Before he could catch her, she was out the door, pulling it closed behind her. Angelo got there just seconds behind her. Tony was right behind him. They ran out after her only to trip on a pair of garden chairs they couldn’t see in the dark.

Angelo peered into the darkness. The backyard could have passed for a public park. There was a rectangular reflecting pool in the center of the space. To the right was an ivy-covered gazebo that was lost in shadow. A thick oak had a swing hanging from a broad branch. Nowhere could Angelo spot the woman.

“Where did she go?” Tony whispered.

“If I knew would I be standing here?” Angelo said. “You go that way and I’ll go this way.” He pointed to either side of the pool.

The two men groped their way around the garden. They strained to look into the dark recesses of the ferns and shrubbery.

“There she is!” Tony said, pointing back at the house.

Angelo fired two shots at the fleeing woman. The first bullet shattered the glass of the French doors. After the second, he saw the woman stumble and fall.

“You got her!” Tony cried.

“Let’s get out of here,” Angelo said. He could hear sirens in the distance. It was hard to be sure, but they seemed to be approaching.

Not wanting to risk coming out of the front of the house, Angelo turned to the back wall of the garden. Spotting a door on the far side of the pond, he yelled, “Come on!” to Tony. Angelo reached the door first. He unbolted the dead bolt securing the door and rushed into a debris-strewn alleyway. They made their way down the darkened path, trying each garden door they passed. Tony finally found one with nearly rotten planking and broke through.

The garden they found themselves in seemed as neglected as the door.

“Now what?” Tony said.

“That way,” Angelo said. He pointed to a dark passageway leading toward the front of the house. At the end of the passageway they came to a bolted door, but it was bolted from the inside. Passing through it, they found themselves on Eighty-fifth Street.

Angelo brushed off his clothes. Tony followed his example. “Okay,” said Angelo. “Now be cool, confident, relaxed.”

The pair walked slowly down the street and around the corner as if they called the neighborhood home. Slowly they made their way to Angelo’s car. The sirens had indeed been heading for the brownstone they’d just left. Ahead they could see three squad cars with emergency lights flashing, blocking the street in front of the house where they’d made the hit.

Angelo unlocked his car doors with a remote control and the two men climbed in.

“That was awesome!” Tony said excitedly once they were a half dozen blocks away. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Angelo scowled at him. “It was a disaster,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Tony questioned. “We got away. No problem. And you got the housekeeper. You dropped her right in her tracks.”

“But we didn’t check her,” Angelo said. “How do I know if I really got her or just winged her? We should have checked her. She looked directly at both of us.”

“She dropped quickly,” Tony said. “I think you hit her real good.”

“This is what I mean: screw-ups happen. How would we have guessed the guy would sleep holding a panic-button alarm?” Angelo was glad he had the wheel to grip; his hands were shaking.

“Okay, so we got the “bad luck’ hit out of the way,” Tony said. “Now you can’t say that things are going too well. What’s next?”

“I’m not sure,” Angelo said. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

“What for?” Tony questioned. “The night is young. Come on! Let’s at least do one more. We can’t pass up this kind of money.”

Angelo thought for a minute. Intuition told him to call it a night, but Tony was right. The money was good. Besides, hits were like riding horses: you fall off, you get back on. Otherwise you may never ride again.

“All right,” he said finally. “We’ll do one more.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tony said. “Where to?”

“Down in the Village. Another town house.”

Angelo took the Ninety-seventh Street transverse across Central Park and got on the Henry Hudson Parkway.

For a while they didn’t talk. Each was recovering from the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum: Angelo from fear and anxiety and Tony from pure exhilaration. Neither noticed the black Cadillac in the distance.

“It will be up here on the left,” Angelo said once they turned onto Bleecker Street. He pointed to a three-story town house with a lion’s head knocker on the front door. Tony nodded as they drove past.

Angelo felt his pulse start quickening. “It’s the man this time,” he said. “Same plan as before. You do him, I’ll cover the wife.”

“Got it,” Tony said, thrilled to have yet another turn.

This time Angelo parked farther away than usual. They walked back in silence except for the occasional clank of tools in Angelo’s flight bag. They passed a few pedestrians.

The streets weren’t empty as they had been uptown; the Village was always livelier than the Upper East Side.

The alarm at the targeted house was child’s play for Angelo. Within minutes he and Tony were tiptoeing up the creaking stairs.

Conveniently, there was a small night-light plugged into a socket in the upstairs hall. The rosy glow it cast was just enough to see by.

The first door Angelo tried proved to be an empty guest room. Since there was only one other door on the floor, he assumed it was to the master suite.

Once again the two men positioned themselves on either side of the door, holding their guns alongside their heads. Angelo turned the knob and briskly pushed open the door.

Angelo managed one step into the room when a snarling dog sprang at him in the half-light. The beast’s paws hit him in the chest, knocking him back through the door to the opposite wall of the hall. The dog snapped at him, biting through his jacket, shirt, and even a bit of his skin. Angelo wasn’t sure, but he thought it was a Doberman. It was too long and lean for a pit bull, although it certainly had the temperament. Whatever it was, it had Angelo terrorized and effectively pinned.

Tony moved quickly. He stepped to the side and shot the dog from point-blank range in the chest. He was sure he’d hit his mark, but the dog didn’t flinch. With a snarl he ripped another large patch of cloth out of Angelo’s jacket and spit it out. Then he lunged for another bite.

Tony waited until he had a clear shot before pulling the trigger again. This time he hit the dog in the head, and the animal went instantly limp, hitting the floor with a solid thud.

A woman’s scream sent new chills down Angelo’s spine. The woman of the house had awakened just in time to see her dog slaughtered. She was standing a few feet from the foot of her bed, her face contorted in horror.

Tony raised his gun, and again there was a hissing thump. The woman’s scream was cut short. Her hand went to her chest. Pulling her hand away, she looked at the spot of blood. Her facial expression was one of bewilderment, as if she could not believe she’d been shot.

Tony stepped over the threshold into the bedroom. Raising his gun again, he shot her at point-blank range in the center of her forehead. Like the dog, she collapsed instantly in a heap on the floor.

Angelo started to speak, but before he could say anything, there was a frightful yell from the first floor as the husband charged up the stairs with a double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun. He held the gun in both hands at waist height.

Sensing what was about to happen, Angelo threw himself onto the floor just as the shotgun discharged with a powerful concussion. In the confined area the sound was horrendous, making Angelo’s ears ring. The concentrated buckshot blew a hole twelve inches in diameter in the wall where Angelo had been standing.