and massive shoulders. The gun was big as a cannon and looked like a toy in the ham-size hands.
“Sorry.” He gave M.J.’s wrist a quick squeeze, hoping she’d understand it as a sign of reassurance and remain still and quiet. “I was having a little trouble here.”
“Just a woman. You were supposed to just bring the woman out.”
“Yeah, I was working on it.” Jack tried a friendly smile. “Ralph send you to back me up?”
“Come on, up. Up now. We’re going.”
“Sure. No problem. You won’t need the gun now. I’ve got her under control.” But the gun continued to point, its barrel as wide as Montana, at his head.
“Just her.” And the giant smiled, floppy lips peeling back over huge teeth. “We don’t need you now.”
“Fine. I guess you want the paperwork.” For lack of anything better, Jack snagged a can of tomato sauce on his way up and winged it. It made a satisfactory crunching sound on the big man’s nose. Ducking, Jack rushed forward like a battering ram. It felt a great deal like beating his head against a brick wall, but the force took them both tumbling backward and over a ladder-back chair.
The gun went off, putting a fist-size hole in the ceiling before it flew across the room.
She thought about running. She could have been out of the door and away before either of them untangled. But she thought about Bailey, about what she had weighing down her shoulder bag. About the mess she’d somehow stepped in. And was too mad to run.
She went for the gun and ended up falling backward as Jack flew into her. She cushioned his fall, and he was up fast, springing into the air and landing a double-footed kick in the big man’s midsection.
Nice form, M.J. thought, and scrambled to her own feet. She snagged her shoulder bag, spun it over her head and cracked it hard over the sleek, bullet-shaped head.
He went down hard on the sofa, snapping the springs.
“You’re wrecking my place!” she shouted, and smacked Jack in the side, simply because she could reach him.
“Sue me.”
He dodged a fist the size of a steamship and went in low. Pain sang through every bone as his opponent slammed him into a wall. Pictures fell, glass shattering on the floor. Through his blurred vision he saw the woman charge, a redheaded fireball that flew up and latched like a plague of wasps on the man’s enormous back. She used her fists, pounding the sides of his face as he spun wildly and struggled to grab her.
“Hold him still!” Jack shouted. “Damn it, just hold him for a minute!”
Spotting an opening, he grabbed what was left of a table leg and rushed in. He checked his first swing as the duo spun like a mad two-headed top. If he followed through, he might have cracked the back of M.J.’s head open like a melon.
“I said hold him still!”
“You want me to paint a bull’s-eye on his face while I’m at it?” With a guttural snarl, she hooked her arms around the man’s throat, clamped her thighs like a vise around his wide steel beam of a torso and screamed, “Hit him, for God’s sake. Stop dancing around and hit him.”
Jack cocked back like a batter with two strikes already on his record and swung full out. The table leg splintered like a toothpick, blood gushed like water in a fountain. M.J. had just enough time to jump clear as the man toppled like a redwood.
She stayed on her hands and knees a minute, gasping for air. “What’s going on? What the hell’s going on?”
“No time to worry about it.” Self-preservation on his mind, Jack grabbed her hand, hauled her to her feet. “This type doesn’t usually travel alone. Let’s go.”
“Go?” She snagged the strap of her purse as he pulled her toward the door. “Where?”
“Away. He’s going to be mean when he wakes up, and if he’s got a friend, we’re not going to be so lucky next time.”
“Lucky, my butt.” But she was running with him, driven by a pure instinct that matched Jack’s. “You son of a bitch. You come busting into my place, push me around, wreck my home, nearly get me shot.”
“I saved your butt.”
“I saved yours!” She shouted it at him, cursing viciously as they thudded down the stairs. “And when I get a minute to catch my breath, I’m going to take you apart, piece by piece.”
They rounded the landing and nearly ran over one of her neighbors. The woman, with helmet hair and bunny slippers, cowered, back against the wall, hands pressed to her deeply rouged cheeks.
“M.J., what in the world—? Were those gunshots?”
“Mrs. Weathers—”
“No time.” Jack all but jerked her off her feet as he headed down the next flight.
“Don’t you shout at me, you jerk. I’m making you pay for every grape that got smashed, every lamp, every—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the picture. Where’s the back door?” When M.J. pointed down the corridor, he gave a nod and they both slid outside, then around the corner of the building. Screened by some bushes in the front, Jack darted a gaze up and down the street. There was a windowless van less than half a block down, and a small, chicken-faced man in a bad suit dancing beside it. “Stay low,” Jack ordered, thankful he’d parked right out front as they ran down the walkway and he all but threw M.J. into the front seat of his car.
“My God, what the hell is this?” She shoved at the can she’d sat on, kicked at the wrappers littering the floor, then joined them when Jack put a hand behind her head and shoved.
“Low!” he repeated in a snarl, and gunned the engine. The faint ping told him the man with the chicken face was using the silenced automatic he’d pulled out.
Jack’s car screamed away from the curb, and he two-wheeled it around the corner and shot down the street like a rocket. Tossed like eggs in a broken carton, M.J. rapped her head on the dash, cursed, and struggled to balance herself as Jack maneuvered the huge boat of a car down side streets.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Saving your butt again, sugar.” His eyes flicked to the rearview as he took a hard, tire-squealing right turn. A couple of kids riding bikes on the sidewalk lifted their fists and cheered the maneuver. In instant reaction, Jack flashed a grin.
“Slow this junk heap down.” M.J. had to crawl back onto the seat and clutch the chicken stick for balance. “And let me out before you run over some kid walking his dog.”
“I’m not going to run over anybody, and you’re staying put.” He spared her a quick glance. “In case you didn’t notice, the guy with the van was shooting at us. And as soon as I make sure we’ve lost him and find someplace quiet to hole up, you’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
He shot her a look.
