‘Nothing but ice.’
Dylan said, ‘He’s fixated on this ice thing.’
‘Get him off it.’
‘Nothing but ice,’ said Shepherd. ‘Where’s all the ice?’
‘You know Shep by now. There’s no getting him off it until he wants to get off. The thing keeps… ricocheting around in his head. And this seems worse than usual.’
‘Sweetie,’ she said, her gaze riveted on the windows, ‘we have to fold. We can get you some ice after we fold.’
‘Where’s all the ice?’
Dylan put a hand under his brother’s tucked chin, raised his head. ‘Shep, this is crucial now. You understand crucial? I know you do, buddy. It’s crucial that we fold out of here.’
‘Where’s all the ice?’
Glancing at Shepherd, she saw that he refused to relate to his brother. Behind his closed lids, his eyes moved ceaselessly.
When Jilly returned her attention to the backyard, a man knelt on one knee at the northwest corner of the garage. He sheltered in shadows. She almost didn’t spot him, but she was sure he hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Another man ran in a crouch from the cover of the meadow to the southwest corner of the garage.
‘They’re here,’ she told Dylan.
Neither of these men wore desert-resort pastels, but they were of a type with the faux golfers in Arizona. They were big, they were purposeful, and they weren’t going door to door to preach salvation through Jesus.
‘Where’s all the ice?’
As far as Jilly was concerned, the scariest thing about them was the headset that each man wore. Not just earpieces but also extension arms that placed penny-size microphones at their mouths. This high degree of coordination argued that the assault force had to be larger than two men, and further suggested that these weren’t just your ordinary knee-breaking, contract-kill thugs, but thugs with a keen sense of organization.
‘Where’s all the ice?’
The second man had covered the ground between meadow and garage. He crouched at the southwest corner, half concealed by a shrub.
She expected them to come well armed, so their guns were only the second scariest thing about them. Big weapons. Sort of futuristic looking. Probably what were called assault rifles. She didn’t know much about firearms, didn’t need to know much to be a comedian, even in front of the most unruly audience, but she figured that these guns were capable of firing a gazillion rounds before they needed to be reloaded.
‘Where’s all the ice?’
She and Dylan had to buy time until Shepherd could be persuaded that the way to get cake and ice would be to fold the three of them someplace that offered both.
‘Get away from the windows,’ Jilly warned, retreating from those that faced the backyard. ‘Windows are… windows are death.’
‘Every room has windows,’ Dylan worried. ‘Lots of windows.’
‘Basement?’
‘Isn’t one. California. Slab construction.’
Shep asked, ‘Where’s all the ice?’
Jilly said, ‘They know we’re here.’
‘How could they know? We didn’t come in from outside.’
‘Maybe a listening device, planted in the house earlier,’ she suggested. ‘Or they spotted us with binoculars through the windows.’
‘They sent Vonetta home,’ he realized.
‘Let’s hope that’s all they did to her.’
‘Where’s all the ice?’
The thought of harm having come to his housekeeper cast an ashen pallor over Dylan’s face as the recognition of his own mortal danger had not. ‘But we only folded out of Holbrook half an hour ago.’
‘So?’
‘We must have surprised the hell out of the guy in the motel room, the one who saw us go.’
‘He probably needed clean underwear,’ she agreed.
‘So how could they have even figured out what folding was in just half an hour, let alone alerted people here in California?’
‘These guys didn’t come here on an alert sent out half an hour ago. They staked out this house when they didn’t know where we were, before the Arizona goons confirmed we were in Holbrook, hours before they went into the motel after us.’
‘So they connected you to the Coupe DeVille and me to you last night, pretty quick,’ Dylan said. ‘We’ve always been just a few hours ahead of them.’