The Narrows

CHAPTER 15

Buddy Lockridge was waiting in the parking lot at Cabrillo Marina when I got there. I had called him and told him I was on the move and in a hurry. My plan to hook up with him for further discussion would be delayed. I told him I just wanted to quickly go through McCaleb's Cherokee and then move on. I knew what my destination was, whether or not I found anything in the car that pointed me toward the desert and Las Vegas.

"What's all the hurry?" he asked as I pulled up and got out.

"Velocity," I told him. "Main thing about an investigation is to keep your velocity up. You slow down… and you slow down. I don't want that."

Before returning the boat keys to Graciela I had taken the Cherokee's key off the ring. I now used it to unlock the driver's door. I leaned in and began a general observation of the car before getting in. "Where are you headed?" Lockridge said from behind me.

" San Francisco," I lied, just to see if I'd get a reaction.

" San Francisco? What's up there?"

"I don't know. But I think that's where he went on that last trip."

"Must've taken the dirt road way."

"Maybe."

There was nothing readily apparent in the Cherokee that gave me a second thought. The car was in clean condition. There was a faintly sour odor. It smelled like the windows had been left open during a rainstorm at some point. I opened the compartment between the two front seats and found two pairs of sunglasses, a pack of breath-freshening gum and a small, plastic action figure toy. I handed it out the door behind me to Lockridge.

"You left your superhero in here, Buddy."

He didn't take it.

"Funny. That's from McDonald's. There ain't one over there on the island, so the first thing they do when they get over here is take the kids to Mickey D's. It's like crack, man. They get the kids hooked on those French fries and shit early and then they're hooked for life."

"There are worse things."

I put the plastic hero back into the compartment and closed it. I leaned further in so I could reach across to open the glove box.

"Hey, you want me to come with you? Maybe I could help."

"No, that's okay, Buddy. I'm leaving right from here." "Hell, I could be ready in five minutes. I mean, I'll just put some clothes in a bag."

The glove box contained another plastic figure and operating manuals for the car. There was also a box containing a book on tape called The Tin Collectors. There was nothing else. This stop was turning into a bust. All I was getting out of it was Buddy pushing to be my partner. I pulled back out of the car and straightened up. I looked at Lockridge.

"No, thanks, Buddy. I'm working this alone."

"Hey, I helped Terry, man. It wasn't like in the movie where I was made out to be the creep who-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Buddy. You told me all of that. This has got nothing to do with that. I just work alone. Even with the cops. That's the way I was, that's the way lam."

I thought of something and leaned back into the car, checking the windshield on the passenger side for a sticker like the one seen in the photo of the Zzyzx Road sign on McCaleb's computer. There was no sticker or anything else in the lower corner of the windshield. It was another confirmation that McCaleb had not taken the photo.

I backed out of the car, walked around and opened the rear hatch. The storage compartment was empty except for a pillow shaped like a cartoon character named SpongeBob SquarePants. I recognized it because my daughter was a SpongeBob fan and I, too, enjoyed watching the show with her. I guessed he was a favorite in the McCaleb home, too.

I then went to one of the rear doors and looked into the passenger compartment. Clean again, but I noticed in the pocket behind the front passenger seat there was a map book that could be reached from the driver's seat. I pulled it out and paged through it, careful not to let Buddy see what I was looking at.

On the page for southern Nevada I noticed that the map included parts of contiguous states. In California, near the southwest corner of Nevada, someone had drawn a circle around the Mojave Preservation Area. And on the right border of the map someone had jotted down several numbers in ink, one above the other, and then added them together. The sum was 86. Below this was written "Actual-92."

"What is it?" Lockridge asked, looking through the car at me from the other passenger door.

I closed the map book and dropped it on the car seat.

"Nothing. It looks like he wrote down some directions for one of his trips or something."

I leaned into the car and then down so that I could look under the front passenger seat. I saw more McDonald's toys and some old food wrappers and other debris. Nothing that looked worthwhile. I got out and came around the other side, asking Buddy to step back so I could do the same thing with the driver's seat.

