Lester called. ''Lucas: LaChaise, Martin and Darling just hit a credit union in

Kansas City. Not more than an hour ago-four twenty-five.''

''Kansas City?'' The news came like a punch, left him unsteady. ''Are they sure?''

''Yeah, they say there's no doubt. We're getting a videotape relayed through

TV3. The Kansas City cops gave it to everybody in sight.''

''How soon will you have the tape?''

''Ten or fifteen minutes, I guess. TV3's putting it on the air soon as they get it. We're gonna tape it off them.''

Lucas hung up and looked at Sherrill and Sloan: ''You ain't gonna believe it,'' he said.

THE ROBBERY WAS SMOOTH, PROFESSIONAL. MARTIN was in first with an AR-15. He was shouting the moment hecame through the door, leveling the rifle, pointing at people.

LaChaise pushed Sandy Darling through the door behind Martin, then vaulted up on the counter. There were only two customers in the place, and three people behind the counter. LaChaise looted the cash drawers, said something to one of the younger women, smacked her on the ass with the palm of his hand and crossed through the counter gate. The camera, taking in the whole office, showed Sandy

Darling pressed against the wall, her hands over her ears.

''They ain't no cherries,'' Del said. They were in homicide, fifteen guys and four women standing around a small TV.

''You've seen it before,'' Lucas said. ''It's the same goddamn robbery that we broke up, all over again.''

''Except for the grenade,'' Sherrill said.

As they were backing out the door, Martin gave a little speech. ''We want everybody into the manager's office, on the floor, behind the desk. We're gonna roll a hand grenade in here… now I don't want to scare anyone, 'cause they're nothing like you see in movies. There'll just be a little pop. You'll be fine if you're behind the desk…''

Martin held up what looked like a grenade, and the office staff and customers jammed into the manager's office, out of sight. Martin called, ''Here we go,'' and rolled the grenade into the room, and disappeared. The grenade turned out to be a hand-carved lump of green soap that didn't look too much like a grenade, when you looked at it close.

''No plates,'' Lucas grunted, watching. ''They didn't want anybody to run out and see the car and get the plates.''

''Darling didn't look too happy to be there. No gun, she looked scared, they had to push her in and out,'' Sloan said.

''They got eight grand,'' said somebody else.

''So he says to this chick,'' Lester began, and then corrected himself, ''… this woman, the teller, he says, 'You oughta make it to Acapulco sometime, honey.' ''

''Sounds like bullshit,'' said Del.

''I don't know,'' Lester said. ''He's the kind of guy who'd say something like that.'' He looked around the room: ''I wish we'd taken him here, goddamnit.''

LATE THAT NIGHT, SANDY SAT IN THE BACKSEAT, UNMOVING, wide awake, not quite believing it. The lights of Des Moines were fading in the rear window. They were headed back to Minneapolis, ahead of what the all-night stations were saying was a major storm coming up from the Southwest. Already blizzard conditions in

Nebraska.

They'd be in the Cities by dawn, back in the apartment. The whole thing had been a game, to loosen up the targets.

''A stroke of fuckin' genius,'' LaChaise said, pounding Martin on the back. ''I just wish we had someplace to spend the cash.''

LUCAS SAT AWAKE, TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT. IF LaChaise and Martin were on a suicide run-and it had appeared that way from the beginning-what had changed their minds? They couldn't believe that escape was as simple as running to

Mexico. The Mexicans would ship them back to the States as quickly as they were found; or kill them.

Maybe it was simpler than he was making it: maybe their nerve failed.

He got up, hands in his pockets, and stared out the window across his snow-covered lawn. In the distance, on the other side of the Mississippi, he could see Christmas lights red, green and white along somebody's roofline. A silent night.

And he was restless. He hadn't wanted Weather to come back to the house-one more night in the hotel, he'd said, just until we find their trail again-but she'd insisted. She wanted to sleep in her own bed. She was in it now, and sleeping soundly.

Lucas was sitting up with a pistol and a twelve-gauge Wingmaster pump. He looked at a clock: four in the morning.

He picked up a TV remote, pointed at a small TV in the corner of the room, and called up the aviation weather service. All day, the weather forecasters had been talking about a huge low-pressure system that was pinwheeling up from the southern Rockies. Snow had overrun all of the southwestern and south-central parts of the state, and now the weather radar showed it edging into the metro area.

If they were coming back, he thought-if this thing was no more than a shuck-and if they'd fallen behind the snow line, they might be stalled for a day. If they'd stayed ahead of it, they'd be coming into town about now.

Nobody thought they'd be coming back. The network TV people were getting out of town as fast as they could pack up and find space on an outgoing plane. Nobody wanted to be stuck out in flyover country the week before Christmas, not with a big storm coming.

The cops were the same way: going home, filing for overtime. Lucas called Kansas

City cops, and the Missouri and Kansas highway patrols every hour, looking for even the faintest sniff of LaChaise. Nobody had gotten one: they'd vanished.

Just as if they'd taken country roads east and north, instead of west and south, where the search was focused, Lucas thought. He looked out the window again, then selfconsciously went and closed the wooden blinds.

After killing the TV, he wandered through the dark house, moving by touch, listening, trailing the shotgun. He checked the security system, got a drink of water and went back to the living room where he dropped on a couch. In a few minutes, he eased into a fitful sleep, the. 45 in a belly holster, the shotgun on the coffee table.

They drove through southern Iowa in the crackling cold, millions of stars but no moon, following the red and yellow lights of the freighter trucks heading into

Des Moines, and after Des Moines, up toward Minneapolis-St. Paul. They stopped once at a gas station, the bare-faced LaChaise pumping the gas and paying a sleepy attendant, the hood of his parka covering his head, a scarf shrouding his neck.

''Colder'n a witch's left tit,'' the attendant said. He looked at a thermometer in the window. ''Six below. You want some Heat to put in the gas?''

''Yeah, that'd be good,'' LaChaise said. A compact television sat in a corner, turned to CNN. As the attendant was ringing up the sale, a security-camera videotape came up, replaying the Kansas City robbery.

''What's that shit?'' LaChaise asked.

The attendant glanced at the TV. ''Ah, it's them assholes that were up in the

Cities. They're making a run for Mexico.''

''Good,'' LaChaise said.

''Wisht I was going with them,'' the attendant said, and he counted out the change.

As they continued up I-35, the nighttime radio stations came and went, playing

Christmas music. Clouds began to move in, like dark arrows overhead; the stars winked out.

''Christmas, four days,'' Sandy said, sadness in her voice.

''Don't mean a fuckin' thing to me,'' LaChaise said. ''My old man drank up our

Christmases.''

''You must of had a few,'' Sandy said.

LaChaise sat silent for a moment, then said, ''Maybe a couple.'' He thought about his sister and her feetsie pajamas.