“Yeah, you gotta stay with Ralph.”
Cox looked at Cole, who looked at Ralph and said, “You touch her, I’ll beat you to death with a fuckin’ shovel. I ain’t joking.”
Ralph held up both hands. “She’s safe with me.”
“That’s the way it’s gonna be,” Deese said.
Cox and Cole went outside, and Cox said, “Gloria knows who we are. We’re really... I don’t know. Ralph is crazy as a bedbug.”
“Then keep your gun close.”
They went to the Lexus and retrieved the gun, keeping an eye on the trailer. “Like Marion said, start pulling the trigger, that’s all you gotta do, if Ralph comes after you. Easy as pie.”
“Easy as pie, but you said you never shot anybody.”
“Never had to,” Cole said. “But now we’re in a bad spot, Geenie.”
“Ah, jeez...” She took the gun and tucked it into her back waistband, under her blouse. “You gotta be careful, Cole. We’re going to somewhere warm.”
“Like hell?” He grinned.
“Panama, like you said.”
“I’ll be careful. When we get back up here, you slip me that gun,” Cole said. “If Deese is gonna pull something, that’s when it’ll be, when he feels safe.”
The door of the trailer popped open and Deese stepped out. Cole kissed Cox and said, “We oughta be back by noon. If we’re not back by, say, two o’clock, you get in the Lexus and head north, up to Reno. Dump the car and take a Greyhound back to LA. Like you never heard of us.”
“Ah, that’s not going to happen,” Deese said. He walked over to Ralph’s motorcycle and said, “Help me get it in the truck.”
“You’re sure it works?”
Deese paused, said, “One way to find out.”
He straddled the bike, fired it up, rode a hundred yards down the track and back, then killed the engine. “Good as the day it was made.”
He and Cole lifted it into the truck, put the tailgate up, and locked it. “Let’s go.”
Cole kissed Cox again and she gave him a squeeze and said, “See you,” and a minute later Deese and Cole were rattling down the track toward the highway.
—
THEY WEREin Las Vegas at seven-thirty, and Deese sent Cole into a McDonald’s for Cokes and a sack of Triple Breakfast Stacks Biscuits; they both ate two—in the truck, in the parking lot—and then Cole drove them to the drainage channel and the entrances to the tunnels, with Deese pointing the way.
“I’ll be hiding under that bridge when he throws the money in and then I’ll ride like a motherfucker right into those tunnels.”
“Where do they come out?”
“That’s the important part. If you’re not there, they’ll catch my ass and nobody gets no money. You gotta be there. That’s why you’re driving.”
Deese pointed the way again, the turns, until they got to a spot under the Ferris wheel that had a couple of parking places for security personnel and was directly above the exit from the tunnels. “Ralph says their cars are hardly ever here. As soon as Harrelson throws the money, I’ll yell into the phone and be here one minute later. One minute. You jump out of the truck with the money box, meet me down there.”
“There’s bars across the tunnels looks like a jail cell,” Cole said, peering into the drainage channel.
“They can be pushed open.”
“Yeah, but if it turns out they can’t be, if somebody locked them since Ralph was here, you’re fucked.”
Deese nodded. “Okay, you’re right... Pull in there.”
