The Narrows

case session. Doran said good-bye and broke off and then the onboard communication link remained silent as the helicopter crossed the dividing line between the harsh undeveloped landscape and the beginning of the sprawl of Las Vegas. As Rachel looked down she knew it was merely a trading of one form of a desert for another. Down there, beneath all the barrel tile and gravel roofs, predators still waited to come out at night. To find their victims.

CHAPTER 21
    The Executive Extended Stay motel was off the south end of the strip. It had no neon lights flashing in front of it. It had no casino and no floor show. In fact, no executives stayed there. It was a place populated by the fringe dwellers of Vegas society. The addicted gamblers, the take-off men, the sex trade workers, the kind of people who can't leave the place but at the same time can't put down permanent roots either.
    People like me. Often when you meet a fellow tenant at the Double X, as the longtimers call the place, they'll ask you how long you've been there and how long you're staying, as if you're working off jail time. I believe that many of the tenants of the motel have had the real experience of jail time and I chose such a place for two reasons. One was that I still carried a mortgage in Los Angeles and could not afford to stay over time at a place like the Bellagio or the Mandalay Bay or even the Riviera. And two was that I didn't want to get comfort- able in Las Vegas. I didn't want things to feel right there. Because I knew when it was time for me to go, I just wanted to turn in the key and leave.
    I got to Vegas by three and knew my daughter would be home from day care and I could go to my ex-wife's home to see her. I wanted to but I also wanted to wait. I had Buddy Lockridge coming in and I had things to do. The FBI had let me out of the RV with my notebook still in my pocket and Terry McCaleb's map book still in my car. I wanted to put them to good use before Agent Dei maybe realized her mistake and came back to me. I wanted to see if I could make the next step in the case before she did.
    I pulled into the Double X and parked in my usual spot near the fence that separated the motel from the private jet stalls on the McCarran tarmac. I noticed that a Gulfstream 9 that was parked there when I left Vegas three mornings earlier was still in place. There was also a smaller but sleeker-looking black jet parked next to it. I didn't know what kind of jet it was, only that it looked like money. I got out and walked up the steps to my one-bedroom efficiency on the second floor. It was neat and functional and I tried to spend as little time there as I had to. The best thing about it was the small balcony off the living room. In the brochures they offered in the rental office it was called a smoking balcony. It was too small a space to actually fit a chair. But I could stand out there and lean on the extra-high railing and watch the billionaires' jets come in. And I found myself doing that often. I found myself standing there and even wishing that I still smoked. Oftentimes one of the tenants from the apartment on either side of my unit would be standing on their balcony smoking when I was out there. On one side was a card counter-or an "advantage player," as he called it-and on the other a woman of indeterminate means of income. My conversations with them were perfunctory. Nobody wanted to ask or answer too many questions at this place.
    The last two days' editions of the Sun were on the worn rubber mat outside my door. I hadn't canceled it because I knew the woman who lived next door liked to sneak over and read the paper, after which she would refold it and put it back in its plastic bag. She didn't know that I knew this.
    Inside I dropped the newspapers on the floor and put McCaleb's map book down on the dinette table. I took the notebook out of my pocket and put that down, too. I went over to the sliding door and opened it to let some of the stuffiness out. Whoever had the place before me didn't use the smoking balcony and the place seemed to have a permanent nicotine funk.
    After plugging my phone's charger into the wall below the dinette I called Buddy Lockridge's number but the call rang through to voice mail. I disconnected before leaving a message. I next called Graciela McCaleb's number and asked if the FBI had shown up yet.
    "They just left," she said. "They went through a lot of stuff here and they just went down to the boat. You were