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 right, they're going to take the boat with them. I don't know when I'll get it back."

"Have you seen Buddy around today?"

"Buddy? No, was he supposed to come by?"

"No, I was just wondering."

"Are you still with the FBI?" "No, they let me go a couple hours ago. I'm at my place in Vegas. I'm going to keep working on the case, Graciela."

"Why? It seems-the agents told me it was a priority investigation now. They think that agent changed his meds. Backus."

What she was asking was what it was I could do that the august powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn't do. The answer of course was nothing. But I remembered what Terry had said to Graciela about me. That he would want me on the case if anything ever happened to him. It left me unable to walk away.

"Because it's what Terry wanted," I said. "But don't worry, if I come up with anything the bureau doesn't have, I'll give it to them. Just like today. I'm not trying to compete with them. I'm just working the case, Graciela."

"Okay."

"But you know you don't have to tell them that if they ask. They might not be happy about it."

"I know."

"Thank you, Graciela. I'll call if anything comes up."

"Thank you, Harry. Good luck."

"I'll probably need it."

After disconnecting I tried Buddy Lockridge once more but got voice mail again. I guessed that maybe he was on a plane with his phone turned off. I hoped, anyway. I hoped he had gotten onto the boat and then off before the bureau agents saw him. I put the phone down and went to the refrigerator. I made a quick sandwich of processed cheese and white bread. I had both in the box in case my daughter should want a grilled cheese sandwich when she visited. It was one of her staples. I skipped the grilling and just stood at the counter and quickly ate the tasteless sandwich to fill the void in my stomach. I then sat at the table and opened my notebook to a new page. I used a couple of self-relaxation exercises I had learned years ago in hypnosis class. In my mind I saw a blank chalkboard. Pretty soon I picked up the chalk and started writing in white across the black surface of the board. As best as I could I re-created Terry McCaleb's notes from the missing men file-the notes the FBI had taken away. When I had as much as I could remember on the board, I started rewriting it all in my notebook. I thought that I got most of it, except for the phone numbers and I didn't care so much about them because I could recover them by simply dialing information.

Through the open balcony door I heard the high-pitched whine of jet engines. Another plane was parking out there. I heard the engines quit and it got peaceful again.

I opened McCaleb's map book. I checked every page and found no handwritten notations other than those on the page illustrating southern Nevada and the contiguous sections of California and Arizona. Again, I looked at what McCaleb had done. He had circled the Mojave Preservation Area, which I knew included the Zzyzx Road exit and the location of the FBI's body excavation scene. On the outside margin of the map, he had written a column of numbers and added them up to 86. Beneath this he had drawn a line and written "Actual-92."

My guess was that these numbers corresponded to miles. I looked at the map and found that it noted mile counts between distances on all significant roadways. In a matter of seconds I found numbers that matched the column McCaleb had written on the side of the page. He had added up the mileage counts between Las Vegas and a point on I- 15 in the middle of the Mojave. Zzyzx Road was too small and inconsequential to be listed on the map by name. But my guess was that it was the unnamed point on the 15 from which McCaleb had started to add up the mileage.

In my notebook I wrote and added the numbers myself. McCaleb got it right-86 miles, according to the map. But then he had disagreed or charted a different route, coming up with 92 miles. My guess was that he had driven the route himself and gotten a different count from the map on his car's odometer. This conflict would have occurred because in Las Vegas he would have had a specific destination. The map's mileage counts would have used a different end point in the city.

McCaleb's destination was unknown to me. I had no idea when the markings on the map page had been made or whether they were in any way connected to the case. But I thought they were because he began his count at Zzyzx Road. That could not be a coincidence. There are no coincidences.

From the balcony I heard a cough. I knew it was the woman next door smoking on her balcony. I found her very curious and kept somewhat of a watch on her whenever I was staying at the Double X. She wasn't much of a smoker and she seemed to go out on the balcony only when a private jet was coming into a parking stall. Sure, some people like to watch planes. But I thought she was up to something and that made me all the more curious. I thought maybe she was spotting marks for the casinos or maybe other gamblers.

I got up and walked out through the door. As I stepped out I looked to my right and saw my neighbor throw something backward into her apartment. Something she didn't want me to see.

"Jane, how you doing?"

"Fine, Harry. Haven't seen you around lately."

"I've been gone a couple days. What do we have out here?"

I looked across the parking lot to the tarmac. Another sleek black jet had parked next to its twin. A matching black limo was waiting near the jet's stairs. A man wearing a suit, sunglasses and a maroon turban was coming out of the plane. I realized I was ruining Jane's surveillance if that was a camera or set of binoculars she tossed back into her place when she saw me.

"The sultan of swing," I said, just to be saying something.

"Probably," she said.

She took a drag on her cigarette and coughed again. I knew she wasn't a smoker. She smoked so it would look plausible for her to be on the balcony watching rich men and their airplanes. She also didn't have brown eyes-I had seen her on the balcony one day when she'd forgotten to put in the tinted contacts-and her hennaed black hair was probably not the real color either.

I wanted to ask her what she was up to, what the game or the con or the scheme was. But I also liked our balcony-to-balcony conversations and I wasn't a cop anymore. And the truth was that if Jane-I didn't know her last name-was in the business of separating those rich men from some of their riches, then down deep I couldn't work up a good deal of outrage over it. The whole city was built on the same principle. You roll the dice in the city of desire and you get what you deserve.

I sensed something intrinsically good about her. Damaged but good. One time when I brought my daughter to the apartment we ran into Jane on the steps and she stopped to talk to Maddie. The next morning I found a little stuffed panther on the doormat next to my paper.