But there’s Arthur and the other two suppliers, tracking up in Arthur’s car, stuck in the traffic on the street. Jim says quickly, “There’s the rest of them in that car there! Quick, right there! Yeah!”

And he points. And Arthur sees him pointing.

Arthur ignores the policemen flagging him down and shifts to the fast track. This gets the cops’ attention, and two of them hustle off to their truck, parked behind Jim’s car. The third appears to be staying behind, and he’s looking into Jim’s car curiously.

Jim says, “There’s the others again, Officer!” and points at the east doors of the mall. While the policeman peers in that direction Jim yanks open his car’s door, leaps in and jams the accelerator to the floor. The car jerks away over the right track, leaving the policeman shouting behind him.

Jim makes a sharp right on Chapman, because ahead of him on the City Avenue, the police truck is in hot pursuit of Arthur and his two companions. Arthur.…

Jim tracks onto the Santa Ana Freeway south. He’s free of all pursuit, as far as he can tell. His reaction is to feel acutely sick to his stomach. He might even throw up in his car. And that look on Arthur’s face, as he saw Jim pointing him out to the police … “No, no! That isn’t what I meant!…”

Nothing for it now. Arthur will very likely be picked up, with the two suppliers. But will the police have any reason for holding them? Jim has no idea. He only knows he’s in a car with six boxes of felony-level weaponry, and the police likely have his license plate number. And he’s just betrayed a friend to the police, for no reason. No reason? My God, he can’t tell! He has the feeling that he has, in fact, betrayed everyone he knows, in one way or another.

He checks the rearview mirror nervously, looking for CHP, local police, sheriffs, state troopers—who knows what they’ll send after industrial saboteurs? He catches sight of his unshaven face, the expression of sick fear on it. And suddenly he’s furious, he slams his fist against the dash, filled with disgust for himself. “Coward. Traitor. Fucking idiot!” Unleashed at last, all the directionless angers pour out at once, in fists flailing the dash, in incoherent, sobbing curses. “You know—you know—what should—be done—and you—can’t—do it!”