Hammett didn't seem to be taking this seriously. In fact, in spite of the blood dribbling down her chin, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

  Tequila couldn't say the same, but he was experiencing an adrenaline rush, and a unique one. It wasn't like performance jitters before competition, or anything he could qualify as fear. The rush he felt was the rush of violence. Fighting for your life. Trying to harm someone intent on harming you. Years ago, as Hammett said, he was a leg breaker for the mob. He worked for a particularly nasty bookie, a connected wiseguy, who would send Tequila out to hurt gamblers who didn't pay their marker. Tequila didn't like the work, but he could stomach it. Unlike Hammett, he didn't have a sadistic streak.

  He didn't have a moral streak, either. Not much of one, at least.

  Perhaps that was why something about combat excited him. Maybe not to the point of psychopathy, but Tequila was well aware of his sociopathic tendencies, and standing toe-to-toe with someone who wanted to kill him—in the Roman Colosseum no less—made him feel more alive than he'd felt in months.

  Tequila advanced, shuffling his feet sideways, and began to tap his thighs and forearms in a quick rhythm. It was a uniquely American style of fighting, born in prisons, meant for close-quarter combat and known as jailhouse rock. It was also known as—

  "Fifty-two blocks," Hammett said, dancing a circle with him as she patted out a rhythm of her own. "Are we going to spit the razor, too?"

  Tequila was surprised. That was an advanced technique; mouthing a razorblade to spit into the appropriate hand when needed. He moved in anyway, tapping on his limbs until he saw an opening, then lashing out with a punch at Hammett's jaw. But her hands were also in motion, and she slipped it and countered with a kick between his legs. Tequila was still in pain from the last kick, and not about to let it happen again, so he was ready with a block, and he followed with a palm strike to the chest. She blocked and shot a one-two combo to his abs, which he absorbed by flexing. She followed with a quick uppercut, which he slid around, elbowing her under the armpit, hitting a nerve bundle.

  Hammett grunted and staggered, Tequila did a quick spin kick and caught her in the ass. She used the momentum to take several steps sideways, and Tequila took two big strides and executed a perfect double full; a flip with two complete twists. He landed beside her and spun in a backhand strike. She was able to guard her face, but the force of the blow still laid her out.

  Hammett did a kip up, got on her feet, another grin on her face.

  "Goddamn. You aren't bad for an older fella."

  Tequila wasn't sure how she was able to get up after that punch. Let alone find it amusing. He did another quick glance for dropped weapons and was rewarded with a boot in the face. He managed to turn fast enough so it didn't break his nose, but it still staggered him back.

  Damn, she's fast.

  Faster than me.

  As if to prove the point, Hammett jumped up and bent her knees, touching her ankles. She freed two fixed blade knives from her holsters, and threw the left one at Tequila before her feet hit the ground.

  Tequila knew he was past his prime. He knew it every second of every day. Each morning he awoke acutely aware that his eyesight was getting a little blurrier. His muscles a little weaker. His reflexes a little slower. His posture a bit more stooped. A thousand upside-down push-ups every day didn't stop time from taking its toll.

  Years ago, he was perhaps the best at what he did. His skills unmatched. But that was the past. Tequila always understood that one day someone would come along who was better than he was. Quicker. Stronger. And when that happened, he would almost assuredly die.

  Today wasn't that day.

  Tequila caught the knife by the hilt, as easily as catching a baseball, and he threw it back, sticking the blade in Hammett's chest with a thunk.

  Hammett tugged it out of her Kevlar, smiling.

  "It's a shame you're here to kill me. I bet we could have had fun together."

  "You're the one trying to kill me," Tequila said.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds.

  "Why are you here?" Hammett finally broke the silence.

  "Emilio Ghisoni."

  Hammett raised an eyebrow. "Why is that name familiar? Wait, the gunsmith? The one who created the Mateba Unica 6 autorevolver?"

  "There's an exotic weapons exhibit tomorrow at the Boscolo Exedra hotel."

  Hammett seemed to consider it, then she laughed, hard enough for her shoulders to shake. "You're here for a gun show? That's why you're in Rome?"

