Those eight are a source of tremendous pride. The true test of a gunfighter isn’t the ability to shoot. It’s the cool-headedness to shoot back. To use cover, talent, and guts to kill someone who is trying to kill you.

  It’s the reality version of Gunslinger Showdown.

  Gunslinger Showdown, known as GS, is an underground contest that pits the best of the best single-action shooters in the country against one another. It’s underground, rather than a sanctioned or sponsored competition like Cowboy Action Shooting, because GS could never get the necessary insurance or permits.

  It’s too dangerous, and potentially deadly.

  GS involves three events. The Saloon Shootout, which requires bursting into a staged bar and nailing three desperados before they shoot you. You enter through the swinging doors with your gun drawn and have six wax bullets vs. their eighteen. Because your opponents have their pistols holstered, and are required to remain stationary, it’s a pretty even fight.

  The second event is Quickdraw, with target shooting from the hip timed in milliseconds. Judges use digital recorders to time the draw and fire. The Cowboy’s best is .313 seconds.

  But the coolest event is High Noon, which is a reenactment of the classic western gunfight. Walk ten paces, turn, and draw.

  The Cowboy is undefeated at High Noon, and has the trophies to prove it.

  But being the best requires constant practice.

  In the flatbed of the pickup are targets. Plastic prescription bottles. A case of empty beer longnecks. Two fifths of whiskey, every drop drained.

  The Cowboy understands chemical escapes, and partakes on occasion. Not as much as some, but to each their own vices.

  For the Cowboy, the ultimate pleasure doesn’t come in a bottle or pill. And no nudity is required.

  Shooting doesn’t require condoms. And killing never involves consent.

  The Cowboy loves to shoot.

  And loves to kill even more.

  Making things bleed and hurt and die is a buzz unlike any other drug. Not quite sexual, not quite pharmaceutical. But better than either.

  The Cowboy begins to set up targets. The smallest at five meters, going back to fifteen meters. After a few practice draws, the Cowboy sites the targets and memorizes their locations.

  Eyes closed, the Cowboy pulls the Vaquero and shoots six times.

  The gunshots sound like thunderclaps, and come so fast it’s practically one continuous sound rather than six distinct bangs. Impressive by any standards. More impressive because the Vaquero is single action. Unlike a double action revolver, which automatically cocks the hammer with each trigger pull, single action requires the hammer to be manually pulled back after each shot.

  That might seem like a disadvantage. And perhaps it is, for those who didn’t know how to properly use single action. But someone with experience can fire single action faster than double action. Faster even than a semi-automatic.

  In old western movies, gunslingers will fan a weapon; hold down the trigger while slapping the hammer with the outside palm of the opposite hand. It looks great on screen while using blanks. With live ammo, each slap knocks the gun off target, making it a very difficult skill to master.

  The competition way is to hold the gun with both hands, keep the trigger pressed, and draw the hammer with the opposite thumb.

  If the shooter is good, the shots will be fast and accurate.

  The Cowboy is fast and accurate.

  Eyes open, the Cowboy sees five of the six desired targets have been destroyed.

  A display of marksmanship worthy of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Even more impressive because of the handicap involved.

  But the sixth target, still upright, mocks the Cowboy.

  So the Cowboy empties the brass, reloads, and repeats the exercise.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until all the targets are obliterated.

  The brass gets picked up, to be reused.

  The dead bottles are left where they’ve been shot.

  The Cowboy heads back to the truck, and sees movement in the brush, forty meters away.

  Brown. Small. Quick.

  A prairie dog.

  Quick draw is different than multi-target shooting. It requires a special holster, reinforced with steel, so the weapon can be cocked as it is drawn. Then the shot is fired, from the hip, as soon as the pistol clears the leather.

  It’s the fastest way to draw and shoot a weapon.

  The Cowboy’s holster is reinforced with steel.

  Point four seconds later, the rodent is a shredded pelt.

  Not a world record. But drawing, shooting, and killing a varmint in four-tenths of a second is pretty damn incredible.

  The Cowboy smiles. Now comes the delicious anticipation of waiting. Prairie dogs are social animals, and it won’t be long before one of its colony mates comes by to investigate.

  And then another will come. And another.

  With a little luck, the Cowboy can bag four or five. The Cowboy’s personal record is eleven.

  It’s so much more fun than shooting pill bottles.

  Pill bottles don’t squeal and bleed and die.

  There’s a buzzing sound. The Cowboy’s cell phone.

  A text message.

  NEED YOU.

  The Cowboy frowns. Now isn’t a good time.

  90 MINS, the Cowboy texts back.

  It is nice to be needed. But right now, the prairie dogs need me more.

  Somewhere, a coyote howls.

  The Cowboy howls back

  SOMEWHERE, WEEKS AGO

  HERB

  After several months of confinement, Tequila asked Herb for a favor.

  The worst favor ever.

  “They set my leg wrong,” Tequila had told him. “It’s healing crooked.”

