He thought he had time for that because no one seemed to be firing back at him. The unmarked had come to a stop north of the wreck. To the south, one of the blue-and-whites had stopped in the center lane, illuminating the scene with its flashing bubble-gum lights. The other blue-and-white had parked across the center lane, blocking traffic a hundred yards to the south. Good, Nash thought, at least someone was using his brain.

Then he heard the whick of a bullet flying by his head and the sound of a couple of shots not from Cooley's gun. He crouched instinctively and fired twice into the Cherokee. He saw that Cooley was creeping around the rear of the wreck, toward the passenger side. More shots. This was the negative part of being Brendan Cooley's partner. Bent almost double, with his pistol out in front of him, Nash trotted gamely toward the left side of the vehicle. Another shot cracked past, right in front of him, and the driver's-side rear window starred around a fat hole. Three more shots in rapid succession, and the windshield splintered. Oh, great! He screamed at the two cops in the blue-and-white to stop firing, nor was he polite about it.

An instant later he had his right shoulder pressed tight against the wet metal of the Cherokee's flank. He worked the door latch and swung the driver's door out, his pistol pointing. The upper torso of a man slumped down, its lower end held in the car by the seat belt. Nash stared at the face. It was, in fact, the well-known thief, fence, and general nogoodnik Cisco Lomax, Nash was relieved to observe, or rather the exwell-known. The front of the man's tan sweater was black with blood, and big wads of distressed tissue bulged from his face and neck. The back of the driver's seat showed nearly a dozen little puffs of exploded filling, some still white, others as red as wound dressings; the windshield was a spiderweb, sagging in its frame.

Nash looked up and met the eyes of his partner through the passenger-side window.