He rested on his elbows and let the gun fall from his right hand. He wished he could have died on any other day but this. This one had carried too much defeat with it, too much despair, and he would have liked to leave the world believing in something.

The man on the fire escape rested his elbows on the rail and took aim.

Danny closed his eyes.

He heard a scream, a bellow really, and wondered if it was his own. A clank of metal, a higher pitched scream. He opened his eyes and saw the man fall through the air, and his head made a loud pop against the cobblestones and his body folded in half.

Luther heard the first shot after he’d already passed the alley. He stood still on the sidewalk and heard nothing for almost a minute and was about to walk away when he heard the second one—a sharp pop followed immediately by another one. He jogged back to the alley. Some lights had come on and he could see two figures lying in the middle of the alley, one of them trying to raise a gun off the stone. Danny.

A man stood up on the fire escape. He wore a black bowler and pointed a gun down at Danny. Luther saw the brick lying by a trash can, thought it might be a rat at first even as he reached for it, but the rat didn’t move, and he closed his hand over it and came up with, yup, a brick.

When Danny lay back on his elbows, Luther saw that execution coming, could feel it in his chest, and he let loose the loudest yell he was capable of, a nonsensical “Aaaahhhh” that seemed to empty his heart and soul of its blood.

The man on the fire escape looked up and Luther already had his arm cocked. He could feel grass underfoot, the smell of a field in late August, the scent of leather and dirt and sweat, see the runner trying to take home, take home against his arm, trying to show him up like that? Luther’s feet left the alley, and his arm turned into a catapult. He saw a catcher’s mitt waiting, and the air sizzled when he unleashed the brick into it. That brick got up there in a goddamned hurry, too, like it had been pulled from the fire of its maker but for no other purpose. That brick had ambition.

Hit that son of a bitch right in the side of his silly hat. Crushed the hat and half his head. The guy lurched. The guy canted. He fell over the fire escape and tried to grab it, tried kicking at it, but there wasn’t no hope in that. He just fell. Fell straight down, screaming like a girl, and landed on his head.

Danny smiled. Blood pumping out of him like it was heading to put out a fire, and he fucking smiles!