Or an animal caught in headlight beams, standing dumb. Clement thought of that, easing his car up next to and a little ahead of the Mark-so he could see the chicken-fat jig through his windshield, the jig holding a car telephone, yelling at it like he was pretty sore, while the girl held onto gold chains around her neck.

Clement reached down under the front seat, way under, for the brown-paper grocery bag, opened it and drew out a Walther P .38 automatic. He reached above him then to slide open the sunroof and had to twist out from under the steering wheel before he could pull himself upright. Standing on the seat now, the roof opening catching him at the waist, he had a good view of the Mark’s windshield in the flood of light from above. Clement extended the Walther. He shot the chicken-fat jig five times, seeing the man’s face, then not seeing it, the windshield taking on a frosted look with the hard, clear hammer of the evenly spaced gunshots, until a chunk fell out of the windshield. He could hear the girl screaming then, giving it all she had.

Clement got out and walked around to the driver’s side of the Mark. He had to reach way in to pull the guy upright and then out through the door opening, careful, trying not to touch the blood that was all over the guy’s light-blue suit. The guy was a mess. He didn’t look Cuban now; he didn’t look like anything. The girl was still screaming.

Clement said, “Hey, shut up, will you?”

She stopped to catch her breath, then began making a weird wailing sound, hysterical. Clement said, “Hey!” He saw it wasn’t going to do any good to yell at her, so he hunched himself into the Mark with one knee on the seat and punched her hard in the mouth-not with any shoulder or force in it but hard enough to give her a drunk-dazed look as he backed out of the car.