“I love that blue Denali, Angel.”

He smiles with pride. “It’s better not to look.”

Outside the wind whips and the stars glimmer. And we come to something that’s included in the price for the Mustang. It’s something to get me home, in this case a nondescript white Nissan Sentra. Angel has done a strip-and-run on this car. Here’s how it works: one of Angel’s guys stole it six months ago, stripped it for parts, then ditched what was left of it. The cops recovered the frame, canceled the theft record, and sold it at an auction. Of course the guy who originally stole it is the one who buys it. Back here at Angel’s they put the parts back on the “clean” frame and now they have a car no longer listed as stolen. That’s low-end, pay-the-rent car theft, but everybody needs a simple clean ride that won’t draw attention and won’t come up hot on the DMV check.

“Think about those diamonds,” I say.

“I am thinking about them already.”

“I love you, Angel.”

“As I love you, Suzanne.”

I kiss him on the cheek, and Angel gives me the keys and sends me home safe and secure in my little Sentra, which has a full tank of gas, gets twenty-six miles per gallon and has a paper grocery bag containing fourteen thousand dollars in hundreds and fifties in the trunk.

The eight hundred in the KFC bag is right next to it, weighted down with two rolls of quarters.

It’s payday, man, and I’m still on summer vacation.

I leave my booty and work tools in the room safe at the Marriott, except for Cañonita, of course, which I put in my satchel. I shower and trade the loose work clothes for tight jeans and a blue silk tank, and the boots for heels, just in case handsome Hood has ditched his night patrol shift and is waiting around to make sure I’m okay.

At twelve-thirty I pull into the crowded Residence Inn self-park, find a space and park.

An old black Lincoln pulls up behind me at an angle, headlights on high beam. The thought races through my mind that I’m about to die.

I slam the Sentra into reverse and floor it. The car jumps backward about a foot before crashing into the Lincoln’s formidable front end. While my front tires scream and smoke, I know that the Sentra doesn’t have the strength to budge the Lincoln.

There are cars on either side of me and a hedge of oleander in front. In front of the oleander is a concrete tire block and behind it is a chain-link fence. I throw the car into drive and floor it straight ahead over the block. I aim the Sentra between the shrubs and into the fence. I hear the rip of metal on metal, and I see the right headlight burst in a bright shower of safety-glass shards, and I feel the awful stretch of the chain-link fence as it slows the Sentra almost to a stop. It’s like getting stuck in a spider’s web. Then I feel the fence weaken and see it collapse over the front of the Sentra, and suddenly I’m accelerating and the uprooted metal fence posts are shooting sparks as I drag them along each side of my car. Then I’m under the fence and past it and in the rearview mirror I see the fence posts skidding and the chain link bouncing to a stop, and I am thinking, This is a miracle, but the big black Lincoln suddenly barrels through the mess toward me. Willpower is no match for horsepower.

I gun it out of the parking lot and onto Hawthorne Boulevard before I realize I’m running on a blown front tire. At fifty miles an hour the Sentra is shimmying so hard I can barely hold the wheel, then it zigs hard right and all I can do is follow onto the first side street, which leads to another side street, then another, and it’s all tract homes and driveways and streetlights and Father in Heaven I never thought Allison Murrieta would die in the suburbs.

I pull up curbside, get Cañonita and sling the satchel over my neck and one shoulder as I walk across a neat front yard. It’s dark and still. I throw my CFM heels in a rose bed. Then I jump a side fence and pray there’s no Dobermans or rotters or pit bulls waiting.

I’m across the dogless backyard in seconds. I can hear the Lincoln idling on the street near my Sentra. Then I’m over the back fence and across the adjacent backyard to another side fence and fast over that one, too, and dogs are barking now and some of them sound real close but I’m on the sidewalk, one street over from where Lupercio is maybe still parked and scratching his flat-top and figuring what to do. Hustling across the front yard, I can see that Lupercio’s got a fair way to go to bring that Lincoln around to me. It’s a long street, families sleeping, alarm clocks set. And as soon as I hear or see an approaching car, I’ll cut back through more yards the same way I got here. Then I’ll make it back to the boulevard, where the people are. My heart is pounding painfully hard as I ease into my runner’s pace, get the satchel balanced evenly and tell myself that I might have to run until the sun comes up in order to make it through this night alive.

I look behind me and see no one.

God bless this long Torrance street. And the next one, which takes me back toward Hawthorne, which is where I need to be. I finally hit my rhythm-my heartbeat and my breathing mesh-and I stretch out my stride a little more and remember what a pleasure it is to run barefoot down a sidewalk on a summer night.

I look behind me and see Lupercio.

Not in his Lincoln, but running after me. His short legs work like pistons and his plaid shirt is tucked in and the machete in his right hand flashes in the streetlights.

He’s gaining.

I cut across a front yard, over a fence, through a backyard, over a fence into another backyard, then leap another side fence and find myself one full street closer to where I started.

When I turn I see Lupercio advancing through the shadows, as if he’s matched my every footstep with two of his own.

The new street is older and not as generously lit as the first two. The trees are larger and the sidewalk is narrower and I can hear the tap of Lupercio’s boots behind me. I stretch out my stride again, get my knees up higher, eating up longer and longer bites of ground, but I can tell without looking back that he’s closing in. I pass a living room lit behind the blinds, a “Security Solutions” sign poked in the middle of a lawn, a trike on a walkway leading to a front door.

I run harder.

And harder.

I don’t need to look back. The boots are hitting faster than my bare feet and this is the time to live or die.

I stop and turn. I point Cañonita.

Lupercio stops, too. He’s under a streetlight, fifteen feet away. He angles quickly for the light pole and I fire.

There’s an ear-splitting boom and a loud twang and sparks jump off the streetlight stanchion. I’ve missed him by five feet. All I can think to do is turn and run again. I’ve got one shot left.

So I’m across another front yard and over a side fence but my tank top catches on the top as I go over. The blouse is half ripped off and half hung up. I can hear Lupercio charging as I get the material in one fist and yank it free, but by then he’s half over the fence himself, above me, and I point Cañonita at him, but there’s this terrible blur coming at me from above his head and instead of pulling the trigger I pull the gun away just as the top of the fence splits and the machete blade lodges deep and true in the wood.

I’m gone.

I hear him cursing, and the sharp squeak of steel caught in lumber. I take the next two fences vault style, with Cañonita in my mouth and both hands braced on the fence tops and my arms burning as they push me up and over.

I tumble onto the wet grass of a front yard and I can see the boulevard just a hundred yards away now and I roll and stand and run, digging down for everything I’ve got. I’m drenched in sweat. Running to stay in shape is different than running to stay alive.