The bouncer was arranging the chairs and cocktail tables inside his kingdom when Hollis came upstairs. “What’s up?” Boodah asked. “You look tired.”

“I’m all right.”

“Remember. If anyone wants to go through the rope, they gotta come to me.”

“No problem. I know the rules.”

Boodah guarded the main entrance to the VIP area while Hollis stood at an exit on the opposite side. This exit was only used by pretty people who wanted to go to the downstairs bathroom or if they decided to rub shoulders with the sweaty crowd on the dance floor. Hollis’s job was to keep everyone else out. Being a bouncer was about saying no all night long-unless you got paid to say yes.

HOLLIS HAD PERFORMED his job like an obedient drone, but he felt that something different might happen tonight. A walkway protected by a railing ran from the VIP area to the private room. Inside the room were leather couches, cocktail tables, and an intercom to order from the bar. A mirrored window overlooked the dance floor below. Tonight the private room was going to be occupied by some hustlers from Brooklyn who liked to use drugs at nightclubs. If the Tabula came to the room looking for Gabriel, they were going to get an unpleasant surprise.

Hollis leaned against the railing, stretching his leg muscles. He returned to his post when Ricky Tolson, the club’s assistant manager, climbed the back staircase. Ricky was one of the owners’ distant relatives. He made sure there was toilet paper in the bathroom and spent most of his time trying to pick up drunken women.

“How you doing, my brother?” Ricky asked. Hollis was too low in the club hierarchy to have a name.

I’m not your brother, Hollis thought. But he smiled pleasantly. “The private room is booked, right? I heard that Mario and his friends were coming tonight.”

Ricky looked annoyed. “No, they called up and canceled. But there will be someone else. There always is…”

A half hour later, the club deejay began the evening with a Sufi religious chant, and then gradually brought in the thumping beat of house music. The bridge-and-tunnel crowd arrived first and grabbed the few tables near the bar. From his vantage point above the dance floor, Hollis watched young women wearing short skirts and cheap shoes run to the bathroom to check makeup and tease hair. Their male counterparts strutted around and waved twenty-dollar bills like little flags at the bartender.

The voices of the other bouncers whispered into his right ear from the radio headset. The security team had a continual dialogue going on about which man looked like trouble and which woman was wearing the most revealing dress. As the hours went by, Hollis kept his eye on the private room. It was still empty-but maybe nothing would happen tonight.

Around midnight he escorted two fashion models to a special bathroom that required a passkey. When he returned to his post, he saw Ricky and a girl wearing a tight green dress heading down the walkway to the private room. Hollis walked over to Boodah and shouted over the noise, “What’s Ricky doing in the room?”

The big man shrugged as if the question barely deserved an answer. “Just another little girly. He’ll give her some coke and she’ll give him the usual.”

Hollis looked down at the dance floor and saw two men wearing athletic jackets entering the club. Instead of checking out the women or buying a drink at the bar, they both looked up at the private room. One mercenary was short and very muscular. His pants looked too long for his fireplug body. The other man was tall and his black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

The two men walked upstairs to the VIP area and the short mercenary slipped several bills into Boodah’s hand. It was enough money to buy immediate respect and entrance past the red velvet rope. Within a few seconds, the men were sitting at a table and staring at the narrow walkway that led to the private room. Ricky was still there with his girlfriend. Hollis swore beneath his breath and remembered Sparrow’s advice: Plan to jump left although you’ll probably go right.

A drunken woman started screaming at her boyfriend and Boodah hurried down the staircase to solve the problem. The moment he left the area, the two mercenaries got up from the table and headed for the private room. The tall man moved slowly down the walkway while his partner stood guard. Lights hanging over the dance floor grew brighter and began flashing in rhythm with the beat. The tall mercenary turned and a sliver of light was reflected off the blade of a knife held tightly in his hand.

Hollis doubted that they had a photograph of Gabriel. Their instructions would be to kill whoever was in the room. Up until that moment, Hollis had started to believe that he could act like Maya and the other Harlequins. But he wasn’t like them. None of the Harlequins would have worried about Ricky and the young woman, but Hollis couldn’t stand back and let it happen. To hell with it, he thought. If those two fools die, their blood stains my hands.

With a courteous smile on his face, he approached the shorter of the two men. “Excuse me, sir. But the private room is occupied.”

“Yeah, it’s a friend of ours. So get the hell out of here.”

Hollis raised his arms as if he were going to embrace the intruder. Then his hands became fists and punched toward each other, striking both sides of the man’s head at the same time. The force of the concussion staggered the little man and he fell backward. The lights and the booming dance music were so overwhelming that no one noticed what had just happened. Hollis stepped over the body and moved forward.

The tall mercenary had his hand on the door handle, but he reacted immediately when he saw Hollis. Hollis knew that anyone holding a knife concentrated too much on the weapon; every particle of death and malevolence was squeezed into the point of the blade.

He reached out as if he were about to grab the mercenary’s hand, then jerked backward as the man slashed out with the knife. Hollis kicked the toe of his shoe into the man’s stomach. When the mercenary bent forward, gasping for breath, Hollis punched upward with all his strength, knocking the man over the railing.

People screamed below, but the music continued playing. Hollis ran down the walkway and forced a passage through the tables. When he reached the back staircase he saw that three other mercenaries were now pushing through the crowd. One of them was an older man with wire-rimmed glasses. Was this Nathan Boone-the man who killed Maya’s father? Maya would have attacked immediately, but Hollis continued moving.

The crowd surged back and forth like a herd of animals terrified by the smell of death. Hollis stepped onto the dance floor and pushed forward, shoving people out of the way. He reached the back hallway that led to the kitchen and restrooms. A group of young women were laughing about something while their makeup mirrors reflected the light. Hollis got past them and pushed through a fire door.

Two mercenaries wearing headsets stood in the alleyway. Someone had told them about Hollis and they were waiting. The older man raised a canister and shot chemical spray into Hollis’s eyes.

The pain was incredible. It felt like his eyes were on fire. Hollis couldn’t see-couldn’t defend himself-as someone’s fist shattered his nose. Like a drowning man, he grabbed the attacker in front of him, and then jerked his upper body forward, giving the mercenary a head butt in the face.

The first man fell onto the pavement, but the second man had his arm around Hollis’s neck and began choking him. Hollis bit the man’s hand. When he heard a scream, he grabbed the mercenary’s arm, forcing it downward, and then twisted it until it snapped.

Blind. He was blind. Touching the rough brick wall beside him, he ran through his own darkness.