I slipped into narcotic dreams.

I was back in Toppers, the firefight with the bartenders and the badge-men. I spun on my opponents with a pistol in each hand, but they weren’t the automatics. I held a pair of revolvers. The chambers spun and spun, getting nowhere fast. The pistols were slippery, and I had to concentrate to keep from dropping them. I couldn’t pull the triggers. I was too weak, or they were jammed.

Bullets riddled my body. No pain. No blood. It was like they were shooting me with those suction-cup-tipped rubber darts from toy guns. I laughed at them and threw my pistols down. They were too hard to hold anyway. My palms were red and sticky.

I stumbled toward the guys behind the bar. My plan: pull off their limbs with my bare hands and juggle them like a circus act. But they all climbed into the little Volkswagen Bug behind the bar. There was a lot of room back there. The Bug was painted like a clown car.

My hands were sticky.

I grabbed a bottle of scotch off the bar and tried to pour it over my hands. Nothing came out. Another bottle. Same result. I started breaking bottles, looking for liquid. Then I couldn’t grab the bottles. I was all thumbs. Every time I grabbed for a bottle, it shot away and shattered until the whole bar echoed with the shriek of flying glass. The glass-

My eyes opened.

– broke.

At least, I thought my eyes had opened. I blinked. I thought I had blinked. I wasn’t sure. My head was still heavy with painkillers. The noise of glass. I was still dreaming. I tried to sit up. It wasn’t fun. Or easy. The glass. It wasn’t a dream.

Somebody was in the house.

A surge of adrenaline. Not a mighty surge. Frankly, a relatively feeble surge, but enough to swing my feet over the side of the bed. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes. Wake up, asshole. Somebody was in the house.

I fumbled along the nightstand, knocked over the alarm clock. A racket. Loud. Where were my pistols? Where had Marcie stashed the bags? I’d told her to leave them in the car. Brilliant. My hand found my British commando knife on the nightstand. Okay. Better than nothing. I drew the blade, tossed the sheath aside. I stood, went to my bedroom door, cocked an ear. Nothing.

I remembered I was naked.

It’s hard to repel a home invasion with any measure of confidence when your schlong is hanging out. I felt around on the floor until my fingers crept across my boxers. I climbed into them, nearly losing my balance. That would have to do for wardrobe.

I cracked open the door, took a look into the hall. Dark. I listened. Quiet.

I’d been dreaming. That was it. No breaking glass. No one in the house. Maybe if I hurried back to bed I could still get some of the benefit from the pain pill. Maybe I could dream about something better than-

I saw the flashlight at the bottom of the stairs, the beam playing over the far wall and across the front door. I froze, and realizing that I froze told me how screwed up I was. Snap out of it, Charlie.

I darted across the hall to Ma’s room before the flashlight turned the corner and headed up the stairs. From there, I would be able to see if the intruder turned into my room when he came up the stairs, or if he went to Danny’s or Ma’s. It would give me a few extra seconds to get ready for him. He’d probably be armed. I’d need to get close to use the knife.

They started up the stairs. Two of them in dark pants and pullovers. No masks, but too dark to make out faces. One stabbed ahead with the flashlight. The dark, heavy object in the other’s hand was obviously a piece. I saw more as they came up. Middle aged. Ruddy complexions. Black, thick, Omar Sharif mustaches. One was bald, the other was on his way. I thought they looked familiar, but it was still too dark.

I kept track of them through the crack. The one with the flashlight eased into my room, pushing the door open slowly. The other one broke off toward me.

I backed up behind Ma’s big cedar wardrobe. If he went through the room, he’d have to go past me. I’d get him on the blind side. I’d have to be quick with the knife. If I didn’t get a hand over his mouth right away, he’d call in the other one. I didn’t think I was up to taking both at once with only the knife.

Ma’s door creaked open. The hinges squealed, not so bad truthfully, but it sounded like screaming amid the night’s deep stillness. The intruder moved into the room. I heard him shuffle around, open the wardrobe right next to me and paw through it. He was searching.

He closed the wardrobe, and when he moved by with his back to me, I pounced. I forced my bad hand to cup his mouth. It hurt, but I clamped down tight. I brought the knife from underneath so I could get him under the ribs.

His free hand shot up to pry at the fingers over his mouth. That was reflex. His gun hand twisted down to block the knife thrust. That was professional. He’d known where the blade would be coming. I could tell by the moves these weren’t neighborhood cat burglars. Our wrists knocked together, and I gave up on putting the knife in him. But I had the leverage and a little surprise left. I spun him around and smashed his hand against the wardrobe, a little more loudly than I liked. Once, twice I smacked his wrist against the cedar until he dropped the pistol. He found his feet and pushed back, pinned me against the wall. Some of the air whooshed out of me. I’d been slow, standing wrong. He twisted. Caught my knife wrist with his free hand. We pulled at each other.

The skin between my thumb and forefinger wedged into his mouth. He bit down. Hard. Blood spilled down my hand, between his teeth. My blood. I winced, flinched, jerked the hand away.

The guy’s mouth was free. “Eddie!”

I punched him full in the kidney. He grunted, spun away. I aimed another blow at the side of his head. He turned with that one too, and it glanced off.

The other guy exploded into the room. He stuck the flashlight in my face, and I lost vision. I felt two rapid fists in my gut. I tried to exhale with the blows, but my reflexes were off. I backed away, trying to blink my eyesight back into focus. I took a shot on the chin, and sparks went off behind my eyes. My knees went gooey. The last blow on the side of my head sealed the deal. I fell a long, long way into swirling blackness. The long, dark slide into nothing.

Shag carpeting underneath.

My head hurt.

My gut hurt.

Everything that had already hurt now hurt worse.

My eyes popped open. I was flat on my back in Ma’s room. The bald one sat in a little wooden chair four feet from me, his pistol pointed lazily at my head. His face looked like it had been spanked by a shovel, a nose broken and rebroken with regularity over the years. I guess they didn’t want to risk the overhead light, but they’d snapped on the little lamp next to Ma’s bed. The room was a shambles, drawers opened and dumped out, the mattress half off the bed. The sounds of less-than-gentle searching floated in from the hall.

In the light, I had a better look at my guest.

“Hello, Teddy. I’d have had you in for coffee if you’d just knocked.” I’d meant to sound nonchalant, but my voice was rough.

Teddy chuckled. “You fucked up real good, Hookman.”

Teddy. And the other one- Eddie. I’d heard him call out to Eddie. The Minelli brothers. Eddie was half of a set of twins, which meant Freddy was dicking around someplace, probably in the car keeping watch.

The boys were professional head busters and almost always worked as a trio. I knew these guys, strictly freelance. Once, Stan had sent me and the rest of the boys from the monkey cage over to break up a picket line at Disney. Stan figured we needed some extra help and had hired the Minelli brothers. So I’d seen their work first-hand, knew they were tough customers.

“Why don’t you tell me how I fucked up, Teddy.”