"Didn't you watch ?" He pulled back a few inches.

"He's the only fighter I know who scares me. I'd rather take on that bouncer blindfolded."

I couldn't read the look in his eyes. He may've been challenging me himself. Daring me to call him a coward I certainly hadn't earned that right.

The heavyset man raised his voice.

"You with the cough. I'm talking to you. Don't you have any guts? Or maybe you're an undercover cop." He waved his hands in front of his face.

"You stink like a cop. I can smell it from here."

Shit. Oh, shit. With just a few words, he'd shifted the whole club against me. If I didn't do something about it fast I'd be lucky to get out of here with only a few crushed bones. A couple of men were already on their way out of their chairs, spitting hostility as they rose. The bouncers moved to block the exits. Everyone else glared all kinds of murder in my direction.

"Back me up," I hissed under my breath at Sternway. Although he'd already said that he wouldn't.

"Unless you want Bernie's killer to get away."

Then I raised my face to the ring.

Baring my teeth like the grin of a fright mask, I leaned back in my chair and spread my arms.

"Well, if those are my only choices," I drawled so that the whole room could hear me, "I guess I'm just gutless."

"I don't think so," the goon replied smoothly.

"I think you're a cop. You want to bust us all and make yourself a hero."

Half the fighters in my vicinity looked like they were about to jump me. I heaved a dramatic sigh and climbed heavily to my feet.

"In that case " Deliberately I faked insolence to disguise the fact that I knew I was about to get killed. Unless Sternway actually did back me up.

"Since we're doing all this thinking anyway, I think we should take it outside. That way" I rolled my eyes "if I'm a cop I can't bust anyone else. And if I am a cop, you won't have to worry about witnesses."

I had the small satisfaction of hearing Sternway groan quietly, seeing the goon tilt back his head in surprise. But it didn't last long. A heartbeat later my challenger smiled.

"I like it," he answered, slick as silk.

"Let's go."

Slowly, taunting me, he stripped the pads from his hands and feet. Then he vaulted lightly over the ropes, dropped to the floor, and headed for the exit in the far corner of the room.

I didn't have any choice. I had to follow him. Denying myself so much as a glance at Sternway, I started to pick my way between the tables in the same direction.

I wanted the .45. More than that, I wanted Ginny. I'd walked into worse trouble than this when I knew she had my back. Or when she needed me to cover her. Without her I felt truncated in some profound way, almost unmanned Unfortunately my target didn't give a shit how I felt. Sternway probably didn't. Bernie and Alyse were past caring, and Ginny had walked out on our partnership. Moy wasn't here. No one gave a flying fuck at the moon about any of this, except me.

I wasn't sure that the crowd would let me go, but they did. Men and women fired obscenities as I passed, and one clown actually tried to spit at me without much success but none of them got in my way.

Like Jesus lugging his cross up Golgotha, too doomed for any kind of rescue, I crossed the room toward the far exit.

My target pulled the metal door open and let it swing shut after him.

The dark outside seemed to swallow him before the door closed.

Before I could try to catch up with him, the bouncer with the dragon tattoo planted himself in front of me.

"Not that way, motherfucker," he grated.

"You use the fucking front door."

The fury in his eyes suggested that he blamed me for the beating he'd just taken. He wouldn't have been in the ring at all if he hadn't wanted to repay my sarcasm. I'd created this whole mess myself when I'd first entered the club.

If the heavyset man escaped now, I might never find him again. A goon with a name like "Turf Hardshorn" wasn't likely to have a published phone number, or even a steady address.

I moved straight at the bouncer like he wasn't there.

Eagerly he spread his arms, stepped forward to meet me.

Hurrying too much to think or hesitate, I aimed both my arms under his right and heaved them up and around, sweeping his arm past me. Then I braced my left hand behind his shoulder and shoved as hard as I could.

I got lucky. He'd pushed forward to counter my sweep, and his own momentum helped me send him headlong into a cluster of seated spectators.

Before he could disentangle himself from fallen chairs and sprawling patrons, I reached the door.

Then I was out in a service alley. Light from the street limned the edges of the buildings, but their shadows obscured the alley, filling it with darkness. A stink as thick as syrup told me that I stood near an untended Dumpster before my eyes adjusted enough to discern the outlines of its bulk between me and the street. Dimly I made out darker shapes that resembled litter and trash cans. Rectangles of midnight in the opposite building suggested sealed doorways, boarded windows. Other than that I couldn't see a thing.

My target might've been right behind me, waiting for the perfect moment to break my back, and I wouldn't have known he was there. Until the door to the club opened again, letting out a wash of illumination, and Sternway stepped into the alley, I was blind in every way that mattered.

Fuck. Fuck and damn.

In the brief moment before the door closed again, I saw what I feared most. Sternway and I were alone. The heavyset man had already fled.

Or hidden somewhere.

Which told me that he'd definitely recognized me. Whether he'd killed Bernie or not, he had no intention of getting caught.

The information did me no good whatsoever.

"Shit." The rank air aggravated my throat, triggered another coughing spasm. I had to wheeze for several seconds before I could tell Sternway, "He got away."

"You sure?" Sternway answered out of the gloom. He sounded unnaturally casual.

"I've seen him fight before. I don't think you scare him that much."

Shit again. Apart from the distant reflections from the street, I might as well have had my eyes shut. Sternway was right. That goon didn't fear me at all. And I was the only witness who could connect him to Bernie and The Luxury Darkness this thick might conceal him anywhere in the alley.

Sternway had come this far with me. I guess that meant I could trust him.

I wanted to be near a wall, protect myself from attack on at least one side. Involuntarily curling my fingers around the butt of a gun I didn't have, I moved softly toward the Dumpster.

"What is this, a game?" I rasped loudly. I couldn't sound as casual as Sternway, and didn't try. Instead I covered my pounding heart and ragged breath with harshness.