Everybody knows what lead feels like, when it tears open your shoulder like a puma opening a rabbit. When it burns like the end of a cigar going through a layer of white thigh. It can change your mind like a full bus barreling through a pedestrian crossing; ask anyone who has been hit by lead, and they'll tell you.

But the glittering-eyed Chinese hitman was not coming at me with lead. He was showing cold, thin steel, and he meant cold, hard business. Thinking of Rosemarie, I stepped toward him..,