Miami Noir by Les Standiford

long. It seems long though. It’s funny: You come back from a war and something like this hurricane happens. Shit,” he said. “This place looks worse than Iraq.”
    “Maybe I should be getting back now,” I said. “It’s getting late.”
    “Okay, but we got to make a stop first.”
    “Where to?”
    “My old place. I’ll tell you how to get there. Are you cool with that? It won’t take long.”
    “What happens if another cop sees me driving you around?” I asked.
    “Man, don’t you know? You’re undercover.” He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
    We drove west for a few miles. The sun that had seemed so high earlier in the day was plummeting now, dragging the day down with it behind a row of broken trees. With all the lights in the neighborhood out, the coming darkness affected me in some primeval part of myself, and for a moment something akin to panic began to overtake me. I wanted to go home. Even my house with its gone wife, its ripped-off roof, and its drowned car was better than the sprawling mess the world had become. I began to talk to dispel my nervousness.
    “How’s Taisha doing? She must be in college now.”
    For a moment the cop said nothing, and I wondered if he had heard me.
    “Taisha’s dead, man. Didn’t you know?”
    “Dead? What are you talking about?” I couldn’t turn to look at him. I had to keep my eyes on the darkened road.
    “Drunk driver. You know how it is. About a year after she graduated from Edgewater. It was up near Gainesville, near her aunt’s house. Maybe that’s why you didn’t hear about it.”
    “Jesus,” I said. “A young kid like that. I can’t believe it.”
    “Maybe you heard about it but forgot. You must have had a lot of kids in your class over the years.”
    He was right. They came and they went. Some students you would remember for better or worse for the rest of your life, while others left barely a trace of memory behind them when the semester was over.
    “No, I remember Taisha,” I said, wishing in a way that I was lying. I didn’t want that sweet young face floating around in my head with night coming on, not in this shattered world.
    “Turn here,” the cop said. “I recognize that tree.” He pointed to an uprooted banyan tree lying on its side.
    “Where are we?” I asked. “What is this place?”
    “My old crib. Go on down this way. I’ll tell you where to stop.”
    I soon saw that we had entered a cul-de-sac. The houses were small wrecks of wood and lopsided roofs. At the end of the street I saw the silhouettes of a man and a woman sitting on the front steps of their house. I drove slowly. When my beams from the headlights hit them, they stood up and went into the house, shutting the door behind them. They had moved so quickly, I thought they might be looters. I glanced at the cop. He was looking straight ahead.
    “Stop in front of the house,” the cop said. “That’s where I used to live.”
    “You know those people?” I asked.
    “That’s my wife, or rather she used to be my wife.”
    “Who’s the guy?” I asked.
    “A friend of mine, used to be. Since I got back, everything is used to be, seems like. I asked him to keep an eye on Doris when I was over in Kuwait. Sources say he got a little bit too dedicated to the mission. You know what I’m saying?”
    I looked at him. He was still staring straight ahead. He was locked in position. There was a sphinxlike quality to his profile that I didn’t like.
    “We had better leave,” I said. I put the car in reverse and turned around to see where I was going. That’s when I saw the pump action shotgun lying on the backseat, or rather, I saw its shadow. I didn’t like the look of it. Without warning the cop reached over, grabbed the steering wheel, and with his other hand shifted the car back into park. We jerked to a stop. We stared at each other. The next thing I knew, I was looking at his gun, its small triangular sight lined up quite nicely with the middle of my