all wrong. Even a man like Morrison couldn’t arrange this. He must have called the FBI. There was an army around that tram station. Grijalvas broke into a run, and the two men followed. They seemed to have no trouble staying within a pace of him even with the heavy metal they carried. Grijalvas’s lungs ached after three hundred yards and his breath came in gasps, but Joachim and Jesus seemed to run easily and tirelessly. Finally Grijalvas tripped on a jagged rock and fell to his knees. The two ran on for twenty feet, then stopped to wait while he staggered to catch up.
They walked in silence for a time, then Grijalvas managed a trot. After five minutes Grijalvas’s wind gave out again and they walked until they came to a low rise and could see the cars passing on the highway into Palm Springs. Far to the left Grijalvas could see the yellow glow of the sodium lamps at the aerial tramway station and the brighter white beams that swept the land around it.
It was important not to let himself get too confident now that they were out of the immediate vicinity of Morrison’s trap. In a short time they would begin searching the highway in cars, and that would bring other problems. He was glad he’d heard the firing of automatic weapons near the station. The police wouldn’t fire aimlessly into the underbrush because three men who might not even be armed had gone into it. They’d shout something through a bullhorn and then fire, so it wasn’t the police. He hoped they had some way of learning that Morrison was dead and the money was gone. If they weren’t police they would have no reason to keep searching this area. Instead they’d make a futile attempt to catch up with Juan and the others, because they had the money.
He walked toward Palm Springs, keeping as far from the highway as possible without losing his bearings. Joachim and Jesus followed without speaking. It took an hour before they crossed the first road on the edge of the town. From here on it would be difficult. There would be lights now and soon sidewalks, and buildings that would block their movement but wouldn’t give them a place to hide.
He stopped on the shoulder of the road beside a high chain link fence. “Let me think about this for a second.”
Joachim said, “We could steal a car.”
“Maybe,” Grijalvas agreed, “but by the time we get far enough into town to find one that’s parked, we’d be risking a lot for nothing. The car Figueroa left for us is what we need.” He stared at the fence. “This looks like a golf course.” He shielded his eyes from the glare of the streetlamp and peered through the fence into the darkness. He could see a thick stand of trees and a gentle rise in the ground beyond that looked as though it couldn’t be natural. He set the toe of his shoe in the fence and lifted himself up. From there he could see that the top of the mound was flat. “It is a golf course. Come on.”
Joachim pulled himself up and stared at the mound. “Are you sure? I don’t see a flag.”
“Maybe they take them in at night.”
They climbed the fence, the two younger men pushing Grijalvas over with difficulty. At the top he caught the tail of his coat and managed to disentangle it only by tearing the bottom seam. When they were on the ground beyond, they walked among the trees and skirted the open fairway. The quiet of the night air was broken only by the distant swish of cars passing on the main highway. Sometimes they could see the headlights, tiny and dim at first, then growing brighter as the car approached, then gone again, leaving only the red taillights diminishing in the darkness.
They went through another stand of trees and then past sand traps and across a wooden bridge over a narrow pond of still, greasy water. Finally they stood on a green, and at the end of the long, straight fairway they could see the lights of the clubhouse. Grijalvas said, “I guess we’d better get the guns out now. That’s where the gate will be, and it looks as though they must have a restaurant or something open. Keep the guns under your coats and let me talk if anybody stops us.”
Joachim opened the case and handed two of the short, heavy weapons to the others. He wiped off the case with his handkerchief and ran with it back to the pond. When he returned, the three walked up the edge of the fairway toward the building. As they approached they could see people through the large, lighted windows, sitting at tables. As Grijalvas watched, a man at one of the tables stood up, holding a stemmed glass high, and spoke for a few seconds, then sat down again. To my friend Mr. Gordon, Grijalvas thought. The man to whom I owe my five million dollars.
They turned left at the tee below the clubhouse and walked up the path to the parking lot. A young man in a tight red jacket rushed up and said, “Can I bring your car up for you, sir?”
“No, thank you,” said Grijalvas. “It’s parked down the road.” As he walked on he surveyed the parking lot. All of these cars—fifty or more—would have their keys in the ignition or under the sun visor on the driver’s side. It was something to keep in mind, but his own car wasn’t far off now, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to let his tired feet make the decision for him. They moved down the driveway to the street.
There was a sidewalk now, and after five minutes they passed another pedestrian, an elderly man in a tight red jogging suit who was walking a small, fluffy white dog that stopped to sniff each tree, each fence post, then scurried on to the next with nervous excitement. When they overtook him the dog yapped twice and the man jerked the leash, turning the little dog around to face him. “Cut it out, Nancy.”
Grijalvas could see the place where the car was parked. He could recognize it because there was a dessert shop called Mamie’s across the street that was always full and always seemed to have a line of people waiting outside the door. He could see the queue stretching down the steps and nearly to the door of the jewelry store in the other half of the building. There must have been ten people waiting to get in. There was very little to do in Palm Springs at night, he thought.
As they approached the restaurant, Joachim saw the car first. He quickened the pace, but Grijalvas didn’t stop him. It was late and they’d walked a long distance and with all the people waiting to eat pies and cakes at Mamie’s they wouldn’t attract attention.
When Grijalvas reached the car Joachim had the doors open and was starting the engine. As Grijalvas slipped into the back seat he glanced across the street again at Mamie’s. At that moment the man at the head of the line stepped aside to speak to another man, and Grijalvas saw the sign in the window: “Closed.”
“Get going fast,” he shouted.
Joachim pulled the car away from the curb just as a bullet punched through the rear window and whined out the open side window behind Grijalvas’s head. There were more shots, but Grijalvas was lying on the back seat as Joachim accelerated down the empty city street. Grijalvas lifted his head cautiously to peer through the spidery cracks in the rear window, and he could see a line of six or seven men strung out across the street, firing at the speeding car. Twice he heard bullets thump into the trunk, but the car squealed along a curve in the road and then he couldn’t see the men.
He said, “As fast as you can, Joachim. They don’t seem to want to give up.” He watched the speedometer over Joachim’s shoulder as the needle reached the one-hundred mark, then devoted his attention to checking the load of the Ingraham he held on his lap. Out the rear window there was only darkness now. The car seemed to sway with each touch on the steering wheel and to swoop down the gentle inclines. The broken white lines on the road had merged into a single smear.
Minutes passed, and still there was no sign of another set of headlights. They had moved into the desert now, and when they roared onto Route 10, Joachim swung into the westbound lane without slowing. When they shot past the sign for Banning, Grijalvas could hardly read it. He said, “Slow down now. There might be police from here on.”
After they’d passed Banning, Grijalvas began to feel more comfortable. It wouldn’t be long before they came to Redlands, where he knew a man who could hide the car and give him another. From there East Los Angeles was only about an hour away.
All three noticed the lights at once. There was a red and yellow flashing, and rose-colored flares were burning on the road. As they drew near they could see that the lights were at the entrance to the Dinosaur Memorial. The burning flares lit the gigantic scaly torso of the life-sized tyrannosaur and made his glass eyes glitter with red. There were two white tow trucks, one parked beside the belly of the brontosaur, and the other blocking the right lane of the road. The flashing lights made the cluster of dinosaur effigies look as though they were moving.
Jesus said, “It looks weird. Way out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Joachim said, “The only thing that’s weird is you. It’s for kids. There must be an accident.”
As they watched, the second tow truck pulled out and blocked the left lane, and a man with a flashlight ran in
