The Narrows

of the world, you know what I mean? I called him Terror."
    "What about me? What's my nickname going to be?"
    "You…"
    He looked at me like a sculptor sizing up a block of granite.
    "Um, you are Suitcase Harry."
    "How come?"
    "Because you're sort of rumpled, like you live out of a suitcase."
    I nodded.
    "Pretty good."
    "So, did you know Terry?"
    "Yes, I knew him. We worked a few cases together when he was with the bureau. Then one more after he got the new heart."
    He snapped his fingers and pointed at me.
    "Now I remember, you were the cop. You were the one who was here that night on his boat when those two goons showed up to do him in. You saved him and then he turned around and saved you."
    I nodded.
    "That's right. Now can I ask some questions, Buddy?"
    He spread his hands wide, indicating he was available and had nothing to hide.
    "Oh, sure, man, I didn't mean to be hogging the microphone, you know?"
    I took out my notebook and put it on the table.
    "Thanks. Let's start with that last charter. Tell me about it"
    "Well, what do you want to know?"
    "Everything." Lockridge expelled his breath.
    "That's a tall order," he said.
    But he began to tell me the story. What he initially told me matched the minimal accounts I had read in the Las Vegas papers and what I had then heard when I attended McCaleb's funeral. McCaleb and Lockridge had been on a four-day, three-night charter, taking a party of one into waters off Baja California to fish for marlin. While returning to Avalon Harbor on Catalina on the fourth day McCaleb collapsed at the boat's topside helm station. They were 22 miles off the coast, midway between San Diego and Los Angeles. A help call was radioed to the U.S. Coast Guard and a rescue chopper was dispatched. McCaleb was airlifted to a hospital in Long Beach, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
    When he was finished telling it I nodded like it had matched everything I had already heard.
    "Did you actually see him collapse?"
    "No, not really. I felt it, though."
    "How do you mean?"
    "Well, he was up on top at the wheel. I was in the pit with the charter party. We were headed north, going home. The party'd had enough fishing by then so we weren't even trolling. Terry had it flat out, probably doing twenty-five knots. So me and Otto-he's the party-we were in the cockpit and the boat suddenly made a ninety-degree turn to the west. Out to sea, man. I knew that wasn't in the plan so I climbed up the ladder to poke my head up there and I see Terry sort of hunched over the wheel. He'd collapsed. I got to him and he was alive but, man, he was out of it."
    "What did you do?" "I was a lifeguard once. Venice Beach. I still know my CPR. I called Otto up on top and I went to work on Terry while Otto got control of the boat and got on the radio to call the Coast Guard. I was never able to bring Terry around but I kept putting air into him until that helicopter showed up. Took them long enough, too."
    I wrote a note in my notebook. Not because it was important but because I wanted Lockridge to know I took him seriously and that whatever he thought was important was also important to me.
    "How long did they take?"
    "Twenty, twenty-five minutes. I'm not sure how long but it seemed like an eternity when you're trying to keep somebody breathing."
    "Yeah. Everybody I talked to said you did your best. So you're saying he never said a word. He just collapsed at the wheel."
    "Exactly."
    "Then what was the last thing he said to you?"
    Lockridge started chewing the nail on one of his thumbs as he tried to recall this.
    "That's a good question. I guess it was when he came back to the railing that looks down into the cockpit and he yelled down that we'd be home by sunset."
    "And how long was this before he collapsed?"
    "Maybe ahalf hour, maybe a little longer."
    "He seemed fine then?"
    "Yeah, he seemed like the regular Terror, you know? Nobody could've guessed what was going to happen."
    "By now you men had been on the boat for four straight days, right?"
    "That's right. Pretty close quarters because the party got the stateroom. Me and Terry bunked it in the forward cabin."
    "During that time did you see Terry take his meds every day? You know, all the pills he had to take."
    Lockridge nodded emphatically.
    "Oh, yeah, he was popping his pills right and left. Every morning and every night. We'd been out on a lot of charters together. It was his ritual-he set his watch by it: He never missed. And he didn't on this trip