I kept my gun on them while I backed out the door, then slammed it fast and turned the key in the lock. I left the key there and hoped it would give them a hard time. With luck the police would get there just at the right time — before Reed and Baron got out and after I was far away.

With luck.

I passed up the elevator and took the stairs two and three at a time. I never moved so fast in my life. I was at the second floor when I heard the noise.

A gunshot. Reed, probably, shooting the lock off the door. I should have taken his gun.

The hell with it. You can’t think of everything.

I got out of the lobby and into the street. God knows how. If anybody looked suspicious, I did. And if anybody was all dressed up with no place to go, I was. No car, no money, no nothing. I should have stayed up there and let Baron beat me to death.

Their car.

That would do it — give me an out and take their car away from them all at once. Maybe they had left the keys in it. It always happens that way in the movies. But, dammit, I wasn’t in a movie. Still, you never could tell. I looked around and found their car and ran at the big Mercury at top speed, trying at the same time to look nonchalant as all hell. I don’t think I managed it.

The car was there. And the keys, God bless ’em, were still resting gently in the ignition.

That wasn’t all. There was another extra dividend in the car.

A woman.

“Get in, Ted. Don’t waste any time. There’s no time, hurry, you’ve got to hurry. I’ll explain later. Just get in the car.”

Cindy.

She drove even better than she made love. We got out of downtown Phoenix, out of residential Phoenix, out of suburban Phoenix, out of Phoenix entirely. She kept the gas pedal as close to the floor as she could and I looked out of the rear window for cops and robbers. It seemed inevitable that one or the other would catch up with us. We led a charmed life. We left Phoenix behind and I almost relaxed.

“Okay,” I said. “Now you talk.”

She sighed. “I suppose I have to. How much do you know already?”

“Most of it. I knew most of it before they picked me up. They filled me in on the rest.”

I told her what I knew and she nodded. There wasn’t anything more. I had all the details.

“You,” I said. “You were ditching me, huh? That makes sense, I guess. But why did you stick around and save my neck? That part doesn’t make any sense at all.”

She took a breath. “I wasn’t ditching you.”

“Sure. You were waiting for me to join you in the wilds of Transylvania.”

“Ted—”

“I’m a big boy now,” I said. “You can give it to me straight now, Cindy. You don’t have to play games with me anymore. The truth is plenty.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Sure you are. You never told a lie in your life. Starting with the time you chopped down the cherry tree you’ve been a model of honesty. Sure.”

“Ted—”

“The truth is enough, Cindy. If you’d just—”

“Damn you!”

I looked at her. The damn you! line had almost sent the car off the road. She was steady now but her eyes were blazing and I could tell how mad she was.

“Listen to me,” she said. “Don’t interrupt and don’t play the little boy that’s been getting crapped on from all sides. Just shut up and listen to me.”

I shut up and listened to her.

“I wasn’t running out,” she said. “I knew what was happening the minute I saw you drive by with Lori. You and that perfumed panther.”

“De mortuis,” I said. “Speak well of the dead.”

“She’s dead?”

“Dead as silent movies.”

“You killed her?”

“Greaseball killed her. Then I shot Greaseball.”

“Greaseball? That must be Musso.” She described him and the description fit.

“I’m almost sorry Lori’s dead,” she said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “But you didn’t have to hop in with her. You didn’t have to be so hot to get next to her.”

“That wasn’t it,” I lied. “She had a gun on me.”

“Crap.” The word was an explosion. “I saw what you were doing to her in the car. I saw your hands on her.”

I looked ashamed.

“So there you were,” she said. “You and Lori. And I knew that any minute the whole batch of you were going to pour through the door. What in hell was I supposed to do, Ted? Wait for you? Wait for Baron to beat me to death? Is that what you wanted me to do?”

Strangely enough, I had nothing to say. This sort of changed things. She hadn’t been taking a powder on me. I had been two-timing her, and she had every right in the world to be sore.

“I took the bag and left,” she said. “I sat in the diner across the street and waited for them to come back. They went upstairs and I got in the car. God knows I shouldn’t have waited for you. I should have left then and there and to hell with you. But I waited.”

“And saved my life.”

“And saved your life. You saved mine once and now we’re even. You can leave now if you want. It’s been fun, Ted. I like being around you. Maybe I’ll drop you a postcard once in a while.”

“If you’re still alive.”

She stared at me.

“Where do you go from here?” I wanted to know. “Going to play the same game? Hide and tip them and run when they catch up with you?”

“Probably.”

“You’ll run forever,” I said. “Or they’ll catch you and kill you. Doesn’t sound so brilliant to me. Maybe I’m just a dull-witted type, but there has to be an easier way to make a living.”

“You got a better way?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe I should throw the money away,” she said. “Maybe I should toss it out of the car and to hell with it. A hundred grand. You want me to throw it away, Ted?”

A few hours back I would have answered yes to that. But that was before a lot of things, before Lori died in my arms and before I put a bullet in Musso’s throat. Before Baron hit me and before I decided that someday, somehow, I was going to kill him.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want you to throw it away.”

“Then what?”

I thought about it. I had an idea, a good idea. Maybe.

“Later,” I said to her. “Later, when we have more time to talk.”

“We? You’re still coming along for the ride?”

“I’m still coming,” I said. “Later.”

“Tell me more, Ted.”

I shook my head. “Two questions first. How many more in the mob?”

“Bunkie Craig, the one you put in the hospital. And Casper.”

“Who’s Casper?”

“A snake,” she said. “A weak little man with cold eyes. I never liked him.”

There wasn’t anybody in the mob worth liking. “Where’s Casper?”

“At the hangout.”

“And where’s that?”

“San Francisco. Why, Ted?”

“Later,” I told her. “When there’s time for it. You know how to get there?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Later,” I said again. “First there’s something else we have to get out of the way. See that motel?”

She nodded.

“Pull over,” I said. “Lock the schlock in the trunk. And come with me. We’re going to make love.”

She pulled over and locked the schlock in the trunk and followed me into the office.

It was life again, living again, seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling and touching again.

It was the world.

It had been good with her before. But now it was like nothing before, like nothing ever. Now she was hiding nothing, concealing nothing, holding nothing back from me. Now she was mine and I was hers, and we were together now and forever, and it was very good.