The chapter opens with the sound of a gunshot. It's the beginning of a new chapter. The narrator tells us that this is the first time we've heard a gunshot coming from anywhere in the novel. It sounds like the narrator is being chased by a group of masked men. He's got a message for them: they've got to get out of the way of the acid lake before it's too late. Just then, the narrator runs into a detective named John diFool, who's looking for a guy to take a girl to the "red ring" . He asks the detective if he knows anything about the area, and the detective says that he does. The detective tells the narrator that he's a member of a class called "class 771636" , which means "class" in Russian. John tells the detective that he needs a bodyguard and guide to go to "the red ring" with Milady . Milady wants to go "the daredevil" and kill "kill wolfhead," so she's going to meet him at the red ring. She's about to kill wolfhead when she runs into him. The bullet hits Milady's head, but it turns out that Milady is an old woman who was wearing a holo-mask at the time of the killing. John doesn't know what's up with this whole "suicide alley" thing, but he does know that the three "hotheads" were beating him up when he got there. He thinks that they're just petty killers