The rustling stopped briefly, then started again. A kind of rat came out, followed by a little family, and slid into the river. I moved on.
I passed a man lying in the grasses, so still I thought he might be dead. My skin curling with disgust, I went close enough to hear him breathe, a slow, kerchunky sound. Mr. Contreras followed me with the flashlight, and I saw the telltale needle lying across the open lid of a beer can. I left him to such dreams as remained for him and climbed back up the embankment to the bridge.
We crossed the river in a strained silence and tried to repeat the maneuver on the far side, both of us calling to Mitch. It was after five, with the eastern sky turning that lighter shade of gray that presages the dying year’s dawn, when we staggered back to the car and collapsed against the seats.
I pulled out my city maps. The marshland was huge on the West Side; a team of trained searchers, with dogs, could spend a week here without covering half of it. Beyond the expanse of marsh, the network of streets started up again, mile upon mile of abandoned houses and junkyards where a dog might be lying. I didn’t really believe our two thugs would have gone west of the river: people stay close to the space they know. These guys had found or hijacked or whatever they’d done to the Miata close to their home base.
“I don’t know what we do next,” I said dully.
My feet were numb from the cold and damp, my eyelids ached with fatigue. Mr. Contreras is eighty-one; I didn’t know how he was staying upright.
“Me neither, cookie, me neither. I just should never’ve—” He broke off his lamentation before I did. “Do you see that?”
He pointed down the road at a dark shape. “Probably just a deer or something, but put on the headlights, doll, put on the headlights.”
I put on the headlights and got out to crouch in the road. “Mitch? Mitch? Come here, boy, come here!”
He was caked in mud, his tongue lolling with exhaustion and thirst. When he saw me, he gave a little “whoof” of relief and started licking my face. Mr. Contreras tumbled out of the car and was hugging the dog, calling him names, telling him how he’d skin him alive if he ever pulled a stunt like that again.
A car came up behind us and blared on its horn. The three of us jumped: we’d had the road to ourselves for so long we’d forgotten it was a thoroughfare. Mitch’s thick leather leash was still attached to his collar. I tried to drag him back to the car, but he planted his feet and growled.
“What is it, boy? Huh? You got something in your feet?” I felt his paws, but, although the pads were nicked in places, I couldn’t find anything lodged in them.
He stood up and picked up something from the road and dropped it at my feet. He turned to look back down the road, back west, the way he’d come from, picked up the thing and dropped it again.
“He wants us to go thataway,” Mr. Contreras said. “He’s found something, he wants us to go with him.”
I held the thing he’d been dropping under the flashlight. It was some kind of fabric, but so caked in mud, I couldn’t tell what it was.
“You want to follow us in the car while I see where he wants to get to?” I said dubiously. Maybe he’d killed one of the punks and wanted me to see the body. Maybe he’d found Josie, drawn by the scent from the T-shirt he’d been lying on, although this rag was too small to be a shirt.
I found a bottle of water in my car and poured some into an empty paper cup I found in the grass. Mitch was so urgent to get me going west that I persuaded him to drink only with difficulty. I finished the bottle myself, and gave him his head. He insisted on carrying his filthy piece of fabric.
More cars were passing us now, people heading for work in the dreary predawn. I took the flashlight in my right hand so oncoming cars could see us. With Mr. Contreras crawling in our wake, we padded along 100th Street, Mitch looking anxiously from me to the ground in front of him. At Torrence, about half a mile along, he got confused for a few minutes, darting up and down the ditch along the road before deciding to head south.
We turned west again at 103rd, passing in front of the giant By-Smart warehouse. The endless stream of trucks was coming and going, and a dense parade of people was walking up the drive from the bus stop. The morning shift must be starting. The sky had lightened during our march; it was morning now.