"Yeah, I will."
"Well, I don't know your situation, but if you were going to go, you want to hook up there?"
"Oh, Cesar, that'd be fun."
Hooking up . . .
Nowadays that was as good as a formal invitation.
Gutierrez stretched. He said he wanted to get on the road. Then he added he'd enjoyed meeting her and, without hesitating, gave her the holy trinity of phone numbers: work, home and mobile. He picked up his briefcase and they started for the door together. She noticed, though, that he was pausing, his eyes, through dark-framed glasses, examining the lobby. He frowned again, brushing uneasily at his moustache.
"Something wrong?"
"I think it's that guy," he whispered. "The one I saw before. There, you see him? He was here, in the hotel. Looking our way."
The lobby was filled with tropical plants. She had a vague image of someone turning and walking out of the door.
"Daniel Pell?"
"It couldn't be. It's stupid. . . . Just, you know, the power of suggestion or something."
They walked to the door, stopped. Gutierrez looked out. "He's gone."
"Think we should tell somebody at the desk?"
"I'll give the police a call. I'm probably wrong but what can it hurt?" He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He spoke for a few minutes, then disconnected. "They said they'd send somebody to check it out. Didn't sound real enthusiastic. Of course, they're probably getting a hundred calls an hour. I can walk you to your car, if you want."
"Wouldn't mind that." She wasn't so much worried about the escapee; she just liked the idea of spending more time with Gutierrez.
They walked along the main street in downtown Alvarado. Now it was the home of restaurants, tourist shops and coffeehouses--a lot different from the Wild West avenue it was a hundred years ago, when soldiers and Cannery Row workers drank, hung out in the brothels and occasionally shot it out in the middle of the street.
As Gutierrez and Susan walked along, their conversation was subdued and they both looked around them. She realized the streets were unusually deserted. Was that because of the escape? Now she began to feel une
asy.
Her office was next to a construction site a block from Alvarado. There were piles of building materials here; if Pell had come this way, she reflected, he could easily be hiding behind them, waiting. She slowed.
"That's your car?" Gutierrez asked.
She nodded.
"Something wrong?"
Susan gave a grimace and an embarrassed laugh. She told him she was worried about Pell hiding in the building supplies.
He smiled. "Even if he was here he wouldn't attack two of us together. Come on."
"Cesar, wait," she said, reaching into her purse. She handed him a small, red cylinder. "Here."
"What's this?"
"Pepper spray. Just in case."
"I think we'll be okay. But how does it work?" Then he laughed. "Don't want to spray myself."
"All you have to do is point it and push there. It's ready to go."
They continued to the car and by the time they got there, Susan was feeling foolish. No crazed killers were lurking behind the piles of bricks. She wondered if her skittishness had lost her points in the potential date department. She didn't think so. Gutierrez seemed to enjoy the role of gallant gentleman.