  Tequila simply stared, waiting for Hammett to make the next move.

  "I'm here on a job," she said. Then she made a show of looking around. The tourists were still fleeing, but a few Polizia di Stato were making their way toward them, shouting stop! in Italian. "Let's go somewhere a little more private and talk. Maybe get an espresso."

  Tequila continued to stare. Hammett rolled her eyes. "Get with the program, dummy. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already."

  "Unlikely."

  Hammett's hand was so fast all Tequila saw was motion blur. She'd pulled something out of her collar, and placed it next to her mouth. A metal straw, roughly a foot long.

  "Blow dart. Tetrodotoxin. Extracted it from the blowfish myself. You'll be dead within a minute."

  Tequila considered it. He didn't know if he believed her, but he didn't see any reason not to.

  "An espresso would be nice," he said.

  Hammett winked, then tucked the tube away. "First one is on me."

  Hammett

  The man sitting across from her was short. A few inches shorter than she was, and probably too short to get on all the rides at Disneyland. But he had biceps the size of softballs and legs like tree trunks. Honey, I Shrunk Schwarzenegger.

  Besides his unattractive stature, he was also old. Gray hair old. Wrinkles on the forehead old. He was probably closer to sixty than fifty.

  But he sure could fight. Not many could trade punches with Hammett. She'd tussled with and beaten bigger and stronger, but few were her equal. This guy—

  Well… if it had kept going the way it had been going, she would have had to kill him.

  Tequila had downed his espresso in one hot gulp, and ordered another. Hammett sipped hers, nibbling on a biscotti, considering what to do next. He wasn't here to kill her; after their detente they'd found their weapons and left the Colosseum ahead of the police, wary of each other. Tequila hadn't tried anything, and she found herself believing this wasn't a hit, it was simply a coincidence. He said he was here for a gun show, and he seemed like the kind of obsessive neurotic collector-type who went to gun shows. The cincher was the COP .357 he carried. An exotic weapon if there ever was one. She totally bought him being a Ghisoni fan.

  "So, you own a Mateba Unica?" she asked. "I had one for a brief period. Semiautomatic revolver. It cocked itself after every shot fired. Nice weapon."

  "I have eight Unica 6s," Tequila said. "Two in .357, two in .44, and two in .45/Casull. I also have a few 2006Ms, a .32 MTR-8, and a MT1 in .22LR. They're featuring one of Ghisoni's prototypes at the show."

  "Interesting," Hammett said.

  It actually wasn't. Like any good assassin, Hammett appreciated a well-made weapon. But she was meat and potatoes in her approach to firearms. Weird designs could fail in the field. Plus, it would be pretty embarrassing to get shot if you forgot how to open the cylinder because the lever wasn't where it normally was.

  "They have a Pistola con Caricato up for auction," Tequila said.

  "I'm not familiar with that one."

  "It's a three barreled revolver with eighteen chambers in the cylinder. Fires three rounds at once. It comes with two moon clips. It's over a hundred years old."

  His fanboy bullshit made his threat level drop to near zero. Hammett considered him again, not as an opponent, but as a potential partner. He wasn't bad looking, he was extremely fit, and she'd seen how flexible he was. Unusual in a man. Opened up a lot of unique possibilities.

  Hammett licked a crumb off her lower lip, and then lowered her chin and made her eyes a bit wider. She was just as adept at flirting as killing. The fight had left her horny. Violence usually did. Plus, she only had three days left to complete her mission, which had proved more complicated than she'd anticipated.

  Sex would relieve some of the built-up tension.

  She crossed her legs under the tiny table, intentionally hitting Tequila's calf with her foot. It was like kicking a stone.

  He would no doubt look amazing naked.

  "What do they expect the Caricato to sell for?"

  "Estimated at fifteen to twenty k."

  "Ouch. You can swing that?"

  He stared at her blankly.

  Bad move. You don't question a man's personal finances if you want to get laid. Stick to flattery and letting the guy talk about himself.

  "So are there any other guns you're interested in at this auction?"

  "Why are we here?" Tequila asked.

  "The espresso is the best in Rome. Don't you like it?"

