Someone grabbed hold of his jacket and dragged him inside. He cried out but a hand clamped over his mouth. The ’wolves, he thought, panicking. How could I have been so stupid?

Across from the alleyway on the other side of the street, a psychic advertised her services in gaudy, flickering neon. In its pink burn he saw another man, Korean maybe, lurking in the thick shadows.

Tom bit the thick fingers bruising his lips, and with a grunt the man snatched them away. But before Tom could shout for help, the Korean doubled him up with a punch in the stomach, and thrust a knife towards his face.

The other man grabbed Tom again, this time in a neck-lock.

‘Give us your money and don’t make a sound or we’ll make you bleed, kid.’

‘Muggers?’ Tom gasped. Bizarrely, he felt a rush of sudden relief. ‘Thank God.’

He saw the Korean frown. ‘Huh?’

‘Comedian,’ muttered the first man, tightening the neck-lock.

Tom gasped. OK, so they might not be ’wolves –but the city had dangers enough without them, and he had been a fool to forget it. ‘I don’t have any money …’ he spluttered. ‘All I have is the clothes I’m in. Look at me …’ The pressure on his airway was beginning to make Tom feel giddy.

Change, he thought. Change to save yourself …

The knife-man frisked him quickly and swore. ‘Nothing.’ Then he smiled and held the knife to Tom’s cheek. ‘Maybe we’ll take something else from you, huh?’

Change!

Tom thought of the hundreds of people coursing through those brightly-lit streets just steps away. After what happened at Gun Hill he knew he couldn’t risk their lives to save his own.

And since his last hope had finally failed him, why fight? Maybe it was time just to give in at last.

He shut his eyes as the knifepoint pressed into his cheek.

Then a resounding clang echoed around the alleyway, and the knife fell away. A hand reached past Tom’s face and jabbed at the man who held him. With a cry of pain, the man fell back, clutching his eyes.

The muggers, reeling from this sudden assault, retreated quickly down the alleyway and back to the main drag without a backward glance.

In the sputtering light of the neon display Tom stared in disbelief at his rescuer. He was a short man wearing a white coat over checked trousers, an ageing Native American whose silver hair hung down to his shoulders in scruffy braids. His face was lined, his nose like a big, straight arrow through the contours, pointing down to a proud cleft chin. His eyes were amber in the light, twinkling with amusement.

The old man held up a glistening hand. ‘Chili oil,’ he announced in a voice that held no trace of accent. He gestured to a door in the wall beside him. ‘From the kitchens. I think it stung his eyes a little.’