The Narrows by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online Page A

the stalls. He tried to change his thoughts. He listened to the fellow travelers coming and going in the restroom, relieving themselves, washing themselves. One man spoke on a cell phone while defecating in the next stall. The whole place smelled horrible. But that was okay. It smelled like the tunnel where he was reborn in blood and darkness so long ago. If they only knew who was in their presence here.
    He momentarily caught a vision of a dark, starless sky. He was falling backward, his arms flailing, the featherless and useless wings of a baby bird pushed out of the nest.
    But he had survived and had learned to fly.
    He started to laugh and used his foot to flush the toilet and cover his sound.
    “Fuck you all,” he whispered.
    He waited for his erection to subside, pondering its cause and smiling. He knew his own profile so well. In the end it was always about the same thing. There was only a nanometer of difference between power and sex and fulfillment when it came to the narrow spaces between the synapses in the gray folds of the mind. In those narrows it all came down to the same thing.
    When he was ready he flushed the toilet again, careful to use his shoe, and stepped out of the stall. He washed his hands again and checked his look in the mirror. He smiled. He was a new man. Rachel would not recognize him. Nobody would. Feeling confident, he unzipped the MGM bag and checked on his digital camera. It was there and ready to go. He decided he would take the risk and shoot some photos of Rachel. Just some keepsakes, a few secret shots he could admire and enjoy after everything was all over.

8

    T HE FISH BOX. Buddy’s mention of it reminded me of the sheriff’s report up in the chart station drawer.
    “I meant to ask you about that. You say this guy took the GPS?”
    “Phony bastard, I’m sure it was him. He went out with us, the next thing we know my GPS is gone and he starts a charter over on the isthmus. Put two and two together and you get asshole. I’ve been meaning to go over there and pay him a little visit.”
    I was having trouble following the line of his story. I asked him to explain it to me in English, as if I didn’t know a fish charter from a fish chowder.
    “This is the deal,” he said. “That little black box had all our best spots on it. Our fishing holes, man. Not only that, it had the points marked by the guy I won it from. I won it in a poker game from another fish guide. The value assigned was not for the box but what was on it. The guy was putting his best twelve spots on the table and I won ’em with a full fucking house.”
    “All right,” I said. “I get it now. Its value was in the coordinates of the fishing spots recorded on it, not the device itself.”
    “Exactly. Those things cost a couple hundred bucks. But the fishing spots, those come from years of work and skill, fishing experience.”
    I pointed at the photo on the computer screen.
    “And this guy comes along and takes it and then he starts out his charter business ahead of the game. Using your experience as well as the guide’s you won it from.”
    “Way ahead. Like I said, I’m going to go pay him a visit one of these days.”
    “Where is the isthmus?”
    “On the other side, where the island pinches together like a figure eight.”
    “Did you tell the sheriff’s department you thought he stole it?”
    “Not at first because we didn’t know, you know? The thing turned up missing and we thought maybe some kids came onto the boat or something at night and grabbed whatever they saw. It gets pretty fucking boring growing up on the island, from what I hear. Just ask Graciela about Raymond—the kid’s going stir crazy. So anyway we made a report and that was that. Then a couple weeks later I see this ad in Fish Tales and it’s announcing this new charter out of the isthmus and there’s a picture of the guy and I say, ‘Hey, I know that guy’ and I put it together. He stole my fish box.”
    “Did you call