"I understand. I need to ask one more thing-"

"Ask as much as you like."

"I always thought she didn't know who he was, my father I mean. I guess I figured he didn't even know I existed-"

Wilson knew where the boy was going, but let him get there in his own way.

"I guess what I'm wondering is, could they have been in touch with each other after I was born? That's the only way Reinnike could have known my name."

Wilson thought about it, and thought it through hard because he was wondering the same. He answered slowly.

"Your grandfather, he used to go through your mother's things all the time. He had to, you know-don't think poorly of him for that-he was always scared she'd up and disappear one day and get herself murdered, so he used to look-"

"You don't have to apologize for him, Mr. Wilson. I know what he went through. I went through it, too."

"He would have told me if he found letters from anyone. Your aunt, too-she always had an eye out-but they never told me about finding anything like that. I think they would have told, especially when you started running off, but-"

Cole interrupted.

"It's possible."

"When two people want to get hold of each other, I guess they can do damn near anything. I don't think it's likely, her being the way she was, but-"

Wilson wanted to say more, but anything else would be a lie. God knows, the boy had enough of those.

"-I don't know."

A silence filled the empty space as the boy mulled that over.

"Okay, Mr. Wilson, I understand. I just needed your opinion. Like always."

Wilson felt warm, hearing the boy say that.

"I wish I could be more help."

"You help. You always have."

"This guy, Reinnike, he have any proof, anything that links him to your mother or you?"

"No."

"Was he a human cannonball?"

Elvis Cole laughed, but it was strained at the edges.

"I don't know. I'll find out."

"Well, I guess you could have one of those tests, the DNA."

"I've been thinking about it. They have to locate the next of kin first. You have to get permission."

"Well, we both know there are ways around that. Old as I am, I could get around that one."

"I'd better get going here, Mr. Wilson. Give Mrs. Wilson my love."

Ken Wilson's heart squeezed tight in his chest. He felt the tears come and looked at the little.32.

He said, "Call more often, goddamnit. I miss talking with you."

"I will."

Wilson fell silent; here he was, on the Banana River, talking to a man he had known from a boy, and this man was as close to a son as Wilson would ever have.

"I've always been proud of you, the way you turned yourself around-you rose above yourself, son. Every man should, but most folks don't even try. You did, and I'm proud of you. Whatever that's worth."

"I'd better go."

"It's time for me to go, too. You take care."

He was putting down the phone when he remembered one last thing.

"Elvis?"

"Sir?"

He'd caught the boy just in time.

"It doesn't matter who your father was. You're still you. You hear what I'm saying? There's no such thing as a dead end-not in this game. You keep looking. You'll find what you need to find."

"Thanks, Mr. Wilson."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

The line clicked, then Wilson put down his phone. The frogs and moths were suddenly loud again, and his screened porch was once more a dark cage. His little shack on the Banana River had seemed brighter while he spoke with the boy, but now the brightness was gone.

"Why in hell did you have to go?"

He had a last sip of the Scotch, then picked up his pistol, pushed open the cylinder, and shook out the bullets. He left all of it on the little wicker table, and went inside to his bed. He fell asleep thinking of Edie, and of the ways he had failed her, and of all the ways he had failed himself, but with a final dim hope that he had done right by the boy.

Invasion

Frederick loitered outside Cole's building until cars bled from the parking garage, then hustled up to the fifth floor, where he hid in the men's bathroom until almost eight o'clock. When Frederick sensed everyone was likely gone, he crept down to the fourth floor and back to Cole's office. He worried that a security guard or cleaning crew might find him, so he used the direct approach-he pried open Cole's door with a jack handle. Cole would immediately know that someone had broken into his office (as would a passing security guard), but Frederick moved quickly. He scooped up Cole's Rolodex and blew through the desk for bills, letters, and other correspondence. He grabbed anything that could even possibly contain Cole's home address, then ran back down the stairs, and out to his car. He had worn gloves. He didn't take the time to go through the things he stole until he was safely at home. It had been a helluva bad day, so he was relieved to be home. He enjoyed sleeping in his own bed. He felt safe. Best of all, the third bill he inspected was addressed to Cole's home. He dreamed about Cole that night. He dreamed about what he would do. He dreamed about Cole's screams.

At three-thirty that morning the traffic moved with professional grace. That time of day, big-rig truckers who knew the rules of freeway driving moved cleanly, content to let me drift among them. The city thinned and the eastern sky lightened as I reached the Coachella Valley and curved south between the jagged shoulders of the mountains.

The Salton Sea was the largest, lowest lake in California, filling the broad, flat basin of the Salton Sink like a mirror laid on the desert floor. It was shallow because the land was flat, and surrounded by barren desert and scorched rocks like some forgotten puddle in Hell. When the periodic algal blooms died, it smelled like Hell, too. During the worst of summer, the temperature could reach one-thirty on the lake's shore, but now the air rushing over me felt cool and good, and the smell was clean.

I dropped down the west side of the lake past pelicans and fishermen lining the rocks for tilapia and corvina. The valley floor rose quickly when I passed the lake, cut by irrigation canals and small farming roads without many signs, and dotted with small towns that all looked the same. At six-fifty that morning I entered Anson. Imperial was another twenty miles south, but I wanted to find George Reinnike's original homo first. A neighbor might have maintained contact with his family.

Anson was a sleepy collection of hardware stores, video rental shops, and small businesses. Eighteen-wheelers laden with tomatoes and artichokes lumbered through town, kicking up enormous clouds of dust that covered buildings and cars with a fine white powder. No one seemed to mind.

I stopped at a gas station where an overweight man behind the counter nodded past a burrito bulging with beans and eggs and cheese.

I said, "'Morning. I need a local map. You have something like that?"

He shoved the burrito toward a tattered map taped to the glass. He didn't put down the burrito. Once you get a grip on something like that, you can't set it down.

"Right up there. Help yourself."

The map was from the Bureau of Land Management, and had been taped to the glass so long its colors were bleached.

"Do you have one I can take with me?"

"Nope. You can try the Chamber of Commerce. They might have something."

"Okay. Where's that?"

"Second light down next to the State Farm office, but they don't open for another two hours. I could probably tell you how to get wherever it is you want to go."

I gave him Reinnike's address. He studied the map, then tapped L Street with his knuckle.

"Well, this here's northwest L Street, but there ain't nothing out there but fields. No one lives out there."