I stepped up behind Valmont and pressed the bill of the plastic duck against her spine. "Don't move," I said. "I'll shoot."

She stiffened. " Dresden ?"

"Let me see your hands," I said. She held them up, the green light of the palmtop showing columns of numbers. "Where's the transmitter?"

"What transmitter?"

I pushed the duck against her a little harder. "I've had a long day too, Miss Valmont. The one you just told Marcone about."

She let out a small sound of discomfort. "If you take it, Marcone will kill me."

"Yeah, he takes his image seriously. You'd be smart to come with me and get protection from the authorities. Now where is the transmitter?"

Her shoulders slumped and she bowed her head forward for a moment. I felt a twinge of guilt. She had planned on being here with friends. They'd been killed. She was a young woman, alone in a strange land, and regardless of what happened, she wasn't likely to come out of this situation ahead of the game. And here I was holding a duck to her back. I felt like a bully.

"My left jacket pocket," Valmont said, her tone quiet. I reminded myself that I was a professional and reached into her pocket to get the transmitter.

She clobbered me.

One second, I was holding the duck to her back and reaching into her pocket. The next, I was falling to the ground with a bruise shaped like one of her elbows forming on my jaw. The light from the palmtop clicked out. A small red-tinted flashlight came on, and Valmont kicked the duck out of my hand. The beam of the flashlight followed the duck for a silent second, and then she laughed.

"A duck," she said. She dipped a hand into her pocket and came out with a small silver semiautomatic. "I was fairly certain you wouldn't shoot, but that goes a step beyond ridiculous."

I've got to get a concealed-carry permit. "You won't shoot either," I said, and started to get up. "So you might as well put the gun d-"

She pointed the gun at my leg and pulled the trigger. Pain flashed through my leg and I let out an involuntary shout. I grabbed at my thigh as the red flashlight settled on me.

I pawed at my leg. I had a couple of smallish cuts, but I hadn't been shot. The bullet had hit the concrete floor next to me and gouged a bite out of the concrete. A flying chip or two must have cut my leg.

"Terribly sorry," Valmont said. "Were you saying something?"

"Nothing important," I responded.

"Ah," Valmont said. "Well, it would be bad etiquette to leave a corpse here for my buyer to clean up, so it seems as though I'll be hand-delivering to Marcone after all. We can't have you running off with what everyone is so excited over."

"Marcone is the least of your worries," I said.