Slow Recoil by C.B. Forrest

Hassan’s wide eyes told McKelvey all he needed to know about his own condition.
    â€œYou see a guy come out of there the last few minutes, which way he went?” McKelvey said, his voice thick, nasal.
    A lifetime on the force, and he’d never been punched in the face with such velocity or precision. Kicked, spat upon, stabbed at, and yes, even shot at on two occasions—once at the deadly shootout intersection of Jane and Finch, the other time in the hallway of his own home as he and Duguay drew like gunfighters—but this, this was otherworldly. He had come as close to blacking out as his fragile male ego would allow. Held on there to the tassels of faint hope, pulled himself up through sheer stubborn determination, an ode to his Celtic ancestry. It was the fucking pill, that little half tablet that had dulled his edge. As bad as taking a drink on duty, for Christ’s sake. Rather than being ashamed of himself, he was angry and embarrassed and wanted to get this asshole face to face in a fair fight, no sucker punches thrown from the dark.
    Hassan relayed the facts as he had processed them, his cab driver’s eyes always recording—which is what made drivers such a great source for the dicks of the various crews working in Hold-Up, Homicide, Sexual Assault. McKelvey put his head back on the headrest in the back seat and took a haul of air between clenched teeth. His face could come off if he pulled hard enough. He could pull it off and hand it to Hassan and walk away and find another face somewhere. He was cotton-headed, tongue-thick. He had the four numbers from the plate, the general description of the asshole wielding the sledgehammer in his right hand. He closed his eyes and centred himself, willing forth the last of the reservoir, the needle well past “E”. His mind flashed to the image of the stark white refrigerator and that single square magnet stuck to the door.
    â€œI’ll be back in a minute,” he said, opening the door, and stepping out on legs no longer connected to his hips. “I forgot something.”
    â€œPlease sir, let me take you to the hospital,” Hassan said.
    â€œThat’s our next stop,” McKelvey said.

FOUR
    Three days earlier…
    K adro stands on the balcony of the cheap airport-strip motel smoking a Canadian cigarette. Du Maurier. The cigarette is smooth. Fine. Back in the war, he liked those mornings best when the sun had not yet burned away the fog completely, and he could stand alone with the gun slung over his shoulder and enjoy a cigarette all to himself. The fields seemed peaceful then and not at all associated with the gruesome acts of war. The bullets, the bombs. The effect of shrapnel on the human body. The sweet, sick stink of the dead, the sounds they made in their own moment of dying. None of it seemed possible inside the stillness and clear sunshine of those fields. He would smoke his cigarette and watch the morning glow within itself, and it made a man feel grateful to stand with his legs wholly intact, heart still beating, still pushing blood. He understood in those moments what it meant to be entirely alive, because he was already dead—his generation expendable as a matter of birth and name and timing. The great lottery of life. His number was accounted for; it had been waiting for him just up ahead all the days of his life. The next field, the next town.
    â€œAlways daydreaming,” that’s what Krupps used to say. The weary squad leader with the perpetual smirk, the crooked grin. The dimpled cheeks of a farm boy contrasted against the dead eyes of a killer, their best shooter. Removed the head from an enemy soldier at six hundred yards. At dusk. With a hard wind blowing at them. Krupps had collected on the bet from every man in the squad, including Kadro. It was supernatural.
    But it was Krupps who was dead and not him. Dead going on seven years now. And only just yesterday. Life was funny that way, how