“Hey yourself,” she said. Should she try to get back across to him? No, with her luck she’d fall on her ass. “I’ve been waiting.”

  He said, “You should be dead by now,” and took a step forward into the light; neon from the Alley made his face Easter bunny pink. She knew him, didn’t she? Such a wimpy-looking geek; he looked just about ready to cry. “Damn it, nothing’s going right. Why aren’t you dead?”

  He had a gun—not a big gun, like Paolo’s, just a little .25 automatic. She almost told him she’d seen bigger.

  And then he fired. The snap of the shot echoed.

  Velvet toppled forward to cold stone.

  She’d remembered, stupidly, where she’d seen him. At the dry cleaners. Mr. Julian.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Martin

  It was sleeting outside, a vicious-looking gray slime that coated everything that wasn’t moving. Not only that, the windows were fogged over. Martin Grady wiped at the windshield again and squinted.

  “This won’t do,” Mrs. Womack said, and fiddled with the defroster. “My goodness, American cars certainly aren’t what they used to be. Go ahead and use the wipers, Marty. This is just dreadful.”

  The wipers dragged a sullen path over slushy ice and smeared a couple of inches clear. Through it, and the veil of falling sleet, he saw a big white truck across the street in an empty pay parking lot. Its exhaust puffed white smoke in the air like an exhausted runner.

  They were just sitting there. Waiting.

  “If we lose them—” Agent Jennings said, leaning over the seat to squint out himself. Mrs. Womack finished adjusting the defroster. A blast of cold air whistled through the car.

  “We won’t lose them,” she said. “Did you put on that scarf I gave you, Bryce?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He only sounded a little sarcastic. Martin adjusted his own scarf—the bright blue one—tighter around his throat. “We’ve got to do something, and soon.”

  “I quite agree. What is that noise?”

  It was a steady booming sound. Until she mentioned it, Martin had been afraid it was coming from the engine. Agent Jennings pointed off to the right.

  “Some kind of dance club. Over there.”

  “At three o’clock?” Mrs. Womack clucked her tongue. “Don’t they shut those things down?”

  “Some of them stay open until four,” he said, and shrugged when she stared at him. “So I hear. I’m a little old for that kind of thing, myself.”

  “I should hope so,” she sniffed. “Martin, I want you to stay in the car. We have to move quickly.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She laid the shotgun across her lap, pulled a compact black revolver from a holster on her hip, and checked the rounds.

  “Agent Jennings and I are going to ask the driver for his bill of lading.”

  She opened her car door and stepped out in a rush of wind and ice. Agent Jennings sighed and bailed out after her. The doors slammed and left Martin alone with the wheeze of the heater and the distant boom of the rock club.

  He hit the windshield wipers, and in the resulting inch of clear glass watched Mrs. Womack walk quickly across the street in her sensible shoes, head down, shotgun concealed under her billowing coat. Agent Jennings moved in from behind.

  The truck continued to idle, windshield wipers madly flapping. Martin tightened his grip on the steering wheel as Mrs. Womack marched right up to the cab’s door and knocked on the metal.

  The driver’s side window rolled down. Mrs. Womack shouted something that was lost in the wind; the driver cupped his hand around his ear and shook his head.

  She flipped the shotgun up from under her coat.

  The driver threw himself backward and raised something metal. Mrs. Womack fired, a boom out of sequence with the rock club bass, and he fired back, quick yapping shots.

  The windshield fogged over with sleet again.

  Martin hit the windshield wipers, but the street was empty, no Mrs. Womack, no nothing. He turned to look over his shoulder. Everything was cloudy with ice or fogged up.

  Damn. Damn. Da—

  The throaty roar of the truck startled him. They were running for it. Oh, god, he couldn’t see anything. He turned on the wipers and put the heater on high, dimly made out the white shape of the truck moving forward.

  The passenger-side door opened and Agent Jennings flung himself inside; his gasps shuddered in the air like smoke. Over his shoulder, Martin saw Mrs. Womack’s face as white as the ice caught in her hair.

  Blood poured from a hole in her leg. She folded into a sitting position on the cold street.

