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I BLINKED against blackness Very little light filtered through the painted-over rear door , just enough for me to ascertain I was alone in the back of the panel truck that had shared the alley with Gordy&039;s Cadillac No one had bothered tyingand assumed I&039;d been killed

Which would leave theet rid of me and delay the news of htcrawler&039;s kitchen staff stu queasy, I thought of how Strome had sunk Bristow and his boys in the water to lose the to happen to me I&039;d had too h to get up I da Not uy On hands and knees I worked over to the s, findingthe way My head wasn&039;t to the point of supporting that ht yet Hell, evenand stuffed it in a pocket, glad it wasn&039;t one ofonly htly) that soht drop itself on s in hand with these s, I&039;d end up with a pawnshop wardrobe

I pulled outone to scrape away paint from a corner of theWhen I had a peephole I looked through

Not a lot to see Flat, snow-crusted fields Far had I been out? I held ht An hour? The way I felt it had to be h, the ti, which was in the wee hours It was still well on the right side ofchanged in tone as the driver made a sharp turn The truck shook like an earthquake, indicating unpaved road I braced, holding on to a length of wood bolted to the metal side Damned wood Why couldn&039;t they have just shot me? It&039;d have ruined a suit, but I could have taken care of them back in town Idiots Both of the through to the front compartment to surprise the driver

Not at this speed The peephole showed an undistinguished country lane of frozen churned mud that made the truck bounce and skid erratically This kind of road at this ti noconsiderably faster I didn&039;t care to be in a crash and have to walk hoo,my way out the back to escape, either If my luck ran bad-and lately I had no reason to expect different-I&039;d have to i the day away from my hohtmares my brain threw out After Bristow&039;s work on me, it&039;d have plenty of horrors to draw upon No, I wouldn&039;t put h that Better to wait until we stopped, then hijack the truck, leaving thehed up A lot Yeah, I liked that idea

We slowed soe, twin furrows of tire tracks leading back the e&039;d co? Maybe it was Hoyle in his own car, taking it easy to keep froiven the chance

A shift in the gears and the truck&039;s voice Slowing evento a stop

We were in an open yard by a low ainst the dark It was on a tall, lonely pole under a shade shaped like a Chinese hat The cone of light from the oversized bulb covered a wide area before the barn A car was already there, and four ed from it One of them opened the trunk and handed out what? baseball bats? to the others

The truck doors in front slaetting soht I was still alive, then, or they&039;d have been hauling me out instead

I&039;d heard about this kind of send-off Find a deserted spot for so practice on some poor son of a bitch, then either leave what&039;s left in the cornfield for Farrave in the stalks It was too late in the season for that; harvest was long over and the ground frozen, but theying animals would do what they were best at and

Shut the hell up, it&039;s not going to happen

The star-filled gray sky layered the surrounding landscape in a silvery sheen, turning it to day for hter than a diauys ar that could actually stop ood

A car horn blared in the distance The six men all looked back the e&039;d cohts I&039;d seen Just how big a party was this?

Well, since they were distracted

I vanished and slipped out under the door A sround to the count of five, then I slowed to wash gently against the very solid side of the tin barn Jeez, this was perfect I glided on, keeping the flat surface of the barn&039;s wall onin An instant later I was solid again, standing upright in brisk freezing air I barely felt I was in tiuys I knew by sight were less than twenty feet away The start of a nice little gang

The second car was Gordy&039;s Cadillac It braked ot out He didn&039;t look too good, seeh he wasn&039;t obviously showing it, I got the ireeting

Along with a baseball bat, Hoyle had a gun ready in his other hand "What the hell are you doin&039; here?"

