Jenkins, Shrake, and Shaffer took turns recounting Uno’s progress down the block, and Lucas and Del started turning corners, looking for Martinez. They started north and west of the target house, while Martinez was south and east. As they went first south, and then east, they turned a block too soon and passed a block north of Martinez’s position. They never saw her car, and she never saw their truck.
Martinez asked Uno, on the phone, “How close are you?”
“I’m crossing the street,” he said. “I see nobody here. There is a porch. It’s an old house. All the curtains are closed.”
“All the curtains?” She tensed.
“Yes, all the curtains. I am at the front. Should I go up?”
“You see nobody?”
“Nobody.”
She thought about it for a few seconds, but it was only Uno. “Go up,” she said.
Uno walked up the porch to the door. The door had a glass panel in it, at head height. He peeked. He didn’t see anybody, but he saw a shadow, and the shadow moved.
He stepped back and put the phone to his mouth. “There is somebody inside,” he said.
Martinez closed her eyes. She said, “Is there a doorbell button?”
Uno said,
“Push the button, then count to thirty. If they don’t answer, it is the police. Then, fast as you can, run down Margaret Street toward the big hole,” she said. “We will catch you on the other side.”
“Push the button and count to thirty,” Uno repeated.
“Like you were waiting for an answer. Then run like the wind.”
As she talked to him, she’d made a U-turn on Fremont and headed west, following the aerial photo on the iPad. She jogged onto Fourth Street, turned left on Hope, and as Uno shouted, “I’m running,” she pulled into a Laundromat parking lot on West Seventh.
Uno shouted, “I am one block.”
“Faster,” she shouted back. “Run faster.”
There was one car out in front of Uno, and others following on parallel streets. Jenkins ran sideways out to Cypress, jumped in his car, pulled onto Margaret with Uno now a full block ahead, drove down to Shrake, closing the gap a bit, opened the door so Shrake could climb in.
“That motherfucker has legs,” Shrake said.
“But we got wheels,” Jenkins said.
“Easy, easy,” Shaffer called. “Keep him boxed, but let him run.”
“I’m coming up to East Seventh,” Lucas said. “You want me up the hill?”
“Come up partway.”
“He’s coming up to Seventh,” one of the other agents said, from a car in front of Uno, on Margaret. “I’ve got to get out of his way. You want me to cross, or turn, or what?”
“Take a right and pull over,” Shaffer said.
“Taking the right.”
“I see you,” Lucas called. “We got him this way.”
At that moment, Uno bolted straight across the four-lane street, through traffic, and on down Margaret. “Holy shit, he ran straight across, he could lose us,” an agent called.
“We’re on it,” Lucas said. Del accelerated up the hill, ready to take a left on Margaret.
“I can’t see him anymore,” Jenkins said. “There’s a jog at the intersection.”
Del made the left, and up ahead they could see Uno running hard as he could, straight up the street. “Got him,” Lucas said. “He’s heading straight for Swede Hollow. Shit, he’s going down the Hollow. I bet they set this up. We need to get somebody on the other side. If he runs down, we’ll spot him from up on top.”
Uno had done his job. From the Laundromat parking lot, Martinez had seen Uno bolt across the street, and then, as he ran out of sight, the car swerving out from a curb into the turn lane, and then down Margaret.
She saw Lucas quite clearly, a handset to his mouth.
She turned to Tres and said, “Ah, well.”
Lucas and Del parked at the top of the park bluff, and ten seconds later Shrake and Jenkins arrived, Shrake with his binoculars, and they followed the flight of Uno down the hill, through the trees, and across the park. It was a long, hard run, and Uno fell at one point, and apparently lost his phone. He scrambled back to pick it up, and then ran on.
Shaffer’s team was out in front of him. As Lucas called out his location on the handset, another of the agents came back and said, “We got him. We see him. We’re out of the car, we’re going to run down the track here, try to keep him in sight.”
Shaffer asked, “You see anybody following him?”
“Nobody. There’s no way anybody could, unless they were waiting in here. I think they’re probably on the other side of East Seventh.”
“I don’t think you’ll see them,” Lucas said. “She broke us out. She knows we’re on to her.”
“Should we take him?” one of the agents asked.
“Where’s he headed?” Shaffer asked.
“He’s running down the track alongside the creek. He’ll be coming out at East Seventh in a minute or so. He’s really motoring. I can’t keep up, but he’s not running off into the trees, anyway.”
Lucas called, “He’s out of sight from here. We’re coming your way.”
Another agent: “I’m out of the car on East Seventh. I saw him, he’s still on the track.”
Shaffer said, “Keep out of sight. Let him run for a minute. Let’s box him again at East Seventh.”
Uno was in good shape and a fast runner, but as the track led under a bridge, he paused, caught his breath, got on the phone and called for help, but got no answer. He thought that perhaps Martinez and Tres had been caught, somehow, and that he might be on his own. He thought about it, saw the tall buildings ahead, remembered what Martinez had said about finding him downtown, and turned that way.
He came to a fence at a railroad track, tried to climb it, got his jacket snagged, pulled the jacket off and threw it over, then climbed over after it. The jacket was a mess from a couple of falls he’d taken while running through the park, but he picked it up, ran across the tracks, careful not to break an ankle in the rough gravel, threw the jacket over another fence, climbed the fence, pulled the jacket back on, and jogged toward a car wash.
Lucas and Del, in Del’s car, followed by Shrake and Jenkins, were rolling down East Seventh, pulled in by Shaffer’s agents, when one of the agents called, shouting, and said, “We got a problem. We got a problem. He just jumped the fence around the railroad track, and I’m not sure, but it looks like he’s got a fuckin’ Uzi slung over his back.”
Shaffer came back: “An Uzi? You’re sure?”
“It’s a short black gun with what looks like a thirty-mag hanging under it. Hang on, hang on, Jack is coming up, he’s got glasses.”
A moment later, a new voice: “This is Jack. He jumped another fence and he’s running up toward that car wash place, and I’m looking at him, and it-That’s a Mac-10, not an Uzi.”
Shaffer said, “Lucas? What do you think?”
“We’re busted. She sent him out there to see what would happen. If he’s got a Mac-10, I don’t think we can let him get into town. There’s some big parking lots on the other side of the car wash. If he runs across those, we’d have him out in the open.”