  “Drive!” Jennings yelled. Martin pointed wordlessly at Mrs. Womack; Jennings slapped his hand down. “Damn you, drive, don’t let him get away! Don’t you understand? Go!”

  Jennings jammed the accelerator, pinning Martin’s foot underneath his. The car leaped forward, and the passenger door slammed shut with enough force to crack the window.

  “I can’t see!” Martin yelled. Jennings grabbed for the wheel. The car picked up speed, thirty, thirty-five. The tires started a long fast slide.

  Something white ahead. The rock club’s bass boomed like a giant heart.

  “We’re going to—”

  They slammed head on into the truck.

  Cold. Martin tried to sit up, but his head screamed in protest. He felt for it with numbed hands and yelped when his fingers brushed his nose—broken. Bright red blood on the dashboard in front of him, dripping on the steering wheel. It was all over his hands.

  Head wound. He had a head wound. They always bled a lot. His arms were okay, his legs hurt like hell, but he could move them. The car was mashed to hell.

  There was a limp white balloon hanging from the steering wheel. Air bag.

  He turned his head to tell Agent Jennings about the air bag, but Jennings was gone. His door was open, creaking in the wind, and there was blood on the passenger seat.

  “Jennings?” he croaked. “Hey, are you okay? Hey?”

  He could see through the windshield now, mostly because the windshield was gone. Jagged squares of safety glass hung like fringe here and there; he had a good view of the white truck. It lay on its side like a dying elephant, grille mashed in. One tire was still spinning unevenly. The wind smelled like gas and hot metal.

  Somebody opened the driver’s-side door. Martin tried to turn his head, but it wouldn’t cooperate. He turned it with both hands and blinked.

  “Jennings?” No, the face wasn’t Jennings. It was a big guy with a blank steroid look. In spite of the cold, he was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt. His arms looked like the Jaws of Life.

  “You okay, man?” the Hulk asked. “We called 911. Shit, there’s some old lady shot over there. You do that?”

  Martin tried to shake his head.

  “I seen you crash. Man. Boom! Lucky you ain’t dead, man. You been drinking or what? Hey, if you been drinking, better have one of these.” He held up a tin full of what looked like mints. “Altoids. Cops won’t smell it on your breath.”

  “Where’s Jennings?”

  “Who? The old lady? She’s over there. Guy from the club, he used to be an EMT, he’s over there with her. Don’t worry, he ain’t been drinking much.”

  “What about the truck? Anybody in there?”

  The Hulk looked almost cheerful.

  “Couple of dead guys, that’s all. One of ’em has no face, Randy said. He was pukin’ on the sidewalk, so I know he wasn’t shitting me.”

  Over the Hulk’s huge shoulder, Martin caught sight of a woman wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, brand new. It still had creases. She smoothed it proudly over her hips and modeled it for a weaving leering boyfriend.

  Martin held his head together with both hands and peered out at the street.

  Chaos. The crash had drawn a crowd out of the club, and now they were at the truck, yanking open boxes, carrying off shirts—a purple-haired woman ran by carrying an armload. A young Hispanic man lifted two large boxes.

  “No …” Martin’s voice sounded slurred and weak. “No, stop … hey, stop them, they’re taking—”

  The Hulk looked where he pointed, and shrugged philosophically.

  “Hey, dude, I’m just the bouncer, I ain’t the cops. Fact is, I got a couple boxes stashed in my car right now.”

  Martin gritted his teeth and moved. He got one leg out the door, then the other, but when he tried to stand up, he fell over. The Hulk steadied him.

  “Not a genius idea, man.”

  “I have to stop them,” he said. It sounded stupid, and it was stupid, but he had to do something, any-thing. He staggered off toward the looting. The Hulk followed him at a casual distance.

  Martin tried to take a sweatshirt out of the hands of a young woman wearing orange leather. By the time he got up again, she was gone, heading for a decrepit Pinto.

