"OK," Death said, "nice talking to you." He tried to step around the guy, but he side-stepped to block Death's path, then put a hand on Death's shoulder -- it was strong. Death had been mugged once before, but the guy hadn't touched him; he'd just told him, fast and mean, to hand over his wallet and phone and then had split. "I'm not done," the guy said. "Look, take my wallet, I don't want any trouble." Apart from two glorious sucker-punches at Sammy, Death had never thrown a punch, not since he'd flunked out of karate lessons at the local strip-mall when he was twelve. He liked to dance and he could run a couple miles without getting winded, but he'd seen enough real fights to know that it was better to get away than to try to strike out if you didn't know what you were doing. "You don't want any trouble, huh?" Death held out his wallet. He could cancel the cards. Losing the cash would hurt now that he didn't have a day-job, but it was better than losing his teeth. The guy smiled. His onion breath was terrible. "*I* want trouble." Without any pre-amble or wind-up, the guy took hold of the earring that Death wore in his tragus, the little knob of cartilage on the inside of his ear, and briskly tore it out of Death's head. It was so sudden, the pain didn't come at once. What came first was a numb feeling, the blood draining out of his cheeks and the color draining out of the world, and his brain double- and triple-checking what had just happened. *Did someone just tear a piece out of my ear? Tear? Ear?* Then the pain roared in, all of his senses leaping to keen awareness before maxing out completely. He heard a crashing sound like the surf, smelled something burning, a light appeared before his eyes, an acrid taste flooded his mouth and his ear felt like there was a hot coal nestled in it, charring the flesh. With pain came the plan: *get the fuck out of there*. He took a step back and turned to run, but there was something tangled in his feet -- the guy had bridged the distance between them quickly, very quickly, and had hooked a foot around his ankle. He was going to fall over. He landed in a runner's crouch and tried to start running, but a boot caught him in the butt, like an old-timey comedy moment, and he went sprawling, his chin smacking into the pavement, his teeth clacking together with a sound that echoed in his head. "Get the fuck up," the guy said. He was panting a little, sounding excited. That sound was the scariest thing so far. This guy wanted to kill him. He could hear that. He was some kind of truck-stop murderer.