Barney Daniels sat up in bed, rubbing the sore spot where the intravenous feeding needle had been taken out.

"Just a couple more days, Mr. Daniels," said the black nurse. "Then you'll be out of here. Can't happen too soon, either. If some of our regulars found out we had a white man here, I don't know what'd happen." She smiled at him.

"No," said Barney, shaking himself to life. "Now."

"Now, now..." the nurse began.

"Just once," Barney said. "Now. I'm going. Get Doc."

"Doctor Jackson is busy at the..."

"Get him in here." Barney's voice reverberated through the small private room. "Otherwise I'll run out front and tell the whole neighborhood that you're treating white folks. You'll never live it down."

"Just you calm down," the nurse said. "I'll get the doctor."

Jackson was harried and tired looking and Barney realized he could not remember a time when Jackson hadn't been overworked, overtired and underappreciated.

"What is it now, you honkey pain in the ass?" Jackson said.

"Sit down, Doc."

"C'mon, I'm busy."

Barney sat up and cleared a space on his bed. "Talk to me for a minute. We both need it."

Doc Jackson sat, his knees creaking as he bent them.

"Bad one?" Barney asked.

Jackson nodded. "Bullet wound. Some asshole went on a toot and shot his girlfriend in the face. I thought I could save her." He closed his eyes, the lids weighted by decades of sleepless nights and lost causes.

"Ever hear from your wife?" Barney asked.

"Sure." His grim black face cracked into a semblance of a smile. "When she wants more money."

"Your kid?"

"Ivy League. Majoring in revolution, relevance and hate. I'm not one of her favorite people. What's this all about anyway?"

Barney shifted on the bed. "No reason. I've just been thinking. Wondering how things might have turned out, you know, if Denise..."

"Stop it. Now. All the what if s and what-might-have-beens in the world aren't going to bring her back, no matter how bad you want her."

"I remembered, Doc. I remembered everything." There was such pain on his friend's face that Jackson could not ease it. All he could do was to spend this moment with Barney and listen to him.

"I remembered when things used to be important. Ordinary things, just living. Every day when I'd wake up, I'd be glad that I made it through again. Do you remember?"

"Me?" Jackson thought. "I don't know. I guess so. But everybody gets over being young. That's all it is. You get older, you see things differently. You expect less." He shrugged.

"Bullshit," Barney said. "There's not a day goes by that you — you personally, Robert Hanson Jackson — don't wonder what the hell you're doing here."

"Oh, really?" Jackson mocked. "What makes you think you know so much about me?"

"Because we're the same guy. You're black and ugly and I'm white and handsome, but except for that you couldn't tell us apart."

"You natter yourself," Jackson said. "So what's next?"

"I'm going to Hispania. Tonight."

"No, you're not," Jackson bellowed. "You're not leaving this bed for two days."

"I'm leaving now," Barney said.

"No way," Jackson said.

"Doc, I'm a little weak and maybe I can't take you. Actually, I guess I never could. But I can sure as hell wait until your back is turned, then punch the face off that nurse of yours. I'm going."

Doc sighed. "It can't wait? You're in no shape for a trip."

"You heard me talking under the drugs," Barney said. "You know what happened to me — what happened to Denise. I've got to start collecting some due bills. I can't wait any more."

Doc stood up with a sigh. "All right, you crazy bastard. Leave. I won't try to stop you."

"I'll need a couple of things too," Barney said. He picked up a note pad from the nightstand next to his bed. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to Jackson.

"Rope? What the hell kind of supply item is that?"

"I just need it," Barney said. He smiled at Doc. "Want to go on an island vacation?"

Doc snorted, his nostrils flaring. "That floating patch of parrot shit? Hispania? Shove it, pal."

He went to the doorway and stood there for a moment.

"The trouble with you, Barney, is that you don't know that you're an old man. It's all over for you. For me. We've just got to find something to keep us busy, something that doesn't make us feel too much like thieves. Something that lets us sleep at night."

"Like you," Barney said. "The first black everything. And your wife left you and your kid hates you. That's really something to live for."

"Better than nothing," Jackson said. "We're not thirty years old anymore. Neither of us," he said. "Wise up, Barney. Vengeance is a young man's game."

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," Barney recited. He smiled at Doc, who hit the side of the door with the heel of his hand.

"I'll have your goddam supplies where you want them," Doc said.

Barney hurt.

He hurt walking out of the clinic, his clothes baggy and outsized on his now-bony frame. He hurt getting into the taxi that Doc Jackson had called and was waiting out front. He hurt as he stood across the street from the gates of the Hispanian Embassy, preparing his mind for what he must do. The thumb of his right hand pressed reassuringly against the steel handle of the scalpel he had filched from an instrument tray in Doc Jackson's clinic.

Barney breathed. He concentrated. He waited.

And then Denise came to him again, a shadow in a lifetime of shadows. She spoke to him deep within the recesses of his mind.

"You have come back to me, my husband," she said. "I am proud of you this day."

And then Barney didn't hurt any more.

He walked across the street, toward the guard who was standing outside the locked gates, his rifle at port arms across his chest.

The guard stepped in front of him at the gate and pushed at Barney with the stock of the rifle. Barney's hand was out of his pocket, scalpel tightly in his fingers, and slashing across the man's throat

Before the man hit the ground, Barney had the gate key from his pocket and let himself into the embassy grounds.

Another guard inside the front door tried to stop Barney. He reached out his hands to grab the lapels of Barney's jacket.

As he grabbed, Barney's hands moved up between his and caught the man's throat. Without his even thinking, Barney's well-practiced fingers moved into the right position, his thumbs pressing hard inward on the Adam's apple. He felt the man's hands loosen and Barney kept up the pressure until he heard a cracking sound, then a gurgle, and the man slumped slowly to the floor.

Daniels looked down at the body. How did he feel about having killed again? He looked at his hands. He smiled.

He felt good and he was just getting started. There were a lot of bills to be paid.

He removed the gun from the hip holster of the guard and walked down the long hall. At the end was Estomago's office, the door closed. Barney placed the heel of his foot near the lock and kicked hard. The door flew open.

Estomago sat alone at his mahogany desk. When he saw Barney, his face showed, first, surprise. Then terror.

"It's been a long time coming, you piece of garbage," Barney said in gutter Spanish.

"Wha..."

"You have a bill to pay for the death of my honored wife, Denise Saravena. And for the boy you killed for his help to me. I have come to execute you and send you to hell."

Estomago lunged for his desk drawer, for the warm reassuring magnum that he kept in there. But he was too slow and too late.

Before he could put his hand around the gun, Barney was leaning across the desk, the barrel of the .38 police special pressed into Estomago's forehead, directly between his eyes.