  He grabbed hold of a middle-aged man in a business suit, and got an elbow in ribs that already felt like confetti. He sat down on the pavement to think about it, head down, and felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “It was good of you to try to stop them,” said a quiet male voice. The accent sounded English. Martin cradled his head in his hands. The splintering noise wasn’t just in his head, after all—sirens, approaching in the distance. The man squeezed his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. “Such a tragedy.”

  “Had to try,” Martin mumbled, and looked up. The man bending over him was about his own age, dressed in a dark sweater and khaki pants, a thick down parka with fur around the hood. He had a smooth Arabic complexion and large soulful eyes. And a smile.

  He knew that face. From—where?

  “I see you know me,” the man said, and it clicked. Fathi el Haddiz. Carling’s terrorist. “I’m afraid I don’t know you. Were you driving the car? If so, my congratulations. Quite a solid hit. You might even have accomplished your mission, if this hadn’t happened. People are so greedy, don’t you think?”

  He produced a gun from a pocket and pointed it casually at Martin’s chest. Martin swallowed hard.

  “If you’re looking for your coworker, the younger man, I’m afraid he’s dead. Head trauma. The old woman is injured, but not seriously, as long as someone keeps pressure on her wound.” Haddiz’s face went very still. The eyes didn’t look soulful anymore. “I’m sure you understand why I can’t allow you to live.”

  He leaned over and put the barrel of the gun to Martin’s forehead.

  “It’s what you might call a Pyrrhic victory, if you had any classical training,” el Haddiz said conversationally. “Did you know—”

  A shadow flickered at the corner of Martin’s eyes, a big shadow. El Haddiz tried to turn to meet the threat.

  He met the oncoming piledriver of the Hulk’s fist.

  El Haddiz’s gun fell in between Martin’s knees and slid to a stop against his shoes. The Hulk grabbed el Haddiz’s collar and yanked him upright.

  “No guns on club property, fuckhead,” the Hulk grunted, and slammed a fist into his stomach. Several times. When he let the smaller man go, el Haddiz crumpled to the ground and stayed there.

  “Thanks,” Martin said quite calmly. The Hulk shrugged.

  “No sweat.”

  “Now help me stop these people from taking the shirts.”

  The Hulk’s friendly smile slipped. “Hey, man, I told you, no way. You stop ’em.”

  Martin tried to stand up.

  Lights out.

  Chapter Forty

  Robby

  Robby hated to admit it, but Velvet had been right. She was so tired it was an effort to walk in a straight line, and her eyes ached from crying. She’d collected only two wallets, and the second had nearly been a fumble; if the guy hadn’t been dead drunk, he couldn’t have failed to notice. Her throat felt dry and scratchy, her skin uncomfortably warm. Not only exhaustion, though that was part of it—she was coming down with something. A cold. The flu.

  She’d had to pay a cover charge to get into the Gear-box, but she was ready to forfeit the five bucks just to get outside where it was cool. God, she felt bad. As she fought her way through the writhing sweating crowd on the dance floor—and collected another wallet, almost against her will—she had to catch her balance against their bodies. Nobody noticed. Half of them were staggering anyway.

  She shed her leather coat on the way to the door and folded it over her arm. By the time she’d pushed past the last tight knot of drunks at the door, she’d lost it, dropped somewhere on the dirty floor. A bouncer tried to tell her she couldn’t come back in once she’d left, but she shoved past him and made it into the cool blessed air.

  The shock of sleet felt wonderful on her overheated skin. She tilted her face up to it and felt some of the dizziness recede.

  Nausea boiled up without any warning at all. She leaned over and vomited into the gutter, clinging helplessly to the rough oily wood of a telephone pole. You look ridiculous, she thought in between heaves. Dressed like a whore, vomiting in the gutter. Just like Velvet.

  She’d worn the leather and Spandex mostly because Velvet had believed she wouldn’t; protective camouflage, that was all. She felt exposed in it, marked for a victim. She’d never, never do it again.

  If I live through it this time, she thought miserably. Oh, god, I’m sick.

  Across the street, a man in a camel brown coat came walking out of the neon-lit tunnel of Dallas Alley—not walking, actually, slipping and sliding and trying to run. He was shouting into a cellular phone. She rested her cheek against the telephone pole and watched him come closer; he was expensively dressed, preoccupied.