  Herb didn’t want to ask what needed to be done, but he had no choice. During their long imprisonment, Herb’s diminutive, reticent friend had helped Herb retain his sanity. Herb had shared more with Tequila than he had with his wife, Helen, or his old partner on the force, Jacqueline Daniels. Stories he’d never told anyone. The embarrassment of losing his virginity in under five seconds (he’d vastly improved his time since then). How he’d sobbed with fear on his wedding day. The previous times he’d been kidnapped by maniacs (sewed his eyes shut). The men he’d killed. The women he’d loved. The dream he had, of retiring and buying a house on a lake to fish through his autumn years while listening to the loons hoot at each other.

  Tequila didn’t talk much, but he also opened up about his past. His violent father. His disabled sister. His collection of Italian firearms.

  They played word games. Reminisced about old television shows. Played checkers on the cement floor with shirt buttons taken from other prisoners who didn’t survive their injuries. Herb was also pretty sure—not entirely sure—but reasonably certain that Tequila sang an old Beatles song to him when Herb had been delusional with malaria, or dengue, or Montezuma’s Revenge.

  It had probably been a fever dream, because Herb recalled hearing both harmony and melody.

  But it hadn’t been a dream that Tequila had been with him throughout the illness. Changing his soiled sheets. Forcing Herb to drink water. Putting cool rags on his forehead.

  Herb respected the man. And liked the man. And owed the man.

  So when Tequila mentioned his badly healing leg, Herb immediately asked, “What can I do?”

  “I need you to break it again.”

  As it turned out, the actual act wasn’t as bad as the request.

  It was much, much worse.

  “How?”

  Tequila laid on the floor, his bare leg stretched up so his heel rested on the cot.

  “See the scar?”

  “Which one?” Tequila had six bullet wounds in that leg.

  “The shin. Five centimeters below the kneecap.”

  Herb saw it. “What do I do?” he asked, not wanting to know.

  “Put your heel on the wound, and apply your weight until it gives.”

  “That’s… awful.”

  “I’ve already lost my depth perception.” Tequila had knotted together an eyepatch out of old bandana shreds. “I don’t want to limp for the rest of my life.”

  Feeling nauseous, Herb agreed to the task. He gingerly placed his bare foot on Tequila’s leg.

  “Won’t this break your knee?”

  “No. I’m flexing my muscle.”

  Even pockmarked with scars and bedridden for months, Tequila had legs thick as tree stumps.

  “Fast or slow?”

  “Slow. Too fast and the bone could break through the skin.”

  “That would be bad.”

  “Agreed. I could get an infection.”

  Herb was talking about the pain and overall awfulness of a compound fracture, not any resulting infection. But Tequila was a textbook stoic. Hell, he made all other stoics look like whiney little babies.

  Even so, Herb didn’t want to hurt his friend. And this was going to hurt. A lot.

  “You ready?”

  Tequila nodded.

  Watching Tequila’s face, Herb began to bear down on his foot.

  “Harder.”

  Herb put more weight on it. Tequila winced, but didn’t make a sound.

  “I’m hurting you.”

  “Lean into it. I can feel where the bone is cracked.”

  Herb didn’t want to hear that. But he pressed down harder, letting that foot take most of his weight.

  Tequila’s leg, and most of his body, were trembling. He’d clenched his jaw, and his fists, and his face became glossy with sweat.

  “More,” he grunted.

  “I’ve got all my weight on it.”

  “Bounce.”

  In his more reflective moments, Herb would recollect the things he’d done in his life, and judge them according to his own moral code.

  Bouncing on a wounded man’s broken leg easily hit the Number 1 spot of Worst Acts I’ve Ever Committed.

  With each bounce, Herb swore he heard a cracking sound.

  “Is that the cot?” Herb asked.

  “Bone,” Tequila barked. “Ends grinding together.”

  Herb eased up, feeling the vomit rise up his esophagus and burn his throat.

  “Keep going,” Tequila ordered.

  “I… I can’t.”

  “Keep going,”

  “Tequila, this is…”

  “Just do it, you worthless son of a bitch!”

  Tequila’s insult did the trick. Shocked by the change in his friend’s demeanor, Herb let his foot take all of his weight, momentarily bouncing up into the air—

  —snapping Tequila’s leg with the sound of molars on wet celery.

  Herb lost his balance and fell over, landing hard, the pain from his own injuries prompting a howl that competed with—and triumphed over—the urge to throw up.

  Then, after howling, he threw up.

  “When you’re finished,” Tequila said through clenched teeth, “I need you to pull my leg to straighten it out.”

  Herb took a quick glance.

  Tequila’s leg was bent so severely, his toes were nearly touching his own thigh.

  After the vomiting, and a bit of sobbing—

  “Relax,” Tequila soothed. “It’s not like we’re not getting married.”

  —Herb grabbed his friend’s mangled appendage and tugged and twisted according to orders, until Tequila was satisfied the bones were properly aligned.

  Tequila had saved his old splint under his filthy mattress, and Herb did his best to tie it on without looking.

  “Nice work,” Tequila mumbled.

  Then, blessedly, he passed out.

  Herb, unfortunately, did not.

  And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget the cracking/grinding sound of bone-on-bone.

