Where Palms Sway and the Surf Pounds by Curtis Ippolito

Between drywall jobs, I booked it to Ocean Beach to beat some respect into a piss-ant thief named Nick Russell. He’d broke into a house in North Park the night before, robbed an elderly couple at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped both before fleeing. None of it sat well with me, seeing as how the victims were […]

No Other Choice by Curtis Ippolito

You’d never held a gun on a person until that day, so obviously you’d never shot anyone either. The Smith & Wesson shook ever so slightly in your grip, your aim dead-center on our hit’s forehead. You were standing, he was kneeling—whimpering—in his fancy Spanish Colonial mansion in Henderson. A real monstrosity of a place. […]

Farm-to Market Road Justice by Curtis Ippolito

For three weeks, Mrs. Graves waited in the shadows at the end of her crushed rock driveway for them to return. Each night, an hour after dusk, she took her position: opposite side of the amber-casting street light, behind the mailbox and a naked rose hedge. Three hours, standing guard. Victim of beer bottles rifled […]