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family.”
    â€œWe’ve heard reports that three or four of the kidnappers may have been shot during the rescue operation. Can you confirm that, sir?”
    â€œNo, I can’t. I think we’d just better wait and find out the truth from the people who are actually down there. You have to excuse me now. Bless you.”
    The bartender turned the radio down and beamed at everyone in the room. “Well now how about that, folks?”
    The fat actor lurched to the door. He looked around owlishly. “Hallelujah,” he muttered, and went.
    Conversations picked up again. The waitress plugged the jukebox back in. Bradleigh seemed annoyed: “Vasquez. I’m sick of hearing Vasquez, Vasquez, Vasquez. You’d think he was Emiliano Zapata. Fucking gunslinger. He’s found a way to commit legal murder and the press loves the son of a bitch. In a sane society he’d be locked up in a rubber room.”
    Bradleigh lit another cigarette and inhaled ferociously. “They say he gets the job done. Well the bastard that tried to murder Benson in Oklahoma—he almost got the job done too. Where’s the difference? Come on, let’s get out of here.” He signaled for the check.
    Mathieson said, “Where can I reach you?”
    â€œRight behind you. I’ll tag along in my car and hang around until we’ve got you packed and on the plane.”
    7
    Going up toward the top of the canyon drive he heard sirens somewhere nearby. There were always sirens in the valley; the sound carried up the gorges.
    He saw the blue Plymouth in the rearview mirror, Bradleigh’s left hand propping up the frame of the open window.
    By habit he had the car radio tuned to KGEB, the all-news station; a fraction of his attention absorbed the Stedman-Vasquez story and the hour’s catalog of disasters while he stopped and waited for a Datsun to back out of a driveway. He was starting to move again when his ear picked up the name Mathieson; he shot his hand to the radio knob to turn it up.
    â€œâ€¦ explosion evidently was caused by a powerful bomb that was thrown from a passing car. The bomb was hurled into the house through a front window, shattering the glass and exploding violently inside the living room. Jim Schott reported from the scene of the explosion a few minutes ago that police and rescue workers still are not certain whether the Mathieson residence was occupied at the time of the blast. Firemen and police are sifting the wreckage …”
    He was jammed up behind the lackadaisical Datsun with traffic flicking past in the opposite lane; he held the horn down and hooted the Datsun right off the road and went up to the crest ramming the gearshift around, swinging the Porsche fast through the bends, squealing. In the mirror Bradleigh’s Plymouth was lodged behind the Datsun, dwindling.
    At the top he squirted recklessly across the stop-sign intersection; down the turns on the north slope he rode the brake, teetering around the sharp curves, hunched forward over the wheel.
    He heard the grind of a siren starting up. One last bend and then he swerved through it, nearly banging nose to windshield as he tried to see ahead.
    Maddeningly his view was blocked by a great red fire truck that was beginning to pull away. He slewed toward the curb behind it.
    A cop ran forward, gesturing at him angrily. The lawn was aswarm with men in uniform. Three patrol cruisers were drawn up at haphazard angles, askew on the road. He saw the Gilfillans and Jan, standing in a rigid little knot like mannequins: Jan was pale, she had both fists clenched at her sides, she wasn’t looking at the man in the business suit who was talking to her with a notebook in his hand.
    â€œGet back in that car and move along out of here, buddy.”
    He was searching for Ronny; he still had his hand on the car door and he felt the Porsche begin to roll—he hadn’t pulled the brake. He dived back into the seat,