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at me, stabbing underhanded with the needle.
    I tried to twist away, but he stabbed me with it in the side. He seemed practiced, and I wondered how many women he’d injected and dragged into a parked van to misuse later. The sharp needle easily poked through my shirt. He laughed then. It was an ugly thing full of vile promise. Shoving the hypo harder, his thumb with its black nail began squeezing the plunger. He must not have counted on my increased density, on my toughened skin. Instead of sinking into me, the needle had bent. My twisting aside had changed the angle of thrust. The needle might have gone in if he’d plunged it in straight. The blue solution squirted onto instead of into me.
    “What the crap?” he said.
    I latched onto his offensive wrist as several people around us lurched away. An older man asked something sharply in what sounded like German.
    I twisted Mr. Ex-Con’s wrist. The hypo fell from his grip and he grunted painfully. As he sucked in a lungful of air, he stepped into me, slamming a fist against my gut. More people surged away from us, and two women shouted urgently. The blow did nothing to me, and his eyes widened. I suspected this was his favorite tactic, the fast blow to the gut, surprising another con in the yard or the homeowner he was robbing trying to protect his property or his wife. I squeezed his wrist, and he grunted again. Then I twisted savagely. Bones snapped. The man screamed and the color fled from his face. Around us, other people shouted and backed away more. I shoved the ex-con, and he staggered into two ladies. The three of them went down in a heap. In that second, I glanced at the sidewalk, saw the needle and bent to grab it. A citizen hero slammed against me from behind. I think he meant to tackle me. In order to keep my balance, my right foot shot out and kicked the needle, sending it skittering into the crowd of feet. The would-be hero bounced off me as he might have bounced off a four-hundred-pound sumo wrestler. I continued to stagger forward, however.
    The ex-con was on his feet, cradling his broken wrist. Despite his thickness, he was like a cat. He stared at me for all of a second. Then he turned and fled, crashing into people who scrambled to get out of his way.
    I had two seconds to decide what to do. For the first second I scanned the sidewalk for sign of the needle. I wanted to know what was in the blue solution. Was it an ordinary knockout drug or was it something meant to take out a person like me? The next second I scanned the crowd, looking for someone who watched the proceedings with too much calm.
    People backed away from me. Most were already hurrying, wanting nothing to do with violence in the big city. The would-be hero had partially changed his mind, keeping his eyes on me as he backed away. He looked like a weightlifter, his shirt tight around his biceps and with a muscled neck.
    “You’re like a brick wall,” he said.
    “I meditate a lot,” I said. I lowered the bill of my hat and started walking. I had done the same thing many times after liquidating a target for the Shop. Most people react slowly to surprises, especially violent surprises. The violence stuns them into inaction.
    I knew some would point at me or at the very least track me with their eyes. They didn’t count. The people who did count were the backup to the needle-man. Why would he pick me out of the crowd today? Because someone had ordered him to, that’s why.
    I’d gotten sloppy following Kay. To whom did the needle-man belong?
    I kept scanning as I hurried to the last place I’d seen Kay. Did the attack on me mean others would try for her?
    Then I saw Kay running, dodging cars as she crossed the middle of the street. She looked back once—not at me, but at someone else that I couldn’t spot. Cars honked. Brakes squealed. Then Kay was on the other side of the street. She ran past watching people and slipped into the nearest tourist store as an angry driver flipped her