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“Thank you,” she said. “Soo-Yung is upstairs locked in the bathroom. She’s in the bathtub. I figured that would be a good position. Might be stray bullets.”

“Sounds like the best you can do,” I said. It felt so good to talk about something I knew how to do with someone else who was a professional. “How long have they been here?”

“Less than an hour. I spotted them before I called a cab for me and Soo-Yung to go shopping. The closing reception is tonight, and she says she’s run out of hose and needs another pair of shoes.”

“Where’s Bo-Ra?”

“In bed in her room upstairs. She was getting better, but she whacked the broken arm against the door yesterday. Knocked her back a few steps.”

“Since she’s a hundred years old? I’m not surprised, but I’m sorry.”

“Me too. She’s effective.”

“Who do you think sent these guys?”

“I think they’re local thugs sent by someone in the Japanese group attending. Soo-Yung’s father is a famous guy in Korea. He thought she’d be safe over here, but obviously they know who she is. Killing her would be a great way to make him lose heart.”

“Or make him decide to kill even more of them.”

Harriet shrugged. “Either way, we’re in a pickle.”

I agreed. “How do you want to play this?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. We could call the police, but the men would be gone the minute the police roll up. They’ll come back right after the police leave. They may have eyes in this neighborhood, though there aren’t a lot of Asians around here.”

I nodded. If they’d been paid to do a job, these men would come back and finish.

“The landlady and her daughter have gone to visit friends a few streets over. They’re Korean, too, a family connection of the Kims. I told them to stay away a long time.

The daughter is way younger than Soo-Yung.

These guys will know it wasn’t her leaving.

They know we’re in here. Do you think you can leave as quietly as you came in and circle around them? ”

“What then?”

“I guess we have to kill ’em. If you don’t want to get dragged into this, because of the no-guns policy in San Diego, just say so. I shouldn’t have called you. But there’s no one else from Iron Hand in the area right now.”

“I’ll help,” I said, and wondered if I was signing my own death warrant. Or jail term. “Here’s what we need to do. We need to not get caught.”

Harriet laughed, but it sounded rough. “Sure, let’s do that,” she said.

“So I sneak up behind ’em and I take out who I can?”

“And I come out the front and take out the rest.”

“That’s not much of a plan.” I looked at her sideways.

“You’ve got a better one?”

“We sure know a lot of young grigoris who might be willing to give us a hand.”

Harriet was doubtful. “I don’t think we can drag the Listeds into this. We’d draw down all kinds of shit on our heads if one of them got hurt or arrested.”

I had to agree. I didn’t know what I had been thinking.

Not like a gunnie, that’s for sure.

“Okay, what’s our signal?” I said, moving toward the back door.

“Gunfire,” Harriet said, smiling for the first time. “You leaving the bag here?”

“No, I better keep it. Someone might call the police if they see me with guns in my hands.”

We gave each other a nod.

“Easy death,” Harriet said politely.

“Easy death,” I agreed. Right now I didn’t care too much.

With the bag looped over my shoulder, I left the boardinghouse as quietly as I’d come. Maybe because having four thugs in the neighborhood had scared everyone inside, I didn’t see anyone as I walked south on Sage. Turned right for a short stretch on Pepper, then north on Nutmeg.

This was the most basic plan ever.

I spied two little girls playing in the front yard at the corner house on Nutmeg.

They were really involved in building something out of sticks and odd bricks.

They hardly looked at me. I thought they were going to be far enough away from the action, but bullets went all directions in a gunfight.

I paused and turned back. “Girls,” I said.

They looked up, not afraid. “You need to go play in your backyard. Now.” The older one’s face sharpened, and she grabbed her sister’s hand and they trotted out of the front yard and around the house.

I resumed my stroll down the broken sidewalk.

Just another woman in pants and sensible shoes, strolling north on Nutmeg Street, ignoring the thugs scattered along the way (they thought) inconspicuously.

I counted again. Only four. The flap of the bag was undone.

I was ready to start this. Closer was always better.

I felt the familiar hum in my nerves rising.

I took a few more steps, not hurrying, casual, planning my action.

Then one man glanced my way and did a double take. Shit, he knew who I was. He opened his mouth to yell a warning, and then my guns were out and I began. One two three four.

They spun and fell like tops.

Their guns were still coming up when they died.

A quick look to verify none of them were moving, and my guns were back in my bag.

Then I turned around to retrace my steps.

Didn’t want to be connected with the boardinghouse.

Harriet had stepped out on the porch with her gun drawn.

She took in the situation and popped back inside.

People were beginning to emerge from their houses, mostly women and children.

A couple getting out of a car down the street got right back in and drove away.

Didn’t see the little girls again. I was glad.

I almost made it. In a very few minutes I’d be able to get in the car and drive away. There was an old truck pulled to the curb, the back full of paint cans and ladders. The driver’s door popped open and a man stepped out in front of me. He was big and burly.

“Did you just shoot those men?” he said. Though he had for sure just watched me do that, he couldn’t believe it.

“Do you want to find out?” I said, my hand in my bag.

Suddenly, he understood his situation.

“No, no,” he said. “I do not.”

“You didn’t see me.”

“I didn’t see you, sister.”

I turned the corner and reached the car. I glanced back to make sure the painter hadn’t followed me to see what car I was driving. He had not.

Then I was gone.

Harriet would not expect me to return to the boardinghouse. She’d call me, or maybe she wouldn’t.

Bo-Ra had saved my life and Felicia’s. Now I’d saved hers.

I had finally gotten to do something I understood, something I did better than almost anyone.

It felt good.