The Narrows

sports bar.
    "I know what we'll do," Bosch said as he drove away from the three brothels at the end of the road.
    "So do I," Rachel said. "You'll stay with them while I go in."
    "No, that won't work. You'll need backup. We just proved that we shouldn't split up." "Then what?"
    "I turn on the child locks on the back doors. They won't be able to open them."
    "And what's to stop them from climbing over to the front seat and getting out?"
    "Look, where are they going to go? They have no choice, right, ladies?"
    He looked up into the rearview mirror.
    "Fuck you," answered the one named Mecca. "You can't just do this. We're not the ones who committed any crimes."
    "Actually, as I explained before, we can," Rachel said in a bored tone. "You have been taken into federal custody as material witnesses in a criminal investigation. You will be formally interviewed and then released."
    "Well, just do it now and get it over with."
    Rachel had been surprised to learn when she looked at the woman's driver's license that her name really was Mecca. Mecca Mclntyre. What a name.
    "Well, Mecca, we can't. I already explained that, too."
    Bosch pulled into the gravel lot in front of the sports bar. There were no other cars. He lowered all the windows a couple of inches and turned off the car.
    "I'm going to put the alarm on," he said. "If you climb over and open the door it will set off the alarm. We'll then come out and chase you down. So don't bother, okay? We won't be gone long."
    Rachel got out and closed the door. She checked her cell phone again and was still not getting service. She saw Bosch check his and shake his head. She decided she would commandeer the phone in the sports bar, if there was one, and call the Vegas FO to report what she had. She expected Cherie Dei to be very angry and pleased.
    "By the way," Bosch said as they came to the ramp leading up to the door of the trailer, "do you carry an extra magazine for your Sig?"
    "Of course."
    "Where, on your belt?"
    "That's right, why?"
    "Nothing, I just saw back there behind the trailer that your hand sort of got caught in your jacket."
    "It didn't get caught. I just-what's your point?"
    "Nothing. I was just going to say that I always carried my extra in my jacket pocket. It gave it some weight, you know. So when you had to flip it back the extra weight carried it all the way back and out of the way."
    "Thanks for the tip," she said evenly. "Can we concentrate on this now?"
    "Sure, Rachel. You going to take the lead here?"
    "If you don't mind."
    "Not at all."
    He followed her up the ramp. She thought she saw a smile on his face in the reflection on the glass of the trailer's door. She opened it, engaging an overhead bell that announced their arrival.
    They stepped into a small and empty barroom. To their right was a pool table, its green felt faded by time and stained by drink spills. It was a small table but still did not have enough clearance in the small space. Even breaking a rack would probably require holding a cue at a forty-degree angle.
    To the left of the door was a six-stool bar with three shelves of glasses and take-your-pick poison behind it. There was no one in the bar but before Rachel or Bosch could call out a hello, a set of black curtains to the left of the bar split and a man stepped out, his eyes creased with sleep even though it was almost noon.
    "Can I he'p you? Kind a' early, idn't it?"
    Rachel hit him with the credentials and that seemed to crack his eyes open a little wider. He was in his early sixties, she guessed, though his unkempt bed hair and the unshaven white stubble on his cheeks may have skewed her estimate.
    He nodded as though he had just solved some sort of internal mystery.
    "So you're the sister, right?" he asked.
    "Excuse me?"
    "You're Tom's sister, right? He said you might come."
    "Tom who?"
    "Tom Walling. Who do you think?"
    "We're looking for a man named Tom who drives customers from the brothels. Is that Tom Walling?"
    "That's what I'm telling you. Tom Walling was my driver. He told me that one day his sister might come here looking for him. He never said she was no FBI agent."
    Rachel nodded, trying to cover the jolt. It wasn't necessarily the surprise that buzzed her. It was the audacity and the deeper meaning, the magnitude of Backus's plan.
    "What is your name, sir?"
    "Billings Rett. I own this place and I'm also the mayor around here."
    "The mayor of Clear." "That's right."
    Rachel felt something tap her arm and looked down to