“We’ll see how you handle this problem first,” one of the shiny-suited men told him. “Then we’ll be back. Maybe.”

Fred watched with relief as the mobsters left. She had no desire to explain to Artur about gunfights. Or organized crime.

Phillip King opened the door connecting one room to the other and disappeared.

“I guess, he’s going to his office,” Thomas said.

“Then let us meet him on his own territory,” Artur announced, striding after him.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure he just wants to chat,” Fred muttered, following the men. Still, King was just one guy—a biped, as Artur would say—and there were three of them. She wasn’t especially worried now.

She walked into a brightly lit office with blueprints plastered on every wall (no doubt plans for the mighty Sleepytime empire) and looked at King just in time to see him point something shiny at them.

“Down!” Thomas shouted, and batted her sideways so hard, she flew back into the conference room. At the same instant, or so it felt to her, there was a loud bang and a chunk of wood where her head had just been leapt from the wall and fell on the carpet.

Thomas shoved her under the table, yanked Artur down, and in a few seconds all three of them were crouched beneath the conference room table while King screamed things like, “I’m turning that whore’s water zoo into a shit hole!” and “It’s her fault I’m in debt up to my eyeballs!” and “Why couldn’t she just look the other way like a normal wife?” Each rant, of course, punctuated with a gunshot.

“Uh…”

“He’s nuts,” Thomas said, squinting up from beneath the table. “And that is my professional opinion as a water fellow.”

Her phone rang and, out of pure dumb habit, she flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Call the cops on that thing!” Thomas hissed.

“You bipeds and your odd loud weapons.”

“It’s possible,” came Jonas’s pant, sounding like he’d just run the two hundred, “that her ex is emotionally disturbed.”

“Now you tell me. Say, could you send the police to his hotel, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Why? What’d you do to him?”

“Nothing! Except possibly disrupt his illegal funding. But seeing as how he’s shooting at us, maybe you could finish boinking my boss and call some authorities.” She slapped the phone shut. “Jonas is calling the cavalry. I think. Now what?”

“Well. It looked like a revolver to me. Six shots. I’ve counted four so far.”

“Super. A water fellow who knows about guns.” To Artur, “That means he has two left.”

“Two what?”

“Two small pieces of metal which his weapon will hurl at us so fast, if it hits a vital organ it will kill us.”

Artur made a face. “A distasteful way to fight.”