FLOOD WAS STANDING right where she was supposed to, just inside the doors past the entrance guarded by stone lions. She had her back against the wall, pocketbook over one shoulder, left hand in front of her, right hand holding the left wrist. She was wearing another one of those loose jackets with a bodysuit underneath, pale gray this time, with floppy wide-legged pants so loose at the cuffs I couldn’t see her shoes underneath. Her hair was piled into a chignon at the top of her head but it didn’t make her look any taller.

She didn’t see me and I stayed in the doorway a minute to watch her. I still hadn’t figured out how she could breathe without moving her chest. Flood had her eyes nailed to the door I was supposed to use. Human traffic flowed around her, but she never moved. Some professorial-looking person with an open book in one hand stopped and said something to her. He might as well have been talking to one of the stone lions out front-her big dark eyes never flickered. The professor shrugged elaborately and moved on.

I went in the door and Flood spotted me but stayed where she was. “Nice disguise, Flood,” I said, and reached down to take her hand. She pulled it away but rose up on her toes and kissed me quickly on the cheek to show she wasn’t telling me to get lost. Then she moved her hand toward her waist so fast I only saw the vapor trail, smiled like a little girl who’d just done something clever and held her hand out for me to take. She had small, chubby hands, not what you would expect if you’d seen her use them.

We walked down the lion-guarded steps hand in hand, me being careful on the steps and Flood bouncing along like she was on level ground. Maybe we looked like some graduate student who had stayed in school too long and his date. Hard to tell what we looked like but I guess we didn’t look like a survival expert and a deadly weapon. So maybe the disguises weren’t so bad after all.

It was good walking with Flood in the sunshine, so I made a complete circle of the block just to make it last-and to see if anyone was more interested in us than they should have been. As we turned into the park, I dropped Flood’s hand and slipped my arm around her waist, squeezing her side to get her attention. She looked up at me. Quietly, out of the side of my mouth, I said, “What did you have in your hand?”

Flood looked at me, shrugged, and opened her closed hand. I hadn’t seen her hand move back to her waist, but that was where she must have stashed it-a flat piece of dull metal shaped like a five-pointed star with a hole in the middle, about the size of a half dollar. When I reached for it, it sliced into my finger so cleanly that I didn’t feel the pain until I saw blood-the goddamned thing was nothing but a star-shaped razor. Flood pulled it out of my finger, bent over to look at the wound, put my finger into her mouth, sucked sharply for a second, spit some blood onto the ground. “Hold it closed with your other hand for a few seconds and it’ll stop bleeding. It’s a clean cut.” The star went back into her waistband someplace. I squeezed Flood’s waist again to see if I could make her body bounce a little bit. She was so much fun. “What the fuck is that thing?”

“It’s a throwing star. A defense tool when your opponent is beyond your hands and feet.”

“You throw that thing?” By then we were walking toward one of the old trees that somehow had managed to survive the steady diet of wild dog urine, alcoholic upchuck, and junkie blood for which the park was justly famous. She rolled her shoulders slightly and I heard a faint whistling noise and then a tiny snick like when a knife snaps open. Flood tilted her chin toward the tree and I could see the throwing star sticking out of the mangy bark. We walked over and I tried to pull it out without defingering myself-no go. Flood put her thumb against the side of the star, pushed hard to the right, then shifted her hand and carefully removed it with two fingers. It disappeared again. I didn’t know what the future was going to be for Flood, but I was reasonably certain she’d never be a battered wife.

We walked through the park to the car. I saw one of the local denizens looking at Flood’s pocketbook and was tempted to let her walk on alone just so at least one miserable purse-snatcher would meet justice head on, but it wasn’t worth it. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded Flood walking ahead of me just to watch her walk.

When we got to the Plymouth, I checked it quickly, opened my door, and Flood slid in first. We drove over toward the East Side Drive, down to the Park amp; Lock joint near the river. I wanted to approach the Daily News Building on foot. I turned off the engine, rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, and waited. It’s always good to wait. Most people lack patience, especially when they’re doing something they really don’t want to do.

It was quiet and dark in the lot, even in the middle of the day, and Flood didn’t seem in a hurry. She just sat quietly, watched me smoke, and finally said, “You’re not carrying guns today, are you?”

I turned away from the window. She was sitting with her legs crossed, elbow on one knee, chin in her hand. “Why do you say that?”

“A person walks differently when he’s carrying a weapon. He moves differently. You can always tell.”

“You learn that in Japan?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they told you wrong. I don’t walk differently, I don’t move differently.”

“Burke, you’re not carrying those guns.”

“I’m armed.”

She looked at me, smiled, and said “Bullshit” in a merry voice. I looked as injured as possible under the circumstances.

“You want to search me?”

Flood gave me a throaty laugh, said “Sure,” and put her hands inside my coat, under the arms, down my ribcage, around to my back, into the waistband of my slacks, dropped her hands to my ankles. Came up empty. She raised her eyebrows, patted my groin and round the inside of my thighs. Back to the groin again. “Is this what you mean?”

I tried to look serious, settled for a kiss on the tic-tac-toe scar instead and lit another cigarette. Flood looked pouty.

“Look,” I said, “those folks in Japan don’t know everything. I’m not trying to put them down, but you won’t survive long if you believe everything someone else tells you.”

“I still don’t see any guns.” Flood tapped her fingers on my knee as if she were patiently waiting.

I tightened my right fist, brought it up against my shoulder, flexed my bicep hard until I popped the Velcro flap inside the sleeve at the elbow joint. I pulled my fist rapidly away from my shoulder, opening it just in time to catch the short metal tube as it slid down my sleeve through the silk channel into my open hand. It wasn’t as smooth as Flood and her star, but her mouth popped open like she’d just seen magic. She clapped her hands delightedly. “Burke, what’s that?”

“What’s it look like?”

“Like a big fat lipstick.”

I held it in my hand and told her to look closely. The tube was perfectly machined steel, about two-and-a-half inches long. Inside was a.357-magnum hollow-point slug. All you do is press hard on the back of the tube and the slug comes out the front. The Mole wouldn’t guarantee accuracy over five feet but he did guarantee it would work. Flood reached for it but I jerked it away from her.

“Can’t you unload it and let me look at it?”

“You can’t unload it. Once you force the slug in against the spring, that’s it.”

“Can you reload it after you use it?”

“Nope. You shoot it once-it blows up a piece of your hand and whatever’s in front of your hand, and that’s all there is.”

“What a crazy thing.”

“You just searched me. Did you find it?”

“The star is better.”

“Better for you. It takes skill to throw that damn thing. All it takes for this is the guts to push the button.”