Michael Connelly - The Narrows

It was intoxicating to be so close and still such a long distance apart. He wanted the whole time to turn and look back at her, maybe catch a glimpse of her face between the seats, see what she was doing. But he didn't dare. He had to bide his time. He knew that good things come to those who plan carefully and then wait. That was the thing, the secret. Darkness waits. All things come to the dark.

He followed her through half of the American Airlines terminal until she took a seat at gate K9. It was empty. No travelers were waiting here. No American employees were behind the gate counter waiting and ready to work the computers and check tickets. But Backus knew that this was only because she was early. They both were early. The flight to Las Vegas would not leave from gate K9 for another two hours. He knew this because he was on the Vegas flight as well. In a way he was Rachel Walling's guardian angel, a silent escort who would be with her until she reached her final destination.

He walked on by the gate, careful not to be obvious about glancing at her but curious to see how she was going to pass the time waiting for the next flight. He hooked the strap of his large cowhide carry-on bag over his right shoulder so that if she happened to look up, her eyes might be drawn to it instead of his face. He wasn't worried about her recognizing him for who he was. All the pain and the surgeries had taken care of that. But she might recognize him from the flight from Rapid City. And he didn't want that. He didn't want her to get suspicious.

His heart jumped in his chest like a baby kicking under a blanket as he made the one furtive glance while passing by. She had her head down and was reading a book. It was old and worn from many readings. There was a profusion of yellow Post-its poking out from its pages. But he recognized the cover design and the title. The Poet. She was reading about him!

He hurried on by before she could sense she had a watcher and look up. He went down two more gates and into the restroom. He went into a stall and carefully locked the door. He hung his bag on the door hook and quickly went to work. Off came the cowboy hat and the vest. He sat down on the toilet and took off the boots, too.

In five minutes Backus transformed himself from a South Dakota cowboy to a Las Vegas gambler. He put on the silk clothes. He put on the gold. He put on the earring and the shades. He clipped the gaudy chrome cell phone to his belt, even though there was no one who would call him and no one he would call. From the bag he took out another bag, much smaller and with the figure of the MGM lion emblazoned on it.

The components of his first skin were pushed into the new bag and he stepped out of the stall, the strap of the MGM bag over his shoulder.

Backus went to the sink to wash his hands. He admired himself for the preparation he had taken. It was the planning and attention to the small details like that that made him who he was, that made him a success at his craft.

For a moment he thought about what was waiting. He was going to take Rachel Walling on a tour. By the end of it she would know the depths of darkness. His darkness. She would pay for what she had done to him.

He felt himself getting an erection. He left the sink and stepped back into one of the stalls. He tried to change bis thoughts. He listened to the fellow travelers coming and going in the restroom, relieving themselves, washing themselves. One man spoke on a cell phone while defecating in the next stall. The whole place smelled horrible. But that was okay. It smelled like the tunnel where he was reborn in blood and darkness so long ago. If they only knew who was in their presence here.

He momentarily caught a vision of a dark, starless sky. He was falling backward, his arms flailing, the featherless and useless wings of a baby bird pushed out of the nest.

But he had survived and had learned to fly.

He started to laugh and used his foot to flush the toilet and cover his sound.

"Fuck you all," he whispered.

He waited for his erection to subside, pondering its cause and smiling. He knew his own profile so well. In the end it was always about the same thing. There was only a nanometer of difference between power and sex and fulfillment when it came to the narrow spaces between the synapses in the gray folds of the mind. In those narrows it all came down to the same thing.

When he was ready he flushed the toilet again, careful to use his shoe, and stepped out of the stall. He washed his hands again and checked his look in the mirror. He smiled. He was a new man. Rachel would not recognize him. Nobody would. Feeling confident, he unzipped the MGM bag and checked on his digital camera. It was there and ready to go. He decided he would take the risk and shoot some photos of Rachel. Just some keepsakes, a few secret shots he could admire and enjoy after everything was all over.

The fish box. Buddy's mention of it reminded me of the sheriff's report up in the chart station drawer.

"I meant to ask you about that. You say this guy took the GPS?"

"Phony bastard, I'm sure it was him. He went out with us, the next thing we know my GPS is gone and he starts a charter over on the isthmus. Put two and two together and you get asshole. I've been meaning to go over there and pay him a little visit."

I was having trouble following the line of his story. I asked him to explain it to me in English, as if I didn't know a fish charter from a fish chowder.

"This is the deal," he said. "That little black box had all our best spots on it. Our fishing holes, man. Not only that, it had the points marked by the guy I won it from. I won it in a poker game from another fish guide. The value assigned was not for the box but what was on it. The guy was putting his best twelve spots on the table and I won 'em with a full fucking house." "All right," I said. "I get it now. Its value was in the coordinates of the fishing spots recorded on it, not the device itself."

"Exactly. Those things cost a couple hundred bucks. But the fishing spots, those come from years of work and skill, fishing experience."

I pointed at the photo on the computer screen.

"And this guy comes along and takes it and then he starts out his charter business ahead of the game. Using your experience as well as the guide's you won it from."

"Way ahead. Like I said, I'm going to go pay him a visit one of these days."

"Where is the isthmus?"

"On the other side, where the island pinches together like a figure eight."

"Did you tell the sheriff's department you thought he stole it?"

"Not at first because we didn't know, you know? The thing turned up missing and we thought maybe some kids came onto the boat or something at night and grabbed whatever they saw. It gets pretty fucking boring growing up on the island, from what I hear. Just ask Graciela about Raymond-the kid's going stir crazy. So anyway we made a report and that was that. Then a couple weeks later I see this ad in Fish Tales and it's announcing this new charter out of the isthmus and there's a picture of the guy and I say, 'Hey, I know that guy' and I put it together. He stole my fish box."

"Did you call the sheriff then?"

"Yeah, I called and told them he was the guy. They didn't act too excited. I called back the next week and they said they talked to the guy-by phone. They didn't even bother to go out there for a face-to-face. He denied it like of course he would and that was that as far as they were concerned."

"What's this guy's name?'

"Robert Finder. His operation is called Isthmus Charters. In the ad he calls himself Robert 'Fish' Finder. My ass. More like 'Fish Stealer.'"

I looked down at the photo on the screen and wondered if this meant anything at all to my investigation. Could the missing GPS box be at the center of Terry McCaleb's death? It seemed unlikely. The idea that someone would steal a competitor's fishing spots was understandable. But then to engage in a complicated plot to also kill the competitor seemed on the far limit of belief. It would require a hell of a plan and execution on Finder's part, that was for sure. It would require a hell of a plan on anyone's part.