"Whyn't ya say so in the first place?" muttered Charlie. "The Liz, he just came in. Didn't ya, Liz?"

The Lizard, a tall thin mutie with a long nose and bluish squamous skin, stood up at his table. He looked puzzled.

"Sure, M-miss Charlie. Wh-what's ya p-problem, Ca-ca-ca-captain?" The Lizard's speech impediment made it sound as if he was saying "caca" deliberately, and, knowing his sense of humor, he probably was.

Hagic looked murderous. He began to swing the H&K up, and Ryan thought this whole business had gone on long enough.

Ryan said, "You mean the wimpy little fucker who galloped through here just now?"

Hagic paused before turning to face him. Ryan could almost hear the pinwheels of his tiny brain creaking slowly into action. Hagic knew something; more to the point, he knew something was up, was going on — possibly right now, at this very moment. But Hagic was a stupe of the first water. A smile darted across his sallow features. It was probably meant to be friendly but it simply made him look sly. His squint didn't help.

"Ryan. Good to, uh, see ya." He switched his wall-eyed stare to the rear of the room. "You, uh, say you see a guy..."

"Guy come in here, like there were rad rats chewing his ass? Sure. C'mon. Show you where he went."

As he said this he turned away from Hagic, began striding down the room, aware of Charlie's pop-eyed gaze on his right, but also aware, just, of a flicker of dark amusement fleeing across the ugly features of Ole One-Eye down the room.

"Shifty little bastard he looked to me."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the mirrors, could see Hagic following, three men in tow. And as he was speaking, his back to Hagic, his open coat cloaking his movements, his left hand was smoothly cross-drawing the SIG-Sauer, his right feeling his belt, fingers unpopping a pouch, drawing from it a stubby little suppressor, screwing it into the SIG's barrel.

"Door here. Yeah, curtain."

That was a pisser. He couldn't not draw the curtain back, leave it closed. Even Hagic would smell a rat. As he slid the heavy material to one side he heard Ole One-Eye berating Chewy the Chase in a loud voice, Chev's angry tones replying. Good. Even some noise was useful, attention grabbing just when it was needed. He wondered what the hell was beyond the door. He wondered how he would play what now had to be played.

Sometimes a response had to be purely automatic; you had to work blind and the nature of the killing ground was in the lap of the gods. The suppressor was tight. He carefully pushed the gun inside his pants but with plenty of grip available for instant draw.

A door faced him. It opened inward, toward him. That was a bonus. He pulled it open, smiled. He was in a small lobby. To one side, carpeted wooden stairs rose to a narrow landing before doubling back. He could see the upper portion of the staircase through its banister posts. A lamp hung low on a chain from the lobby's ceiling.

"Stay here," Hagic's voice sounded in Ryan's ear.

Magic's three sec men pushed past him and began to mount the first flight of stairs.

"Bad character, huh?" murmured Ryan.

Hagic moved closer, inclined his head toward Ryan's. His chin was stuck out and there was a ratty grin on his face. In the light from the lamp it looked like a devil's mask, and Ryan thought the sooner it was destroyed the better for all.

His right hand shot up, hard, the heel of it smashing up into the underside of Hagic's jaw so eruptively that the jawbone cracked, blood vessels in his neck exploded and ligaments tore. Hagic's head rocked back, a gargled grunt bursting out of his mouth in a fine spray of blood, and Ryan's left hand, fist balled, rocked into his stomach with the force of a pile driver. Hagic jackknifed, dry heaving, and Ryan reached past him and pulled the door shut, his left hand yanking up the SIG-Sauer.

He spun around and the SIG spat three times, fwip-fwip-fwip.

The first round hit the last man on the stairs in the back, torpedoed him through the rear of his rib cage; it plowed up into his heart and opened his chest in a bloody volcano.

The second round hit the next in line, a head shot that spray painted the wall beyond. The guy spun into the third man, throwing him sideways, his gun thumping down onto the carpet. The third man, too, fell onto his rifle. Ryan's slug smashed into the wall above his head, gnawing plaster.

For a second there was stillness, Ryan gazing up at the third man, who gaped down at him in shock through the banister. The guy clambered to his feet, not yelling, too stunned even to scream, but dragging at his M-16 as a reflex action.

Ryan smacked his right hand into the SIG's butt, switched fingers, hit him with two shots in the chest, banging him back against the wall in the shadows.

Even as this happened, Ryan was leaping up the first flight, booting down on the prone body of the first man and clutching at the corner pole of the banister, yanking himself up and around and grabbing the third man as he tottered forward on the rebound from the wall. He was just in time. Another couple of seconds and the guy would have slammed into the supports and either up-and-overed, crashing down to the lobby below with a hell of a racket, or plowed straight through the posts, making even more of a row.

Ryan pushed him onto the stairs, a slumped heap, then stood up and peered down at Hagic on the floor below. He could see the wall-eyed man glaring upward, clutching his gut, still unable to speak or yell or scream, only wheeze and vomit. Ryan leaned over the banister and shot him, fwip, the round powering through his chest and heart, expending itself into the carpeted floor.

Ryan cocked an ear for any untoward sounds from below but could hear nothing through the closed door. He moved lightly downstairs, on the balls of his feet, still on adrenaline burn, the screen of his memory playing over the scene back in the bar. Unless they'd all moved around some, there was a guy standing in front of the entrance door at the far end of the room, and he had to be nailed first and foremost.

He could do it slowly or he could do it fast. If he did it slowly — if he opened the door, wandered casually into the bar, his piece hidden behind his back, and then threw a round at the guy by the outside door (or at least the guy who should be by the outside door) — there was always the chance of something going wrong, possibly badly wrong.

Those goons out there were young, undoubtedly nervy in a situation like this. Just Ryan walking out from the rear and no one else might spook them, then trigger them. There was always that chance.

If he did it fast, on the other hand — erupted into the room and hit at least one of them — the shock factor would be enormous, he knew. The remaining two goons would be thrown off balance. They'd be totally unnerved, ripe for slaughter.

If only he knew what the hell was going on in the bar. And the longer he waited in this lobby, the more twitchy those guys would get. By now they'd be thinking they ought to be hearing bangs and yells and shots.

He bent, peered at the door. But the keyhole was blocked on the other side. His lips came back in a feral snarl. He was still high on adrenaline. He held the gun in his left hand and threw himself at the door.

He hit the wood, the door slammed open, he brought his right hand around to the SIG's grip, slapping it tight, his eye taking in the scene even as he squeezed off.

No one had moved. The man he'd remembered as standing beside the entrance door was still there, his M-16 held in both hands, aimed to his left, at the room in general. Ryan's shot changed all that. It hit the man in the chest and punched him backward, mouth gaping, so that he collapsed against the wall, slumping and leaving a thick red smear as he sank to the floor.