The Narrows

this, then maybe he wrote Bing's name and the hospital number down on the file so he wouldn't forget to visit or call him. Could be a lot of reasons."
    I didn't respond. I still had trouble seeing it.
    "How did he know the guy?"
    "We don't know. Maybe the movie. Terry got hundreds of letters from transplant people after that movie came out. He was sort of a hero to a lot of people in the same boat as he was."
    As we headed north on Blue Diamond I saw a sign for the Travel America truck stop and remembered the receipt I had found in Terry McCaleb's car. I pulled in, even though I had gassed up the Mercedes after leaving Eleanor's house that morning. I stopped the car and just looked at the travel complex.
    "What is it? You need gas?"
    "No, we're fine. It's just that… McCaleb was here."
    "What is this? You getting a psychic reading or something?"
    "No, I found a receipt in his car. I wonder if this means he went up to Clear." 'To clear what?"
    "No, the town of Clear. That's where we're going."
    "Well, we might never know unless we get up there and ask some questions."
    I nodded and pulled the car back onto Blue Diamond and started north again. Along the way I told Rachel my theory of the theory. That is, my take on McCaleb's triangle and how Clear fit into it. I could tell that my telling it drew her interest. She may have even been excited about it. She agreed with my take on the victims and how and why they may have been chosen. She agreed that it appeared to mirror the victimology-her word-in Amsterdam.
    We brainstormed for an hour on it and then grew quiet as we started to get close. The barren, rugged landscape was giving way to outposts of humanity and we began to see billboards advertising the brothels that waited just ahead.
    "Have you ever been to one of these?" Rachel asked me.
    "No."
    I thought about the steam-and-cream tents in Vietnam but didn't bring them up.
    "I didn't mean like as a customer. But as a cop."
    "Still no. But I tracked a few people through them. And by that I mean by credit cards and other means. We're not going to find the people here overly cooperative. At least I never did by phone. And calling in a local sheriff is a joke. The state collects taxes from these joints. A big chunk of it goes back to the home county."
    "I get it. So how do we handle it?" Almost smiling because she had used the word we, I threw the question back at her.
    "I don't know," she said. "I guess we just go in through the front door."
    Meaning we play it straight and just go in and ask our questions. I wasn't sure it was the right way to go but she had a badge and I didn't.
    We cleared the town of Pahrump and in another 10 miles came to an intersection where a sign with clear on it and an arrow to the left was posted. I turned and the asphalt soon gave way to a crushed rock road that kicked up a flume of dust behind my car. The town of Clear could see us coming from a mile away.
    That is, if it was looking for us. But the town of Clear, Nevada, turned out to be little more than a trailer park. The gravel road led us to another intersection and another sign with an arrow. We turned north again and soon came to a clearing where an old trailer sat with rust dripping from its rivets. A sign running along the top edge of the trailer said, welcome to clear, sports bar open, rooms for rent. There were no cars parked in the clearing in front of the bar.
    I drove on past the welcome wagon, and the new road curved into a neighborhood of trailer homes baking like beer cans in the sun. Few were in better shape than the welcome wagon. Eventually, we came to a permanent structure that appeared to be a town hall as well as the location of the spring the town was named for. We kept going and were rewarded by another arrow on another sign, this one reading simply brothels.
    Nevada licenses over thirty brothels across die state. In these places prostitution is legal, controlled and mon- itored. We found three of those state-licensed businesses at the end of the road in Clear. The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila's Front Porch, Tawny's High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah's House of Holies.
    "Nice," Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. "Why are these places always named after women-as if women actually own them?"
    "You got me. I guess Mister Dave's House of Holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys."
    Rachel