"I just got done healing," he said, trying not to wince. "Don't you think people will notice a new bruise on my face?"

"You're wearing shackles," the trooper said. "You tripped, you fell. Happens all the time. Besides, nobody cares if you get hurt. Folks want a shit like you to get hurt. You've for damn sure caused enough hurt yourself."

Blackburn pushed himself back up to a sitting position. "I've never killed anyone the world wasn't better off without," he said. "Maybe a few wives and kids have suffered some grief from what I've done, but not as much as they would have suffered if I'd let the sons of bitches stay alive."

"My uncle wasn't no son of a bitch," the trooper said.

Blackburn was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"He was a cop in Liberal, Kansas," the trooper said, "and some punk shot him. We never knew who." He pointed the pistol at Blackburn's face again. "Now I know."

Blackburn frowned. "I've never been to Liberal. The cop I killed was in Wantoda."

"Never heard of it."

"That proves it, then," Blackburn said. "You've got the wrong punk."

"Maybe." The trooper lowered the Python and uncocked it. Then he replaced it in his holster and pulled out his baton. "But you'll do for now. And don't worry, I'll stay off your face."

Blackburn compressed himself into a ball. The trooper beat him on the back and legs for a while, then kicked him off the bench. Blackburn lay on the metal floor, staring at the trooper's boots. The trooper beat him some more, then stopped, breathing hard.

"Get up," the trooper said.

Blackburn managed to rise to his knees. The trooper hit him in the face with a forearm, and he fell again.

"I told you to get up," the trooper said.

Blackburn didn't move. "You said you'd stay off my face."

The trooper spat on him. "Pussy," he said.

Blackburn struggled up to his knees again. As he did so, the door made a noise, and the trooper turned toward it. Blackburn found himself at eye level with the butt of the trooper's Python. The trooper had not refastened his holster's safety strap.

The door opened. The first and second troopers began to climb into the van. The third trooper began to say something to them.

Blackburn brought up his manacled hands and pulled the Python from the holster. His right thumb cocked it, and his index finger curled around the trigger.

The third trooper turned back, thrusting his baton at Blackburn's face.

The Python fired as the baton glanced from Blackburn's forehead. The bullet caught the trooper in the breastbone, and he spun into his companions. All three troopers fell to the pavement outside the van.

Blackburn got to his feet and shuffled to the open door, pointing the pistol down at the troopers. Their sunglasses and hats had been knocked away. The third trooper lay prone across the other two, who lay on their backs. Blackburn jumped down and landed on his knees on the third trooper. The two troopers underneath groaned. The third trooper was quiet.

Five men stood nearby at the courthouse entrance. Two of them were uniformed police officers. The officers turned toward the van and reached for their weapons. As they did so, Blackburn cocked the Python again and placed its muzzle against the nose of the first trooper.

"Gunfire would make me twitch," Blackburn shouted. His voice rang from the tunnel's concrete walls.

The officers froze with their weapons still in their holsters.

"Your friend was hurting me," Blackburn told the two troopers on the pavement. "I had to defend myself. You understand that, don't you?"

The troopers stared up at him.

"Doesn't matter, then," Blackburn said. He pressed down on the Python, flattening the first trooper's nose. "Get his keys and unlock my handcuffs. If you're slow, or if either of you tries to take out his Smith and Wesson, I'll assume that you mean to hurt me. You have ten seconds. One thousand one. One thousand two."

The first trooper unbuttoned the third trooper's shirt pocket and pulled out the keys. They were wet with blood. One of the second trooper's arms, pinned under the third trooper, moved a little.

"If you jostle me," Blackburn said, interrupting his count, "my Colt might go off." It wasn't a threat, but a statement of fact. This Python had a more sensitive trigger than his old one.

The second trooper lay still.

"One thousand eight," Blackburn continued.

The first trooper unlocked the handcuffs. Blackburn pulled his left hand free and took the keys. Then, keeping the Python against the trooper's nose with his right hand, he reached back with his left and unlocked the leg shackles without looking at them. He had been paying close attention when they had been removed earlier.

"This won't solve anything, James," a voice said.

Blackburn looked up and saw his attorney approaching. The attorney's hands were spread, and his forehead gleamed. He stopped a few feet away.

"Put down the gun before things get any worse," the attorney said.

Blackburn was amused. He had just shot and killed a Texas DPS trooper. From a legal standpoint, things were as bad as they could get.

"You have a car in the parking lot?" Blackburn asked.

"No," his attorney said. It was a lie. Blackburn had gotten good at telling when his attorney was lying. It was most of the time.

"Take me fishing for my birthday?" Blackburn asked.

His attorney looked confused. "I don't think so."

"Oh, come on," Blackburn said. "I haven't been fishing since I was a kid." He stood, but kept the Python pointed at the first trooper's face. "Let's go."

His attorney looked from side to side, as if for help. No one else in the tunnel moved. "Taking a hostage won't improve your position," the attorney said.

"What hostage?" Blackburn said. He stepped off the troopers and gripped his attorney's arm. "If I wanted a hostage, I wouldn't use a lawyer. The whole point of hostage-taking is to pick someone the police don't want to shoot." He shifted the Python's aim so that its muzzle touched the attorney's left ear. "Anyone who follows us outside," he shouted, "will be sued by this man's estate."

Blackburn and his attorney walked backward out of the tunnel into hazy sunlight. The air was thick with Houston steam and smelled of automobile exhaust and mold. Blackburn wondered what had ever possessed him to move down here in the first place. Except for one sweet night with Heather, Houston had been a bad idea.

The attorney's car, a Chrysler New Yorker, was parked close to the courthouse in a space reserved for the handicapped.

"You're not handicapped," Blackburn said, pushing his attorney around to the passenger side of the car.

"I'm not going to take lessons on morality from a man who just blew open another man's chest," the attorney said.

"I was trying to aim for his head," Blackburn said, "but this thing has a hair trigger. Now get in and slide over. You're driving."

They entered the car, and the attorney drove out of the parking lot into downtown traffic. "I can't believe they haven't tried to pick you off yet," he muttered.

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Blackburn asked. He wiped his hands on the velour seat, then reached into his attorney's jacket and took out a wallet. He removed the cash and stuffed it into his own jacket.

They were only four blocks from the courthouse when sirens began wailing. The attorney wasn't driving fast enough. At the next red light, Blackburn tucked his new Python into the back waistband of his slacks and left the car, tugging his jacket down to make sure it hid the pistol. As he ran between cars to the sidewalk, the Chrysler's horn blared.

Blackburn ran up one street and down another, then ducked into a hotel. He stepped into an elevator and rode up to the eleventh floor with a fat businessman who had a parking-garage ticket sticking up from his breast pocket. He followed the man to his room, pushed his way inside when the man opened the door, and then tied the man's wrists to the shower curtain rod with his belt and gagged him with a hand towel. He stole the man's car keys and parking-garage ticket, then left the room and took the stairs down to the garage. There was a car-alarm remote control on the key ring, so he pressed the button and followed the chirps to a Mercedes sedan. The parking attendant didn't even glance at him while handing him his change.