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Wallace said pointedly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    “Three times in a month I’ve been broken into,” O’Brien said, examining the wreckage. “They said we might be out for forty-eight hours. I wasn’t going to leave it and come back to nothing.”
    “No, you’d rather break it up yourself,” Wallace said. He stole a quick glance down both side streets and a peek back over his shoulder.
    There was no movement, no sign that the shotgun blast had been heard. “Since you’re open for business, how about pouring me one to help me settle the nerves you jangled?”
    O’Brien nodded sheepishly and unlocked what was left of the door.
    “Listen, Terry,” Wallace said, following him to the bar. “I was sleeping one off in my hotel room, and when I woke up everybody’d gone into hiding. You’re the first person I’ve seen all afternoon. What’s going on? Where is everybody?”
    “The mayor closed down center-city this morning,” O’Brien said, reaching for a glass. “Black Label, isn’t it?”
    “Make it a shot and a chaser.”
    “Right. Anyway, I guess the barricades went up at five this morning. They kept all the commuters out and then chased out the night owls and the locals, checking cards on everyone at the barricades. I guess Rizzo’s boy’s did a pretty good job—you’re the first person I’ve seen all day, except for the boys in the jeeps.”
    A worried look crossed O’Brien’s face. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” he added, scratching his chin. A large dragon ring on his left hand glinted in the light. “If they come through and see that mess, they’ll know I’m here. They’re going to give me a hard time, I know it. You, too.”
    “You didn’t say what this is all about,” Wallace said. “Is it the Brats?”
    O’Brien nodded. “I saw the mayor on TV an hour ago. He said that they’d caught three of them and were looking for more. They were going to blow a bugbomb from the clock tower at the Reading Terminal. Can you imagine what that would have done, with the traffic through that station, all those commuters carrying it back out into the suburbs? Sick, sick, sick—”
    That settled it. The drop was dead. His contact had either been unable to enter the city or been thrown out with the rest. Nothing to do but return to the gate house and leave the drugs there. Someone else could complete the delivery when the restrictions were lifted.
    “I guess I’d better go on back to the hotel,” Wallace said draining the beer glass. “Doing business here is hard enough. I don’t want any trouble.”
    “Why don’t you stay?” O’Brien said, anxiously twisting his ring. “I’ll feed you on the house.”
    Wallace demurred with a shake of his head. “I’d better go.”
    “I’d better put this away,” O’Brien said, reaching for the shotgun.
    Both decisions were right decisions, but both were made too late. As Wallace slipped down off his stool, a shadow flashed across the side windows and brakes screeched. Cursing silently, he dove to the floor as the police came fast through the door.
    But O’Brien stood frozen behind the bar, shotgun half-raised, earnest words of explanation dying in his throat. The badges did not wait for explanations. The first through had a pistol in hand and opened fire. His partner, hard on his heels, joined in when he had a clear line. O’Brien wobbled in place, his blood spattering as the bottles on the wall behind him shattered. Then his knees buckled and he collapsed out of sight behind the bar.
    Shit shit shit shit shit , Wallace cursed as he cowered, eyes squeezed shut against sights he did not care to see, on the tavern floor. Just what I needed—to be grabbed in the middle of a Brat roast with a bag of glass bullets under my shirt—you might as well just shoot me now—
    On the day that Wallace qualified as a runner, Jason March—then an acquaintance, now a friend—had straight-facedly handed him a small blue-covered