On the screen everything happens all over again: the Rat Burglar taking out the Cincinnati cord, the gunshot, the attempt at resuscitation, the horrible, womanish scream when I punch the wound, the hectic fight. As I watch, I realize that my hand is opening and closing, feeling the phantom weight of the gun. Its textured grip. Its sharp recoil. I doubt I’ll ever get that feeling of death out of my hand.

“I don’t get it,” I say. “The Rat Burglar always disables the cameras. How did this recording happen?”

“The camera wasn’t part of the system. It was a discrete unit operating on its own power. A home video camera. Hidden. Installed by Nunes with the cooperation of Janus. Charlie almost didn’t catch it.”

“Nunes knew it would happen,” I say, marveling. “That’s why I wasn’t pulled off the job. She wanted her proof. How did you get it?”

“Look here,” Jagjeet says, ignoring my question. “The chokehold she is putting on. It is a blood choke, not an air choke. It is completely safe. She is trying not to hurt you. But it gives you enough time to find the wound. It was a mistake for her to do it, but she was trying to take it easy on you.”

“She wasn’t taking it easy when she hit me in the mouth.”

“Can you open your mouth?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have all your teeth?”

“Yeah.”

“She was taking it easy.”

“What about the damn Nix, then? What about that?”

“Just watch.”

The rest of the fight unfolds exactly as I remember it. Things transpire as quickly on-screen as they did in real life. The Rat Burglar—Charlie, I mean: Charlie—kicks the dart gun out of my hand; I shoot myself; a second kick sends me James Browning sideways, after which I fall and crack my head on the concrete. The crisp sound is clear even with the poor audio of the portable video unit, and the dart is so firmly embedded in my thigh, protruding with such erect majesty, that it looks like a permanent fixture of my leg, a red-tufted prosthetic.

Then Charlie is on me. She yanks out the dart, skitters it furiously across the room. She pulls off her mask—incriminating herself on video for all time, I realize—and presses it firmly to my head with one hand, stanching the flow of blood. With the other she pulls out a vial of whitish liquid and, while weeping onto my unmoving face, administers the antitoxin.

“Forgive me forgive me forgive me,” she’s saying.

At the last moment, Charlie pulls her mask back on, and then the response team rushes in, guns drawn. For one second, they stare, stunned to be, finally, in the presence of the Rat Burglar, but then they descend on her. Charlie clings to me, desperately trying to deliver the second dose of the antitoxin.