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weren’t gentle and bits of the broken window tore at my clothes and my skin.   I caught a whiff of blood.
    Probably my own.
    “Hurry up.”
    Another set of hands grabbed me.   I still couldn’t see.   I tried to fend them off, but my head rang like the bells at Notre Dame.   I might have had a concussion.
    I was lifted and thrown into a trunk.   It slammed shut behind me; I heard the roar of an engine then the felt the car slide into drive and speed down the road.
    I took stock of the situation.   My head hurt like hell.   I couldn’t see.   I lifted my hands to my eyes now and they came away sticky wet like I’d had molasses poured over me.   I sniffed.   Blood.  
    Head wounds, like abdominals, are always bloody as hell, but the presence of blood doesn’t necessarily mean it’s too serious.   I wasn’t all that concerned.   Although I did want my head back on straight by the time we stopped.
    I’d been right tagging Hagar.   But who had helped him?   I didn’t recognize the voice.
    I tucked into my breathing, calming myself down and trying to regulate my adrenaline flow.   I felt my head slowly start to clear and the breathing helped stem the flow of blood as well.   Being around as long as I’ve been, you pick up a few tricks that come in handy.
    We turned a few times and the bumps increased.   I guessed we were off the main drag now, probably heading into the back roads of the Cape.   There’s a fair amount of hidden places down here and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up as landfill in one of them.
    And me with a hot date this week.
    The car stopped; I managed to clear enough blood from around my eyes to see faint cracks of light by the edge of the trunk.   I steeled myself for what was coming.
    The trunk opened and a bright flashlight blinded me.   “Don’t try anything.   We’ve got a gun on you.”
    I held my hands out.   “All right.   But I can’t get out unless you switch that thing off.”
    The light disappeared and I heard the surf now for the first time.   From the sound of it, the tide was coming in.   Waves crashed some distance away.   I crawled out of the trunk and the ambient light from the moon illuminated a deserted stretch of beach.   I couldn’t see any houses along the shore.   Just a lot of sand.
    Hagar eyed me but he didn’t say anything.   The guy next to him, the bass player, eyed me.   “Who are you?”
    I smiled.   “Didn’t I see you disappear around the rotary?”
    “And then creep up on your tail.   Yeah.”   He held a Colt Python and in the moonlight, it gleamed silver.   “I’ll ask you one more time.   Who are you?”
    Hagar frowned.   “Is he one of them?”
    The bass player nodded.   “Probably.”
    “One of what?” I asked.   The bass player was far enough away that going for the disarm was risky.   And I had to assume that if he knew what I might be, then the gun was probably loaded with all sorts of bullets that could ruin my day.
    The bass player spat in the sand.   “Fixer.”
    “What’s that?”
    He backhanded me with the revolver so fast I didn’t even see it coming.   It cut into my cheek and scored a line through my gums.   I swallowed some of the blood and glared at him.  
    He thumbed the hammer back.   “How’d you find us?”
    There didn’t seem much point in lying.   “A tip.   I was dispatched to follow it up.”
    “From who?”
    I shook my head.   “No idea.   That’d be a little beyond my pay grade.”
    Hagar glanced at the bass player.   “You think that’s true, Frank?”
    “Shut up.”   Frank hadn’t taken his eyes off of me.   “How’d you know it was him?”
    “Just a guess.   Not like anyone else there could have been a part of it.   The bartender mentioned he wasn’t around last weekend.”
    “That’s it?”
    I smirked.   “You kidding?   That’s like a bonanza compared to some of my other assignments.”
    Frank chewed on that and then nodded.