The Narrows - Michael Connelly [99]
Good-bye, Rachel.
R
She reread it quickly and then handed it over her shoulder to Bosch. As he read she continued with Billings Rett.
“When did he give you that and what exactly did he say?”
“It was about a month ago, give or take a few days, and it was when he told me he was leaving. He paid me the rent, said he wanted to keep the place, and he gives me the card and says that it’s for his sister and that she might come by looking for him. And here you are.”
“I’m not his sister,” she snapped at him. “When did he first come to Clear?”
“Hard to remember, three or four years ago.”
“Why did he come here?”
Rett shook his head.
“Beats me. Why do people go to New York City? Everybody’s got their reasons. He didn’t share his particular reason with me.”
“How did he end up driving for you?”
“He was in here shootin’ balls one day and I asked him if he needed some work. He said he wouldn’t mind and it went from there. It’s not a full-time gig. Just when we get a call for somebody looking for a ride. Most people drive themselves up here.”
“And back then, three or four years ago, he told you his name was Tom Walling?”
“No, he told me that when he rented the trailer from me. That was when he first got here.”
“What about a month ago? Did you say he paid rent and then left?”
“Yeah, he said he’d be back and wanted to keep the place. He rented it up through August. But he went traveling and I haven’t heard from him.”
From outside the trailer an alarm sounded. The Mercedes. Rachel turned to Bosch but he was already heading to the door.
“I got it,” he said.
He went through the door, leaving Rachel alone with Rett. She turned back to him.
“Did Tom Walling ever tell you where he came from?”
“No, he never mentioned it. He didn’t talk much.”
“And you never asked.”
“Honey, you don’t ask questions in a place like this. People that come here, they don’t like answering questions. Tom, he liked to do the driving and pick up a few bucks and every now and then he’d come in and shoot a game by hisself. He didn’t drink, he just chewed gum. He never messed with the whores and he was never late on a pickup. All that was fine by me. The guy I got driving now, he’s always —”
“I don’t care about the guy you’ve got now.”
The bell rang behind her and she turned to see Bosch coming through. He nodded to her, telling her everything was all right.
“They tried the door. I guess the child lock doesn’t work.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to Rett, proud mayor of a brothel town.
“Mr. Rett?” she asked. “Where is Tom Walling’s place?”
“He’s got the single-wide on the ridge west of town.”
Rett smiled, revealing a rotten tooth on the front lower row, and continued.
“He liked being outside of town. He told me he didn’t like being so close to all the excitement around here. So I set him up out there behind Titanic Rock.”
“Titanic Rock?”
“You’ll know when you get there—if you saw the movie. One of these smart-ass rock climbers that comes out here marked it, too. You’ll see it. Just take the road behind this place west and you’ll be all right. Just look for the ship going down.”
33
I WAS OUTSIDE with the two women in the Mercedes, running the air-conditioning and cooling them down. Rachel was still inside on the bar’s phone talking to Cherie Dei and coordinating the arrival of backup. My guess was that agents would soon drop out of the sky in helicopters and descend on Clear, Nevada, in force. The trail was fresh. They were close.
I tried to talk to the two girls—it was hard to think of them as women despite what they did for a living and even though they were old enough. They probably knew everything there was to know about men but they didn’t seem to know anything about the world. In my mind they were just girls who had taken wrong turns or been kidnapped and taken away from womanhood. I was beginning to understand what Rachel had said earlier.
“Did Tom Walling ever come into the trailer and hire any of the girls?” I asked.
“Not that I