The sheet on the bed still bore the imprints of our bodies. Her cigarette fed ash into the ashtray and a pirouette of smoke into the air. The candle flames glowed like the yellow eyes of jungle cats.

Evandro looked toward the closet, saw that it was filled with enough clothes to hide a body.

He nudged me again and I again considered elbowing him.

He pointed Dunn’s service revolver over my shoulder at the closet, pulled back the hammer.

“She in there?” he whispered, shifting his body to my left as he drew a bead on the closet and dug the knife harder against my skull.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I heard her voice before I even knew she was there.

It came from two inches behind me and it was preceded by the hard metal crack of a pistol hammer pulling back.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

Evandro twisted the point of the knife into the base of my skull so hard that I stood up on my toes and felt a stream of blood flow down the back of my neck.

The movement turned my head to the left and I could see the barrel of Angie’s .38 sticking out of Evandro’s right ear, see how white her knuckles were around the butt.

Angie knocked the gun out of Evandro’s hand with a quick swipe. When it hit the floor by the footboard, I expected it to fire, but it lay there, hammer cocked, pointing at the vanity chest.

“Angela Gennaro,” Evandro said. “Nice to meet you. Very slick pretending you were still on the phone.”

“I still am on the phone, asshole. It look hung up to you?”

Evandro’s eyelids fluttered. “No, it doesn’t.”

“What does that tell you?”

“It tells me someone forgot to hang it up.” He sniffed the air. “Smells like sex in here. The commingling of flesh. I hate that smell. You enjoyed yourselves, I hope.”

“The police are on their way, Evandro, so put the knife down.”

“I’d love to, Angela, but I have to kill you first.”

“You won’t get both of us.”

“You’re not thinking clearly, Angela. Must be the sex making you foggy. It’ll do that. It’s the stench of cave-dwellers really, the stink of sex is. After I fucked Kara and Jason—and believe me, it wasn’t my choice, it was theirs—I wanted to cut their throats then and there. But I was convinced to wait. I was—”

“He’s trying to lull you with talk, Ange.”

She shoved the gun harder against his ear. “I seem lulled to you, Evandro?”

“Remember what you’ve learned over these last few weeks. I don’t work alone, or did you forget that?”

“I’d say you’re alone now, Evandro. So put the fucking knife down.”

He dug it deeper and a white flash erupted in my brain.

“You’re out of your depth,” Evandro said. “You think we can’t beat you both, but instead you can’t beat both of us.”

“Shoot him,” I said.

“What?” Evandro said wildly.