I most likely didn’t have time to grill even one of the gunmen. Torelli’s goon was hurt and probably mad as hell at me. He was probably more loyal to Torelli, too, if he was a personal retainer. That really left me only one smart option for gathering information.

I stepped forward, shifting my gun to my left hand, and held out my right. I spoke a quiet word and a sphere of fire, bright as a tiny sun, kindled to life in the air above my right hand. I turned a slow stare on Bart and stepped close to him.

The thug flinched and fell onto his ass in the snowy street.

I released the sphere of fire, and it drifted closer to Bart. “Look, big guy,” I said in an amiable tone. “I’ve had a tense couple of days. And I’ve got to tell you, burning someone’s face off sounds like a great way to relax.”

“I was just a hire!” Bart stammered, scooting back on his buttocks from the little sphere of fire. “Just a driver!”

“Hired to do what?” I asked him.

“I was just supposed to put you off the road and cover the shooter,” Bart half screamed. He pointed a finger at the wounded man. “Him.”

I spread my fingers a little wider, and the flaming sphere jumped a few inches closer to the goon’s face. “Bart, Bart. Let’s not change the focus here. This is about you and me.”

“I’m just a contractor!” Bart all but screamed, writhing to get his face farther away from the fire. “They don’t tell guys like me shit!”

“Guys like you always know more than you’re told,” I said. “So you’ve got something you can give the cops to keep yourself out of jail.”

“I don’t!” Bart said. “I swear!”

I smiled at him and pushed the fire sphere a little closer. “Inhale blue,” I said. “Exhale pink. Hey, this is relaxing.”

“Torelli!” Bart screamed, throwing up his arms. “Jesus, it was Torelli! Torelli wanted the job done! He’s been getting ready to move on Marcone!”

“Since when?” I demanded.

“I don’t know. Couple of weeks, maybe. That’s when they brought me in! Oh, Jesus!”

I closed my hand and snuffed out the sphere of fire before it could do more than scorch the sleeves of Bart’s coat. He lay there on the ground breathing roughly, and refused to lower his arms.

The sound of sirens ghosted through the streets. It was time to go.

“He been talking to anyone lately?” I demanded. “Anyone new? Setting up an alliance?”

Bart shook his head, shuddering. “I ain’t one of his full-timers. I ain’t seen nothing like that.”

“Harry!” Molly screamed.

I’d gotten too intent on the conversation with Bart, and I’d been too worried about Murphy to remember to take everybody’s guns away. The gunman on the ground had recovered his shotgun and worked the action, ejecting a spent shell and loading a new round. I spun toward him, raising my shield bracelet. The problem was that my spiffy redesigned bracelet, while better in a lot of ways than the old one, took a lot more power to use, and as a result I could bring it up only so fast. I threw myself to the ground and tried to put Bart between me and Torelli’s hitter. Bart scrambled frantically to clear the line of fire, and I knew that I wasn’t going to get the shield up in time.