Nailed

by Joseph Flynn

  “Goddamn reporters.”

  “Hey, I’ll be back. I think I’d like to spend a couple weeks here during ski season.”

  “I never learned to ski,” Ron said.

  “Then I’ll have to teach you,” Corrie replied with a smile. She stepped up to Ron, put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a kiss to keep him until she returned. Then a mischievous look entered her eyes. “Hey, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Now would be a great time to show me how you can dunk the ball. That way you could spend the time until I get back thinking about the fantasies you want me to fulfill.”

  “You already did that.”

  Corrie snorted. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Of course, maybe you were just talking before. I mean, you’re in good shape, but you are pretty old to dunk a basketball.”

  Ron knew she was exactly right. Every time he managed the feat, he always wondered if it would be his last time … and he’d already done it once today. And that was the maximum he tried for on any given visit to a gym. He thought any more than that might make him guilty of the sin of hubris. Might blow a knee, too.

  “What’s the matter?” Corrie asked wickedly. “Performance anxiety?”

  “You know it,” Ron agreed.

  Then he sucked it up and stepped to the top of the key. He looked at the rim of the basket twenty feet away and put everything else in the world out of his mind. First, he steadied his breathing and then he deliberately built up the volume and speed of his respiration. As he launched into his first stride, he may even have shouted. But he couldn’t be sure the sound came from him.

  All he knew is that his body moved with a strength and ease he couldn’t remember feeling for years. He dribbled the ball once as he always did. It came back to him perfectly, and he took off from the dotted line. That was when everything changed.

  Normally he didn’t let the rim out of his sight for a second, and he extended his arm until he felt the muscles in his shoulders scream but now … now he felt himself twisting in the air even as he continued to rise. He had the ball in both hands and was holding it at waist level. How the hell was he going to dunk with the ball there? Jump through the hoop?

  No. He brought the ball up with both hands over his head and the rim was right there behind him, and a good foot below the ball. He stuffed it through to complete the reverse jam.

  The first one he’d ever done in his life.

  Not that he showed the surprise — the delight — he felt. He just hung coolly from the rim for a second, looking at Corrie, before he dropped lightly to the floor.

  “Boy, oh boy,” she said with a broad smile, “are we going to have fun.”

  Chapter 55

  Friday, the first week of September

  Deputy Chief Oliver Gosden was back on patrol with Ron Ketchum. Oliver was behind the wheel. He drove carefully but without visible signs of nervousness across the Tightrope.

  Since the episode with the mountain lion, Oliver had become a fatalist. He now firmly believed that when your time was up, you’d go. But not a minute earlier.

  The Gosdens had been back in L.A. the past week on R&R.

  “I almost decided to stay,” he told Ron. “I thought I might see if I could get my rank back with the LAPD.”

  “And?”

  “Lauren and Danny wouldn’t hear of it. They like it here. Danny wants to bring all his cousins up and show them his room. Where Daddy and Warden Knox killed the mountain lion.”

  “That’s better than him having nightmares.”

  “Lauren said she’s a mountain woman now.”

  Ron nodded.

  “My parents are thinking of moving up here, too.”

  “Good for them.”

  “They say things down in L.A. are getting to be too much to bear.”

  “There’s something everywhere you go,” Ron cautioned.

  “We still got all those drunks outside that new bar?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah. And the burglary calls are still creeping up. And we still haven’t found that floating poker game, either.”

  “Maybe Texas Jack could help us with that.”

  “Maybe he could.”

  Chief Ketchum and Deputy Chief Gosden of the Goldstrike Police Department talked about crime and race, and completed their morning rounds.

  About the Author

  Joseph Flynn is a Chicagoan, born and raised, currently living in central Illinois with his wife and daughter. He is the author of The Concrete Inquisition, Digger, Hot Type, Farewell Performance, Gasoline Texas, The President’s Henchman, The Hangman’s Companion, Round Robin, Blood Street Punx and more titles to appear in the near future.

  You can read free excerpts of Joe’s books by visiting his website at: www.josephflynn.com .