"Who would have thought it'd be the two of us?
-- No Doubt, Hella Good

I looked out the window again. There was no sign of Vance, so they had to be in the building. I pulled the gun from my waistband. I eased the hammer back into place -- better safe than sorry. I broke out the glass with the butt of the gun. I could have opened it more quietly, but that wasn't the point. I wanted to pull the attention towards me, and away from the girls.

I heard a thunder of footsteps up the stairs. I took a deep breath and launched myself out of the window. The fall from a second story window is far from fatal, but it helps if you know what you are doing. I made sure not tense my arms or legs, let them collapse under me. Once I hit the ground, I let my body transfer the energy into a roll. Still, the impact was a jolt; I felt a crunch in my side as I hit. A moment later the pain came, sharp and hard. It took a lot not to stop and give in to the sensation. If that rib hadn't been broken from the car, it probably was now.

I risked a glance over my shoulder; I could see Vance looking at me from the window. I didn't bother waiting to see what he and the Boys would do. They'd be on me in a moment, but I doubted they'd take the same route I did. I needed to even things out a bit more. It was easy to spot their car in the middle of the road, trunk and doors open to the world. I cocked the hammer on the gun as I ran. I stopped when I got to the car. I fired two shots, one into the front and rear tire -- one hand holding the other wrist to steady the shot. I took aim, held my breath, and squeezed the trigger. It was something I had practiced so much it was second nature.

I didn't stick around to check the damage done. I just had to take it as an article of faith that at least one of the two shots would do enough to render the car useless. In an ideal world I would have taken the car, but I couldn't count on Vance to leave the keys lying about and it would take too long to hotwire it. I just ran, as fast as I could. Every step I made away from them was time I could use in my favor.

I had four rounds left in the magazine. The gun held seven, and I had used two on the car. Assuming they had freed the member of their crew in the building, there would be four of them after me. I didn't really want to kill any of them, but I was going to have to do something to push the stakes up. If I was lucky I wasn't going to have to take it that far, but I had to hit them where they lived.

I heard a horn blare from behind me. I wasn't on the street. It couldn't be for me, but it would draw attention onto me, and I didn't need that. I rounded the corner, and prayed to gods I did not believe in that Vance and the boys didn't notice. The horn blared again. I didn't want to turn and look -- that would slow me down -- but I had to know what was going on.

There was a truck bearing down on me. Could Vance have another vehicle already? If No, he could have run me down by now. So he had to be playing with me. There was no way I could out run it. He chasing me down like a coyote on a country road. I'd be damned if I was going to make it easy on him.

There was an alley ahead. I didn't bother slowing down to make the turn. I let my body deflect off the wall and dove behind a packing crate. It was poor cover, but it would make me harder to see. A voice was saying something, but I couldn't make it out. I took a beat to get my breath, and then I double-checked that the safety was off, and the gun was good to go. With one hand, I gripping the handle, and with the other I held my wrist for stability. I would break cover and pick a target, fire two rounds, and then go further down the alley.

Small caliber rounds don't transfer enough kinetic energy or do enough damage when they enter the body to drop a target immediately. I'd need to fire more than one round to try to make up for the lack of firepower. Shoot and move -- it's the first thing they teach you. I swung out into the alley and braced to shoot at the truck.

I heard the voice again -- my name was being called. It took me a moment to realize that it was what I'd been hearing. The voice was familiar, but not any of the Boy's I'd heard. I held my shot so I could get a better look. It was a vintage truck. The passenger door was open, and the driver was leaning out and calling my name. There was music playing as well -- Motorhead, Ace of Spades. It was Ray.

Given the circumstances, I suppose I could argue that I be forgiven for not recognizing him right away. The last fraction of an hour had been filled with confusion, pain, and more than a little adrenaline. Ray wasn't on my short list of people I was expecting to see when being chased by a drug-dealing rockabilly gang.

Those were all reasonable enough excuses, and I accepted none of them. It was only because I had stopped and put myself at risk that Ray was alive and unharmed. I had missed the girls in the room, and now this. I was being sloppy, reacting instead of being in control. If I didn't turn that around, then I'd fail to make it through the day alive. I wasn't going to accept any excuses. I was going to beat myself up over it.

Not out of self-pity -- I had plenty of that if I needed any. If I hadn't seen Ray when he honked, then what else had I missed? Had I failed to see some means of escape, an advantage, or some new threat? I ran down the alley into Ray's truck.

"Drive, now!" I said, before I even closed the door behind me.

