Lightning

"I thought the house in Palm Springs would be ideal," Laura said. "You've told me it's fairly secluded."

"It's on a large property with lots of trees, and there're other show-biz people on that block, all of 'em busy, so they don't tend to drop over for a cup of coffee. No one'll disturb you there."

"All right," Laura said, "there's just a few other things. We need changes of clothes, comfortable shoes, some basic necessities. I've made a list, sizes and everything. And, of course, when this is all over, I'll pay you back the cash you gave me and whatever you spend on the computer and these other things."

"Damn right you will, Shane. And forty percent interest. Per week. Compounded hourly. Plus your child. Your child will be mine."

Chris laughed. "My Aunt Rumpelstiltskin."

"You won't make smart remarks when you're my child, Christopher Robin. Or at least you'll call me Mother Rumpelstiltskin, Sir."

"Mother Rumpelstiltskin, Sir!" Chris said, and saluted her.

At eight-thirty Thelma prepared to leave with the shopping list that Laura had composed and the information about the computer. "I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, as soon as I can," she said, giving Laura and then Chris one last hug. "You'll really be safe here, Shane?"

"I think we will. If they'd discovered we were staying here, they would've shown up sooner."

Stefan said, "Remember, Thelma, they're time travelers; once they discover where we've been hiding, they could just jaunt forward to the moment when we first arrived here. In fact they could've been waiting for us when we pulled into the motel on Wednesday. The fact that we've stayed here so long unmolested is almost proof there'll never be public knowledge that this was our hideout."

"My head spins," Thelma said. "And I thought reading a major studio's contract was complicated!"

She went out into the night and rain, still wearing the wig and the horn-rimmed glasses but carrying her stage teeth in her pocket, and she drove away in her gardener's truck.

Laura, Chris, and Stefan watched her from the big window, and Stefan said, "She's a special person."

"Very," Laura said. "I hope to God I haven't endangered her."

"Don't worry, Mom," Chris said. "Aunt Thelma's a tough broad. She always says so."

That night at nine o'clock, shortly after Thelma left, Laura drove to Fat Jack's place in Anaheim. The rain was not as heavy as it had been but fell in a steady drizzle. The macadamized pavement glistened silver-black, and gutters still overflowed with water that looked like oil in the queer light of the sodium-vapor streetlamps. Fog had crept in, too, not on little cat feet but slithering like a snake on its belly.

She had been loath to leave Stefan at the motel. But it was not wise for him to spend much time in the chilly, rainy January night in his debilitated condition. Besides, he could do nothing to help her.

Though Stefan remained behind, Chris accompanied Laura, for she would not be separated from him for the time it would take to cut a deal for the weapons. The boy had gone with her when she had first visited Fat Jack a year ago, when she'd bought the illegally modified Uzis, so the fat man would not be surprised to see him. Displeased, yes, since Fat Jack was no lover of children, but not surprised.

As she drove, Laura looked frequently in the rearview mirror, in the side mirrors, and took the measure of the other drivers around her with a diligence that gave new meaning to the term defensive driving. She could not afford to be broadsided by a dunderhead who was driving too fast for the road conditions. Police would put in an appearance at the scene of the crash, would routinely check out her license plates, and before they even arrested her, men carrying submachine guns would materialize and kill her and Chris.

She had left her own Uzi with Stefan, although he had protested. However, she was unable to abandon him with no means of self-defense. She still carried the.38 Chief's Special. And fifty spare rounds were distributed in the zippered pockets of her ski jacket.

Near Disneyland, when the neon-drenched phantasmagoria of Fat Jack's Pizza Party Palace appeared in the fog like the starship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind descending from clouds of its own making, Laura was relieved. She pulled into the crowded parking lot and switched off the engine. The windshield wipers stopped thumping, and rain washed down the glass in rippling sheets. Orange, red, blue, yellow, green, white, purple, and pink reflections of neon glimmered in that flowing film of water, so Laura felt curiously as if she were inside one of those old-fashioned, gaudy jukeboxes from the 1950s.

Chris said, "Fat Jack's put up more neon since we were here."

"I think you're right," Laura said.