“It’s weird that they’d be out, wandering around town, with everybody and his brother looking for them, and with those videos on television,” Tremanty said.
“They’re up to something,” Bob said.
Rae: “Yes.”
After a moment, Lucas said, “It’s a snake hunt now. There’s nothing for us. Unless something changes.”
“What’re you saying?” Tremanty asked.
“I’m saying we go back to the hotel and bag out,” Lucas said. “Play some blackjack. Bob could pick up a little weed at one of the stores on the Strip, get mellow. Rae... I don’t know what Raemight do. Read an art book. We can take the handset to stay in touch with what’s going on here.”
Rae: “Really?”
“Ah, fuck it,” Tremanty said. He looked around the parking lot, the cop cars stacked up around them. “You’re right. We’re out of it.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Cox, Cole, and Deese left the house a few minutes before eight. Cox wasn’t talking much, after an argument with Deese. Deese, she’d said to his face, was dragging all of them down. “All of my life, I haven’t done nothing really bad, and you’re dragging me down. The cops are looking for me. And maybe for murder. Why’d you have to go and shoot all those people?”
Deese had smiled at her, his yellow teeth dull under the overhead LED lights. He was eating Cheetos, his lips orange with the cheese. “You’re in it now, bitch,” he said. “You’re a genuine outlaw. They gonna put you on a table and stick a needle into your arm, unless you disappear.”
Cox had started to cry, and Cole said, “Stop that. We’ll figure this out. Who’s gonna do what tonight?”
Deese: “What’s there to figure out? We almost did it already.”
Cole said, “Man, I’m doing my best to get you out of this mess.Marion and I ran our LA ring for three years and never had a speck of trouble until you showed up. But we’re doing a raid tonight, and that’s what I do best. We got to get organized—the chains and padlocks. Gotta look at some maps and satellite pictures. There’s lots of shit to do.”
—
THEY GOTthe backpacks ready, and the guns and chains and padlocks and masks, and looked at satellite pictures. Cox turned on the TV and found a news station. All the talk was about the shootings at the mall, with some memories of the Las Vegas music festival massacre in 2017, which killed fifty-eight people and left more than eight hundred injured.
“Shit, we’re small-timers,” Deese said.
They ate mac-and-cheese microwave dinners, hauled their gear out to the Cadillac, and took off. Cox found another news station. They were halfway to Tina’s Wayside when the woman newscaster said, “We’re getting word of a SWAT team raid believed connected to the shootings at the Show Boat mall. Our reporter, Jennette English, is with Metro police on Windmill Lane.”
Cox flinched. “Oh my God, they got the house.”
Deese: “What?”
“That’s where we were,” she said. “We were on the first street off Windmill Lane. We can’t go back. They’ve got all our clothes, everything. My shoes.”
Cole: “Jesus, we got lucky. They couldn’t have come in more than a few minutes after we left.”
“Fuckin’ cameras, I bet,” Deese growled. “When I was inLondon, they could track people all over town, step by step, with their cameras. Bet they’ve got them here, too.”
“What do we do?” Cox asked.
“If they were tracking us, they know the cars,” Cole said. “This car. And the truck. They’ll be checking everything that looks like us. We need to get out of sight right quick.”
Cox started to cry again. “I want to go home.”
“We really need to get out of sight,” Cole said.
“It’s a Cadillac,” Cox wailed. “You can’t park a Cadillac in the woods without somebody looking at it.”
“No, but you can hide it... Turn left at the next light.”
