Nobody was paying attention. I headed toward the back, my sense of direction distorted by all the twists and turns in the place. Found the door to the men’s room and walked in-a guy in a red leisure suit and white shoes was throwing up in the sink. I went past him. No windows. Nothing there. Back out the door, looking for the kitchen. I found a door with No Admittance in red letters, pushed gently, and it yielded. I shoved it open and walked inside like I knew where I was going. The cook looked up from a slab of metal that was once a stove and yelled “Hey!”, but I was already past him and up to the back door. It was bolted in three places from the inside. I shot the bolts back, stepped into the alley, and looked to my right where the Spanish kid was still sitting on his milk crate, now with his back to me. The bolts slammed home behind me and high, thin laughter came from my left along with the sound of shoes scraping on gravel. I moved in that direction, slowly now.

I turned the corner carefully and saw four of them frozen, waiting-one kid with a big afro who looked Spanish waving a length of bicycle chain, a smaller one holding an open stiletto, another one just standing… and Flood. She was backed against the alley wall, one foot bent in front of the other, one hand a fist, the other stiffened to chop. A door sagged open behind the kids-a basement? Flood stood like a block of marble, breathing quietly through her nose. Her purse, closed, lay on the ground between them. The one with the knife moved forward, swiped underhand at Flood, and grabbed for the purse. Flood stepped back as if she were retreating, spun on her back foot, whirled all the way around, and fired a kick from the same leg at the kid’s face. He jumped back just in time. The purse stayed.

The kid with the big afro said, “Come on, mama-ain’t no way you gonna keep that bag. Just give it up and get outta here.” Flood opened her hands and motioned the kid forward like a prizefighter showing his opponent that the last punch didn’t hurt. The kid with the afro faked an advance and immediately jumped back. The kid without the weapon laughed, all the time moving more and more to Flood’s left. The kid with the afro was shrill now. “Fuckin’ puta, fuckin’ pig. You ask too many questions, blanco bitch.” Flood moved at him and he backed away. The kid with the knife started to move to her right, but he was clumsy and she cut him off, getting even further away from the third one.

The spokesman for the pack stopped trying to be polite. “Fuckin’ bitch. We take that purse and we take you in the back and we stick a broomstick up your fat ass. You like that, you cunt?” Flood’s lips pulled back from her teeth and a hissing sound came out of her. She faked a move forward, spun and lashed out with her left foot at the kid without a weapon, kept spinning and shoved her purse behind her with the same move, then whipped her arms back across her chest down to her sides, and they were back in the same positions as when I first came on the scene.

They all stood frozen-maybe a minute, maybe more. Then the one with the knife tried to circle Flood on her right, moving so that his back was to me. I held the.38 tightly in my right hand, moved in close behind him, and punched him in the kidneys with the barrel. He went down with a nasty grunt. They all turned in my direction. I kicked the kid who was down in the back of the head with my steel-toed dress shoes, stepped around him holding the piece way out in front of me for the others to see. They backed toward the alley wall where I motioned for them to stand together. I cocked the gun so they could see that too and put it about a foot in front of the afro’s face. “You know what this is?”

He was quiet now, but his pal knew when to speak. “Yeah, man, we know what it is. We didn’t mean nothing.” Sure. I backed away to give them room to move.

“Get back in there,” I said, motioning toward the open door. They didn’t move. Frozen, they were looking past me. I turned slightly and saw Flood had picked up the knife. She was kneeling over the kid on the ground, one fist full of his genitals and the other holding the blade poised to slice.

“Do it,” she said, and they both ran to the open door.

I was right behind them. “Turn around and put your hands on top of your heads,” I said. “Now!” They did. Flood dragged the knifeman over and flung him inside like he was a light sack of garbage. I told the other two to get inside, and the silent one moved into the doorway. The afro froze. My nose told me he had wet himself. I just touched him with the piece and he followed his friend. I went next, with Flood right behind me.

We were in a cellar room with a cot in one corner, a radio playing-it was too dark to see anything else. “Get on the floor,” I told the two who could still move. The other one lay where Flood had thrown him. With the.38 in my left hand, I pulled the.22 from my coat and aimed it at all three of them lying there. It wouldn’t kill anyone, but they didn’t know that. Neither did Flood. Then I started pulling the trigger as fast as I could.

One of them was screaming even before I emptied the piece. Between the bird shot and the flares and the teargas, the room turned into the hell they permanently deserved-for a few minutes anyway. I slammed the door on my way out and charged down the alley, Flood at my side. The.22 didn’t make much noise, especially with those special loads, and it was all inside, but the kid on the milk crate must have known something was wrong. As we came down the mouth of the alley he was carefully putting down his radio before he went to investigate. Flood’s flying dropkick caught him in the ribs-I could actually hear the crack. He slammed into the wall, Flood hit the ground, rolled in one motion, and came to her feet. We ran across the street together. There was some crowd noise behind us where the radioman had fallen, but it was probably someone trying to steal the radio and fighting someone else for the privilege. We turned the corner and headed for the car. I wanted to ditch the guns, but they’d be hard to replace. Besides, every window had a watcher-to see if one of the fish in this cesspool went belly-up.

I was out of breath, a stabbing pain in my chest and cramps in my legs-two more blocks to go. Flood wasn’t even breathing deeply.

The black kid with the T-shirt was sitting on the hood of my car. I took out my half of the twenty and held it out with my left hand. He looked at me, looked at the twenty, looked at Flood. “Seems like I should be getting a bit more, somehow.” He smiled at me. I was running on empty by then, reached for the.38, and cocked it in his face, my hand shaking. “You want some more?” He held up his hands like a robbery victim and started to back away. I watched him for a second, glanced over at the car, and he broke into a run. I opened the driver’s door and Flood jumped in ahead of me, sliding over to her side. I had the car rolling into a fast, quiet U-turn before I had the door closed. I headed back toward the river. Checked the mirror-no pursuit. We rolled north, heading for Harlem on the West Side Drive, exited at Ninety-sixth Street, hooked Riverside south to Seventy-ninth, then went crosstown to the FDR. I didn’t relax until we got deep downtown, heading for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Flood was breathing deeply through her nose, sucking the air in and holding it for a long count like I do when I’m trying to relax. With her, it was like watching a battery recharge.