“As you say. In my journey, in any event, I will remain obscure.”

The Syrian laughed.

Juba showed him a finger on which he had written in Arabic, in ballpoint: “Meet me outside in swamp at 0430.”

Then he rubbed it out, and said, “Who’s Harvey Weinstein?”

50

Cop shop, Rock Springs, Wyoming

It was as if her name was Detective. Her last name was Murphy, but people just called her Detective. To look at her was to know why: she had that glare of butch aggression, a face unsoftened by makeup or internal mirth, family, love. If she’d ever had any of them, it was a long time ago. You wouldn’t think life in a city of twenty-six thousand would have eroded her softer components so relentlessly, but it made sense when you realized this was her second department, after fifteen very tough years in Salt Lake City Metro. She’s come to Rock Springs for the landscape and the peace and quiet. She’s found one—the landscape was everywhere—but not the other two.

“Detective, for some reason Rock Springs has the highest rate of homeless depletion in America,” said Nick.

“I’m surprised anybody keeps tabs,” she said.

“I’m not too sure that the figures are reliable, with the single exception of yours. But it’s clear from the report your chief forwarded that you’re the only one paying attention.”

She lit a Marlboro, offered one each to Nick and Bob, who each declined, and took a deep draught. She wore jeans, packed a Smith .357 four-inch on her right hip, a plaid shirt, a five-pointed law enforcement star, boots that had been through fertilizer a time or two.

The three sat on a bench outside Rock Springs’s main station, a nineteenth-century brick extravaganza, from which men with Colts and Winchesters had gone to enforce the law a century before. She would have been happy among them.

“It’s mostly Indians,” she said. “They get in all kinds of trouble. You tell me why. But I’ll tell you how. Meth, speed, coke, Mexican Mud, now opioids. They’re always doing something to fuck themselves up, and if it’s off the res, it’s on us to clean it up. Such beautiful folks too. But you want to hear about our hobos. Oh, wait, can’t call ’em that. Our homeless.”

“You say that of a population you estimate at over seventy-five, at least six have gone missing in the last three months. Not moseyed away, not died in ditches, not frozen, or hit by big rigs on the interstate, but just vanished—one day here, the next day not?”

“Yep, totally. It actually stopped for a while, then, the last few days, another guy ups and vanishes. Then comes your alert.”

Bob and Nick looked at each other. Without having to say it, each man thought of Mr. Gold’s inquiry about whether Juba would refresh his skills with another run-through.