Setrakian nodded, and at once Eph understood. He cleared his throat and brought the nail gun up again, aiming it, squeezing the trigger twice.

The weaponized tool was accurate from that distance. Fuel glugged out of the punctured canister, spilling down off the wooden shelf to the dirt below.

Setrakian swept open his light topcoat and fished a small box of matches from a pocket in the lining. With a very crooked finger he picked out one wooden match and struck it against the strip on the box, bringing it flaring orange into the night.

“Mr. Barbour is released,” he said.

Then he threw in the lit match and the woodshed roared.

Rego Park Center, Queens

MATT GOT THROUGH an entire rack of juniors’ separates, and then holstered his bar code collection unit—the inventory gun—and set off downstairs for a snack. After-hours inventory actually wasn’t all that bad. As the Sears store manager, he was comped the overtime, applicable toward his regular weekday hours. And the rest of the mall was closed and locked, the security grates down, meaning no customers, no crowds. And he didn’t have to wear a necktie.

He took the escalator to the merchandise pickup bay, where the best vending machines were. He was coming back through the first-floor jewelry counters eating jelly Chuckles (in ascending order of preference: licorice, lemon, lime, orange, cherry) when he heard something out in the mall proper. He went to the wide steel gate and saw one of the security guards crawling on the floor, three stores down.

The guard was holding his hand to his throat, as though choking, or badly hurt.

“Hey!” called Matt.

The guard saw him and reached out, not a wave but a plea for help. Matt dug out his key ring and turned the longest one in the wall slot, raising the gate just four feet, high enough to duck under, and ran down to the man.

The security guard gripped his arm and Matt got him up onto a nearby bench next to the wishing fountain. The man was gasping. Matt saw blood on his neck between his fingers, but not enough to indicate a stabbing. There were bloodstains on his uniform shirt also, and the guy’s lap was damp where he had peed himself.

Matt knew the guy by sight only, recognizing him as kind of a douche. A big-armed guy who patrolled the mall with his thumbs in his belt like some southern sheriff. With his hat off now, Matt saw the guy’s receding hairline, black strands straggly and greasy, over his pate like oil. The guy was rubber limbed and clinging to Matt’s arm, painfully and not very manfully.