  "It's fine."

  "Fine? It's thirty Euro a shot. Kopi Luwac beans."

  Tequila grunted. "Weasel shit coffee."

  "Not weasels. Civets. They belong to the vivericcula genus. The weasel is mustela."

  He did that blank staring thing again.

  Hammett shrugged. "I know a lot of weird stuff. I'd kill on Jeopardy."

  "You'd kill anywhere."

  She studied his face, saw his eyes glint. He was joking. Hammett smiled. "Funny. Anyway, the civet eats the coffee cherries, and its digestive enzymes take the bitterness out of the bean."

  "Which is then harvested from their shit."

  "True. Not a job I'd like to have. A shitty job, in fact. The problem is, once the West caught on to the taste, prices skyrocketed. Civet coffee sells for a few hundred dollars a pound. And because of that, they're farming civets. Keeping them in cages. Force feeding them. Abusing them. It's awful."

  "So why do you drink it?"

  She pointed to a sign above the barista. Tequila stared blankly at it. Hammett assumed he didn't know Italian, so she translated. "It says beans from free range civets."

  "And you care about that?"

  "Of course I care about that. Why would I want to torture some poor civets just to get a cup of overpriced coffee?"

  He shrugged. "I assumed that was something you might enjoy. Pulling wings off butterflies, magnifying glass on an anthill, kicking puppies, that sort of thing."

  Hammett lost her flirt, and indignation surfaced. Her hands balled up.

  "Did I hit a sore spot?" Tequila asked.

  "Mankind is the worst thing to ever happen to this planet. Our exploitation of nature is disgusting. Animals were on earth before we were, they'll be on earth after we're gone. And as far as I'm concerned, that won't happen fast enough. The world is sick. We're the disease. I've killed more people than I can remember, but I'd never hurt an innocent animal."

  Tequila's expression didn't change. Why would it? He was obviously dead inside.

  Hammett held his stare, then took another sip of coffee, forcing herself to chill.

  "You have on leather boots," Tequila said.

  "So? I also eat meat."

  "Isn't that exploiting nature?"

  Hammett finished her cookie. "Cows, pigs, and chickens, snakes, alligators, ostrich—they're all ugly."

  "That matters?"

  "Yes. I only care about cute animals."

  "Sort of hypocritical, isn't it?"

  "I'm a psychopath, remember? I don't have to make sense."

  He stared. For some odd reason, Hammett felt the need to fill in the silence.

  "I've been to a slaughterhouse," she said. "Had no feelings about it one way or another. Cows are stupid, they stink, and they look ridiculous. Civets are adorable."

  Hammett felt her mood improve simply by picturing a civet. Sleek and lean, with shiny gray and black fur, and those big, expressive eyes. Hammett bet that if civets could talk, they'd have funny, squeaky voices.

  Damn. I am crazy.

  "So why are we here?" Tequila asked again.

  "Back to that?"

  "You didn't answer."

  "Fine," she ran her fingertip over the rim of her espresso cup. "I think you're hot, and I want to fuck you."

  She paid special attention to enunciating the word fuck. Men liked it when women said it that way.

  "You tried to kill me."

  "Ancient history."

  "You kicked me in the balls. Twice. And bit me." He held up his forearm, the makeshift bandage she'd tied on spotted with blood.

  "You're not entirely blameless in that scenario. You shot me four times. Stuck a knife in my chest. And you were trying to snap my neck. Do you hear me whining about it?"

  Oops. Another bad seduction move. Calling a man names wasn't a smart way to get him into bed.

  "Look, I've got a room up the street," Hammett said, lowering her voice and making it breathy. "I could be sucking your cock in five minutes."

  Tequila's expression didn't change. Hammett knew for sure he wasn't gay. So what was the problem?

  Could it be possible he didn't find her attractive?

  She searched her mental Rolodex for the last time someone turned her down, and came up blank. Hammett was pretty. She was in great shape. She had a spectacular boob job done by the best plastic surgeon in LA. Plus, she was good in bed. Really good. And men seemed to sense that and get turned on by it.

  But flirting with Tequila was like flirting with the Lincoln Memorial.