Regardless of the way he had treated Becks, or any of his other failings, Ray got credit for the fact that he didn't just stare at me when I gave him that order. He didn't ask foolish questions. He didn't make any demands. He simply jammed his foot on the gas and we were in motion.

"Go back the way you came." I told him.

"Why," he asked, "what's back there?"

He made a u-turn before getting an answer, and then a turn back down the street where he had first honked at me.

"See those guys working on that car there?" I asked.

Vance and one of the Boys were trying to get their car in order. This was their forte, so they would be able to get the job done quickly. I wondered where the other two Boys were. Vance had probably decided to split their efforts between fixing the car and looking for me.

"Yeah," Ray nodded when he saw them.

"Clip the car," I told him.

"With Baby?" He asked.

Apparently the truck had a name.

"Baby or Becks, Ray," I said, "your choice.

"Right," he said.

"We need to slow them down," I said, "maybe even get them chase to us on foot for a bit. We need a little extra time and that's Vance right there."

Ray smiled at the thought and sped up. Vance and the other one -- I think it may have been Tommy -- looked up from the car. I doubted they could see who we were, but they had no trouble figuring out that a speeding truck on the wrong side of the road meant them no good. They hurried out of the way. As we passed the Falcon, Ray scraped the truck against the car and knocked it off of the jack.

"Yeah!" Ray yelled.

As we passed I turned in my seat to keep an eye on Vance. He was standing in the middle of the street. He had a gun out and was taking aim. It was much larger than the one I had taken.

"Turn left now!" I told him.

"What? Where?" He asked. He turned to me, to see if I was pointing a direction, but he still turned the wheel hard to the left. I didn't really care which direction we went. I just wanted to make us a harder target to hit.

I'd like to say that we had turned before Vance had fired, but that would just be hubris. That kind of detail should always be treated as suspect. The two events happened on top of one another.

"Good job man," I said.

He nodded with satisfaction. The odds were getting better now. My numbers were better, we had transportation, and I was armed. Vance had two men injured, and no vehicle -- at least for the moment. He still had the advantage, but things were looking better. Once you get past the balance sheet of advantages and disadvantages, it all comes down to two things: Who wants it more, and who can control the rules.

I had the motivation. I was fighting for my life, and for Becks. At no moment during it all did I forget that her life was at stake as well as mine. I'd got her into this situation, and no matter what happened to me I was going to get her out of it.

If I wanted to roll over and die, I could have done that last night. It would have been so easy -- I thought I had changed, only to see the evidence to the contrary. I believed in no god, so there would be no consequence to putting the barrel under my chin and make it all stop, but I didn't come back to commit suicide. I could have done that with less travel. I directed Ray back to the garage.

"I drove down to help you look for her," Ray said. "Couldn't just let you come down here and do all the work. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to come down to help, but I didn't know where to look, you know? Then last night I remembered the name of Vance's garage. So I got in Baby and drove down. I just got here and was looking for Vance's place. Then I saw you running."

I hadn't asked Ray for an explanation, but he apparently felt compelled to provide one. I wondered if he was also a victim of the rescue-fantasy.

"What happened?" He asked.

"Vance happened." I explained. "When this is all over, I'll tell you the whole story. Right now we've got to get back to the garage."

"Why?" He asked.

"Becks is there," I said. On reflection I added "Probably, and if she is, then we have to get her out now. Last night, things went...badly. It put Becks and myself in jeopardy. So now we are going to get her out, OK?"

"Hell yeah!" Ray agreed.

He was into it all the way. His blood would be pumping hot, and it was all just a big adventure to him. He was the hero and would have some stories to tell when he got back with his girl on his arm. I just wanted it over with. Stories are great to tell, but only if I'm around to tell them.

I normally wouldn't have told Ray to park directly in front of the garage, but I did. Vance could show up any time, or there could be a guard keeping watch. There was a lot of risk to it, but there was no time to plan and the simplest way into the building was though the front door. Speed mattered more than stealth now.

"Leave it running," I told Ray and I got out of the truck. "We are going in hard and we are going in fast."

I emphasized the words to drive my point home. I was working with amateur talent; no point in getting fancy.

"And when you leave with Becks," I said, " you leave the same way. Right?"

"Let's do it!" He said, full of bravado and bluster.

I wanted to rebuke him, tell him this was not a game, but that would have been counter-productive. The big doors were down, the office door was shut, and a "closed" sign hung in the window. No custom car work today.

"Right," I said. "Let us see if anyone is at home, shall we?"

Ray stared at me.