“ He gave me the credit,” McCaleb said. “I didn’t take it. Eventually, when he knew the risks were too great, he dropped out. The killings stopped. The Code Killer disappeared. About that same time I went down with… with my problems. I needed the transplant and it became news because I had been a face in the news. Noone saw this. He could have easily been aware of this. And he hatched what he would consider his grandest scheme.”

“He decided that rather than kill you, he would save you,” Uhlig said.

McCaleb nodded.

“It would give him the ultimate victory because it would last and last. To simply eliminate me, kill me, would bring only a fleeting sense of fulfillment. But by saving me… now there was something unique, something that would get him into the hall of fame. And he’d always have me around as a reminder of how smart and powerful he is. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Nevins said. “But that’s the psychological side. What I want to know is how he did it? How’d he get the names? How did he know about Kenyon and Cordell and then Torres?”

“His computer. Your techs are going to have to take that thing apart.”

“We’ve got Bob Clearmountain coming in,” Nevins said. “You remember him?”

McCaleb nodded. Clearmountain was the L.A. field office’s resident computer expert. A hacker extraordinary in his own right.

“Good. Then he’ll be able to answer that question better than me. Eventually. My guess is that you’ll find a hacking program in that computer. Noone got into BOPRA and from there got the names. He chose his targets based on age, physical fitness and proximity. And he went to work. With Kenyon and Cordell things went wrong. They went right with Torres. That is, according to Noone’s view.”

“And he planned all along to lay it on you?”

“All I think is that he wanted me to follow the trail and find out for myself what he had done. He knew that would happen if I became a suspect. Because then I would have to look into it myself. But then that didn’t happen at first because the case investigators missed the clues.”

He looked at Arrango in the mirror as he said this. He could see the detective’s eyes turn dark with anger. He was about to explode.

“Arrango, the fact is, you treated it as an everyday stop-and-rob with the addition of shots fired, nothing more and nothing less. You missed it. So Noone jump-started the whole thing.”

“How?” Uhlig and Nevins asked in unison.

“My involvement came about because of an article in the Times. That article was prompted by a letter from a reader. Whatever name was on that letter, I bet it was Noone.”

He stopped there, waiting for disagreement. None came.

“The letter prompts the article. The article prompts Graciela Rivers. Graciela Rivers prompts me. Like dominoes.”

A thought suddenly occurred to him. He remembered the man in the old foreign car watching from across the street the first time he visited the Sherman Market. He realized the car matched the one he had seen speeding from the marina lot the night he chased the intruder.

“I think Noone was watching me all along,” he said. “Watching his plan unfold. He knew when it was time to get into my boat and plant the evidence. He knew when to call you.”

He looked at Nevins, whose eyes shifted away and out the windshield.

“You got an anonymous call? What was said?”

“Actually, it was an anonymous message. Taken down by the overnight person. It just said, ‘Check the blood. McCaleb has their blood.’ That was it.”

“It fits. That was him. Just another move in the game.”

They were silent for a while. The windows were beginning to fog with the heat and their breath.

“Well, I don’t know how much of this we’ll ever confirm,” Nevins said. “Certainly a lot of maybes.”

McCaleb nodded. He doubted any of it would ever be confirmed because he doubted Noone would ever be identified or found.

“Okay, then,” Nevins continued. “I guess we’ll be in touch.”

He opened his door and the others followed. Before he got out, Uhlig reached over the seat and tapped McCaleb’s shoulder with a harmonica.

“It was on the floor back here,” he said.

As Arrango stepped out onto the asphalt, McCaleb lowered his window and looked up at him.

“You know, you could’ve busted it. It was all there in the book. It was waiting for you.”

“Fuck you, McCaleb.”

He walked away, following the two agents back toward Noone’s garage. McCaleb smiled slightly. He had to admit that in spite of everything he still wasn’t above the guilty pleasure of tweaking Arrango.

McCaleb sat in the car for a few more minutes before leaving. It was late, past ten o’clock, and he was wondering where to go. He had not talked to Graciela yet and he looked forward to the task with a mixture of dread and relief, the latter coming from knowing that one way or another their relationship would be clearly defined soon. The problem he had was that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to deliver his tidings at night. His news seemed better delivered during the unflinching light of day.

He put his hand on the ignition and took one last look up the drive toward the lighted garage where his life had been so brutally changed. He saw that the light cast from the garage and across the driveway was moving. He guessed that the overhead light had been disturbed somehow and was swinging. Something occurred to him then and he took his hand off the ignition.

McCaleb stepped out of the Taurus and without hesitation ducked under the yellow tape. The uniform officer in charge of entry to the crime scene said nothing. He had probably inferred-wrongly-that McCaleb was a detective, having watched three of the lead investigators walk down and sit in the car with him.

He walked to the periphery of the light and waited until he could catch Jaye Winston’s eye. She was standing with a clipboard and writing down descriptions of the warehouse’s contents. Every item in the place was being tagged and taken.

When Winston stepped out of the way of one of the technicians, she glanced out into the darkness and McCaleb caught her attention with a wave. She walked out of the garage and over to him. She had a cautious smile on her face.

“I thought you were clear. Why aren’t you gone?”

“I’m going. Just wanted to say thanks for everything. You gettin’ anything in there?”

She frowned and shook her head.

“You were right. Place is clean. Latents guys haven’t even found a smudge. There are prints on the computer but my guess is that they are yours. I don’t know how we’re going to track this guy. It’s like he was never here.”

He signaled her closer when he noticed Arrango step out of the garage and put a cigarette in his mouth.

“I think he made a mistake,” he said quietly. “Get your best latents man and go to the Star Center. Have him laser the light tubes in the ceiling of the interview room. When I was setting up the hypnosis session, I took down some lights and handed them to Noone. He had to take them from me or he might give himself away. There might be prints.”

Her face brightened and she smiled.

“It’s on the tape of the session,” he said. “You can tell them it was your find.”

“Thanks, Terry.”

She clapped him gently on the shoulder. He nodded and started walking back to the car. She called after him and he looked back.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know where you are going. But good luck.”

He waved and turned back toward his destination.