“Bottoms up, gentlemen,” Jack said.

Mr. Sweaty got sweatier. “No,” he said shaking his head and staring at the glass like he’d been poured a shot of battery acid. “It’ll kill us.”

“Yeah, well, you gotta go sometime. Drink up; then I’m gone.”

Dragovic snorted derisively, raised his glass as if he were toasting the room, and chugged the Berzerk. Then he hurled the glass across the table at Monnet, missing him by inches.

“I can’t!” Brad wailed.

Jack put a bullet into the mahogany tabletop directly in front of Brad. The three executives all but jumped out of their seats; Dragovic was cool, though. Barely blinked. Under different circumstances, Jack could have almost liked him.

“I don’t have time for this, so I’ll tell you that we can do this two ways: you can swallow it, or I can shoot you in the gut and pour it in.”

Mr. Sweaty drank his. He looked sick when he set his empty back on the mahogany. Brad choked halfway through his, and for a second or two Jack was afraid he was going to blow it all over the table, but he kept it down.

Monnet was the last. “Do you have any idea what this will do to us?”

“Firsthand. I got the dose you or Dragovic set up for Nadia.”

“I have never heard of this Nadia,” Dragovic said. “Who is she? Should I know her?”

“Then it was you,” Jack said, staring hard into Monnet’s eyes. He wanted so much to hurt this man. Instead he held up his free hand, the leather-clad thumb and index finger a hair apart. “This morning I came this close to hurting two people very dear to me because of you. I think you’d better drink up.”

Monnet drank.

“Why?” Monnet asked when he’d drained the glass. “Why are you doing this?”

“Nadia hired me,” Jack said, wanting to smash his teeth because Nadia was gone, maybe dead, because of this man.

“To do this!

“No. To keep an eye on you.” Jack pointed to Dragovic. “To protect you from him. She thought you were in trouble. She was worried about you. She cared about you.”

He watched Monnet crumble. “Oh, my Lord.”

He surprised Jack by dropping his face into his hands and sobbing.

Jack reached into a pocket, pulled out the paper-towel-wrapped collection he’d assembled in the cafeteria, and dropped it on the conference table.

“For your amusement. Just remember the Law: not to spill blood. Are we not men?”

He enjoyed their confounded expressions as he backed to the door and pushed it open. He couldn’t resist aiming a Parathion shot at Dragovic.

“Got any old tires you care to sell?” he said in the Thurston Howell lockjaw accent he’d used on the phone. “Oily ones, perhaps?”

“You!” Dragovic cried, rising from his seat. “Why would you do that to me!”

“Nothing personal,” Jack said. “I was hired to do it.”

With that he ducked out and slammed the door closed. Immediately he tipped the filing cabinet, letting it fall against the door, wedging it against the opposite wall. Then he ran for the elevator, praying he could make it to Monroe in time.