Skelly’s eyes. Her gaze flitting to him. Then the ground. Then to Lulu and they share a look, a look that doesn’t take longer than a second sliced in half and it’s then Mookie knows she’s lying.

“Bullshit,” he says, and he shoves past her. It is not a delicate shove, and Skelly almost loses her balance into the front desk.

Both of the garter belt girls step in front of him. One twirls the baton. The other flashes the switchblade in front of him – the swish of the blade cuts air in a sideways 8.

He holds them both off with the shotgun.

Mookie calls past the girls. “Nora? Nora, goddamnit.”

“Back off, mister,” says the Switchblade Sister.

“Yeah, get the fuck up outta here,” says Baton Twirler.

Mookie ignores them. Stomps on the floor. Hears the boards reverberate. “She down there? I heard you got a hollow carved out for yourselves.”

He goes to step past the two girls.

One swings the baton. The other comes at him with the blade.

Mistake. He blocks the baton with the shotgun, cracks her in the head with the stock of the gun. The other gets the shotgun’s mouth smashed up against her nose. The knife falls out of her now-open hand, the blade stuck in the wood.

He stomps on the knife like a hammer pounding a nail. It’s wedged in there good.

He calls again:

“Nora! Nora.”

He goes to take another step–

Skelly comes up alongside of him. He sees the glint of metal–

Then she sticks a giant Bowie knife up under his crotch.

“I’ll spill your sugarplums, sugarplum. You know what happens to a testicle when it’s pulled out of its sack? It unravels. Like a ball of yarn batted around by a mean old housecat.”

“I just want to see my daughter.”

“Rattle your cage all you like. That’s not happening today, daddy-o.”

He turns slowly. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Could be.”

“You making a move at the Boss?”

“Could be that, too.”

“Whole city does that, it’ll be chaos. Already had the Lantern Jacks came at me. They didn’t make it.” He sniffs. “This goes down, all the gangs are gonna want a piece of the island and what’s beneath it. Bloodiest game of King of the Hill in history.”

“Maybe we got an ace up our sleeve.”

“You better hope.”

Mookie’s not real good at reading women, but he’s damn good at reading criminals. And Skelly looks worried. All of them do. Skelly opens her mouth to say something and–

Gunfire.

Bullets pop and whine off the front of the building. Loud chatter. Fully auto. Punching holes in dirty glass. Mookie’s about to yell for everyone to get down, and he reaches out with a massive arm to throw everybody to the ground–