  PRESENT

  JACK

  The side door opened, and I climbed into the Crimebago Deux and some creepy-looking dude with greasy long hair stuck a video camera in my face.

  I relieved him of the camera with a move I’d practiced a thousand times, except I always expected to use it to disarm a weapon-wielding assailant, not a tech nerd.

  “Whoa, easy there, karate chick,” the camera guy said.

  “Yeah, karate chick, easy there.”

  To his left was another creepy-looking dude with long greasy hair, holding a microphone on a stick. They had to be twins.

  “Don’t beat them up, J-Dawg. They’re with me.”

  I shot a look at Harry, while trying to keep a lid on anger that was very close to boiling over, and saw he had on some sort of headgear with a mini camera pointing at himself.

  “What the hell, McGlade?”

  “I might have forgot to mention, this is my new YouTube show. Private Dick Live and Streaming In Your Face.”

  I made a fist. “Are you streaming live right now?”

  “No,” said one of the greasy twins. “We’re just getting some footage for the title credits. Can I have my camera back?”

  I didn’t give him his camera back. “Outside, McGlade. Now.”

  Outside must have been a word Rosalina knew, because the dog began to howl.

  “Give me a second, guys.” Harry took off his head harness, told Rosalina to shush, and then followed me out the side door.

  I fiddled with the camera until I knew it was off, then said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “This is the latest thing. These streaming shows rake in the cash.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’d get all bitchy. Like you’re doing right now.”

  I’d known Harry a long time, but I still didn’t know if he was willfully ignorant, naturally stupid, or just played dumb to take advantage. “Did you forget that I’m supposed to be dead?”

  “Of course I didn’t forget, Jackie. That’s why I called you J-Dawg. You’ll be completely anonymous.”

  “People will recognize my face, you fat moron.”

  “First, words hurt, Second, the guys are gonna do that pixelated thing. You know, like when mob informers are on TV. They scramble up your face, make you sound like lispy Darth Vader, and no one will know it’s you.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Not happening. People can still guess it’s me.”

  “Let them guess. They don’t know your new name. They don’t know you moved to Florida. It will all be speculation and conspiracy theory, which advertisers love because it gets more views.”

  “This is my life, McGlade. I’m not risking it.”

  “Makes sense. But what if I asked pretty please?”

  “No way in hell.”

  He sighed, and his face got all droopy. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “it hasn’t been announced yet, but my TV show—Fatal Autonomy—it isn’t going to be renewed.”

  “Sorry to hear that. But not my problem.”

  Harry studied his shoes and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, you see, I was kinda counting on another season, because I’m sort of low on funds.”

  “I thought you were rich.”

  “Yeah, I’ve made a lot of money. But I haven’t been what you’d exactly call fiscally responsible.”

  “No shit,” I answered, eyeing the bright red Crimebago.

  “In fairness, a lot of my money went to charity. You know how I’ve staunchly supported various causes.”

  “Name one.”

  “Unwed mothers.”

  “Buying cars for the strippers you’re dating isn’t a charitable donation.”

  “Don’t tell that to Uncle Sam. I also helped organize that Free The Nipple walk in downtown Chicago. It’s pure sexism and discrimination and an appalling double standard that women aren’t allowed to be topless in public. You ladies should be able to take your shirts off whenever you want to. In fact, I’d be fine if you did so right now.”

  “I’m touched by your third wave feminism. And how much did that bit of philanthropy cost?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of these things. Fiscally irresponsible, remember? I thought the gravy train would keep drowning me with enough greenbacks to pay taxes, but then those network assholes cancelled my cash cow, so I’m short. I need to make some money, fast.”

  “I’m not being part of your streaming show. Either you kick those twins out, or I will.”

  McGlade didn’t answer. But he actually looked hurt. Not fake-acting hurt.

  Real hurt.

  “I owe two million dollars to the IRS.”

  I blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a letter. The actual total was one million nine hundred and eighty-six thousand.

  I let the disbelief, and the accompanying disappointment, come out in my voice. “How does something like this happen?”

  “I would have been fine if I hadn’t been cancelled.”

  “Don’t you have anything saved?”

  “I did some investing. Nothing has panned out.”

  “Stocks? Gold?”

  “When I first started making money, I had a financial advisor who told me collectibles were the way to go.”

  I could guess where this was going. “Don’t tell me you invested in Pokémon cards.”

  “I wish. They’ve held their value. I’ve got a cool mil in Beanie Babies.”

  That made me blink. “You spent a million dollars on bean-stuffed animals.”

  “A little over a million. Back in 2005, Princess Bear and Garcia Bear were selling for thousands of dollars each. I was told that if I cornered the market on rare Beanies, I could drive the price up.”

  “And how much are they worth now?”

  “A hundred.”

  “A hundred grand isn’t too bad.”

  “Not a hundred grand. A hundred dollars. Talk about the bottom falling out.”

  I studied McGlade’s eyes, and saw the self-loathing there. I had no idea what I’d do if he started to cry. Would I have to hug him?

  I didn’t want to have to hug him.

  “I hope your financial advisor is in prison,” was the best bit of commiseration I could come up with.

  “He’s dead.”

  I gave him a look.