Rackman crept closer to Kowalchuk, his gun pointed at him. Kowalchuk wasn’t moving and Rackman figured he’d either hit him fatally, or Kowalchuk had hurt himself in the fall from the train. Rackman stopped a few feet away from Kowalchuk and heard a commotion in the tunnel behind him. The other cops were coming now, and he glanced around to look. Even as he was doing it, he knew he was making a mistake.
Kowalchuk saw his chance and leapt for Rackman’s gun. Rackman spun around at the last moment but Kowalchuk grabbed his wrist. Startled, Rackman pulled back, but Kowalchuk had him in a vise grip.
“Give… me… your… gun,” Kowalchuk growled, holding Rackman’s wrist with one massive hand and reaching for the gun with his other. Their sweating faces were inches apart and Rackman could smell Kowalchuk’s fetid breath.
Rackman tried to kick Kowalchuk in the groin, but Kowalchuk pivoted out of the way and spun Rackman around, slamming him against a steel pillar. Rackman was knocked cold for a split second, and dropped the gun. Kowalchuk bent over to pick it up and Rackman kicked him in the head. The force of the blow straightened Kowalchuk up and sent him falling backward. Rackman went after him and threw a hard left to Kowalchuk’s face. Kowalchuk grunted as it landed and shot a punch of his own at Rackman’s stomach, but Rackman stepped back out of range.
Kowalchuk reached into his pocket and pulled out his switchblade. He hit the button and the blade glowed dully in the dim light. “Get away from me, cop,” he said.
“Drop that knife and give yourself up, Kowalchuk,” Rackman replied. “You haven’t got a chance.”
Kowalchuk licked his lips and glanced uptown. Policemen with flashlights were entering the tunnel.
“Just let me get the gun,” Kowalchuk said.
“I won’t hurt you if you let me get the gun.”
Rackman moved between Kowalchuk and the gun. “Not today.”
“Then you die!” Kowalchuk yelled, lunging at Rackman, but Rackman darted back out of the way. The gun was only a few feet from Rackman now, and he knew he’d have to stand his ground or try to get the gun himself. He decided to try and get the gun. He stepped backward, his eyes on Kowalchuk’s knife, trying to locate the gun with his feet. His face was covered with perspiration and he stared at Kowalchuk’s knife.
“No you don’t!” Kowalchuk said, realizing Rackman was trying to get the gun.
Kowalchuk jumped forward and tried to rip Rackman’s stomach, but Rackman caught Kowalchuk’s wrist in both his hands, lifted it in the air, pivoted, and brought Kowalchuk’s elbow down on his shoulder. Kowalchuk screamed and dropped the knife. Rackman side-stepped karate style and jabbed his elbow into Kowalchuk’s gut, but Kowalchuk had a lot of cushioning there and barely felt it. Kowalchuk slugged Rackman in the ear, and then hit him again, watching him go sprawling down the track. Rackman fell on his knees and knew there was an electric rail somewhere around here. He turned around and saw Kowalchuk bending over the revolver.
Rackman gritted his teeth and dived at Kowalchuk. The force of his body hit Kowalchuk waist-high and knocked him over.
Rackman pounded Kowalchuk in the head but Kowalchuk shook off the blows, pushing Rackman away with all his might. Rackman stumbled backward, and Kowalchuk went for the gun again.
Rackman saw the knife gleaming on a wooden trestle between him and Kowalchuk. Charging forward, he scooped up the knife and went for Kowalchuk’s back. Kowalchuk didn’t see him; he was reaching for the gun, certain he’d get it this time. Rackman rushed him and raised the knife, hesitating for a split second at the awareness of what he was about to do, and then plunged it into Kowalchuk’s back.
Kowalchuk had the gun three inches off the ground when the knife went in. He bellowed and arched his back, firing the pistol wildly in the air. Rackman pulled the knife out and stabbed it in higher this time. Blood spurted everywhere, and Kowalchuk turned around. Blood dripped from his nose and the corner of his mouth as he tripped over the trestle and tried to gain his footing. He glowered at Rackman and unsteadily raised the revolver. Rackman attacked, smashing the gun out of the way and burying the knife up to its hilt in Kowalchuk’s heart.
Kowalchuk’s knees wobbled as blood gushed out of the wound. He dropped the gun and staggered backward, trying to pull the knife out. Then his eyes glazed over and he pitched forward onto his face.
Huffing and puffing, Rackman looked down at him. Rackman was bleeding from a cut on his arm, and the lights were spinning around him.
Leaning against a steel pillar, he gazed at Kowalchuk lying in a pool of spreading blood.
The police came out of the gloom with their flashlights and guns.
“Are you all right?” a sergeant asked.
“Yeah,” Rackman said, turning his head and spitting out a wad of blood. He looked at Kowalchuk again, then picked his revolver out of the gravel and put it in his shoulder holster.
“Good work,” the sergeant said, patting Rackman on the back.
The other policemen kept their distance, looking respectfully at Rackman. He frowned, wiped the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand, and sat on a steel rail, burying his face in his hands.
My So-Called Literary Career
by Len Levinson
As I look back at my so-called literary career, which consisted of 83 paperback novels by 22 pseudonyms, I’ve concluded that it all began in 1946 when I was 11, Fifth Grade, John Hannigan Grammar School, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
A teacher named Miss Ribeiro asked students to write essays of our choosing. Some kids wrote about baking cookies with mommy, fishing excursions to Cuttyhunk with dad, or bus to Boston to watch the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway Park, etc.
But my mommy died when I was four, and dear old Dad never took me anywhere. So Little Lenny Levinson penned a science fiction epic about an imaginary trip to the planet Pluto, probably influenced by Buck Rogers, perhaps expressing subliminal desires to escape my somewhat Dickensian childhood.
As I wrote, the classroom seemed to vanish. I sat at the control panel of a sleek, silver space ship hurtling past suns, moons, asteroids and blazing constellations. While writing, I experienced something I can only describe today as an out-of-body, ecstatic hallucination, evidently the pure joy of self-expression.
I returned to earth, handed in the essay, and expected the usual decent grade. A few days later Miss Ribeiro praised me in front of the class and read the essay aloud, first time I’d been singled out for excellence. Maybe I’ll be a writer when I grow up, I thought.
As time passed, it seemed an impractical choice. Everyone said I’d starve to death. I decided to prepare for a realistic career, but couldn’t determine exactly what it was.
In 1954, age 19, I joined the Army for the GI Bill, assuming a Bachelor’s degree somehow would elevate me to the Middle Class. After mustering out in 1957, I enrolled at Michigan State University, East Lansing, majored in Social Science, graduated in 1961, and travelled to New York City to seek my fortune.
Drifting with the tides, in 1970 I was employed as a press agent at Solters and Sabinson, a show biz publicity agency near Times Square. Our clients included Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Bob Hope, the Beatles, Flip Wilson, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Holiday on Ice, Playboy, Caesar’s Palace, numerous Broadway shows, and countless movies, among others. It was at Solters and Sabinson that certain life-transforming events occurred, ultimately convincing me to become a full-time novelist.