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tripped over his own feet and fell sideways to the floor. Unfortunately, he made a little noise. He quickly scrambled to his feet and whirled around to see if Delmar was going to scream or, worse, come after him with a gun.
    He peeked into the library and couldn’t believe his good luck. Delmar didn’t seem to hear or notice him. Delmar’s behavior was odd, though. His right hand had gone to his chest, and he slumped toward the light. His complexion was rapidly turning the color of a day-old corpse as he struggled for breath.
    Suddenly Delmar lurched up from his chair, staggered backward, then turned in a feeble attempt to reach for the phone. He never made it. He fell hard and struck his head on the corner of the desk, then crashed to the floor and lay there in a heap, blood shooting from his skull.
    Was he dead? Milo rushed forward to check for a pulse. Tripping on the edge of the rug, he lost his balance and landed with a thud on top of Delmar. When Milo regained his feet, his shirt and pants were covered in Delmar’s blood. He stared down at the lifeless face until he was absolutely certain the man was dead. It wasn’t until he thought he heard someone coming that he finally moved. Maybe it was just the sound of his heartbeat roaring in his ears, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He skidded across the hardwood floor, ran out the back door, and kept on running the three long blocks to his car. He was halfway home before he realized he was still wearing his mask, an error he didn’t mention when he was writing about his lessons learned. After all, legends didn’t make mistakes, did they?
    Lesson two: bring food for the dogs.
    Case in point: Jimmy Barrows.
    Barrows was a meaner than usual loan shark who was squeezing Mr. Merriam’s nephew for payment. Milo had been instructed to kill Barrows with one shot between the eyes. Mr.
    Merriam wanted to send a message that no one messed with his family.
    After this job was completed, Milo reported to Mr. Merriam that he’d had a little trouble with a couple of Barrows’s pesky, yapping dogs. Still, he swore, he had made the kill with little fuss at all.

    Well, not quite. The real story was much more painful and embarrassing than Milo would admit.
    Mr. Merriam had given him a photo of the loan shark, and one look at the man convinced Milo that killing him was going to be a walk in the park. Barrows wasn’t big, maybe five-two or five-three, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred ten pounds with clothes on, but Milo knew he had to be cautious. Size didn’t matter if Barrows happened to be holding a gun in his hand. Milo doubted he was carrying, though. Rumor had it that Barrows was a prissy man who didn’t like to do anything he considered unpleasant. His clothing and his manners were as meticulous as his well-manicured hands. He left the unpleasantness to the people who worked for him, but Milo planned to make sure none of them were around when he walked in pretending to be in need of money.
    The loan shark business was an odd profession for someone as cultured as Barrows. He was the complete opposite of what Milo thought a loan shark should be, a thug.
    Barrows worked out of a converted storefront on Second and Cypress Lane. It was in a bad-ass part of town where anyone who stood on the corner more than fifteen minutes was bound to get stabbed.
    Milo had no intention of lingering. He spotted Barrows through the glass window sitting on a sofa across from his desk, sorting through bank receipts. He was dressed in a black suit with a red-and-white-striped tie, and draped on the other end of the sofa was a brown fur coat. Must belong to his wife, Milo thought, and he wondered what he could get if he tried to fence it.
    “Are you Barrows?” Milo asked as he approached.
    “Mr. Barrows,” the loan shark corrected in a peevish tone of voice.
    “I need a loan,” Milo said. “I’ve got some papers here you could look at and maybe keep as collateral.” He