“That’s him,” he said to his driver. “Run him down.”
Much too late, Runyan heard the almost silent rush of the limo coming at him. Even as he hurled himself desperately to the side, he knew he would be dead before he hit the concrete.
That was when Louise, seat-belted in and with the accelerator floored, rammed Grace’s car into the rear fender of the limo. The impact knocked it sideways just enough so its nose missed Runyan by the necessary fraction as he landed, tucked, rolled, and came up running.
Not away. At. He was aware with an edge of his consciousness that Louise’s car, slewed around by the impact, had spun broadside into a power pole on the other side of the still-deserted street. No fire, no explosion, and she was trying to open her sprung door: probably unhurt. She had not only saved his life; she had bought him just enough time.
Since the windshield was bullet-proof glass, the bodyguard, a thick-set black gorilla with wary eyes, already had his door open and his head and arm stuck out to fire at Runyan. But Runyan was high in the air; a piston-drive snap of both legs kicked the door shut again.
The bodyguard slumped down halfway out of the car, his skull creased on one side by the edge of the door, on the other by the edge of the frame. Brother Blood, partway out of the back seat, looked up into the black eye of his bodyguard’s gun in Runyan’s hand. He threw his arms up and wide; Brother Blood was a survivor too. Runyan gestured him away from the car and up against the wall of his building with movements of the heavy-caliber automatic.
“I won’t forget this,” he said in a soft deadly voice.
“Don’t,” said Runyan. He swung the gun toward the chauffeur, who was trying to fit himself under the dash like a stereo.
“I... I just drive, sir,” the chauffeur said quickly.
Runyan gestured again. “Not any more. Not tonight.”
The chauffeur opened the door on his side and scuttled out on his hands and knees, then came erect and backed away into the center of the street, arms high, face gleaming with an earnest sweat of nonviolent intentions.
Louise had managed to kick open her car door. She ran across the street to the limo. She slid in under the steering wheel. Runyan heaved the unconscious bodyguard out of the way so he could get in beside her.
“I think we probably should leave,” he said.
Louise rammed it into reverse and gunned it backwards, bouncing off the curb into the street. The back wheel rubbed on the fender, but would turn. Runyan slammed his door as she put it into drive and shot ahead down the street. He tossed the guard’s .45 out into the gutter through the still-hanging-open back door, then slammed that, too.
“Thanks, darling, is sort of inadequate,” he said.
“All part of the service.” Laughter danced in her eyes; she was having the time of her life. “Burbank airport?”
“You got it.”
Louise suddenly sobered. “What are we going to do, baby? You’re as bad off as you were before. Taps has the bonds and you still have to find the cash somewhere to—”
“We have the bonds,” Runyan corrected her. He pulled up his sweater and took out the wad of securities. “I figured Taps for a double cross, so I kept them just in case.” He laughed. “I’ve learned something in the last eight years.”
It was well after dark when Louise drove across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. They had left Grace’s plane at the little country airfield, returned the Park Service jeep to the chain link fence behind the maintenance shed, and slept into the early afternoon before breaking camp and packing up their gear. On the way up, Runyan was delighted to catch a glimpse of Moyers’s car behind them on the freeway.
“This is the next tricky part,” he told her as they took the first skyway off-ramp after the bridge. “We have to stash the bonds without Moyers knowing anything about them. I think it’ll work because he’s relying on that beeper he planted on our car. Turn here.”
Louise swung the Toyota into First Street from Mission. It was an area of sandwich shops, a coin arcade, wholesale office furniture dealers. To their left crouched the dark mass of the Trans-Bay Terminal; it also housed the Trailways Bus Depot.
“Slow around the block twice,” said Runyan. “The second time, use the alley.”
He jumped out of the moving car, cut behind it ducking other vehicles, took a long running leap to the sidewalk. Before the startled Louise even lost sight of him in her rearview mirror, he was into the terminal.
Hidden from the street but able to see cars after they had passed, he waited just inside the door. Thirty seconds later, Moyers drove by. Runyan grinned to himself and turned away.
He crossed the nearly empty, echoing, low-roofed waiting room, past the lighted ticket windows to the bank of coin lockers flanking the Fremont Street entrance, chose one in which to stuff the thick sheaf of securities from under his sweater. Key in hand, he walked over to one of the phone booths and entered it.
Louise had gone out First Street to Folsom, turned left, at Fremont had turned left again. She kept checking the rearview mirror, but she saw no sign of Moyers. Was he back there? Or had he guessed Runyan’s strategy and stopped by the terminal to check out the waiting room?
She waited for a rattling almost-empty electric trolley to leave the terminal, then turned into Mission, at First turned again to start her second round. A motorcyclist paced her for half a block, ogling her and darting his tongue in and out between bearded lips.
What if Runyan wasn’t...
He would be there, dammit.
She turned into Howard instead of going down to Mission again. Buses used this street for picking up and dropping off passengers. As she slowed beside the bright wedge of light from the side door of the terminal, Runyan came flying out and dove head-first into the door she had reached across to fling open. As she goosed it away, Runyan looked back over his shoulder. Moyers had just turned into the far end of Howard.
Runyan turned back with a huge grin on his face. “Baby, we made it,” he said.
Chapter 28
Louise and Runyan burst into her hotel room together, trying to beat one another to the king-size bed. They landed crosswise on it side-by-side in a dead heat and kicked off their shoes. Runyan chuckled into the bedspread, while Louise tried to snap her fingers. They seemed unable to make a sound.
“So much for Moyers,” she said, trying again. Still no snap. They laughed as if this were inordinately funny.
Runyan, still chuckling, rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, his hands interlocked beneath his head.
She said, “We bent him to our nefarious purposes — except I don’t know what they are.” She looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “What’s our move — being reasonably young, devilishly attractive, and ridiculously wealthy?”
“We cash in the bearer bonds and give the money to Cardwell and his creep partners — thus becoming ridiculously unwealthy.”
Louise swung around at right angles, also onto her back, so she could rest her head on Runyan’s belly and stare at the ceiling as he was. “Two out of three ain’t bad.” She remembered a vivid fragment of childhood: slumber parties, lying like this with her head on the stomach of her best girlfriend as they exchanged their innermost secrets. “I think I almost like it.”
“Being unwealthy?”
“Not caring.” She rolled her head to look up past the heavy rounded muscles of his chest to the strong line of his throat and thrust of his chin. “I came into this thinking you were just as rotten a bastard as... as the guy I was doing it for. And feeling that I was no better than either of you.”