I used to lose myself in a red-mist fury that always meant bad things for the other guy—and good things for Barnburners. This was different. No red mist, no hate. I just wanted to weaken Ollie enough so I could take away the gun.
    I was getting old.
    I thought all this while I floated above and to my left, watching Dufresne’s blood jet against my chest, watching myself crush him more or less to death.
    He finally fainted. I could tell because his dead weight nearly pulled me over. I let him drop, making sure he didn’t slam his head on polished concrete. I fished the gun from his raincoat. It was a Browning P35 Mark I, but different. I squinted, studied the piece, finally figured it out: The gun had been modified to fire beefy .40 S&W loads rather than stock 9 millimeter stuff. I’d heard you could mod the P35 that way, but hadn’t seen it done.
    I stuck the gun in the back of my pants, then realized I needed to black this place out right now, before a cruising cop spotted lights in