I went further down the pass-through. There was a sort of courtyard, that was really only a widening of the alley, at the heart of the block. Old loading docks yawned open above the street, their doors long ago broken down, their head-high concrete aprons crumbling. The only signs of habitation were three cardboard boxes of empty beer bottles stacked in one doorway, and the water, which was rushing out a drainpipe that climbed the side of the building to a tank at the edge of the roof. I stayed close to the wall, in case someone was up there and attentive.

I followed the alley out to the street, and followed that to circle around Walt’s place. The house itself, I decided, might have been a garage originally. It was a single-storey building with a flat roof and a few long narrow windows set too high in the walls to look into, their glass painted white. It also had a big paved area in back, walled with ten-foot chainlink and two strands of barbed wire. On the oil-stained paving I could see untidy stacks of old tires, rusting heaps of auto body components, and piled lumber warping in the weather.

I also saw a black-and-red motorcycle parked inside the fence, by the back door. The string connecting us dissolved.

As ambivalent as I was about my talent, I had to admit there were times when a find gave me a near-adrenal rush. This was one of them. My grin was involuntary, my whispered “Gotcha!” nearly so. There was an empty building next door, with a back yard full of scrub trees and high grass. I declared that “cover,” and moved in closer. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to get my motorcycle sighting and go home. Too much cat in my ancestry.

I’d expected the black finish on the rod frame to be primer, from my dream glimpse. Instead, it was either dense matte-black paint or some kind of rubberized coating. It looked phenomenally expensive. It was the metal-flake red on the teardrop tank that seemed a little cheesy; it didn’t have the depth or gloss of the pearlescent midnight-blue lacquer on Tick-Tick’s bike, and was a little battle-scarred, besides. Where most bikes would sport chrome, this one had black anodized metal. “The Stealth Chopper,” I muttered, and realized that, whether functional or attitudinal, that’s exactly what it was. Except for the gas tank. A replacement, waiting for a new paint job? Or were the black parts left over from better days and a previous owner?