Mort didn’t smoke, but his boss—whose job Mort had confidently expected to have himself by this time next year—did. Accordingly, Mort had bought a two hundred dollar silver lighter at Dunhill’s. He did not light every cigarette Mr. Framingham stuck in his gob when the two of them were together—that would have made him look too much like an ass-kisser. Just once in awhile . . . and usually when someone even higher up was present, someone who could appreciate a.) Jack Mort’s quiet courtesy, and b.) Jack Mort’s good taste.

Do-Bees covered all the bases.

This time covering the bases saved his life and Roland’s. Staunton’s bullet smashed the silver lighter instead of Mort’s heart (which was generic; Mort’s passion for brand names—good brand names—stopped mercifully at the skin).

He was hurt just the same, of course. When you were hit by a heavy-caliber slug, there was no such thing as a free ride. The lighter was driven against his chest hard enough to create a hollow. It flattened and then smashed apart, digging shallow grooves in Mort’s skin; one sliver of shrapnel sliced Mort’s left nipple almost in two. The hot slug also ignited the lighter’s fluid-soaking batting. Nevertheless, the gunslinger lay still as they approached. The one who had not shot him was telling people to stay back, just stay back, goddammit.

I’m on fire! Mort shrieked. I’m on fire, put it out! Put it out! PUT IT OWWWWWW—

The gunslinger lay still, listening to the grit of the gunslingers’ shoes on the pavement, ignoring Mort’s shrieks, trying to ignore the coal suddenly glowing against his chest and the smell of frying flesh.

A foot slid beneath his ribcage, and when it lifted, the gunslinger allowed himself to roll boneless onto his back. Jack Mort’s eyes were open. His face was slack. In spite of the shattered, burning remains of the lighter, there was no sign of the man screaming inside.

“God,” someone muttered, “did you shoot him with a tracer, man?”

Smoke was rising from the hole in the lapel of Mort’s coat in a neat little stream. It was escaping around the edge of the lapel in more untidy blotches. The cops could smell burning flesh as the wadding in the smashed lighter, soaked with Ronson lighter fluid, really began to blaze.

Andy Staunton, who had performed faultlessly thus far, now made his only mistake, one for which Cort would have sent him home with a fat ear in spite of his earlier admirable performance, telling him one mistake was all it took to get a man killed most of the time. Staunton had been able to shoot the guy—a thing no cop really knows if he can do until he’s faced with a situation where he must find out—but the idea that his bullet had somehow set the guy on fire filled him with unreasoning horror. So he bent forward to put it out without thinking, and the gunslinger’s feet smashed into his belly before he had time to do more than register the blaze of awareness in eyes he would have sworn were dead.