I told him, "Smiley over there put her to sleep. She'll be all right, he thinks."

"Sons of bitches must pay anyway," he growled, hanging on to the tough, but he looked relieved all over. I pretended I didn't see his show of "weakness."

The book? the Dead Man asked. That is all you got before the sniping started? Like it was my fault. Some sniping was about to get started here. He knew damned well that was all we'd gotten. He'd sifted our minds.

"That's all." Play it straight. That was my new tactic. It drove him crazy when I didn't fight back.

There was nothing in her thoughts about a book.

"Ain't much to go on," Saucerhead said. He had lost his mad urgency. Tinnie was going to be all right. He didn't have to go out and lay waste. Not right away, anyway. He—and I—would keep an eye out for the characters responsible, though.

No. I suggest you both calm yourselves, then recall those blackguards carefully. Any insignificant detail might be consequential. Garrett, if you feel this is of great importance, you might consider collecting the debt that Chodo Contague imagines he owes you.

A reflection of my thoughts, that. "I will if I have to. Too soon to think about that. I need to see Tinnie taken care of and get my mind straightened out before I go off on any crusade." That was a straight line of the sort he scarfs up usually, but this time he let it slide. "Something happens and she goes, I'll ring in Chodo like that... ." I snapped my fingers. I'm a fountain of talent.

Chodo Contague, often called the kingpin, is the grand master of organized crime in TunFaire. In some ways he's more powerful than the King. He's no friend. He's damned near the embodiment of everything I hate, the kind of creep I got into my line to pull down. But just by doing my job I've managed to do him some accidental favors. He has an obsessive, if skewed, sense of honor. The slimeball thinks he owes me, and I'll be damned if he won't do almost anything to pay the debt. If I wanted, I could say the word and he'd put two thousand thugs on the street to make us square.