Beneath the driver's seat there was more debris but I noticed several small crumpled balls of paper. I reached under and swept these out so I could see them. I opened one up and smoothed it out and saw that it was a credit-card receipt for a purchase of gas in Long Beach. It was dated almost a year earner.

"You don't check under the seats when you clean the car, do you, Buddy?" "They never asked me to," he said defensively. "Besides, I really just take care of the outside."

"Oh, I see."

I started unraveling the rest of the paper balls. I didn't expect anything that would help me. I had already reviewed the credit-card receipts and knew there were no purchases I could use to pinpoint McCaleb's location on his three-day trip. But the rule was always to be thorough.

There were a variety of receipts for local purchases. This included food items from Safeway and fishing equipment from a San Pedro tackle store. There was a receipt for ginseng extract from a health food store called BetterFit, and a receipt from a Westwood bookstore for a book on tape called Looking for Chet Baker. I never heard of the book but knew who Chet Baker was. I decided I would check into it later when I had time to read or listen to a book.

The rule paid off on the fifth paper ball. I unraveled a cash receipt from a Travel America truck stop in Las Vegas. It was located on Blue Diamond Road, the same street as Vegas Memorial. The date of the purchase was March 2. The purchase was for sixteen gallons of gasoline, a half-liter of Gatorade and the book on tape edition of The Tin Collectors.

The receipt placed McCaleb in Las Vegas during his three-day trip. It was another confirmation of what I thought I already knew. Nevertheless my adrenaline kicked in another notch. I wanted to get moving again, keep that case velocity going.

"You find something?" Lockridge asked.

I crumpled the receipt and threw it down onto the floor of the car with the others. "Not really," I said. "Turns out Terry was a big books-on-tape guy. Didn't know that."

"Yeah, he listened to a lot of them. Out on the boat when he was up on the helm. He usually had the earphones on."

I reached back into the car and took the map book off the seat.

"I'm going to borrow this," I said. "I don't think Graciela's going anywhere where she'll need it."

I didn't wait for Buddy's approval. I closed the passenger door, hoping that he was buying my act. I then closed the driver's door and locked the vehicle.

"That's it, Buddy. I'm out of here. You going to be near your phone if anything comes up and I need you?"

"'Course, man, I'm around. It's a mobile, anyway."

"All right then, you take care."

I shook his hand and headed to my black Benz, half expecting to find him following me. But he let me go. As I drove out of the lot, I checked the mirror and saw him still standing next to the Cherokee, watching me go.

I took the 710 up to the 10 and rode that out to the 15 freeway. After that it would be a straight shot out of the smog and into the Mojave and then on to Las Vegas. I had been making this trip two or three times a month for the past year. I always enjoyed the drive. I liked the starkness of the desert. Maybe I drew from it what Terry McCaleb drew from living on an island. A sense of distance from all the nastiness. As I drove it I felt the constrictions lift, as if the molecules of my body expanded and got a little more space between each other. Maybe it was no more than a nanometer but that little narrow space was enough to make a difference. But this time I felt different. I felt as though this time the nastiness was ahead of me, that it was waiting for me in the desert.

I was settling into the drive, letting the case facts rotate in my mind, when my cell buzzed. My guess was that it would be Buddy Lockridge making a final plea to be included but it was Kiz Rider. I had forgotten to call her back.

"So, Harry, I guess I don't even rate a call back from you?"

"Sorry, Kiz, I was going to call you. I had a busy morning and sort of forgot."

"Busy morning? You're supposed to be retired. You're not running around on another case, are you?"

"Actually, I'm driving to Vegas. And I'm probably about to lose my signal in the dead zone. What's going on?"

"Well, I saw Tim Marcia this morning when I was getting my coffee. He told me you two had talked recently."

"Yeah, yesterday. Is this about that three-year deal he told me about?"

"It certainly is, Harry. Have you thought about it?"

"I just heard about it yesterday. I haven't had time to think about it."

