After a few blocks in the dust that the trucks were kicking up on the narrow roadway, I began to doubt the health value of the walk. My old Tigers, too, didn’t have as much left in their soles as I had hoped. My feet started to hurt. Every time I came to a bus stop I’d wait a few minutes to see if one were coming behind the trucks. Plenty of northbound buses trundled by, but they must have been falling off the end of the earth when they got to Congress: nothing was returning south.

I could just see Barney’s sign when the rain broke. I sprinted the last two blocks and rounded the corner onto Forty-first.

The rain and my sore feet made me stupid. A truck was double-parked across the street from me, its engine running. I looked at it cursorily, unlocked the Impala, and started to slide into the driver’s seat.

A movement from the truck startled me and I moved faster into the car, reaching for my Smith & Wesson. My mistake was in trying to do both. The door was wrenched open and a pistol thrust against my head while I was still fumbling for my own gun. Careful not to move my head, I rolled my eyeballs as far up as they would go. I was looking at the Hulk.

He didn’t speak or move. My stomach heaved. I was glad I’d only put half a plate of tofu into it. That lessened the chance of total humiliation. I heard glass shatter to my right. I jerked around involuntarily and felt the pistol jam into my neck.

One of the Hulk’s pals had broken the glass in the passenger side of the Impala and was calmly unlocking the door. He, too, had a gun. When he had it stuck in my side, the Hulk climbed into the backseat. Stupidly enough, the only thing I could think was how pissed Luke was going to be when he saw the broken window on a car he wanted to sell.

“Drive,” the Hulk growled.

“Your slightest wish is my command. Where to, O king?” Despite my dry mouth and heaving stomach, my voice came out without a quaver. All those years of practicing breath control to my mother’s critical standard paid off in a crisis.

“Down to the corner and make a left,” the Hulk said.

I turned left onto Albany. “Back to Eddie Mohr’s?”

“We don’t want to hear it from you.” A piece of metal attached itself to the back of my head. “Right at the corner.”

“To Diamond Head, then.”

“I said we didn’t want to hear it from you. Left on Archer.”

We were heading to the plant. Rain was starting to come in through the broken glass, spattering the man to my right, but also the dashboard. Another thing that would peeve Luke.