Jesse shook his head. They sat some more.
Then Jesse said, “Are we thinking the same thing?”
Crow shrugged.
“What are you thinking,” Crow said.
“That if we manipulate this right, we might roll the whole show up at one time,” Jesse said.
“We, White Eyes?” Crow said.
Jesse nodded.
“I don’t know much about you, Crow,” Jesse said. “And most of what I know, I don’t understand. But I know you wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Crow smiled.
“Maybe that’s all there is to know,” he said.
63.
Crow sat on the seawall in the middle of the causeway, talking on his cell phone.
“Can you hang on a couple days?” he said. “I’m in Tucson.”
“I’m okay right now,” Amber said. “But I have to see you.”
“Couple days,” Crow said.
It was a bright day. The wind off the water was steady on his back. Across the causeway, the sailboats bobbed at their moorings.
“Can I meet you someplace?” Amber said.
“Sure,” Crow said. “As soon as I get back.”
“On the causeway?” she said. “Like in my message?”
“Sure. Sounds like a perfect place,” Crow said. “Can’t miss each other.”
“You promise?” Amber said.
“Soon as I get back. I’ll call your cell.”
“I hope you hurry,” Amber said. “You’re the only person I can trust.”
“Absolutely,” Crow said. “Couple days.”
“Okay.”
Crow closed the cell phone and put it away. He sat and looked around. It was a two-lane road. Traffic was slow. At the mainland end the road curved right, away from the ocean, shortly after it left the causeway, and vanished among the middle-market homes of East Paradise. At the point where the road reached Paradise Neck, at the other end of the causeway, it turned left and disappeared among the trees and shingled estates. Crow looked behind him. The seawall at this point dropped about five feet to a strip of rocky beach, maybe two feet wide, which dwindled from the full-fledged beach on the mainland side to nothing, maybe a hundred feet beyond him toward the Neck. It was high tide. Crow had already checked the tides. Crow stood and walked across the roadway. On this side the water of the harbor lapped against the base of the causeway. He would check it again at low tide. But he was pretty sure that the ocean side was better for his purposes. He went back and sat on the wall again on the ocean side. He looked to his right, toward the Neck.
They’d come from there. This wasn’t a smart group of people, but nobody was stupid enough
