The rest of Horst's party were not as fortunate. When the producer grabbed a beer bottle, I tackled him against the bar and held him there. Then Hank squared off with Dennis Soohoo. Down went Soohoo. The biggest mismatch pitted Sammy against a young studio-executive type. Even though the guy was half a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier, Giamalva floored him with an uppercut that would have made Sugar Ray proud.

Someone might have actually gotten hurt if Belnap and Volpi hadn't charged in with their batons out and once again made the Hamptons safe for civilized society. Volpi rubbed it in by cracking a few skulls, and he seemed to enjoy it.

He didn't hit me, but he did ask with a wink, "How's your girlfriend, Jack?"

THE FIXER had been standing in the shadows of the Mullen garage for an hour when the beam of Jack's single headlight broke through the mist on Ditch Plains Road. He elbowed his muscular partner as the gleaming blue motorcycle slowed in front of the small house. "Here comes the bad boy now."

He watched Jack cut the engine, lower the kickstand, and pull a deep breath of night air into his nostrils. That little shit is still savoring his victory, the Fixer thought. His knot of anticipation tightened as Jack pulled off his helmet, lifted the garage door, and wheeled the bike in. He'd been looking forward to this meeting for weeks.

Now Jack was opening the small door on the side of the garage, and the Fixer was counting down from three. When Jack stepped through it, he walked directly into the Fixer's black-gloved fist.

To the Fixer, a well-timed sucker punch was one of life's great unsung pleasures. He loved the way it delivered shock and hurt in one exploding instant, and when the Muscle grabbed Jack from behind and pulled him up by his hair, the Fixer could read the pain register as a ten in Jack's eyes. Then he threw another punch at the center of Jack's face.

With his arms pinned behind him and a knee in the small of his back, all Jack could manage was a flinching twist. But it was enough to reduce a direct hit to a glancing blow, and it sent the Fixer stumbling forward until he and Jack stood eye-to-eye in the darkness.

"Give this message to Neubauer. Can you do that for me?" Jack asked. Then he brought his forehead down on the bridge of the Fixer's nose.

The Fixer was leaking blood worse than Jack, which caused him to seriously consider taking out his hunting knife and gutting Mullen in his own garage. Instead, he started working Jack hard with both fists. This was good work, if you could get it.

When Jack stopped moving, the Fixer stopped missing. This greatly improved his spirits. Pretty soon he felt good enough to deliver a message, his words supplying a rhythm to his fury.

"Don't you ever" – PUNCH – "ever" – PUNCH – "fuck with people who are your superiors in every" – PUNCH – "fucking way," he advised.

The Fixer had some more things he badly needed to get off his chest, but by then Jack was close to unconscious.

"As for Mr. Neubauer, you can tell him yourself."

Somehow, somewhere in his consciousness, Jack heard that, and promised himself he would.

But the man with the black driving gloves wasn't quite finished. He pulled Jack's head up by the hair.

Then he whispered in his ear, "Smarten up. Your grandfather's next, bozo. It'll be easy, Jack. He's really old."

WIN A FIGHT, you think it's the world's most exciting sport. Lose, badly, and you realize what a fool you were. Once I'd peeled my face off the garage floor and done an inventory of the damage, I knew I had to get myself to the hospital.

I was thinking I'd have to wake up Mack or call Hank, but when I got to my feet, I felt I could manage it on my own, which seemed preferable. I did go in and check on Mack. He was sleeping like an eighty-six-year-old baby.

I got the key and drove my father's old truck to the emergency room in Southampton. Even at four in the morning, it took me about thirty-five minutes.

There's not a lot of mayhem at our end of Long Island. Southampton isn't East St. Louis. When I walked into the ER, Dr. Robert Wolco put down his New York Times crossword puzzle and turned his attention to my face. "Hey, Jack," he said, "long time, no see."

"Hey, Robert," I managed. "You should see the other guy."

"I'll bet."

"I'd rather not."

He began by very gingerly and thoroughly cleaning my wounds. Then he laid me down under a bright orange light, shot my face full of Novocain, and stitched it closed. The skin on my face felt as if it were being laced up like hockey skates. It took twenty-eight stitches.

Wolco thought that he had done some of his best work and that the scars would heal nicely. I wasn't too worried. I never had the looks in the family anyway. He gave me a plastic tub of Vicodin for my ribs (X rays showed that three of them were cracked) and sent me home. The night, the beating, was one more thing I owed Barry Neubauer.

And I was counting.

THINGS WERE GETTING TIGHT. The inquest concerning Peter Mullen's death was almost there.

On Monday night the Fixer parked about a block down the street from a modest-looking house in Riverhead, Long Island. There was a terra-cotta planter on the porch and an antique weather vane on the garage. Beside the retro-looking mailbox with J. davis painted across it in childlike yellow script, a stone rabbit was perched on its hind legs. Yikes.

For this little slice of heaven, the doc spent fourteen hours a day elbow-deep in stiffs, coming up with all sorts of creative theories about how they got that way. Davis 's civic-mindedness baffled the Fixer. She could be pulling down a million per in Manhattan. Instead, she was poking around in cadavers.

Why do people do this? Why do they care if someone drowned or got sunk? They probably watch too many movies. Everyone wants to be a hero. Well, guess what, Jane? You're no Julia Roberts. Trust me on this one.

He knew the doc's loyal pooch would be showing the effects of the yummy treat he'd slipped through the brass newspaper slot at the bottom of the door – another corny retro touch – a few hours earlier. She wasn't much of a watchdog now, lying on her side and snoring to beat the band.

The Fixer quietly let himself in, stepped over the dog, and walked up the stairs toward Jane Davis's bedroom.

This, he was thinking, this is why I get paid the big bucks.

Jane was sleeping, too. Yeah, Janie, you do snore. She lay on top of the sheets in her bra and panties. Not a lot up top, the Fixer noted, but decent legs for a doc.

He sat down next to her on the bed and watched her breathe. Christ, she sleeps like the dead.

He touched his hand down between her legs, and that got her up in a hurry. All full of piss and vinegar, too.

"Hey! What the hell? Who are you?" she screeched, and raised her fists as if she wanted to fight.

But then she saw the gun, and the silencer attached to the long barrel.

"You're a very smart woman, a doctor, so you know what this is about, don't you?"

She nodded, then whispered, "Yes."

"There's going to be an inquest soon, and you've already been overruled by one of your superiors. That should make it real easy for you."

Then he did something naughty – the Fixer pressed the barrel of his gun between Jane Davis's legs. He rubbed it around. Well, it worked for him.

"You owe me, Jane," he said, and rose from her bed. "Don't make me come back here. Because I'd like to do you. And, Jane, I wouldn't call the police, either. They're in on this, too. Call the police, and I'll be back real soon."