But pride insisted he try on his own first. Pride, and the fact that he was none too certain that Red wouldn’t tattle to Dot if he found him down here.

“Elton?”

Drake looked up, trying to place the voice, managing it only when he saw the face it matched. He began to smile for the old friend he hadn’t seen in seven years.

The smile turned to an oompf of protest when said old friend landed a fist in Drake’s stomach. He doubled over, the searing pain that exploded through his abdomen making it impossible to so much as shout a plea to stop.

Phillip Camden wasn’t given the chance to hit him again anyway—Red flew in from somewhere or another, pushing the idiot back with a shout that seemed nothing but wordless din to Drake’s ears.

His knees buckled. The bench was still there behind him, and he collapsed onto it, clutching his side. Though he almost wished for the ground, where he could have curled up in a ball until his vision cleared of the white-hot agony.

After an eternity, Camden’s blistering words made it through the ringing in his ears. “. . . didn’t ask you for your help, you blighted—”

“Don’t you go a step closer or I’ll—”

“This is between me and—”

“I don’t know who you are, you idiot, but when you go around punching a man who was just shot, it becomes my business.”

Drake drew in a breath, rather experimentally, and slid his hand to his injury. He couldn’t detect any fresh blood. The blighter had landed his fist on the side opposite the wound. That was something. Perhaps it would be only pain and not a reopening that would set him back another week or two.

“He probably deserved to get shot if he goes around interfering with everyone else like he did with—”

A solid whack drew Drake’s attention from the street just in time to see Camden stagger back and Red’s fist recoiling from where it had met with the idiot’s jaw.

Apparently Drake had a bodyguard. And apparently he needed one.

His next breath still hurt, but not quite as much as the previous. He forced himself to sit up a little bit straighter. Camden wasn’t taking a return swing at Red, anyway, just glaring at Drake as if his eyes were flamethrowers.

That told him quite a bit, really. Drake tried to smile, though it felt more like a grimace. “You know, Cam, we civilized people usually greet old chums with a ‘hello’ rather than a fist.”

Camden pushed Red away and dabbed at the corner of his mouth, still staring at Drake. “You ought to have stayed out of it. It’s no concern of yours if I rot in prison or am executed.”