“Christ, now what?”

He strode quickly to the front of the bar and saw a crack that ran diagonally from the left lower corner of the window to almost the middle.

Demarco joined Beck at the window. The bottom third was painted black so that passersby couldn’t see in, but they were both tall enough to see a beat-up van parked outside across the street. Four black gangbangers in various sizes stood around one huge, heavily muscled thug who yelled, “James Beck, come out here before I come in after you.”

Beck grabbed a leather shearling jacket from the coat peg near the front door. He looked at Demarco and nodded. Demarco moved fast in the opposite direction, toward the back of the barroom.

Beck, seething, walked out his front door and stood on the sidewalk across from the rock thrower, breathing deeply, giving himself time to burn off the flight-or-fight hormones coursing through him, forcing the rational part of his brain to start working.

Four of them flanked the big man, two on each side. He dwarfed all of them, standing a few steps out near the middle of the street, wearing a black leather hoodie, unzipped to reveal a torso bulging with muscle under a tight white T-shirt. He had on thick, dark denim pants and heavy Timberland boots.

Beck figured the muscles had been built in a prison iron pile. The clothes seemed to be just-out-of-the-joint new. What the fuck is this, he wondered. He remained on his side of the street. He didn’t see any guns or other weapons brandished, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

The big man’s hands were balled into fearsomely large fists. He wore no rings, no jewelry, no watch. It reminded Beck of being called out for a prison yard fight. It seemed absurd. Absurd, but dangerous.

Beck took a couple of steps forward and stopped at the curb, watching and waiting.

“I’m here to tell you what’s what, Beck.”

Beck had never seen this guy before. Maybe he recognized one or two of the others from the neighborhood. But not Mr. Muscles. He said nothing.

“Them little punks you pay over in the projects to give you a heads-up? They don’t do that anymore. I’m back. This is my hood. Now you pay me and my people. And the price has gone up, motherfucker.”

Beck waited a beat, “When are you going to fix my window, asshole?”

The big man reared back. “You know who the fuck I am?”

“No.”

“I’m Willie Reese. You want to live here, you pay me.”

“Willie Reese.” Beck shook his head. “The name doesn’t ring any bells. Does your mother know you’re out here breaking windows?”

That ignited the spark. Just about the way Beck had wanted it to. Willie Reese puffed up and, ready to enforce his demands, let his anger take over.

Beck had reached an alert state of calm. The trick now was to survive the first seconds.

Reese rushed at Beck in long steps, arms coming up into a fighting position, fists balled into clubs, coming at him fast.

Beck turned to his right and ran. Faster. Faster than he looked like he could.

Beck’s sudden move confused Reese. He lunged at Beck, took a wild swing and missed, his Timberlands slipping on the cold, slick cobblestone street. Within three seconds, Beck was ten yards away from Reese and running easily. Reese got his footing and took off after him.

The others hooted and jeered and stepped out into the street yelling at Beck about being a punk-ass coward, cursing him, shouting about how bad he was going to get his ass kicked. Beck ignored them, but Willie Reese listened to his crew and believed them. Beck just kept running, but not as fast now. He slowed down so Reese wouldn’t give up. Or do something really stupid like pull out a gun and shoot at him.

But Reese surprised him and closed the gap more quickly than Beck expected.

Shit, Beck thought. He sprinted toward a beat-up Volvo station wagon parked to his right, managed to get a foot on the front bumper, and vaulted up onto the hood just as Reese came close enough to lunge at him, grabbing for his foot. Beck pulled his foot away and kept right on going, jumping onto the roof of the Volvo.

Reese splayed across the hood, having just missed catching the bottom of Beck’s jeans. Beck kept going, jumped off the car, landed on the street, slipping a bit on the slick cobblestones.

By the time Reese picked himself off the hood, Beck had circled wide around him and was running back toward the bar, about five yards out in front of Reese, but this time at half-speed, conserving his wind, staying just far enough in front to taunt Reese into catching up to him.

Beck also slowed down because Reese’s gang had come into the street to block his path. They figured they’d keep him trapped, so their man could get to him.

Reese saw it, too. Beck had nowhere to go. He slowed down, slipping a little on the uneven street, trying to get his footing and catch his breath. He’d been raging, burning energy, but now he had this guy. Time to get it together.

Behind Beck, Reese’s gang hooted and yelled for blood. In front of him, the big man closed on him slowly.

And then, before any of them realized how it happened, everything changed.

Just as Reese was about to reach Beck, he stopped backpedalling and lunged forward, slapping aside Reese’s huge outstretched arm with his left hand, and stabbing two stiff fingers into Reese’s left eye. The pain and force of the hit stopped Reese so suddenly that his feet nearly went out from under him.

Back near the bar, Demarco Jones appeared out of nowhere. He stood behind the four gangbangers who were watching their man closing in on Beck. Demarco held a Benelli M3 shotgun firmly pressed into his shoulder, aimed right at the group of four standing near the beat-up van.

At the same time, Emmanuel Guzman, dressed in his usual dark-blue work clothes and stained apron, emerged from between two buildings north of the van aiming a second shotgun at the group. It was a beautiful old Winchester 12 gauge, its dark grain walnut stock gleaming in the bright winter sun.

At first, neither Demarco nor Manny said a word. The chilling chu-chunks of the shotguns being pumped stopped all the bravado and yelling. The shotguns were one thing. The men holding them were the main thing.

Demarco said, “Hands.”

All four of them, heads swiveling back and forth at the men in front and behind them, raised their hands.

Guzman continued to advance until he had the long barrel of his Winchester pressed into the forehead of the nearest gangbanger.

Manny Guzman was shorter, stockier than the young black man, but implacable. He just kept walking forward, pressing the muzzle of the Winchester into the soft skin of the young man’s forehead, pushing him toward the van.

“Leave. Now. Or I kill you.”

All four of them tumbled and pushed their way into the battered van, three of them falling through the sliding side door and one jumping into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and accelerated down the street, swerving and sliding on the slick cobblestones.

Now that the four behind him were taken care of, Beck circled to Reese’s left, his blind side. Reese had his left hand clamped over his suddenly throbbing blind left eye, giving Beck an opening to slide forward and twist a fast, hard right into the left side of Reese’s nose. The septum broke with a sharp crack.

One moment Reese was thinking about taking apart James Beck. The next he was half blind with a screamingly painful broken nose.

Beck stepped back, figuring that should do it. But he was wrong. Taking out an eye and breaking a nose weren’t disabling blows, just horribly painful. And pain wasn’t going to stop Willie Reese.

He lashed a roundhouse left at Beck, more to knock him away than to knock him out. Beck leaned back from the fist, but not far enough. The fist only grazed the right side of his head, but the power and speed behind the wild punch still were enough to make everything go black for a moment.