Strome would be armed, but made no move for his shoulder holster and the semiauto 45 he kept there He looked around the yard, probably forout in the snow Was he in on this? When Gordy got shot Stroreener pastures, but I couldn&039;t think why he&039;d throith Hoyle

Hoyle repeated the question He tossed the bat to one of his ht it neatly and held it ready to use

Strome was able to suh so four of the s backed off a few steps He was still one of Gordy&039;s lieutenants, after all "Whatever you&039;re doing here, you stop"

"Not doing nothing, Stroly There was nothing specifically wrong with it, and that&039;s why it o back, and I won&039;t say nothing to the boss"

"Which boss? Gordy or Flee The boss ill see you here next if you cross hieneral

Hoyle and so, then We don&039;t take orders frorained habit "Gordy put hie Every one of you knows that Ain&039;t for us to argue with Gordy"

"Yeah-yeah If we can believe that it was Gordy who said so All we knohat you and Derner let drop, and you guys got plenty reason not to rock the boat"

"So do you You mess up on this-"

"Aw, screw it You wanna run errands for that punk creep, fine, but we got regular business to do, an&039; it&039;s gonna get done Gordy&039;ll agree with "

They&039;d fored, with four of the guys having drifted outward

Their collective attention was on hih to not react as I stepped clear of the barn

If he did, I got too busy to notice, swiftly co a baseball bat I pulled it casually from his hand, sla the bat sut

Bothhie

Half the opposition now lay on the snow, either unconscious or gasping for air Hoyle had been alert for trouble, though, and spun with his gun raised A joyous sneer lit up his narrow nized un At ten feet it was a cannon

He immediately fired, point-blank Three shots as quick as he could pull the trigger

He had good ai form, the sound sharp yet toylike under the wide sky The smoke ept away by the icy wind, and for a few crucial seconds I had to fight its force to keep froh solidity so the bullets passed right throughhollow into the barn&039;s tin walls behind Being just outside the niet aith such a risky stunt in front of witnesses

Strorabbed Hoyle&039;s aruys, Ruzzo, stared atdown and wasn&039;t Instead, I charged the a hell of a lot faster than anything they&039;d ever reround with their friends, not being any further problem

I stepped into Stroun clear before Hoyle could shoot either of the one of his legs with the bat did He broke off fast with a high screa his shin It wasn&039;t broken, but the bone would be bruised I&039;d felt the ied he&039;d be li for a week Good payback for the knock he must have landed on me earlier

"You summabitch, you busted-ah, Jesus God!"

He went on like that for a while, loudly expressing pain and outrage Stroet his breath back, kept an eye on him while I h to fuun, but I whacked his wrist with the bat, then tapped hihtly for me, anyway He hit the snow and stayed there It was obvious they were in no condition for a counterattack

I shoved Hoyle&039;s gun into my belt The barrel was hot It struck me then just how quick he&039;d been to shoot

There&039;d been no hesitation, no thought of the consequences to hold hie on that was beyond restraint orbeforehand and made up his uy, so it was disturbing to have inspired such a reaction in a stranger, but not unexpected given this kind of work

Hoyle sat flat in the snow, clutching his leg, still cursing, but in a lower, ony, his invective was for me, not his pain His threats were basic and brutal and nothing I&039;d not heard before fro-boned speciht be mistaken for clumsiness, but he was one of the rare ones who could instantly pull hiht to surprise an overconfident opponent I&039;d heard fro about ten years back, but got thrown out because of a betting scandal It left hi and still looked fit and granite-solid Stro with hiht back I grabbed hunks of his overcoat and hauled hi; he didn&039;t have enough rooet behind it, but sheer muscle made the blow sufficiently powerful to send anyone else reeling I took the i a little, but not really ht off his feet and thuainst the truck Several times I&039;m tall, but on the lean side I don&039;t look to have the kind of muscle to deal so easily with a 200-pound ht out of him and, once he shook his head clear, had obviously surprised hi thrown around

He s resentment but didn&039;t atteht, "are annoyingGordy"

"Go ahead and tell &039;em, I ain&039;t afraid of Gordy"

"Then you damn well better be afraid ofthe side of his head with the flat of , for his eyes went dull for a few seconds I waited until he was able to pay attention again "Gordy put e for a reason He knew I&039;d be able to squash bugs like you with no probleivenup business! That singer shit owes et it for you?"

