Watchers

persuade someone to allow him to use an unmonitored phone.
    Just Lem, Cliff, and Hank were left to comb through the park and adjoining beach in search of the attorney. He knew he had too few men for the job, but these ten—plus Olbier and Jones at the telephone company—were the only people he had in town. He could see no point ordering in more agents from the Los Angeles office; by the time they arrived, Dilworth would either have been found and stopped—or would have succeeded in calling the Cornells.
     
     
    The roofless all-terrain vehicle was equipped with a roll bar. It had two bucket seats, behind which was a four-foot-long cargo area that could accommodate additional passengers or a considerable amount of gear.
    Garrison was flat on his stomach on the floor of the cargo hold, under a blanket. Two teenage boys were in the bucket seats, and two more were in the cargo hold on top of Garrison, sprawled as if they were sitting on nothing more than a pile of blankets. They were trying to keep the worst of their weight off Garrison, but he still felt half-crushed.
    The engine sounded like angry wasps: a high, hard buzzing. It deafened Garrison because his right ear was flat against the cargo bed, which transmitted and amplified every vibration.
    Fortunately, the soft beach provided a relatively smooth ride.
    The vehicle stopped accelerating, slowed, and the engine noise dropped dramatically.
    “Shit,” one of the boys whispered to Garrison, “there’s a guy ahead with a flashlight, flagging us down.”
    They drew to a halt, and over the whispery idling of the engine, Garrison heard a man say, “Where you boys headed?”
    “Up the beach.”
    “That’s private property up there. You have any right up there?”
    “It’s where we live,” Tommy, the driver, responded.
    “Is that so?”
    “Don’t we look like a bunch of spoiled rich kids?” one of them asked, playing wiseass.
    “What you been up to?” the man asked suspiciously.
    “Beach cruisin’, hangin’ out. But it got too cold.”
    “You boys been drinking?”
    You dolt, Garrison thought as he listened to the interrogator. These are teenagers you’re talking to, poor creatures whose hormonal imbalances have thrown them into rebellion against all authority for the next couple of years. I have their sympathy because I’m in flight from the cops, and they’ll take my side without even knowing what I’ve done. If you want their cooperation, you’ll never get it by bullying them.
    “Drinking? Hell no,” another boy said. “Check the cooler in back if you want. Nothing in it but Dr. Pepper.”
    Garrison, who was pressed up against the ice chest, hoped to God the man would not come around to the back of the vehicle and have a look. If the guy got that close he would almost surely see there was something vaguely human about the shape under the blanket on which the boys were sitting.
    “Dr. Pepper, huh? What kind of beer was in there before you drank it all?”
    “Hey, man,” Tommy said. “Why’re you hassling us? Are you a cop or what?”
    “Yeah, in fact, I am.”
    “Where’s your uniform?” one of the boys asked.
    “Undercover. Listen, I’m disposed to let you kids go on, not check your breath for liquor or anything. But I have to know—did you see an old white-haired guy on the beach tonight?”
    “Who cares about old guys?” one of the boys asked. “We were looking for women.”
    “You’d have noticed this old character if you’d seen him. He’d most likely have been wearing swim trunks.”
    “Tonight?” Tommy said. “It’s almost December, man. You feel that wind?”
    “Maybe he was wearing something else.”
    “Didn’t see him,” Tommy said. “No old guy with white hair. Any you guys see him?”
    The other three said they had not seen any old fart fitting the description they had been given, and then they were allowed to drive on, north from the public beach, into a residential area of seaside homes and private beaches.
    When they had rounded a low hill and were out of sight of the man who had stopped them, they pulled the blanket off Garrison, and he sat up with considerable relief.
    Tommy dropped the other three boys off at their houses and took Garrison home with him because his parents were out for the evening. He lived in a house that looked like a ship with multiple decks, slung over a bluff, all glass and angles.
    Following Tommy into the foyer, Garrison caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He