Death Is My Comrade by Stephen Marlowe

on Custer Street to be furnished—cracked linoleum on the floor, a pair of beat-up wing chairs—one of them holding last week’s laundry—a sagging red plush sofa, a metal-topped table with a bottle of rye on it.
    Two doorways led off the living room. One was dark, and from it I heard the sound of a baby crying. I went there, fumbled for the light switch and found it. On an unmade bed, wearing only diapers, their plump little legs kicking at air, their faces red with infant anger, the twins were bawling lustily.
    I got a foolish grin on my face. It wouldn’t go away. I said: “Okay, so cry your silly little lungs out.” Dutifully, the twins obeyed. After all, I was their godfather.
    Then I heard a shot. It came from somewhere behind the house on Custer Street. That would be Leo, but who the hell was he shooting at?
    I followed my Magnum toward the other, lighted, doorway that led off the living room. It took me through a small kitchen to an open window that looked out on the back alley paralleling Custer Street. Leo had gone out this way. I climbed over the sill, let myself drop to the ground, and landed on a screen that Leo had kicked out of the window.
    â€œYou-all better hold it right there, mister,” a voice said.
    The southern drawl was unmistakable. The voice belonged to Pappy Piersall.
    â€œHold it yourself, Pappy,” I called out.
    Except for the rectangle of light coming from the window, it was very dark in the alley. I could just make out the backs of houses or garages across it.
    â€œChester?” Pappy said. “Ah’ll be dipped in—”
    What Pappy Piersall would be dipped in would have remained a matter of conjecture, except that I knew Pappy, because just then two shots rang out and orange flame seared the night a few yards to my left. A slug whined by my face and thudded into the clapboard behind me. Crouching, I darted out of the swath of light coming from the window. I heard a click, then another, very close. Then an oath, not Pappy’s voice. Something moved in the darkness ahead of me. That would be Leo, with an empty gun in his hand.
    For an instant more I peered at blackness; then light dazzled my eyes. Someone had a flashlight. The light darted away, lifted, dipped, and there was Leo, crouching, bare-chested and sweating, slamming an ammo clip into the butt of a Luger. He swung the big automatic toward me. I shot it out of his hand with the Magnum. He howled, and his fingers blossomed red. He clawed at his pants pocket with his left hand and a knife magically appeared there, the blade snicking out in the same fluid, continuous motion.
    â€œHe’s got a shiv!” Pappy warned me unnecessarily.
    And then Leo moved—not toward me but toward the light and Pappy. The light held him transfixed; he moved in it and with it, shoulders down, knees flexing, the knife easily cupped in his left hand alongside his thigh. I tried to shoot it out of that hand as I had shot the Luger out of his right. The Magnum bucked, and a red stain appeared on the thigh of Leo’s khaki trousers as magically as the knife had appeared in his hand. The tremendous impact of the .357 slug jerked him off his feet and deposited him on the cracked concrete of the alley. He rolled over on his back. Pappy’s light had never left him. I heard Pappy’s footsteps in the darkness outside the circle of light.
    â€œEasy, boy,” he said. “You-all put that knife down nice and easy.”
    On his back, blood seeping from his thigh, Leo threw the knife at him.
    Pappy dropped the flashlight. His gun roared three times. One of the slugs ricocheted, striking sparks, off the concrete of the alley. This close, I could hear the whonking meaty thud of the other two slugs in Leo’s body.
    I found the flashlight, thumbed it on and swung it. Pappy was Breathing raggedly. I caught Leo in the circle of light. Pappy’s two good shots had entered his chest, one just