“The police say he fell down the stairs and cracked his skull.”

“He did.” She met his gaze. There was nothing like compassion in her eyes. “I was never charged with a goddamn thing, Mr. Rêveur. Not in regards to Billy.”

“Some people say Johnny Walker killed him for you.”

She barked out a laugh and shook her head, her hair falling forward over her shoulders. “Oh, he’s killed folks, for sure. He’s even killed some for me, specifically. I bet he’d kill for you, too. If you asked him.” She leaned in, both elbows planted on the table as she pointed at Eugene with the tip of her cigarette. “What you need to know about Johnny, Mr. Rêveur, is that he’s not like you or I. The laws don’t apply to him. Not moral laws or natural ones. Do you understand?”

Gold eyes and sharp teeth, gleaming in the dark.

“Billy got drunk and he fell down those stairs his own damn self, and there’s no one else to blame for it.”

“You didn’t push him?”

She smiled, razor-sharp and deadly. She was the sort of woman who had gunpowder running in her veins. There was no room for love in a woman like that. “Billy got what he deserved. The cops knew it. Hell, his own family knew it. There’s not a judge or jury in the world that would convict me, not of that.”

“Maybe not you. But Johnny?”

Angelique sat back. “His secrets aren’t mine to tell. I’ll tell you my story. I’m happy to. But if you want his, you ask him yourself.”

“I will.” Eugene sipped his gin. It was harsh and clinical. He had never developed any taste for alcohol, and it burned his chest on the way down. "Can I ask you one more thing?"

She shrugged. "Shoot."

"You can't read a sentence without some paper or other calling you two the next Bonnie and Clyde. Half of them mean it as some kind of hero-worship. Johnny talks like the Bureau can't touch him, but don't you ever wonder about going out the same way as them?"

She downed the last of her drink. "I'm not going to go like that. Johnny sure as hell isn't."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself."

"Bonnie Parker died like a dog, running scared," Angelique said coldly. "She could barely walk, in the end. You know that? Her leg all chewed up from battery acid, and Barrow was hardly any better off. They put their trust in all the wrong folks, and they paid the price for it." She shook her head, returning to her cigarette. "Parker's no hero, getting gunned down with her tail between her legs. She's a goddamn cautionary tale." She blew out her smoke in a sharp exhalation. "I ain't dying for any man, not even Johnny. When I go, it'll be by my choice, and I'll do it standing and facing it head on."

"Anybody can say that. Seems to me, most folks die running away from something, scared to the end. Just like she did."