Thirteen Diamonds

said to Carol. “What is it?”
    “Seven, three, five, one,” I said. All the odd prime digits, starting with lucky seven and going down, up, down.”
    “I'm glad I told you,” Carol said, jabbing me with her gun. “When I forget it in the future I'll ask you.”
    “Mark,” I said, as he turned to go to the Mercedes, “remember our nim game? After your first move I knew it wouldn't go .”
    “No tricks!” Carol said, poking me with the gun again.
    Mark looked at us for another moment. I stared back at him, trying to give him a telepathic message. Then he got into the Mercedes, started it and turned it around, using the cleared path. He left it running, with the driver-side door open.
    Sandra simultaneously moved her car well past the Mercedes toward Albert's house, taking Winston out of the line of fire, and then cautiously walked back toward us. I wished she had kept going.
    Carol told Sandra to throw her keys into the Mercedes and then stand away from the car with Mark. Then, pointing the gun at my back, she made me limp in front of her up to the Mercedes. I glanced at Mark; he winked at me.
    Carol forced me to get in the passenger side, which was closest to us. She locked and shut the door and raced around to the driver side before I could escape, but I managed to unlock the door and lower the electronic window a few inches.
    Carol shut her door and tried to put the car into gear. As I anticipated, she couldn't get it out of Park. She dropped the gun into her lap so she could yank on the gearshift with both hands. Moving faster than I had in quite a while, I reached past her arms and snatched the gun. She tried to grab it back; she had her hand on it for an instant but with a last burst of strength I pulled it away and threw it out the window.
    Mark immediately ran to the car and opened my door. He pulled me out and jumped in to subdue Carol, but she climbed out her side and began to run toward the main road. Sandra gave chase; she ran every day so it was no contest. She rapidly closed the gap between them and brought Carol down with as fine a tackle as I've ever seen.
    Mark was right behind her. He took over guarding Carol so Sandra could run to her car and collect Winston. Her motherly instincts came out as she carried him back to us, hugging him and whispering to him, but keeping his head pointed away from Joe's body. Winston babbled, happy to be out in the fresh air, but when he saw my bloody face he pointed at it and said, “Uh oh.”

CHAPTER 30
     
    “You owe us some explanations, Lil,” Tess said. She had collapsed into one of my chairs, having spent the day helping me move back into my apartment at Silver Acres. It was Saturday, exactly one week after I had moved out.  The last two days I had talked to the police, rested and recuperated from my wounds.
    My descendants were there, too, all three generations of them, plus Mark. We were drinking beer or coffee, according to personal preference. Winston practiced climbing onto his favorite chair. King walked from one person to another, putting her head in laps and asking to be petted.
    “For example,” Sandra said, “how did you manage to communicate the locking code for the Mercedes to Mark. When I ask him he says it's a military secret.”
    “That's easy,” I said. “Remember the game of nim Mark and I played in the bar the night we met?”
    “What's nim?” Albert and Tess asked together.
    “I'll tell you later,” I said. “But for Sandra's edification, the first move Mark made in that game was to remove three toothpicks from the five-row, leaving 7-2-3-1. That is the combination that locks the transmission in Carol's Mercedes for 30 minutes to prevent theft.
    “How on earth did you both remember the details of that game?” Sandra asked.
    Mark and I grinned at each other. “Great minds think like,” he said.
    “Maybe you'd rather be dating Gogi than me,” Sandra aid, flipping her blond hair.
    “If only I were 50 years younger,” I said.
    Tess turned to Sandra. “And why did you and Mark turn up at precisely the right moment?”
    “I was at Sandy's place sponging a meal,” Mark said, “when my beeper started going off, over and over again, always with the same number. I called the number, but I got an out-of-service message.”
    “It was Gogi's former number here,” Sandra said. “We figured she was trying to tell us something...”
    “We called Albert to see if she was with him,” Mark continued, “and he said she