"Well," said Yamamura, "let me help him."
Jimmy laughed under his hat. "I'm not that simple-minded. Stay put." With shrillness: "Come on, Guido. Or do you want to get drilled right here and now?"
Guido began to drag himself forward, as if a bullet had already smashed his spine. The sound of it, and of his breath going in and out an open mouth, and the nearby clamor of automobiles filled with meek taxpayers, was all that Kintyre could hear.
He wondered if he could let Guido be taken from him, by the same instrument which had taken Bruce, and call himself male. Two or three jumps should reach Jimmy. But Jimmy was no amateur, he wouldn't miss if he shot. But there were many cases on record of men being hit once, twice, being filled with lead, and still coming on. But Guido wasn't worth anybody's time. But Guido was brother to Bruce and Corinna, therefore worth a great deal of time. But a possible forty years?
But a deeper shadow filled the open end of the brick gut. It ran forward in total silence, light touched its glassy uplifted club and its flowing hair.
As the bottle came down on Jimmy's head, Kintyre started to move. Yamamura beat him to it, arriving a second after Jimmy lurched forward from the impact on his skull. The sound had been a shattering; Kintyre heard the tinkles that followed the blow. Yamamura knocked the gun from Jimmy's hand with an edge-on palm, seized his lapel, and applied a scissor strangle.
Jimmy fell, as if the bones had been sucked from him. Corinna swayed over his form, still holding the broken beer bottle. Almost, she fell too. Kintyre caught her.
She held him closely, shuddering. It was not necessary, he thought beneath his own pulse. She fought herself, and grew worn down thereby. Her physical output had been negligible. Clearly she had slipped back through the door, unobserved (that was the chance she took, but chance had a way of favoring those who acted boldly). Picking up an empty bottle on the way, tucking it inconspicuously under an arm, she had gone out past the bar, out the main door (doubtless noticed, maybe wondered about, but not stopped and soon forgotten) and around the building. Then she took off her shoes and ran up behind Jimmy and hit him.
That was all. There was no reason to grow exhausted. But God damn all smug judokas, hadn't she earned the right?
"You clopped him a good one," said Yamamura, squatting to look. "It's as well he had a hat on. A cut scalp could get very messy. Congratulations."