The light early morning drizzle added a stinging chill to the misty fog that was rolling in from the Pacific Southwest. Its dispiriting grip soon blanketed most of the Los Angeles basin as a lone black and white police patrol car turned left from Alvarado Blvd onto Sunset Blvd.
"What do you say we get a bite to eat, partner?" spoke Gervaldie as he completed his left turning movement.
"Sure, anywhere but that greasy joint we went to last night. My insides still ache from it."
"Ah, it's not Tommy's food, kid. Coppers have been eating there for years. It's this lousy graveyard shift. It'll play hell with your insides. You'll get over it in a couple more weeks."
"Well, if it's all the same to you, I wouldn't want eat there."

Pete adjusted his black leather gloves pulling the material in tight against his long skinny fingers. He leaned back on the car's door, to allow the thick fur lining on the top of his police jacket to cushion his head up against the window. Thoughts of days gone by quickly raced through his mind. Heck, no one has called him "kid" since Corporal Boone did in Vietnam, and he hated it then. After all he had been a jarhead, a Marine, and quite capable of taking care of himself then and here with a couple of years experience on the police department.

He was glad this was the last night of a six day stretch. Then he would be off for a couple of days. Perhaps he'll visit his folks. He hadn't seen them in over a month, not since he started working the morning watch.

The winter months had always been his favorite. The past year he had missed the family gatherings during the holidays because of work, he recalled the family reunions he had missed while in Vietnam. Why had Corporal Boone taken a special liking to him and then nicknamed him kid he never understood.

Corporal Boone was black Marine from Chicago, he had been adopted and raised by a Caucasian family from the time he was five.

Boone had joined the Marine Corps because he was proud of his country and wanted to give back part of what he had been given. He had volunteered and served a second tour in Nam, when his only known family was killed in an auto accident while he was on leave stateside. Pete had lost contact with him after Boone had stepped on a land mine. He only knew that Boone had returned home a disabled Vietnam Veteran.

Beeep, beeep, beeeeep, The three loud beeps broke the early morning stillness as stomach muscles tighten in patrol cars throughout the city "All units in the vicinity and 2Adam5, 2Adam5 Robbery in progress at 'The All Night Store,' 611 S. Alvarado. 2A5, your call is code three."
The black and white police car's rear wheels skidded over the damp pavement as Gervaldie flipped on the red lights and accelerated out of the U-turn. Pete rogered the call and unlocked the shotgun.

"You take it partner," spoke Gervaldie as he hit the siren and turned left on Alvarado Blvd., causing a startled motorist to brake hard and spin into a circle.

"We'll go down a block then turn into the alley, so we'll come up from behind" he finished saying as he regained control of the steering wheel.

Gervaldie hated to be the first unit at the scene. He should have met 2A15 for breakfast earlier, he was thinking as he turned off the siren. Ever since the city had cut back the police department's budget, they've been undermanned and have had to stick closer to their assigned sector. Now 2A15 was way the other side of the division and there was no other back-up units available.

Pete chambered a round into the shotgun as Gervaldie turned off the cruiser's headlights, rounded the corner and jumped over the curb entering the store's rear parking lot. Darkness quickly surrounded them with its eerily embrace and its shadows of danger. Suddenly the front windshield of their patrol car was shattered and Gervaldie grabbed his left shoulder. The car's upholstery and headliner became splattered with a mixture of glass, blood, and torn pieces of flesh.

Somehow perhaps subconsciously, he managed to gun the car's motor and shoot for the lighted street corner. The car careened off the granite paling that enclosed the store's lighted neon sign and struck a cluster of broad leaf plants and colorful small bushes that surrounded the front of the store.

The patrol car's passenger door flew open and Pete found himself crawling rapidly toward the thick body of plants.

Protected from the store's lighted plate glass window's view by the police car's body, the adrenaline within pushed Pete further into the dense under bush as he crawled in search of an advantageous position. Within seconds, his dark blue police uniform was soiled and soaked with filth and mud.

Beads of perspiration formed quickly on his forehead and casually released their acidity sting as they flowed pass the corners of his eyes. He looked at his gloved right hand that rigidly held and almost completely covered the .38 caliber revolver.

For some reason the glove looked darker, a dark red and he hurriedly moved it to his forehead, stole another glance at it and impulsively rubbed the blood and sweat into the damp ground. It shot up a nauseating smell, the stink and odor of decaying plants, of death and destruction. It reminded him of the smell of war, death and the fear he had found only in the deep underbrush of the jungles of Vietnam.

He recalled grenades exploding, and their amber glow illuminating the bodies of fallen comrades laid up against muddy rich paddie dikes.

Faintly, he could hear the impersonal female voice of the radio dispatcher as she assigned other calls to units throughout the city.
He looked in that direction and saw the patrol car's emergency, pulsating yellowish light bathing Gervaldie with its amber glow. An ashen color covered his partner's limp face as he lay draped over the car's steering wheel.

He catch a glimpse, a slight movement by the corner of his eye and Pete arose suddenly and involuntarily, screaming and firing, shooting blindly as he cleared the front hood of the car.
He raced wildly toward the lit, store front's entrance and the shadowy figure squatting behind the dark fixtures located there.

He winced with the pain coming from his chest and saw his badge ripped from his uniform.
It sailed off, slowly and silently into the darkened abyss. Time stood still as he twisted and turned as another round caught him in the midsection and he doubled over with bitter pain.

Falling, he brought up his arms and legs to protect his torn and exposed intestines. Ironically, his eyes were focused on the wet glittering pavement that sparkled with rich silvery colors. 'Christmas' he was thinking, as the dark sole of a military shoe came into focus and he hesitantly began to slowly look further up the trousered leg. His eyes soon focused on the dark skinny black finger wrapped around the trigger of a short barreled shotgun.

"Die, @#%#@* Pig," he heard the voice utter, and as Pete closed his eyes he heard the muzzle roar.

A blinding flash brought together darkness and light, peace and war, friendship and animosity, hatred and love, clamor and silence, black and white.

Seconds later, he was surprised he could still see and slowly turned his face to view the twitching body of the fallen lone gunman just a few feet away, the sawed off shotgun laid nearby.

He strained his eyes harder to try and recognize the human form that now lay dying.

"Hold on partner," Gervaldi's voice said as he knelt on one knee and laid the department's shotgun down, while placing his warm hand on Pete's forehead.