It’s my job to kill the Rat Burglar.

I make myself say thanks.

“You got it. Oh, and here’s the job sheet.”

Herk hands me the details. It’s on Janus letterhead with the motto right there in italics, Ne Cede Malis, which apparently means “Don’t Give in to Adversity,” but which I used to think meant “Don’t Give in to Badness.” I think I best understood the motto when I misunderstood it, though. It seemed like an affirmation that I had chosen the right line of work, that Janus was going to help me become a better person. It would help me recover something. It would make me worthy of love.

Now, as I hold the letterhead in one hand and a gun in the other, I’m not so sure.

Am I giving in to badness?

Or am I asserting myself?

“The MacGuffin is a samurai sword?” I say, mystified. “How is that eight figs?”

“It’s a special sword, a vengeance sword. This guy Hioki was some kind of legendary samurai sword maker. A rival raped and killed his wife. Hioki made a special sword. Its only purpose was to rub out the whole family of the guy who killed his wife. Supposedly he forged the sword in his wife’s blood. Her name is etched in the blade. The grip is wrapped in her hair. They say you can still see red in the blade, and the hair on the grip never broke.” Herk whistles. “Hioki was true to his word, too. Killed every member of that guy’s family. Women, children, everything. Forty-four murders. He killed them in duels, cut them down on public streets, stabbed them to death in their beds. Extincted the whole fucking bloodline. Then when they were all dead he hari-karied himself. Now I guess it’s got some sort of legend about it. Hioki is like some kind of proverb in Japan for the downside of rage or something.”

“So it’s got some historical and cultural value, O.K., but it still doesn’t make sense. Even the finest examples of samurai swords don’t crack seven figs. They aren’t exactly rare.”

Herk shrugs.

“And why the hell would he pay so much for two pulses on the job?”

“Beats me. But best not to look a gift gig in the mouth, right?”

“I guess.”

Next to us a blond woman is firing shots at her target over fifty feet away. Her hair is thick and curly like Charlie’s, but a little bit shorter, and she has the same forearm muscles that are so lean they look as if they’ve been stenciled onto her skin in pencil. She is wearing stylish hip-hugging, low-rider slacks and an expensive-looking blouse that accentuates her narrow, athletic waist. I feel like I’m looking at some kind of doppelgänger, a Charlie from a parallel universe with blond hair and a gun fetish.