The woman in the tight red dress walked over to the telephone, her three-inch heels clacking loudly on the concrete floor.  She tapped in a number and waited through three rings before someone picked up.

     "It's me," she said.  "We're all set here.  Are you ready?"

     "Yeah, sure, we're good to go."  It was a man's voice.

     "All right.  He's always in his office, this time of evening.  Go and get him."  Behind her, someone dropped a knife that clanged on the floor and raised faint echoes in the big, nearly empty building.

     "We're practically there already."

     "Good."  She hung up, then turned to the others.  "It won't be long now."  She walked over to one of the men, the one who had been careless with the big knife.  "Stevie," she said, "let me borrow your lighter."

* * * 

     Martin Connor was typing up a storm.  Some days, you had to struggle over every damn word. But other times, when you were really cooking, the words seemed to flow from your brain through your fingers to end up dancing across the computer screen.

     Don Pietro Abbandando sat back, made a tent of his fingertips, and stared at his prisoner.  FBI Special Agent Steve Corrigan wasn't looking so special now.  He was bleeding from both his nose and his split lip, and one eye was nearly swollen closed -- all thanks to the Don's goons.

     "I admire your courage, Agent Corrigan," Abbandando rumbled in his deep, husky voice.  "But, really, this foolishness has gone on long enough.  If you refuse to give me the information I desire, Paulie and Marco here will really have to hurt you."

     Corrigan spat a mixture of saliva, blood, and snot on the Don's expensive Oriental rug.  "Why don't you tell Paulie and Marco to…."

     The creak of a floorboard broke Connor's concentration.  He looked up from the keyboard, and his eyes widened at the sight of the two strangers who stood before him -- men in their late thirties, muscular, wearing sport coats over open-collared shirts.

     The one in the brown tweed sport coat was holding an automatic with a silencer attached.

     "How the hell did you get in here?" Connor demanded.

     The one in the gray sport coat shook his head.  "Don't matter how."  He gestured toward the door with his chin.  "Come on."

     "'Come on'?  What the Christ do you mean, 'Come on'?"

     Tweed sport coat raised the hand with the pistol to catch Connor's attention.  "Somebody wants to see you.  So let's go.  Quit screwin' around."

     "Who?  Who wants to see me?  What is this shit?"

     Gray sport coat put his hands on Connor's desk and leaned forward, so that the doughy face was less than a foot from Connor's own.  "Look," he said pleasantly, "you're coming with us.  That's a fact.  Only question is whether you're gonna feel okay on the way there, or whether you're gonna be hurtin' in three or four different places.  That's up to you."  He gave an exaggerated shrug.  "So, what's it gonna be?"

     Connor swallowed a couple of times, then stood up slowly.  "All right, okay.  Let's go."

     Gray sport coat straightened up and nodded approvingly.  "I heard you was a smart fella."  He turned and walked toward the door.  Tweed sport coat gestured with his pistol, indicating that Connor should go next, then fell in behind.

     The two men walked him outside and over to where the streetlights revealed a dark green Olds Cutlass parked at the curb.

     Gray sport coat got behind the wheel while his companion opened the front passenger door and told Connor to get in.  Tweed sport coat then got in back, directly behind Connor.

     Gray sport coat started the engine, then turned to look at Connor.  "Look, this trip won't take long.  You try somthin' stupid, you're gonna get hurt.  So just chill out, unnerstand?"

     "Yeah, all right," Connor said.  "But where are we going?"

     "Can't tell you that," Gray sport coat said.  "It's kind of a surprise."  From the back seat, tweed sport coat made a sound that might have been laughter.

     Connor's latest novel, The Caporegimes, was another of his Mafia melodramas, full of plots, betrayals, and cruelty.  One of Connor's police contacts had told him that some of the local wise guys were convinced that the book was about them -- and they were not pleased by the way they were depicted.

     They're not taking me someplace just to kill me, Connor thought.  They could have done that back at the office: walk in, bang-bang, and leave. 

     There was only one other explanation that made sense.  These bastards are gonna kill me slow, just like some of those guys I've read about.  Maybe the Capo who didn't like my book is gonna watch.  Hell, maybe he'll even join in. . . .

     Connor might have given in to panic then, begging the two Mafia soldiers not to go through with it, offering them money, his house, anything.  He might have done all of those things -- if it weren't for the gun.

     When Connor learned that some local Mafiosi were pissed at him, he decided to get some protection.  His cop friend told him that the simplest way to buy a handgun without all the paperwork was at a gun show, suggested a compact revolver, and said that many cops carried their off-duty pieces in ankle holsters.

     That's how Connor found himself sitting in that car with a 5-shot, .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Centennial Airweight strapped to his right ankle.  No one, apart from his cop buddy, knew about the gun.  His friends would have called him paranoid, and his wife Sharon would have found it a prime subject for her weird sense of humor.

     Connor had never killed anyone, never shot at anyone, never even fired the damn pistol, except a couple of times to be sure it worked.  He wasn't sure he could do it, even now.

     A few minutes later, he realized that his time to ponder the question had just run out, because gray jacket had pulled into the parking lot of a dilapidated warehouse and they were slowing to a stop.  Connor knew the Mafia boss was waiting inside, and these two goons were going to drag him in there to be stripped naked, tied up, and cut and burned and blinded and castrated and killed, but he was not going to let them do that. 

As the car came to a halt Connor bent forward and waited while tweed sport coat got out of the back and came around to Connor's door, opening it as gray sport coat got out on the driver's side. Tweed sport coat was saying something but the Smith & Wesson was in Connor's hand now and he fired into gray sport coat's belly. The bastard staggered back and Connor got out of the car and shot him again, this time in the chest, then turned to see gray sport coat standing next to the open driver's door, his mouth gaping in astonishment.  Connor fired into the center of the fat thug face straight out of Central Casting and gray sport coat fell straight back and didn't move. 

Connor stood there, huffing like a marathon runner, looking with narrowed eyes at the side door of the warehouse, knowing they were in there, knowing that the smart thing was to get back in the car and take off, but the terror had turned into anger and Connor was in a rage over these arrogant Mafia bastards who thought they could just kidnap and torture and kill anyone they wanted.  Connor knew he only had two bullets left but they would be enough for the Capo who had ordered this, enough to settle that son of a bitch and Connor didn't care what happened afterward, he was crazy with hate and adrenaline and the lust to kill and he stalked over to the door and flung it open. 

    The warehouse was almost in total darkness but off to the left there was a weak, flickering light that came from some candles, and Connor could see someone standing there with his back to the door. Connor waited for the bastard to turn and then he did but it was a woman, a woman in a red dress that looked familiar; it was Sharon his wife, smiling. The faint light was coming from a bunch of little candles stuck into a cake and all at once the big overheads came on and in the glare he saw a dozen or more people and all of them were smiling and shouting something; he was having trouble making it out with his ears ringing from the gunshots but it sounded like -- "SURPRISE!"