Chapter 22 The pounding at the door jarred me awake.

It had taken on a rhythmic tempo of knocking that had been going on for a long time and my first impulse was to shoot somebody.

To be completely accurate, my first impulse was to shoot Jack, since I was sure it was him.

The knocking was irritating and random, which in a short time I had clearly come to associate with Blackjack Justice.

As I fumbled for the Beretta on the nightstand, my eyes focused on the clock.

Six in the morning.

Couldn't be Jack.

Too late to be up late?

Too Jack to be up early.

I stepped out of the bedroom into the sitting room.

Just a minute I called,

mostly to make the knocking stop, though I had given away any element of surprise I might have held in the process, the things we do to keep our neighbors from complaining. The room was mostly

dark and I kept it that way. The light spilled from the lamp in the hall might give my position

away. I crept closer to the doorway and gripped the barretta hard.

It occurred to me at last that this could be a visitor from our friend Big Al Rosetti,

who might not have gotten the news just yet that we had given up snooping in his backyard.

I slipped close to the peephole and spotted the cop on the other side.

I set the barretta down on the shelf behind the door and turned the knob, opening the door as far as a safety chain would allow.

What is it? I said.

Police, miss, the uniform stammered.

It occurred to me for the first time that I had reached for my handgun as a normal girl might reach for her robe, and in the process had not covered up my

sleeping attire, which was soft and satiny and clung to my curves. Even at 6 a.m., Miss Dixon

...