The Narrows - Michael Connelly [73]
I had measured out nearly two dozen locations, failing to get even close on the approximation of mileage each time, when I came across a town on the north side of the baseline that was so small that it was denoted by only a black dot, the smallest demarcation of a population center in the map legend. It was a town called Clear. I knew of this place and I suddenly got excited. In a moment of flash thought, I knew that it fit the Poet’s profile.
Using my driver’s license I measured the distances. Clear was approximately 80 miles north of Las Vegas on the Blue Diamond Highway. It was then another 150 miles approximately on rural routes across the California border and down through the Sandy Valley to the 15 freeway and the third point of the triangle at Zzyzx. Adding in the baseline mileage between Zzyzx and the airport in Vegas, I had a triangle of approximately 322 miles, just 6 miles shy of the total put on the rental car belonging to one of the missing men.
My blood started to jump in my veins. Clear, Nevada. I had never been there but I knew it was a town of brothels and whatever community and outside services are spawned by such businesses. I knew of it because on more than one occasion in my career as a cop I had traced suspects through Clear, Nevada. On more than one occasion a suspect who voluntarily surrendered to me in Los Angeles reported that he had spent his last few nights of freedom with the ladies of Clear, Nevada.
It was a place where men would go privately, taking care to leave no trail that would reveal them as having dipped in such murky moral waters. Married men. Men of success or religious piety. In a strong way it was much like the red-light district in Amsterdam, a place where the Poet had previously found his victims.
So much of cop work is pursuing gut instinct and hunches. You live and die by the hard facts and evidence. There is no denying that. But it is your instinct that often brings those crucial things to you and then holds them together like glue. And I was following instinct now. I had a hunch about Clear. I knew I could sit at the dinette table and plot triangles and map points for hours if I wanted to. But the triangle I had drawn with the town of Clear at the top was the one that held me still at the same time the adrenaline was jangling in my blood. I believed I had drawn McCaleb’s triangle. No, more than believed it. I knew it. My silent partner. Using his cryptic notes as direction, I now knew where I was going. Using my license as a straight edge I added two lines to the map, completing the triangle. I tapped each point on the map and stood up.
The clock on the wall in the kitchenette said it was almost five. I decided it was too late to go north tonight. I would arrive in near darkness and I didn’t want that—that could be dangerous. I quickly put a plan in motion to leave at dawn and have almost an entire day to do what I needed to do in Clear.
I was thinking about what I would need for the trip when there was a knock on my door that startled me even though I was expecting it. I walked over to let Buddy Lockridge in.
24
HARRY BOSCH OPENED THE DOOR and Rachel could tell he was angry. He was about to say something when he saw it was her and checked himself. That told her he was waiting for somebody and that that somebody was late.
“Agent Walling.”
“Expecting someone?”
“Uh, no, not really.”
She saw his eyes flick past her and check the rear parking lot.
“Can I come in?”
“Sorry, sure, come on in.”
He stepped back and held the door. She entered a sad little efficiency apartment that was sparsely furnished in depressing colors. On the left was a dinette table circa 1960s and she saw on it a bottle of beer, a notebook and a road atlas open to a map of Nevada. Bosch moved quickly to the table and closed the atlas and his notebook and stacked them one on top of the other. She then noticed his driver’s license was on the table as well.
“So