“No, Victor. Joey don’t want nothing more to do with that painting, and neither does I.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let it go back to the damn museum. Every penny would only make me sick. You told me I can’t start new without paying for my past. How could I start new with a wallet full of cash from what happened?”

I thought for a moment, let the familiar disappointment roll through me, and then I realized how right he was. “Okay, Charlie. Go ahead and tell her.”

“So where is it?” said Rhonda.

“Is Ralphie’s workbench still in the basement?” said Charlie.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“It was made up of plumber’s cast-iron pipes and wooden beams. I pried up a beam, slipped it in one of them pipes, and hammered the beam back down. It should still be there.”

“How fabulous,” said Rhonda.

“That doesn’t get printed until I give the okay.”

“I promise,” said Rhonda.

Just then she leaned forward into the window, leaned in and faced me as if to give me a huge kiss. I felt a little awkward about kissing her in front of everyone after everything we had heard, but then her face kept moving until it was past me. She reached out, grabbed the car keys with her right hand, killed the engine, pulled back with the keys in her hand until she was once again leaning on the car window.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m sorry, Victor, but I can’t let you go.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not what I get paid for, sweetie,” she said as she reached her left hand into her purse, pulled out a neat automatic, and placed the tip of the muzzle right at my head.

I figured it out right away, exactly what was happening. As Charlie cursed at the sight of the gun and Monica gasped and Joey laughed, the truth of it clicked in my head, left, right, left, oh, crap. I might not be the sharpest spade, but put a gun to my head and I sharpen considerably.

He had sent her from the start, Teddy had. She was the friend from Allentown. Rhonda, not some old grizzled vet, she was the left-handed dispatcher of both Ralphie Meat and Stanford Quick, now here to wipe out Charlie, and Joey, and then me. Monica had met Teddy in California, so she’d have to go, too. Who’s next? We were next, the four of us, and I had delivered us all to her like sacrificial lambs on the altar of my stupidity.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t checked her out. I had called Newsday, I had asked if there was a Rhonda Harris who reported for them on the art beat, they assured me there was. But I hadn’t asked for a description, and how hard is it for a clever hit girl to steal an identity for as long as it takes to get the job done? And I should never have doubted, for even an instant, that someone was out there to wipe away Teddy’s problems in his old hometown. The one thing I had learned about him was that he never went with just a single option. Always have a backup plan, kid, or the vultures here will eat you alive, had said Theodore Purcell, and now his backup plan was pointing a gun at my face.

“Does this mean you’re not writing a book?” I said as I frantically tried to figure out what the hell to do.

“Why would I worry over words when this is so much simpler?” she said.

“No agent? No proposal? No advance? I thought we had a future together.”

“Oh, Victor,” she said as she waggled the gun at me. “We do. It’s just going to be very short.”

“What’s going on?” said Monica. “Victor?”

“She’s going to kill us.”

“Of course she’s going to kill us. But why?”

“It’s payback for what we done to your sister,” said Joey. “Karma with a gun.”

“Chantal wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“But it’s what she’s getting,” said Rhonda. “And after what I heard, I think I’m doing everyone a favor.”

“You look good for a Korean War vet,” I said.

“That’s my father,” she said. “But with two false hips, he doesn’t get around so well anymore, so I took over the family business. One step up from animal control.”

“You led them to me again, you idiot,” said Charlie.

“I guess I did.”

“As a lawyer you might be okay, Victor,” said Charlie, “but as a bodyguard, you’re the-”

Before he could finish, I jerked up the door latch and slammed the door with all the strength in my shoulder. I expected to feel the weight of her bang away from the taxi, but she did a graceful sidestep as the door swung wildly open. I almost tumbled to the ground, held up only by my seat belt, when the door swung back and smacked me in the head.

She pulled the door away from me and kicked me in the chest, so I was flung back into the taxi.

“Let’s not make too big a mess,” she said. “The cleaners are already on their way.”

With her side to the now-open door, she pointed her gun toward Charlie in the backseat. And then we heard it.

An engine revving nearby, a rustle of weeds behind us.

Rhonda looked up just as a small, dark car burst out of the vegetation and headed right for us.

Rhonda’s gun arm swiveled.

The onrushing car’s high beams burst on.

She threw up an arm.

The car jumped forward.

There was an explosion near my head. And then, with a blast of hot air on my face, with a jumble of red hair and white limbs, with an aborted cry and the dying scream of torn metal, the car came upon us and beside us and rushed past us.

And just like that, the gun, the open car door, and Rhonda Harris had all disappeared.

Well, not quite disappeared. They lay about fifteen yards away, in a jumble of blood and bone and metal, all the elements mercifully indistinct one from the other in the darkness. To the side of the mess was the little car, its motor still running, its lights now washing across the weeds at the far side as it slowly started turning around.

I unbelted and stumbled out of the now-doorless entranceway of the cab. My knees were shaking so hard I lost my balance and fell to the ground, ripping my pants, before I climbed to my feet again. The night smelled of exhaust and cordite and terror, coppery and hard. And something else, too, something vaguely sweet and vaguely familiar. I looked around. The others were now out of the taxi also, looking as dazed and confused as did I. The three stared at me. I shrugged. Slowly, we approached the little car. We approached hesitantly, with undue care, as if it were a wild animal, turning so that it could gather us into its sight and leap ferociously at our throats.

I tried to peer inside the little car, but the headlights were now shining brightly in my eyes, and even with my hand up to shield me from the sharp light, I could see nothing but the dented bumper, the bullet hole in the windshield, and the cracked glazing over the twin beams that were coming ever closer.

Then the car stopped, the door opened. Out climbed a silhouette, small, dainty. It stepped forward into the light.

Lavender Hill.

“Toodle-oo, Victor. Isn’t it a beautiful night? Reminds me of the bayou, not that I am a habitué of the bayou, mind you, I have all my teeth, and I have never had leech stew, but this little stretch of New Jersey does have that unpredictable scent of violence about it, doesn’t it?”

“Lav, dude” was all I could muster.

“Yes, well, always one with the quip, aren’t you, Victor? You must tell me all about your trip west. Did you see any stars? Alan Ladd, now, that was a star. Is he still alive, do you know?”

“What are you doing here, Lav?”

“You told me you were bringing your client home so he could sell me the painting. I thought I better make sure you all arrived safely. Is that him there?”

“Charlie Kalakos,” I said, “let me introduce you to Lavender Hill.”

“Yo,” said Charlie. “Thanks for-”