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Nummy.
    “Only because you’re too dumb to lie.”
    “You said lots of people is dumber than me, so then lots of people don’t lie.”
    Mr. Lyss spat on the floor. “I don’t like you, boy.”
    “I’m sorry, sir. I like you—a little.”
    “Right there’s a lie. You don’t like me at all.”
    “No. I do. I really do. The littlest bit.”
    Mr. Lyss’s right eye became larger than his left, as it would have if he put a magnifying glass to it, and he leaned forward as if studying a strange bug. “What’s to like about me?”
    “You’re not boring, sir. You’re dangerous excitable, and that’s not good. But you’re what Grandmama called colorful. With no colorful people, the world would be dull as vanilla pudding.”

    
chapter
9

    The instant the cold muzzle of the pistol pressed against the warm nape of her neck, Carson froze. Through clenched teeth, she called Chang a name that, back in the day, would have gotten her thrown off the New Orleans PD for gender, racial, and cultural insensitivity.
    He called her a name that was a female anatomical term no doctor ever used, at least not in his professional capacity, and whispered, “Who
are
you?”
    Before she could reply, the killer gasped in shock, as if a cold steel muzzle had been pressed to the warm nape of
his
neck, and from behind him, Michael said, “We’re cops. Drop the gun.”
    Chang was silent, perhaps contemplating the mysteries and the synchronicities of a universe that suddenly seemed less random and more morally ordered than he had thought.
    Then he said, “You’re not cops.” To Carson, he said, “You move a muscle, bitch, I’ll blow your brains out.”
    The dark bay lapped gently at the hull of the boat, and Carsonblinked beads of condensed fog from her eyelashes as she tried without success to blink images of Scout from her mind’s eye.
    “Who are you?”
Chang demanded again.
    “Private investigators,” Michael said. “Plus I’m her husband. I’ve got more at stake here than you do. Think about it.”
    “Husband,” Chang said, “you drop
your
gun.”
    “Get real,” Michael said.
    “You won’t shoot me,” Chang said.
    “What else can I do?”
    “You shoot me, I’ll shoot her.”
    “Maybe you’ll be dead too fast to shoot.”
    “Even dead, I’ll squeeze the trigger reflexively.”
    “Maybe, maybe not,” Michael said.
    “Or your shot will pass through me, kill her, too.”
    “Maybe, maybe not,” Michael said.
    “There could be another way,” Carson said.
    Michael said, “I don’t see one, honey.”
    “Let’s not be hasty, sweetheart.”
    “At least there’s all that life insurance,” Michael said.
    “They won’t pay it, dear.”
    Chang said, “Don’t talk to each other. You talk to me.”
    “All right,” Carson said. “Chang, explain to Michael that the insurance company won’t pay off with you and me dead—and only him alive. It’s just too suspicious.”
    “Chang,” said Michael, “tell her that if you shoot her first and then I shoot you, the ballistic evidence will
require
the insurance company to pay off.”
    “Shut up, shut up!”
Chang commanded. “You’re making me very nervous.”
    “Chang, you’re not a calming influence yourself,” Carson said.
    Chang slid the muzzle of his pistol up from the nape of her neck to the back of her skull and dug it into her scalp. “With Beckmann dead, I have nothing to lose.”
    Because she was at the front of the death line, Carson had no one to whose skull she could hold the muzzle of
her
pistol.
    “We could make a deal,” Michael said.
    “You have a gun to my head!”
Chang complained bitterly.
    It seemed to Carson that the killer was so obsessed with the weapon pressed to
his
head that he had all but forgotten that, like Michael, she was armed.
    “Yes, I do,” said Michael, “I have a gun to your head, so I’ve got a negotiating advantage, but you’ve got some cards to play, too.”
    Carson’s right arm hung at her side.