We screeched around the final corner and toward the parking garage's exit. I heard someone yelling in a breathless voice, and a couple of large and unfriendly-looking men in a car parked across the street were just getting out. One of them held a shotgun, and the other had a heavy-duty semiautomatic, maybe a Desert Eagle.

I didn't recognize the thug with the shotgun, but Thug Number Three was an enormous man with reddish hair, no neck, and a cheap suit-Cujo Hendricks, right hand enforcer to the crime lord of Chicago, Gentleman Johnny Marcone.

I had to bounce the Beetle up onto the sidewalk at the parking-garage exit to get around the security bar, and I mowed down some landscaped bushes on the way. I jounced over the curb and into the street, hauling the wheel to the right, and mashed the accelerator to the floor.

I glanced back and saw the original gunman standing at a fire-exit door, pointing the silenced pistol at us. He snapped off several more shots, though I only heard the last few, as the silencer started to give out. He didn't have a prayer of a clean shot, but he got lucky and my back window shattered inward. I gulped and took the first corner against the light, nearly colliding with a U-Haul moving truck, and kept accelerating away.

A couple of blocks later, my heart slowed down enough that I could think. I slowed the car down to something approaching the speed limit, thanked my lucky stars the suppression spell had fallen apart in the studio and not in the car, and rolled down my window. I stuck my head out for a second to see if Hendricks and his goons were following us, but I didn't see anyone coming along behind us, and took it on faith.

I pulled my head in and found the barrel of the shotgun pointed at my chin, while Father Vincent, his face pale, muttered to himself under his breath in Italian.

"Hey!" I said, and pushed the gun's barrel away. "Careful with that thing. You wanna kill me?" I reached down and flicked the safety on. "Put it down. A patrolman sees that and we're in trouble."

Father Vincent gulped, and tried to lower the gun below the level of the dash. "This weapon is illegal?"

"Illegal is such a strong word," I muttered.

"Oh, my," Father Vincent said with a gulp. "Those men," he said. "They tried to kill you."

"That's what hitters for the outfit do," I agreed.

"How do you know who they are?"

"First guy had a silenced weapon. A good silencer, metal and glass, not a cheapo plastic bottle." I checked out the window again. "He was using a small-caliber weapon, too, and he was trying to get real close before he started shooting."

"Why does that matter?"