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They repacked everything, ordered pizza from one of the food court vendors, and then Kyna said she wanted to take a nap and asked Cyrus to drive her back to the hotel. |
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"Don't be mad, Russ. I just need some time to myself. Why don't you take in a ball game or something? I'll be okay in a couple of hours." |
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"I'm not crazy about leaving you alone," he replied. |
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"I'll be fine. I'll put a chair in front of the door." |
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As soon as they returned to the room, Cyrus unzipped the top inside compartment of his suitcase and extracted a small leather gun case. |
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"Here." He held out a nickel-plated automatic. "It's a three-eighty. Small, but it'll stop anything that can be stopped with a bullet." |
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A few minutes later Cyrus strolled up to the front desk with his running clothes tucked under his arm and asked directions to the nearest park or ball field. He followed the clerk's hand-drawn map to Jefferson Park Golf Course near the Beacon Hill reservoir. It was nearly five-thirty when he arrived. To the west, the bottom half of a blood-red sun was sandwiched between masses of charcoal-gray clouds and the steel-gray ocean, and the wind whistling in the car window was as cold and clammy as a three-day-old corpse. He stopped at the end of the parking lot and by the time he had changed into his running outfit the last car was just heading out to the nineteenth hole. He got out to look around and get his bearings. The wind made him decide to keep his warm-up jacket on, and after everything that had happened, he decided to keep the shoulder holster on too. |
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"This has got to be a first." |
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After locking the Lincoln, he took a few moments to stretch his legs, squatting and thenone at a timepulling his feet up tight into his buttocks. When he was good and loose, Cyrus started around the reservoir, taking his time and letting the sweat come when it was good and ready. The gun slowed him a bit. He had to keep his left elbow tucked in to protect his ribs, but after one lapabout six tenths of a milehe was |
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