"You must be pretty good," Lucas offered. The cops by the window glanced at each other. A bet.

"Better than anybody you're likely to know," she said offhandedly.

Lucas snorted and she squinted at him.

"What? You think you can shoot with me?"

"With you?" Lucas said. His lip might have curled.

Lily sat up, interested now. "You ever compete?"

He shrugged. "Some."

"You ever win?"

"Some. Used a 1911, in fact."

"Practical or bull's-eye?"

"A little of both," he said.

"And you think you can shoot with me?"

"I can shoot with most people," Lucas said.

She looked at him, studied his face, and a small smile started at the corners of her lips. "You want to put your money where your mouth is?"

It was Lucas' turn to stare, weighing the challenge. "Yeah," he said finally. "Anytime, anyplace."

Lily noticed the cops by the window watching them.

"He's sandbagging me, right?" she said. "He's the North American big-bore champ or some fuckin' thing."

"I don't know, I never seen him shoot," one of the cops said.

Lily stared at him with narrowed eyes, gauging the likelihood that he was lying, then turned back to Lucas. "All right," she said. "Where do we shoot?"

They shot at a police pistol range in the basement of a precinct house, using Outers twenty-five-foot slow-fire pistol targets. There were seven concentric rings on each target face. The three outer rings were marked but not colored, while the inner four rings-the 7, 8, 9 and 10-were black. The center ring, the 10 ring, was a bit smaller than a dime. "Nice range," Lily said when Lucas turned on the lights. A Hennepin County deputy had been leaving just when they arrived. When he heard what they were doing, he insisted on judging the match.

Lily put her handset on the ledge of a shooting booth, took the.45 from her purse, held it in both hands and looked downrange over the sights. "Let's get the targets up."

"This P7 ain't exactly a target pistol," Lucas said. He squinted downrange. "I never did like the light in here either."

"Cold feet?" Lily asked.

"Making conversation," he said. "I just wish I had my Gold Cup. It'd make me feel better. It'd also punch a bigger hole in the paper. The same size as yours. If you're as good as you say, that could make the difference."

"You could always chicken out if the extra seven-hundredths of an inch makes you nervous," Lily said. She pushed a magazine into the Colt and jacked a shell into the chamber. "And I don't have my match guns either."

"Fuck it. We'll flip to shoot," Lucas said. He dug in his pocket for a quarter.

"How much?" Lily asked.

"It's got to be enough to feel it," Lucas said. "We ought to give it a little bite of reality. You say."

"Best two out of three rounds… One hundred dollars."

"That's not enough," Lucas said, aiming the P7 down-range again. "I was thinking a thousand."

"That's ridiculous," Lily said, tossing her head. The deputy was now watching them with real interest. The story would be all over the sheriffs department and the city cops, and probably St. Paul, before the night was done. "You're trying to psych me, Davenport. A hundred is all I can afford. I'm not a rich game-inventor."

"Hey, Dick," Lucas said to the deputy. "Lily's not gonna let me put the targets up, you want to…"

"Sure…"

The deputy began running the target sheets out to twenty-five feet. Lucas stepped closer to Lily, his voice low. "I'll tell you what. If you win, you take down a hundred. If I win, I get another kiss. Time and place of my choosing." She put her hands on her hips. "That's the most god- damned juvenile thing I ever heard. You're too fuckin' old for that, Davenport. You've got lines in your face. Your hair is turning gray."

Lucas reddened but grinned through the embarrassment. Dick was walking back toward them. "It might be juvenile, but that's what I want," he said. "Unless you're chicken."

"You really do a number on a person's head, don't you?"

"Puk-puk-puk," he said, doing an imitation of a chicken's cackle.

"Fuck you, Davenport," she said.

"So maybe we just have a pleasant afternoon shooting guns. We don't have to compete. I mean, if you've got cold feet."

"Fuck you."

"Anytime, anyplace."

"What an asshole," she muttered under her breath.

"What does that mean?" Lucas asked.

"It means you're on," she said.

Lucas tossed the quarter and won. They shot a round of five shots for familiarization. Neither showed the other the practice target.

"You ready?" Lucas asked.

"Ready."

Lucas fired first, five shots. He used both hands, his right shooting hand cupped in his left, the left side of his body slightly forward of the right. He kept both eyes open. Lily could tell he was hitting the black, but she couldn't tell how close he was to the center 10 ring. When Lucas finished, she stepped to the line and took a position identical to the one Lucas had used. She fired her first shot, said, "Shit," and fired four more.

"Problem?" Lucas said when she took down the gun after the last shot.

"First shot was a flier, I think," she said. The deputy rolled the targets back to the shooting line. Two of Lucas' five shots had clipped the 10 ring. The third and fourth counted 9, a fifth was in the 8 ring. Forty-six.

Three shots from Lily's.45 had obliterated the center of the target, a fourth was in the nine, but the flier was out in the four. Forty-three.

"Without the flier, I'd of won," Lily said. She sounded angry with herself.

"If pigs had wings they could fly," said Lucas.

"That's the worst round I've shot in a year."

"It's the less than ideal conditions, shooting targets with a gun you don't use on the range," Lucas said. "It gets you range shooters every time."

"I'm not a range shooter," she said, now angry at Lucas. "Let's get the new targets up, huh?"

"Jesus, what'd you guys bet? Must be something, huh?" asked the deputy, looking from one of them to the other.

"Yeah," said Lily. "A hundred bucks and Davenport's honor. He loses either way."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Lucas grinned as he finished reloading. "Bitch, bitch, bitch," he said, just barely audibly.

"Keep it up, buster," she said through her teeth.

"Sorry. Wasn't trying to psych you," he said, trying to psych her. "You shoot first this time."

She fired five shots and all five felt good. She smiled at him this time and said, "I just shot a fifty or close to it. Stick that in your nose, asshole."

"Temper, temper…"

Lucas fired his five. After the last shot he looked at her and said, "If that doesn't beat you, I'll kiss your ass in Saks' front window."

"Side bet?" she asked before the deputy reeled in the targets. "I got fifty bucks that says I win this round. And don't give me any shit about anything else."

"All right," he said. "Fifty."

Dick pulled in the targets and whistled. "I'll have to count these careful," he said.

All ten shots were deep in the black. Dick spread the targets on a workbench and started counting, Lily and Lucas looking over his shoulder.

"Wait a minute," Lucas started, when the deputy wrote down an eight.

"Not a fuckin' word," Lily said, pointing her finger at Lucas' nose.

The deputy added up the totals, turned to Lucas and said, "You owe the lady fifty bucks. I count it forty-seven to forty-six."

"Bullshit. Let me see those…"

Lucas counted them forty-eight to forty-seven. He took two twenties and a ten out of his wallet and handed them to her.

"This pisses me off," he said, his voice tight.

"I hope being pissed off doesn't make your hand shake," she said sweetly.

"It won't," he promised.

Lucas shot first on the third round. All five shots felt good, and he turned to her and nodded. "If you beat me this time, you deserve it. This time, I got the fifty."