The Last Coyote

something and looked around for the usual bank of phones. He checked his watch and looked over at the gate. People were milling about, ready to board and getting anxious. Bosch put the file and envelopes back into the satchel and carried his things to the phone.
    Using his AT &T card, he dialed information in Sacramento and then dialed the state offices and asked for the corporate records unit. In three minutes he knew that McCage Inc. was not a California corporation and never was, at least in records going back to 1971. He hung up and went through the same process again, this time calling the Nevada state offices in Carson City.
    The phone clerk told him the incorporation of McCage Inc. was defunct and asked if he was still interested in what information the state had. He excitedly said yes and was told by the clerk that she had to switch to microfiche and it would take a few minutes. While he waited, Bosch got out a notebook and got ready to take notes. He saw the gate door had been opened and people were just starting to board the plane. He didn’t care, he’d miss it if he had to. He was too juiced to do anything but hang on to the phone.
    Bosch studied the rows of slot machines in the center of the terminal. They were crowded with people trying their last chance at luck before leaving or their first chance after stepping off planes from all over the country and the world. Gambling against the machines had never appealed much to Bosch. He didn’t understand it.
    As he watched those milling about, it was easy to pick who was winning and who wasn’t. It didn’t take a detective to study the faces and know. He saw one woman with a stuffed teddy bear clamped under her arm. She was working two machines at once and Bosch could see that all she was doing was doubling her losses. To her left was a man in a black cowboy hat who was filling the machine with coins and pulling the arm back as quickly as he could. Bosch could see he was playing a dollar machine and was going to the five-dollar max on every roll. Bosch figured that, in the few minutes he watched, the man had spent sixty dollars with no return. At least he wasn’t carrying a stuffed animal.
    Bosch turned back to check the gate. The line of boarders had thinned to a few stragglers. Bosch knew he was going to miss it. But that was okay. He hung on and stayed calm.
    Suddenly there was a shout and Bosch looked over and saw the man with the cowboy hat waving it as his machine was paying off a jackpot. The woman with the stuffed animal stepped back from her machines and solemnly watched the payoff. Each metallic ching of the dollars dropping in the tray must have been like a hammer pounding in her skull. A steady reminder that she was losing.
    “Take a look at me now, baby!” the cowboy whooped.
    It didn’t appear that the exclamation was directed at anyone in particular. He stooped down and started scooping the coins into his hat. The woman with the teddy bear went back to work on her machines.
    Just as the gate door was being closed, the clerk came back on the phone. She told Bosch the immediately available records showed McCage was incorporated in November 1962 and was dissolved by the state twenty-eight years later when a year went by without renewal fees or taxes being paid to keep the incorporation current. Bosch knew this had occurred because Eno had died.
    “Do you want the officers?” the clerk asked.
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Okay, president and chief executive officer is Claude Eno. That’s E-N-O. Vice president is Gordon Mittel with two T’s. And the treasurer is listed as Arno Conklin. That first name’s spelled-”
    “I got it. Thanks.”
    Bosch hung up the phone, grabbed his overnighter and the satchel and ran to the gate.
    “Just in time,” the attendant said with a tone of annoyance. “Couldn’t leave those one-armed bandits alone, huh?”
    “Yeah,” Bosch said, not caring.
    She opened the door and he went down the hallway and onto the plane. It was only half filled. He ignored his seat assignment and found an empty row. While he was pushing his luggage into the overhead storage bin, he thought of something. Once in his seat he took out his notebook and opened it to the page where he had just written the notes of his conversation with the incorporation clerk. He looked at the abbreviated notations.
    Prez., CEO-C.E.
    VP-G.M.
    Treas.-A.C.
    He then wrote only the initials in a line.
    CE GM AC
    He looked at the line for a moment and