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years. Remember the last one, Benny?’ Blince reminisced. A Barrett 82 Light Fifty blasted at the denfront, the shooter leaving the rig in the road and screeching off in a customized drophead. Brute Parker thought ‘passive aggressive’ meant shooting someone from a lounger. ‘Sure, distributin’ bullets with a real largesse.’
    ‘ He’ll give you the cod eye, Chief,’ taunted the driver.
    ‘ Not me. Nobody’ll get this joker coolin’ on a slab - nobody but God in his infinite wisdom.’ Blince thought about an early Parker attack and Benny getting winged. Few people Parker shot were ever shot again. ‘Someone’s been takin’ liberties with democracy, Benny. Democracy in its smartest pants.’
    Benny sat opposite, his face revealing nothing - not even his eyes.
    ‘ Wake up Benny goddammit, am I talkin’ to myself here?’
    ‘ Sorry, Chief - feelin’ daffy.’
    ‘ Daffy ain’t an option, trooper boy - what if we hadn’t called back-up and wound up stuck in the Mall? We’d be gettin’ rid o’ crooks only to have ’em spring up again to the crack o’ doom.’ He said it without conscious irony. ‘Boredom shoulda tipped us off, Benny, no gettin’ round it.’
    The tank jerked to a stop and Blince threw the hatch open, lolling out and approaching the cop emplacement through the spackle of gun hits. Benny followed after, skirting bodies and bonfires.
    A guy with a face like a spaniel trotted toward Blince. ‘Damn fine to meet you, Mr Blince. I’ve followed your career with astonishment and horror. Never in my wildest nightmares did I expect to shake your hand.’
    ‘ Foresight’d be a gift in a smarter man,’ Blince remarked, sailing past the proffered limb and peering at the Deal Street bank front, where employees were screaming demands and throwing out their dead. A cop earthmover ploughed the corpses aside to allow the free exchange of gunfire. ‘Get a real sense of deja vu , eh Benny?’
    The spaniel man was shouting through a hailer. ‘The violence you manifest is compromised by its appearance.’
    Blince stopped in the act of lighting a cigar. ‘Just what at the subatomic level was that?’
    ‘ Testin’ a new strategy uptown, Chief,’ Benny fidgeted, embarrassed. ‘Phenomenology.’
    ‘ Phenomenology my bulgin’ ass,’ roared Blince, lumbering back toward the barricades.
    ‘ Throw down the guns - an object is an object only insofar as it may happen to resemble what is in your hands,’ hailed the spaniel man, breaking off amicably as Blince arrived.
    ‘ What’s your name, soldier?’
    ‘ Tredwell Garnishee.’
    ‘ What did you just say to me?’
    ‘ My name, sir.’
    ‘ His name, he says. That’s not a name, Tredwell, it’s a stab in the back for the forces o’ light. All bets are off. I’m takin’ over this investigation. What the hell is this?’ Blince snatched a bag from Tredwell. ‘Trail mix? You got trail mix for a bank job? I oughta slap your droolin’ face.’
    ‘ Give him a little credit for tryin’, Chief,’ Benny pitched in.
    ‘ Tryin’ what? To poison me? Gemme doughnuts and coffee, Tredwell - and baguettes, Macphersons baguettes, with fish sticks and fries. Gemme pasta. Then wait at the situation van. Gimme the goddamn bullhorn. Get outta here.’ Blince raised the hailer and gave a deep, ugly laugh. ‘It’s all over bar the shootin’, boys. You’re countin’ ten in Italian.’
    A meek voice from the bank front expressed a fear of the beef-witted brotherhood, which was known to arrest guilty and innocent alike with a strange certainty.
    Blince drew at his cigar and raised the hailer again. ‘And you presumed to defend yourselves, right? By God, you take that to the perjury room you’ll be voted dead by a panel of experts. We’ll put you in the chair and bake you to perfection. And I’ll laugh my head off, ha ha ha - think about it.’
    He handed the hailer to Benny as Tredwell ran up with a tray. ‘Doughnuts, Mr Blince?’ He scrutinized