Alicia leaned back, deflated. “Damn. For a minute there I really thought…”

“Sorry,” Jack said.

“My God, don’t apologize for pulling me out of that van.”

“But maybe I shouldn’t have,” he said.

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m serious. It just occurred to me that I should have done everything the same except cut you free. If maybe I clobbered your brother like the other two and left the truck’s door open with you still bound to that seat, and you started shouting for help, someone would have come along and seen you and called the cops. I’d have faded away to another part of the city, and those three would be locked up in Midtown South right now.”

It annoyed the hell out of him that he hadn’t thought of any of this at the time.

Alicia was nodding slowly. “That would have been perfect. But it didn’t occur to me either. All I wanted right then was to be free of that tape and out of that truck.”

“And I was trying to figure out how many more guys I was going to have to deal with.”

“Yes,” she said, leaning forward now. A small, tight smile played about her lips. The Scotch was getting to her. “Tell me about that. Both those men were bigger than you. And I know you didn’t use your eyeball trick. So how did you beat them? Karate? Kung fu?”

“Surprise,” Jack said, “The best weapon there is. The outcome could have been very different if they’d been ready for me. But they saw a guy who was scared, frightened, helpless. Easy meat. The second guy even smiled when he saw how helpless I looked. But I had my moves planned—went for their knees and noses. Doesn’t matter how big a guy is, he’s not much trouble after you pop one of his knee ligaments, or ram his nasal bones back into his head. Those two got caught napping. That only works once, though. Have to think of something else if I run into them again.”

“I have to ask you this,” she said. Jack noticed her looking at her hands. “Those thumbnails. You keep them so much longer than the others. Can I ask you why?”

“You’d probably rather not know.”

“I do. Really I do.”

Jack took a breath. “Sometimes you get into spots where things don’t clean up as neatly as they did tonight. Sometimes you wind up rolling in the dirt or on the floor and you’re dodging head butts and bites and you’ve got to use every trick you know and every part of your body just to survive. And that’s when it’s good to have a sort of built-in weapon.” He held up his long-nailed thumbs and wiggled them. “Nothing like a gouged eye to end a fight.”

Alicia blanched and straightened in her chair. “Oh.”