"I think you should, Harry. We need you back here."

"That's nice to hear, especially from you, Kiz. I thought I was PNG with you."

"What does that mean?"

"Persona non grata."

"Come on now. It was nothing a cooling-off period couldn't cure. Seriously, though, we could use you back here. You could probably work with Tim's unit if you wanted."

"If I wanted? Kiz, you make it sound like all I have to do is waltz in there and sign on the dotted line. What do you think, everybody in that building is going to be there to welcome me back? Are they going to be lined up in the hallway on the sixth floor, throwing rice or something while I walk to the chief's office?"

"You talking about Irving? Irving got downsized. He's running the department of future planning. I'm calling to tell you, Harry, that if you want to come back, then you are back. It's that simple. After I talked to Tim I went up to six and had my usual nine a.m. with the chief. He knows of you. He knows your work."

"I wonder how that could be, since I was gone before he was brought over from New York or Boston or wherever it was they got him from."

"He knows because I told him, Harry. Look, let's not get into an argument over this. Okay? Everything is cool. All I'm saying is that you should think about it. The clock is ticking on it and you ought to think about it. You could help us and the city and maybe even help yourself, depending on where you're at in the world."

That last part raised a good question. Where was I in the world? I thought about it for a long moment before speaking.

"Yeah, okay. Kiz, I appreciate it. And thanks for putting in the word with the man. Tell me something, when did Irving get dumped? I hadn't heard about that."

"That happened a few months ago. I think the chief thought he had his finger in too many pies. He put him to the side." I couldn't help but smile. Not because Deputy Chief Irvin Irving had always had me under his heel, but because I knew a man like Irving wouldn't let anyone put him to the side, as Kiz had said.

"The man carries all the secrets," I said.

"I know. We're waiting for his move. We'll be ready."

"Then good luck to you."

"Thanks. So what's it going to be, Harry?"

"What, you want my answer now? I thought you just told me to think about it."

"A guy like you, I already think you know the answer."

I smiled again but didn't answer. She was wasting her time in administration. She should be back in homicide. She knew how to read people better than anyone I had ever worked with.

"Harry, you remember the thing you told me when I first got assigned as your partner?"

"Urn, chew your food, brush after every meal?"

"I'm serious."

"I don't know, what?"

"Everybody counts or nobody counts."

I nodded and was quiet for a moment.

"Do you remember?"

"Yeah. I remember."

"Words to live by."

"I guess so."

"Well, think about that while you're thinking about coming back."

"If I come back, I'm going to need a partner."

"What, Harry? You're breaking up."

"I'm going to need a partner." There was a pause and I think now she was smiling, too.

"That's a possibility. You-"

She cut out on me. I think I knew what she was going to say.

"I bet you miss it as much as me."

"Harry, you're going into the dead zone. Call me back when… don't take too long."

"Okay, Kiz, I'll let you know."

I was still smiling after closing the phone. There is nothing like being wanted or being welcomed. Being valued.

But also the idea of having a badge again in order to do what I had to do. I thought about Ritz at Metro and how he had treated me. How I had to fight just to get the attention and help of some people. I knew a lot of that would go away with the badge again. In the last two years I had learned that the badge didn't necessarily make the man, but it sure as hell made the man's job easier. And for me it was more than a job. I knew that badge or no badge, there was one thing on this earth I could and should be doing. I had a mission in this life, just as Terry McCaleb had. Spending the day before in his floating shop of horrors, studying his cases and his dedication to his mission, made me realize what was important and what I had to do. In his dying my silent partner may have saved me.

After forty minutes of mulling over my future and considering my choices, I came to the sign I had seen in the photo on Terry's computer. ZZYZX ROAD

I MILE

It was not the exact sign. I could tell by the horizon behind it. The photo had been taken from the other side, by someone heading to L.A. from Vegas. Nevertheless, I felt a deep tug of anticipation. Everything I had seen or read or heard since Graciela McCaleb had called me led to this place. I put on the blinker and took the exit off the freeway.