“It was the girl, Burns.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She did. Oh, poor widdle puppy. You look like you’re about to cry, Burns. Was poor widdle Burnsey-Wurnsey in wuv?”

“Mayb-” I coughed. You could smell the smoke from the club in the men’s room, and it was getting in my eyes and throat. “Maybe you should shut the fuck-”

In my memory, I can see Slain whisking the pistol back and forth in the mirror, the butt hitting my temple; my face, wide-eyed, looming in the mirror until I collide with myself. But that’s not exactly how it happened: the blow was so sudden and hurt so bad that I never saw it or knew I’d seen it, my face hit the mirror and I felt my sternum hit the hard rim of the sink as I fell halfway to my knees. The memory is a kind of dramatic re-enactment, the human brain’s version of an Unsolved Mysteries segment.

He twisted the back of my collar up in his free fist and jerked me back to my feet so fast that the first two buttons on my shirt popped and rang the aluminum sink like a tin bell.