  One last score, and she could go home.

  “—Mean, wrecked? How could it wreck? Oh, god, you’re not serious! The whole shipment? Where were you? No, you, where were you? This is a disaster! No, I’m not going to give you a refund—”

  All she had to do was let go of the pole, walk toward him, take his wallet. Easy. So easy.

  When she let go of the pole, she almost fell.

  “Whoa!” The man in the camel-hair coat snapped his cell phone shut and grabbed her by the arm. There. That was better. All she had to do was reach out—“Are you okay? You look—”

  He stopped and stared at her. At her face. At the outfit she knew she shouldn’t have worn. The chilly slide of icy rain on her skin stopped feeling good and made her shiver.

  “Hey—” he said, and his fingers tightened around her arm. He looked at her face again. “That little bitch wore the wrong clothes. I can’t believe it. You’re the other one, the thief.”

  Robby tried to break free, but her muscles felt hot and painful, and her head was spinning. Bile tasted rough on the back of her throat.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled. Her lips felt numbed, her tongue slow and clumsy. She tried to get his wallet, but it slipped out of her fingers and fell. “Let me go.”

  “Not a chance.” He fumbled in his pocket. His face took on a blank expression of panic. He switched his hold on her to his other hand. “Shit. Shit! I lost it.”

  “What?”

  “The gun. I lost the gun! Oh, never mind, shut up and walk. Just walk. Come on.”

  He dragged her to a stumble, as fast as his slick-soled shoes could go on the icy sidewalk. Behind them, people and music spilled out of the Gearbox. She tried to break away again but he held tight.

  “Faster. Walk faster. Hurry. Are you warm, are you getting warm?” He looked over at her face. “Damn. It’s too cold out here.”

  He let go of her arm and stripped off his coat. Before she could get more than three weaving steps away, he threw it around her shoulders and grabbed her wrist.

  “Put it on.” He looked almost gray with panic, eyes darting all around on the sidewalk. She tried, but her arm wouldn’t cooperate. “Put it on, hurry up! This is the worst day, absolutely the worst day of my life. I know you don’t care about that, but it is. Everything was supposed to happen today, and nothing worked, nothing. It’s all going up in smoke.”

  He stopped and a thin panicked giggle worked its way out of his mouth in a gust of steamy breath. His eyes had a strange shine to them.

  “But you’ll work,” he said. He took her arm and threaded it in the sleeve, dressed her like a rag doll. She huddled in the warmth of the coat. “Come on, walk. Walk faster.”

  It seemed to take forever to reach the next corner, a nightmare of uncertain steps and the tight stretch of Spandex over her skin, of dizziness and heat prickling. He was talking to her again, but she hardly understood what he was saying until he shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth.

  “Can you feel it?” he asked. “Is it starting yet?”

  What boiled up out of her this time wasn’t nausea, it was knowledge.

  He was talking about burning. He’d put something on the clothes to make Velvet burn. Oh, Jesus, like Arnold, like the man at the hockey game.

  She was going to die.

  A police car turned a corner and started toward her. She felt the headlights wash over her like sunlight.

  The man tightened his grip on her arm.

  “Don’t,” he warned her. “If you run, it’ll only happen faster.”

  She shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled backward, hit a patch of ice and slid. He grabbed a parking meter to keep from falling. She shrugged his coat off and ran for the police car. Her legs vibrated like rubber bands, her skin flared hot, hotter.

  Oh, god, no. No, not like this.

  She collided with the hood of the police car with bruising force, stared into the startled faces of two uniformed cops, and hobbled on. There was water flooding out over the sidewalk near Dallas Alley, a wet shimmer in the gleam of neon. A pipe had broken in the cold.

  She fell full length in the water and rolled. The shock made her scream, but she kept rolling, back and forth, until she was soaking wet and the cops were pulling her to her knees.

  “Drunk,” she heard one of them say.

  One of the wallets she’d stolen fell out of her skirt. Then the second.

  “Stupid,” the other one said. “Up, lady. Let’s take a little ride.”