The Narrows

picked up by a recorded voice announcing that I had reached the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. I hung up as the voice began to list a number of options I could choose from.
    The second number was followed by the name. I punched it into the phone, prepared to awaken William Bing and ask him what his connection to Terry McCaleb was. But the call was answered after several rings by a woman who said, " Las Vegas Memorial Medical Center, how would you like me to direct your call?"
    I wasn't expecting that. To gain some time while I thought about what to do I asked her for the hospital's location. By the time she was finished giving me the address on Blue Diamond Road I had come up with a valid question.
    "Do you have a doctor on staff named William Bing?"
    After a moment the answer came back negative.
    "Do you have any employee named William Bing?"
    "No, we don't, sir."
    "How about a patient?"
    There was another pause as she consulted a computer.
    "Not currently, no."
    "Did you formerly have a patient there named William Bing?"
    "I don't have access to that kind of information, sir."
    I thanked her and closed the phone.
    I thought about the last two numbers in McCaleb's notes for a long moment. My conclusions were simple. Terry McCaleb was a heart transplant recipient. If he were to travel to another city he would need to know where to go and who to ask for if there was an emergency or any medical problem. My guess was that McCaleb had called information to get the two numbers noted on the file. He then made a reservation at the Mandalay Bay and checked in with a local hospital as a precaution. The fact that there was no William Bing on staff at Las Vegas Memorial Medical Center did not preclude that he might be a cardio specialist who handled patients there.
    I opened the phone, checked the time on the display screen and called Graciela anyway. She answered quickly, her voice alert, though I could tell she had been sleeping.
    "Graciela, sorry to call so late. I have a few more questions."
    "Can I answer them tomorrow?"
    "Just tell me, did Terry go to Las Vegas within the month before he died?"
    " Las Vegas? I don't know. Why?"
    "What do you mean you don't know? He was your husband."
    "I told you, we had… separated. He was staying on the boat. I know he went over to the mainland a few times but if he went to Vegas from there I wouldn't have any way of knowing unless he told me, and he didn't tell me."
    "What about credit-card bills and cell phone records, ATM withdrawals, things like that?"
    "I paid them but I don't remember anything like that, like a hotel or anything." "Do you have those records still?"
    "Of course. I have them here at the house somewhere. They're probably packed already."
    "Find them and I'll come for them in the morning."
    "I'm already in bed."
    "Then find them in the morning. First thing. It's important, Graciela."
    "Okay, I will. And look, the one thing I can tell you is that usually if Terry was going to the mainland, he took the boat across so he had a place to stay while he was there. If he was going across but wasn't going to be in L.A. or was going to be staying at Cedars for tests or something, he would take a ferry because otherwise it would cost too much in boat fuel." "Okay."
    "Well, there was one trip in that last month. I think he was gone for like three days. Yes, three days, two nights. He took the ferry. So that meant he was either going across and then somewhere else or to the hospital. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't the hospital. I think he would have told me and I know everybody in cardio at Cedars anyway. They would have let me know he was there and what was going on. I had that place wired."
    "Okay, Graciela, that's good. That helps. Do you remember exactly when that was?"
    "Not exactly. It was the end of February, I think. Maybe the first couple days of March. I remember it was bill time. I called him on his cell to talk about money and he said he was on the mainland. He didn't say where. He just said he was over there and he'd be back in a couple days. I could tell he was driving when we talked. And Iknew he hadn't taken the boat because I was on the balcony looking at it in the harbor when we talked."
    "Why were you calling him, do you remember?"
    "Yes, we had bills to pay and I didn't know what if anything he had taken in on the boat in February. The credit-card payouts were sent directly here but Terry had a bad habit of walking around with personal checks and cash from