The razor-thin man had small eyes, but they looked large, the white showing all round. He looked crazed and quite capable of squeezing the trigger of the small automatic pressed to the unconscious child’s head.

“Let me pass,” he said. His voice was as thin as his mustache.

“No,” I said. “Put the kid down.”

“You kidding? He’s my ticket.”

To hell.

“What’s your name?”

“What do you care, copper?”

“What’s your name?”

The blonde said, breathlessly, “Eddie.”

I didn’t know whether she was answering my question, or talking to him. And I didn’t care.

“Put the kid down, Eddie, and I won’t mention you took a hostage. I’ll even lay the resisting arrest off on your dead pal, here.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” he said, and laughed. He moved forward a step, holding his tiny hostage tight, keeping the nose of the gun against the kid’s temple.

I shot Eddie between the eyes.

Not as impressive a shot as it sounds, close as he was to me; what was more impressive was the dive I made toward him as he dropped the kid. I caught the sleeping baby like a touchdown pass.

I sat on the floor, cradling the slumbering kid in my arms, the smoking gun still in one hand, the corpse of the thin guy at my feet, the other corpse between me and the blonde, who was stuck to the wall like a fly. I had just killed two men, and it would hit me later, but right now I felt good.

“You…you shot Eddie,” the blonde said. She was shaking her head, disagreeing with reality.

“No kidding,” I said. Rocking the child as I eased back onto my feet.

“How could you risk it? He had his finger on the trigger…”

“A shot in the head kills all reflex action, lady.”