He paused in the bathroom to open the medicine cabinet. It was funny about medicine cabinets-all the stuff in them, medicines and cosmetics he had never seen before. He took a bottle of Jade East from the shelf and studied the label going into the bedroom.

Billy Ruiz looked at him, still with wide-open eyes. “What are you doing?” Ryan was rubbing the after-shave lotion over his jaw.

One of Ryan’s fingers, upright, moved to his mouth and he stood still. He waited, and then began rescrewing the cap gently and dropped the bottle to the bed. There was a sound from the stairs. Steps now in the hall. The doorknob turned.

Ryan, on the far side of the bed from the door, saw the doorknob and Ruiz’s expression at the same time. Get to him, Ryan thought. Get a hand on him. He moved quietly to Ruiz’s side at the foot of the bed and touched his arm, held it.

The knob turned again, back and forth; the knob was jiggled, pushed, and pulled.

“Hey, who’s in there?” A pause. “Come on, let me in.”

Ryan waited. He said, “Just a minute,” and moved to the closet and began going through the sweaters and sport coats and pants hanging inside. He found three billfolds and put them in the beer case.

“What’re you doing? I got to go to the bathroom.”

“Use the other one.”

“Hey, who is it?”

“Look, we’ll… get out if you’ll go away.”

“Who’s we?”

Silence. Let it sink in, Ryan thought. He wants to say something, but now he’s not sure.

Ryan waited until he heard steps in the hall and a door close-the other bathroom. Now, Ryan thought, he’ll open it again quietly, the son of a bitch, and wait to see who comes out. How about a guy like that?

“Time to go,” Ryan said. He moved to the back window that looked out on the porch, unfastened the screen, and motioned Ruiz to get the beer case. They climbed out. Ryan went down on his stomach at the edge of the roof and listened, not moving. After this he did not hesitate again; he rolled over the edge holding the gutter and dropped. Billy Ruiz lowered the beer case to him and followed and they went into the brush and trees at the side of the house, pointing now toward the private drive and Pizarro’s truck. They walked, they didn’t hurry; they walked because Ryan said that’s the way it was done.