“Great retirement plan you’ve got,” I said, jerking a thumb at Bojing’s body. “Maybe you guys should consider a cruise line.”

“A fine idea!” he said. “Now. To the point—”

A red dot appeared on the Frenchman’s forehead. Suddenly his head jerked violently as a bullet found its target.

His livestreamed death was quickly followed by what appeared to be a bright, happy commercial sponsored by the Austrian National Tourist Office.

It took a second for Xiang to recover from his shock at seeing his former boss’s boss assassinated. When he recovered, he raised an already bloodied sword above Jimmy’s head.

That was as far as Xiang got before the conservatory filled with automatic-weapons fire. Xiang took three quick rounds to the chest and collapsed behind Jimmy. I jumped over the dining table and dragged Bojing’s body with me as a line of bullets ripped into the table. I found Bojing’s holstered semi-auto pistol. Then I made my way to Jimmy and pulled him behind a collection of tropical ferns.

“You’re gonna be okay, Jimmy,” I said against the deafening sounds of two flash-bang grenades exploding at opposite ends of the conservatory.

“Sure don’t feel like it,” he said. He glanced over my shoulder. I spun around, ready to unload Bojing’s gun.

The short, round figure of Labelle’s Soul Hole Donut Shop owner, Lady B. She was wearing her usual white chef’s apron, and at her side she held her signature long-barrel revolver.

“I’ll get the boy out,” she said. “You do what you got to do.”

“How many of us?” I said.

“Three of my people, Tomás, Duke Ducane and them crazy-ass Compton twins,” Lady B said. “With you maybe seven against fifteen—” One of Bojing’s men suddenly appeared and leveled his rifle at Lady B. She swung around and fired two killing .357 bullets into him. “Fourteen,” she said.

Jimmy, halfway to the unconscious world, smiled up at Lady B and said, “You smell like warm donuts.”

“Oh, I know, baby,” Lady B said sweetly as she helped lift Jimmy up. “Soon as we outta here, I’mo get you some of them donuts. Hot chocolate, too.” From the look of it, Lady B had carried the weary and the wounded before. She cut me a look and growled, “Mop up them motherfuckers!”

I saluted her.

Then I jumped into the fray.

A semi-automatic rifle chewed through exotic foliage as I made my way, low and fast, to a modestly higher collection of ferns. I got off three in the direction of the rifle fire before I leapt behind a large, thick-rooted fern. Just as I checked the clip of my weapon, one of Bojing’s men stood over me, his finger poised on his trigger, his rifle barrel holding me at the center of its bull’s-eye.

“Mine,” he said.