‘So how you doing?’ I ask, wasting a few seconds on politeness.

‘I’m fucking freezing,’ she replies. ‘I got enough morphine in me to cheer up the Rolling Stones and I’m still cold. I’m gonna lose a finger to frostbite, McEvoy. How about that for a happy ending?’

‘Sucks,’ I say, nodding in sympathy like she can see me. ‘You okay to dial the office?’ And I lay out some thrown-together story about masked raiders.

‘Let me get this straight, McEvoy,’ she says, and I can almost hear her teeth chatter as she tries to grin. ‘You just happen by your friend’s store late at night and find him tied to a chair with a bullet in his shoulder. This is worse than your last effort about me busting out of the freezer.’

‘Yeah, Detective. Shocking, ain’t it? An Irishman who can’t tell a story.’

‘Dan, we’ve been through some shit, and you did me a solid with that tension screw.’

‘And saved your life those times.’

‘And the lifesaving, sure. But I’m a cop first and foremost and I am watching you, man. I don’t know how a fascinating and talented individual like yourself stayed off my radar for so long.’

‘I’m a quiet guy, Detective. From now on, I’m back under the radar.’

Deacon laughs. ‘People like you and me, Dan, trouble sniffs us out. Maybe you can hide out for a while, maybe even a few years, but eventually someone needs to be saved or someone needs to be killed.’

‘I’m out of those businesses.’

‘That’s right. I hear Daniel McEvoy is a club owner these days.’

‘News travels fast. It’s temporary.’

Deacon sighs, and I guess she’s thinking about her ex-partner.

‘Everything’s temporary, Dan. I’ll use my good fingers to expedite the 911. An ambulance should be with you in ten. See you real soon.’

‘Thanks, Ronnie. I’ll call you.’

Zeb has somehow managed to give himself an injection of something while I was outside negotiating with the cavalry. He sits pale under a flickering strip light, eyes rolled back in his head and blood-slick shirt sticking to his chest.

‘Zeb?’

Nothing. Whatever he dosed himself with is doing the trick.

‘Man, you look like a poster for a horror movie.’

‘Screw you, Dan.’

Still a few marbles in the jar, then.

‘What was in that shot?’

Zeb’s irises roll down like slot-machine bars. ‘One of my own concoctions. I am feeling no pain, Dan. You see the ponies?’

‘The ambulance is coming. Sirens and lights, the whole nine yards. The medics will want to know what you took.’

Zeb smiles and bubbles burst in the corner of his mouth. ‘I took as much as I could, Dan. Being shot is no joke. This blackmail thing was my worst idea ever.’

I beg to differ. ‘No. That she-male last summer was the worst idea ever.’