when you're young you have little to worry about. you certainly don't worry about death. and then nick met a hitman. the hitman had ethics, he said. no women, no children. when nick told his friends what had happened, they laughed. nick laughed, too. of course, it was mad. the hitman was just a lonely nutter, the type you sometimes met out on the road, the type who told tall tales. they all forgot about the hitman. instead they worried about themselves. nick wondered when he could get out of town, mark obsessed about chrissie, and simon missing anna, found jill. gaz continued stealing things. when molly breezed into town, and said she was a spy, they thought she was as mad as the hitman. she was looking for her sister, she said, and for a man she always called archie even though she hated him. then nick saw the car that had picked him up. the nutter's car, the hitman's car. intrigued, he and mark followed it. they were blithely riding into dangers they couldn't comprehend. after all, the hitman's ethics didn't cover nick.