Not wanting to touch it, she bends in half and gingerly unzips the curved top flap. It falls inside, hanging down into the greater darkness.

“Take a good look,” Eddie needles her maliciously. “You’re the one got all this started.”

“Am not.” If her fingers touch hair, or anything squishy, she is going to scream. Then Warren will forget all about Bogey and Bacall and arrest both her and Eddie.

Pinching the flap between the tip of her thumb and forefinger, Rose peels it back.

“You happy now?” Eddie prods.

Rose shoots him a nasty look. “God, Eddie, you had me scared to death.” Giddy with relief, she laughs. “This is nothing but a gun. Not even a fancy semiautomatic, a plain old cowboy wheel gun. A gun! Talk about sudden-onset impermanence.”

“Keep your voice down,” he hisses. “It’s not just a gun. Read the note.”

“It came with a gift card?”

Eddie puffs up, grows red in the face. For a second Rose thinks he might hit her, or explode like a cartoon character and fill the air with Eddie confetti.

She gives Warren a little wave. He smiles and waves back. Eddie seethes less conspicuously. “It’s in the bag. A Post-it Note. Yellow.” He buries his face in his hands.

“You’ve got a smaller bandage,” Rose notices. “Is your finger—I mean stump—healing up okay?”

“Just read the frigging note,” Eddie mumbles thickly.

The Post-it has partially adhered to the butt of the pistol. Rose plucks it free and reads it aloud. “‘Finish the job or next time we won’t put this where you will be the first to find it.’ You’re supposed to shoot me?” Rose asks.

“Keep it down!” Eddie growls. “I’ve never even shot a gun.”

“I could teach you.”

Eddie looks up hopefully. “You’d do that?”

“No!” Rose exclaims. “Because of the whole John the Baptist thing, I was so relieved you hadn’t been chopping off heads and carting them to malls in bowling bags that I suffered an inappropriate burst of generosity. I’m over it now. Of course I won’t teach you to shoot. You shouldn’t even be allowed to use a butter knife. You’re a criminal. Don’t let me forget that.”

She glances at the note again. “What do they mean they’ll ‘put it where you won’t be the first to find it next time’? If you don’t use this one to shoot me, they keep delivering bigger and better guns?”

“I’m a convicted felon,” Eddie explains with exaggerated patience. “It’s illegal for me to have a firearm. If I don’t deliver on this job, they’ll hide a gun where I won’t find it, then the cops get an anonymous tip, and it’s a one-way trip back to Central for me. Now do you get it?”