"It&039;s to learn others!"

I cracked hie to hold things, and I as until he&039;s back full-tiutter buot one chance to stay alive Get clear of town by "

"Or what?"

"Or I take you and all your apes apart like a Sunday chicken, only slower, and they&039;ll be finding your bones over these fields fro expression, but his eyes flickered Heliteral

"You got lucky, Hoyle You didn&039;t kill anyone, so I don&039;t have to kill you But I aet even a hint that you&039;re only just thinking about being stupid again, you will be walking on stumps Now pick these saps off the mat and stay outta my way"

"Or what, you tell Gordy?" He&039;d reduced serious business down to schoolyard-level snitching

Logic would never work on hiain, plowing tough into the hard shell of hisgloves he&039;d been used to; the force is more concentrated SomeI needed to worry about I stopped short of rupturing his insides, but only just

"Or," I said, talking quietly right into his ear, "I will kill you, Hoyle"

He was doubled down, and when he ain as profanity Weak-sounding, though No breath for it

Couldn&039;t let hiain and pulled his gun froainst the side of his skull to get his attention, then shoved the muzzle into his nose

"I will kill you, Hoyle Same as you just tried on me-only I won&039;t round and quick-fired close to his head, using up the reun didn&039;t seem to make any sound at all, but for Hoyle it must have been a hell of a roar Arms up, he convulsed away from where the lead struck snow inches froun, not me He must have known it was eed off

"What will I do, Hoyle?"

Tre, he looked up blankly

"What will I do?"

"Y-you&039;ll kill onna remember that every time you think of me, every time you say my name, every time you hear my name, that&039;s what you will re the cylinder clear Shell casings rained out Grasping it in one hand and the fra twist that hurt even my hands, but it orth it The metal held for a second, then abruptly snapped I dropped both pieces on either side of the astonished Hoyle "Every time"

I slouched across the Caddy&039;s backseat for the return trip to Chicago, a strange reprise of how the evening had started, just a differenteasier the more I did it, but afterward the reaction would set in, leaving me surly and almost as torn up inside as the people I&039;d leaned on Of course, I couldn&039;t show any of that to Stroun in two had breached even his expressionless reserve, and I didn&039;t want to lose what awed respect had been gained Not that I didn&039;t already have it in spades

I wanted Gordy on his feet again real soon So an outsider giving them orders, but they&039;d behaved theainst iven no hint till now about ainst me but Gordy as well, which was a few miles past stupid, but brains were in short supply for solove, mob style, and I&039;d beaten hih to hold hi to be s silence of the drive

Stroht it over a while "He , which reet over his scare and try soed him Or at least sent him onna vacation like you done others"

I had a reputation for persuading stubborn people to do very unlikely things, like suddenly running off to Havana

None are they&039;d been forcibly hypnotized It was part of et out of troublesoht with Kroun But after that head-busting agony I wasn&039;t about to try anything fancy so soon Hoyle wasn&039;t worth the pain I&039;d broken the gun to keep fro hihtening thing to find out what one is capable of when the restraints are gone Hog Bristow taught me that

"Keep an eye on Hoyle," I said "See to it he leaves town and have sooes and what he does when he arrives If you think he&039;ll step out of line, I wanna know before he does The saoons You tell me, and we&039;ll take it froht, Boss"

"And don&039;t get caught"

"Right, Boss"

It was just that easy to put a death sentence on people God, what had they twisted me into? I wasn&039;t supposed to be like this I was a norirlfriend, azines, and was trying to turn hts So what that I was also a va people wasn&039;t part and parcel with the condition Hell, I didn&039;t even have to kill to eat, just drain a little blood froht, that Head it off Quick

"Strome What happened back at the club? How&039;d you knohere to go?"

"One of &039;eood job of it Knocked me down but not out I saw them toss you in the back of the truck, then so it was Ruzzo driving the truck, too"