"There are worse things."

I put the plastic hero back into the compartment and closed it. I leaned further in so I could reach across to open the glove box.

"Hey, you want me to come with you? Maybe I could help."

"No, that's okay, Buddy. I'm leaving right from here." "Hell, I could be ready in five minutes. I mean, I'll just put some clothes in a bag."

The glove box contained another plastic figure and operating manuals for the car. There was also a box containing a book on tape called The Tin Collectors. There was nothing else. This stop was turning into a bust. All I was getting out of it was Buddy pushing to be my partner. I pulled back out of the car and straightened up. I looked at Lockridge.

"No, thanks, Buddy. I'm working this alone."

"Hey, I helped Terry, man. It wasn't like in the movie where I was made out to be the creep who-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Buddy. You told me all of that. This has got nothing to do with that. I just work alone. Even with the cops. That's the way I was, that's the way lam."

I thought of something and leaned back into the car, checking the windshield on the passenger side for a sticker like the one seen in the photo of the Zzyzx Road sign on McCaleb's computer. There was no sticker or anything else in the lower corner of the windshield. It was another confirmation that McCaleb had not taken the photo.

I backed out of the car, walked around and opened the rear hatch. The storage compartment was empty except for a pillow shaped like a cartoon character named SpongeBob SquarePants. I recognized it because my daughter was a SpongeBob fan and I, too, enjoyed watching the show with her. I guessed he was a favorite in the McCaleb home, too.

I then went to one of the rear doors and looked into the passenger compartment. Clean again, but I noticed in the pocket behind the front passenger seat there was a map book that could be reached from the driver's seat. I pulled it out and paged through it, careful not to let Buddy see what I was looking at.

On the page for southern Nevada I noticed that the map included parts of contiguous states. In California, near the southwest corner of Nevada, someone had drawn a circle around the Mojave Preservation Area. And on the right border of the map someone had jotted down several numbers in ink, one above the other, and then added them together. The sum was 86. Below this was written "Actual-92."

"What is it?" Lockridge asked, looking through the car at me from the other passenger door.

I closed the map book and dropped it on the car seat.

"Nothing. It looks like he wrote down some directions for one of his trips or something."

I leaned into the car and then down so that I could look under the front passenger seat. I saw more McDonald's toys and some old food wrappers and other debris. Nothing that looked worthwhile. I got out and came around the other side, asking Buddy to step back so I could do the same thing with the driver's seat.

Beneath the driver's seat there was more debris but I noticed several small crumpled balls of paper. I reached under and swept these out so I could see them. I opened one up and smoothed it out and saw that it was a credit-card receipt for a purchase of gas in Long Beach. It was dated almost a year earner.

"You don't check under the seats when you clean the car, do you, Buddy?" "They never asked me to," he said defensively. "Besides, I really just take care of the outside."

"Oh, I see."

I started unraveling the rest of the paper balls. I didn't expect anything that would help me. I had already reviewed the credit-card receipts and knew there were no purchases I could use to pinpoint McCaleb's location on his three-day trip. But the rule was always to be thorough.

There were a variety of receipts for local purchases. This included food items from Safeway and fishing equipment from a San Pedro tackle store. There was a receipt for ginseng extract from a health food store called BetterFit, and a receipt from a Westwood bookstore for a book on tape called Looking for Chet Baker. I never heard of the book but knew who Chet Baker was. I decided I would check into it later when I had time to read or listen to a book.

The rule paid off on the fifth paper ball. I unraveled a cash receipt from a Travel America truck stop in Las Vegas. It was located on Blue Diamond Road, the same street as Vegas Memorial. The date of the purchase was March 2. The purchase was for sixteen gallons of gasoline, a half-liter of Gatorade and the book on tape edition of The Tin Collectors.

The receipt placed McCaleb in Las Vegas during his three-day trip. It was another confirmation of what I thought I already knew. Nevertheless my adrenaline kicked in another notch. I wanted to get moving again, keep that case velocity going.

"You find something?" Lockridge asked.

I crumpled the receipt and threw it down onto the floor of the car with the others. "Not really," I said. "Turns out Terry was a big books-on-tape guy. Didn't know that."

"Yeah, he listened to a lot of them. Out on the boat when he was up on the helm. He usually had the earphones on."

I reached back into the car and took the map book off the seat.

"I'm going to borrow this," I said. "I don't think Graciela's going anywhere where she'll need it."

I didn't wait for Buddy's approval. I closed the passenger door, hoping that he was buying my act. I then closed the driver's door and locked the vehicle.

"That's it, Buddy. I'm out of here. You going to be near your phone if anything comes up and I need you?"

"'Course, man, I'm around. It's a mobile, anyway."

"All right then, you take care."

I shook his hand and headed to my black Benz, half expecting to find him following me. But he let me go. As I drove out of the lot, I checked the mirror and saw him still standing next to the Cherokee, watching me go.

I took the 710 up to the 10 and rode that out to the 15 freeway. After that it would be a straight shot out of the smog and into the Mojave and then on to Las Vegas. I had been making this trip two or three times a month for the past year. I always enjoyed the drive. I liked the starkness of the desert. Maybe I drew from it what Terry McCaleb drew from living on an island. A sense of distance from all the nastiness. As I drove it I felt the constrictions lift, as if the molecules of my body expanded and got a little more space between each other. Maybe it was no more than a nanometer but that little narrow space was enough to make a difference. But this time I felt different. I felt as though this time the nastiness was ahead of me, that it was waiting for me in the desert.

I was settling into the drive, letting the case facts rotate in my mind, when my cell buzzed. My guess was that it would be Buddy Lockridge making a final plea to be included but it was Kiz Rider. I had forgotten to call her back.

"So, Harry, I guess I don't even rate a call back from you?"

"Sorry, Kiz, I was going to call you. I had a busy morning and sort of forgot."

"Busy morning? You're supposed to be retired. You're not running around on another case, are you?"

"Actually, I'm driving to Vegas. And I'm probably about to lose my signal in the dead zone. What's going on?"

"Well, I saw Tim Marcia this morning when I was getting my coffee. He told me you two had talked recently."

"Yeah, yesterday. Is this about that three-year deal he told me about?"

"It certainly is, Harry. Have you thought about it?"

"I just heard about it yesterday. I haven't had time to think about it."

"I think you should, Harry. We need you back here."

"That's nice to hear, especially from you, Kiz. I thought I was PNG with you."

"What does that mean?"

"Persona non grata."

"Come on now. It was nothing a cooling-off period couldn't cure. Seriously, though, we could use you back here. You could probably work with Tim's unit if you wanted."