The Narrows

lights but the one on the desk in the forward berth in an effort to conserve power. I called Buddy on the cell after that and he answered in a groggy voice.
    "Hey, Buddy, wake up. It's Harry Bosch."
    "Who? Oh. What do you want?"
    "I need your help. Is there like a generator or something on this boat that will give me some light? The batteries are dying on me."
    "Man, don't let those things drain all the way down. You'll kill them."
    "Then what do I do?"
    "You've got to crank the Volvos, man, and then turn on the generator. The thing is it's near midnight. Those folks sleeping on their boats in line with you aren't going to take so kindly to hearing that"
    "All right, forget it. But in the morning I should do it, so what do I do, use a key?"
    "Yeah, just like a car. Go to the helm in the salon, put in the keys and turn them to the on position. Then above each key is the ignition toggle. Flip it up and she should start right up-unless you've used all the juice up and there's no charge."
    "Okay, I'll do it. You got any flashlights on this thing?"
    "Yeah, there's one in the galley, one over the chart table and one in the master in the built-in drawer to the left of the bed. There's also a lantern in the lower cabinet of the galley. But you don't want to use that down in the front room. The kerosene smell will build up in there and you might croak yourself. Then there'd be another mystery to solve."
    He said the last line with a note of contempt in his voice. I let it go.
    "Thanks, Buddy. I'll talk to you."
    "Yeah. Good night."
    I hung up and went looking for the flashlights, coming back to the forward berth with a small one from the master stateroom and a large table light from the galley. I put the large light on the desk and turned it on. I then killed the berth's lights. The table light's glow hit the small room's low ceiling and spread. It wasn't bad. Between that and the handheld light I would still be able to get some work done.
    I was down to less than half a box of files to go and wanted to finish before figuring out where I was going to sleep. These were all thin files, the most recent additions to McCaleb's collection, and I could tell most of them contained little more than a newspaper clip and maybe a few notes on the flap.
    I reached in and picked one out at random. I should have been in Vegas throwing dice. Because the file I picked turned out to be a long-shot winner. It was the file that gave my investigation focus. It put me on the road.

CHAPTER 13
    The file tab simply said 6 missing. It contained a single clipping from the Los Angeles Times and several dated notes and names and phone numbers handwritten on the inside flap, as was McCaleb's routine. I sensed that the file was important before I even read the story or understood the meaning of some of the notes. It was the dating on the flap that triggered this response. McCaleb had jotted his thoughts down on the file four different times, beginning on January 7 and ending on February 28 of this year. He would be dead a month later on March 31. Those notes and those dates were the most recent found in any of the files I had reviewed. I knew I was looking at what might have been Terry's last work. His last case and obsession. There were still files to look at but this one gave me the vibe and I went with it
    A reporter I knew wrote the story. Keisha Russell had been working the cop beat at the Times at least ten years and was good at it She was also accurate and fair. She had lived up to every deal I had ever made with her in the years I was on the job, and she had gone out of her way to play fair with me the year before, when I was no longer on the job and things turned bad on my first private case. The bottom line was that I felt comfortable taking anything she wrote as fact. I started to read.

    SEARCH FOR A MISSING LINK
    ARE NEVADA DISAPPEARANCES OF
    2 L.A. MEN, 4 OTHERS CONNECTED?
    by Keisha Russell
    Times Staff Writer

    The mysterious disappearances of at least six men, including two from Los Angeles, from gambling centers in Nevada have got investigators searching for a missing link among the men.
    Detectives with the Las Vegas Metro Police said Tuesday that while the men did not know each other and came from widely disparate hometowns and backgrounds, there still may be a commonality among them that could be the key to the mystery.
    The men, ranging in age from 29 to 61, were reported missing by their families during the past three years. Four