“I understand.” He forced himself to stay calm. Raised his hands. “Cut me out.”

Johnny nodded. “That’s good.” He worked the edge of the blade beneath the tape.

Footsteps, loud, and then Chip was pushing open the door. “The police are on their way. Are you two OK?”

“We’re fine,” Johnny said. “Alex needs an ambulance, though.”

“What happened?”

“We got robbed.”

“By who?”

“Fuck if I know, kid. But I’m going to find out. You can bet on that.”

The world was narrowing to a pinhole. Alex decided to let it.

FROZEN IN THE DOORWAY, ears ringing from the crack of gunfire, Mitch stared. Trying to put the pieces together.

They had left the office. Gone out the back. A second car had been there, a man standing near it. He had pulled a pistol. Ian had aimed at the guy, his intentions glowing like a billboard. Mitch had yelled for him to stop. The drug dealer had drawn a bead, fast. There had been a blast of light and sound from over by the cars.

Ian must be hit.

Mitch looked down. His friend seemed fine. He wasn’t screaming or clutching his chest. He was just aiming his pistol and tugging the trigger. Nothing was happening. The safety still on. The shot hadn’t come from him, and hadn’t hit him. So who-

Mitch turned to the alley. The man was on the ground, one hand clapped to his shoulder, face twisted in pain. Jenn stared like a zombie, the revolver she’d used to shoot him still in her shaking hand.

No. Oh, no. He slipped the duffel bag and launched himself forward, ran a handful of paces. The man on the ground was moving. Mitch got to him, kicked at a dark metal object on the ground, the man’s pistol, knocked it skittering across the broken concrete.

The guy gasped, one hand flopped up at a weird angle, the other pressed to his shoulder. Blood pulsed through his clenched fingers. His teeth were tight, and breath whistled through them.

“I”-Jenn’s eyes were sick porcelain-“I didn’t. He’s-”

“Hey,” Mitch said. He moved over to Jenn, put hands on her shoulders. “Hey.”

She stared at him. “I didn’t know what to do. He was going to-”

“It’s fine,” he lied. “Everything is fine. Come on. Let me have this.” Gently, he eased the revolver from her hand.

“I-oh God.” She stood over the man she had shot. Ian came up beside her, the three of them staring down. Like kids on a play-ground, Mitch thought, only it’s not a twisted ankle or a skinned knee, and no one can yell time-out. This game keeps going, like it or not.

“What do we do?” Ian’s voice was thin.

“We have to take him to a hospital,” she said. “It’s just his shoulder. He’ll be OK. Right?”

So if this is a game, what are the rules? Mitch stared, let his friends talk around him. There has to be more than what you’re thinking. There has to be.

“And tell them what?”

“We don’t have to tell them anything. Just drop him outside.”

He barely heard the others. Don’t lie to yourself. It’s too late to lie. Lies won’t save you.

“He’ll tell them about us.”

“He doesn’t know anything.”

This is the way it is. You know what you have to do. There’s only one option.

Ian said, “He saw your face.”

“But so what? I’ve never been arrested-”

“It’s not just the cops.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.” Ian’s voice hysterical. “Christ, I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you put your gun down?”

“This is my fault? I didn’t shoot him.”

“I had to!”

This is the game. These are the stakes.

Do it.

The man was staring at them, his pupils wide but alert. Staring at the two men in masks, and at the woman standing between. Staring like he was memorizing her face.

Or like he already had.

Mitch raised the revolver, looked down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 13

A SMALL SPACE, VIBRATING, BRIGHT. On his back. Sirens. Movement around him. Cool pressure on his eye. Words. “Male, approximately thirty, blunt trauma to the head and eye, probable concussion…”

“Am I… where?”

“You’re in an ambulance. Lay still.” The figure touching his cheek, his nose, sliding something into his nostrils. “What’s your name?”

“Alex.”

“Alex what?”

“Alex Kern.”

“Do you know what year it is, Alex?”

“Ummm.” For a moment he wasn’t sure. “2008?”

“Good. And who’s the president?”

“Fucking George Bush.”

The technician snorted. “I’m going to put an IV in. It may pinch for a second.” There was a brief sting in his right elbow.

“Am I-”

“You’re going to be all right. The blow tore your skin, but your eye looks OK.”

“What about-who got shot?”

“I don’t know about that. Lay still and try to be calm.”

Calm, Alex thought. Right. Calm. He took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slow, wondering what the fuck had happened.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?” Jenn sounded like she’d been awake for a week. Mitch didn’t answer. He just leaned back into her couch. His hand tingled, felt very… present. Like the kick of the gun had left an imprint.

“Mitch. Are you-”

“Yeah,” he said. He felt at once powerful and weak, strong and shaky. “Yeah.”

It was his first time in her apartment, and it looked different than he’d imagined. He’d pictured frilly things and too many pillows. Clay-colored walls. The standard midtwenties Pottery Barn space. Instead it was tastefully minimal, with less furniture than he had expected. The walls were painted airy colors, and the windows had soft, sheer curtains that flowed with the breeze.

The last half an hour had been the strangest of his life. Like a Lynch film, everything mixed up and weird. Panic and exaltation coiling through his belly. It had all happened so fast. One minute they were walking out of the restaurant, he and Ian, the job done and a new life about to begin. Cut to him standing over a man, Jenn’s pistol in his hand, only one option, one freaking option, and he’d stared at the guy, first at his eyes, then, when he knew he was going to actually do it, at his chest, staring till he was looking at a pattern instead of a person, and then he’d pulled the-

Stop.

Fast-forward.

– to the sirens tearing the night, drawing closer. There had been a sense of causality, as if by twitching his finger he’d set the world in motion. Hundred-proof power. King of the world.

Not knowing what else to do, he’d rolled with it.

He’d ordered Ian into the rental, then he and Jenn had climbed into the drug dealer’s Eldorado. Originally he’d only planned to move it out of the way, but the sirens were closing in fast, and so he’d spun north, the engine old but still boasting Cadillac power, and he’d had the strongest urge to jam on the gas, open it up. It had taken an effort of will to drive at a steady five above.

Thoughts and images sliding across him like rain on a window:

The good firmness of the trigger.

Her voice asking, “Where are we going?”

An explosion of light and a sound that hurt. The deeper darkness of the shadows that fell after.

“Your place,” he’d answered. “It’s closest.”

Expecting her to argue, but she’d said nothing. The drive was blurry in his memory. The whole time he’d been steering, braking, stopping, he’d been conscious of two things-

Jesus, you shot him, you really fucking shot-

Stop. Fast-forward.

– and Jenn beside him. He could smell her, not perfume, her, the gentle smell of sweat and hair, of girl. Once he’d caught her looking at him, but her eyes slid away before he could read them.

And now here they were, sitting in her tasteful apartment, waiting for the smoke to clear. Wondering if they’d like the view when it did. Mitch coughed, straightened on the couch. “Are you both OK?”