  She decided to throw all her cards on the table.

  "I know you find me attractive," she said.

  "I do?"

  "You fucked one of my identical sisters."

  "You're not your sister."

  "How am I different? Other than bigger tits. And legs that work."

  "It's more than that."

  "Morals? She's an operative like me. She's killed people."

  "It's more than that."

  "Tell me."

  "She's caring. She's funny. She's genuine."

  "And me?"

  "You're a homicidal maniac."

  Hammett narrowed her eyes. "And homicidal maniacs aren't sexy? Since when?"

  Tequila stared impassively.

  "I was joking," Hammett said. "To show I'm funny. And I just told you I care. I don't care about people, but I care about other things. Animals. Civets. Dogs. As for being genuine, what the hell does that even mean?"

  "It means being who you are. Owning it. Not pretending to be something else. Do your little flirting tricks work on other guys?"

  "Of course."

  "And now you're pissed, because they don't work on me."

  "I'm not pissed."

  "You seem pissed."

  "I bet you're shit in bed," Hammett said. "I bet you just lie there, don't make a sound. Like fucking a sex doll."

  "I'm incredible in bed," Tequila said, draining his second espresso. "Ask your sister."

  Hammett changed tactics. "Now you're just being mean." She made her eyes glaze over. Not too much—she didn't want to overdo it. "Does it make you feel good? Hurting me?"

  "So this is the new plan?" Tequila asked. "To make me feel sorry for you? Flirting didn't work, so you're trying for a pity fuck?"

  Hammett scrapped the new plan. This was becoming less about satisfying a sexual urge, and more about pride.

  "I can leave right now, and I'll have some guy on my arm before I get halfway back to the hotel."

  "So go do that."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I want you."

  "You don't even know me."

  "I know that you don't want me. And for some sick reason that makes me want you even more."

  "You're insane. Really. I mean, shrinks could do a thesis on you."

  Hammett folded her arms. "I'll buy you the Caricato."

  "You'll buy me the Caricato if I sleep with you?"

  "Yes."

  "A twenty thousand dollar gun. In exchange for sex."

  "I just said that, Grandpa. Is the Alzheimer's kicking in? Do I need to write it down for you?"

  Tequila's granite expression finally cracked. His eyes crinkled, and the corners of his mouth turned up. It was slight, but it was a smile.

  "Tempting," he said, "but that's one service I don't sell."

  Hammett softened her features, easing back into seduction mode. She leaned forward, arms on the table to plump up her breasts.

  "I was trained to use sex to get what I want," Hammett said. "I was also trained to use sex for recreational purposes. Tell the truth; our fight in the Colosseum made you horny."

  Tequila didn't respond.

  "It's completely natural," Hammett said. "We were really going at each other. Fighting for our lives. It was primal. Instinctive. Increased blood flow and muscle tension. Elevated heart rate and emotional arousal. The same biological response as being sexually stimulated. Then it was over, but your body is still processing all the testosterone it produced. All the epinephrine and cortisol. Plus there was the dopamine and serotonin dump, because you're relieved to still be alive. Right now you're a walking hormone cocktail. So am I. The best thing to do, in situations like this, is work it out on a king-sized bed."

  Tequila reached over, took Hammett's other biscotti, and popped it in his mouth. After chewing and swallowing he said, "Okay."

  "Okay?"

  "You're scary. But you're right. I could use it. And frankly, the porn on Italian cable TV is skeevy. No offense to this country, but they've got a body hair thing going on that reminds me of the 1970s."

  "I don't have any body hair," Hammett said. "Anywhere."

  "If we do this, I have some conditions."

  "I'm listening."

  "First, no restraints. I'll never trust you that much."

  "Okay."

  "Second, condoms. I don't have any, so we need to get some. I'm assuming that you've slept with a lot of men. No offense."

  "None taken. And you're correct."

  It was more than a lot. And it wasn't just limited to men.

  "So we need to stop at some store—"

  "I have condoms, Tequila."

  "Are they extra-large?"

  Hammett tried to keep her face neutral, and wasn't sure she succeeded. "They aren't."