Comeback

Liss switched off the light, hurried back to the window, and was just in time to see that unwelcome car come across the parking lot, moving as slowly and hesitantly as ever, and jounce out the exit onto the street. It drove away, out of sight.

Good, Liss thought. I don't know who you people are, but stay out of the way.

8

Zack was still driving. He steered them out of the stadium parking lot and down the empty street, as Ralph said. 'All for nothing, the whole thing for nothing.'

'We don't give up,' Zack said. He'd grown less cocky, but more sullen and just as determined, since he'd lost the woman in the station wagon.

When she'd come out of the motel, moving with purposeful speed, all three of them in the car had perked up, even Woody, who'd been sulking about something for hours. And at first they'd liked it that she was pushing hard, driving a little too fast for the city streets. It meant action at last, something happening.

They'd heard on the car radio about the half-million-dollar robbery—a half a million dollars!—and they knew the robbers had gotten away with it clean and clear. They were still at large. And this woman in the station wagon would lead them right to it.

Except she didn't. 'Shit,' Zack said at one point, 'she's onto us.'

'Oh, goddamn it,' Woody said. 'I knew it'd be something.' His brief return of high spirits was over, already.

Ralph was leaning forward again, forearms atop the front seat. 'Maybe she isn't,' he said. 'What makes you think she is?'

'We went down this block before,' Zack said, angry and disgusted, 'and made that fucking turn!'

Half a block ahead, the woman took a right turn very hard and fast, the heavy body of the wagon sagging way leftward as she went around the corner and out of sight. Zack took the turn as fast as he could, not quite as quick as the woman, and when they came around— Goddamit, the station wagon's coming the other way!

How did she do that? A hard right, an impossibly tight U-turn to the left, and coming back the other way as Zack completed his own turn. All three of them gaped at her, and she pretended they weren't even there. A good-looking woman, dramatic in the rose-glow of her dashboard, jaw set, eyes facing front as she flashed on by.

Ralph twisted around to look out the back window, and saw her take a left so fast and so sharp she left rubber all over the street back there. Going back the way they'd come. And of course, by the time Zack got them turned around and back to the intersection she was long gone.

Still, he drove in her imagined wake for a while, as they argued about what it meant and what to do next. 'It doesn't come out right,' Woody kept saying. 'Everything screws up, it just gets worse and worse, we should never of got into this, we're fuckups, that's all, we're just fuckups.'

'Shut up.' Zack's knuckles were white, he held so hard to the steering wheel. His teeth were clenched, the veins stood out on the side of his neck, he looked like he'd explode. But he never shouted. 'Shut up shut up shut up.' Low, quiet, but with such intensity that Woody withdrew down into a sullen lump in his corner of the front seat.

Ralph said, 'Shit, Zack, we did lose her. I mean, we lost her.'

'So we'll find her.'

'How?'

'The stadium. That's where she was headed, before she saw us. So that's where we'll go.'

And that's where they went, and got nothing for it. Nobody at the stadium, all locked up and dark. Parking lot empty except for some construction trailer way at the far end, padlocked and empty. Nobody and nothing. No trail of breadcrumbs. With no alternative, they drove away from the stadium at last, the car moving along in its own gray cloud of depression.

'What we did,' Woody mumbled, feeling so sorry for himself he was almost in tears. 'What we did, and for nothing.'

'Shut up, Woody.'

'What we did, what we did.'

Ralph frowned at Woody's miserably unhappy profile. 'What are you talking about?'

'He's talking about,' Zack snarled, 'what an asshole he is. It isn't over, all right? We aren't done, all right?'

Ralph said, 'Zack, we don't know where they are. If the cops can't find them, how are we gonna find them?'

'Luggage,' Zack said.

Woody was still deep in his own misery, but Ralph bit: 'Luggage?'

'She didn't take any luggage when she left the motel,' Zack said. 'None of them did. Just those duffel bags, and that was for the job. Remember, the radio said. So they didn't take their luggage, so they're going back.'

Ralph felt a sudden surge of hope, and even Woody looked up. Ralph said, 'To the motel!'

'They're going back,' Zack said, absolutely sure of himself. 'And so are we.'

Same parking space. The nearby pizza place was closed, but they found another and settled down in their usual