"What about me? What's my nickname going to be?"

"You…"

He looked at me like a sculptor sizing up a block of granite.

"Um, you are Suitcase Harry."

"How come?"

"Because you're sort of rumpled, like you live out of a suitcase."

I nodded.

"Pretty good."

"So, did you know Terry?"

"Yes, I knew him. We worked a few cases together when he was with the bureau. Then one more after he got the new heart."

He snapped his fingers and pointed at me.

"Now I remember, you were the cop. You were the one who was here that night on his boat when those two goons showed up to do him in. You saved him and then he turned around and saved you."

I nodded.

"That's right. Now can I ask some questions, Buddy?"

He spread his hands wide, indicating he was available and had nothing to hide.

"Oh, sure, man, I didn't mean to be hogging the microphone, you know?"

I took out my notebook and put it on the table.

"Thanks. Let's start with that last charter. Tell me about it"

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"Everything." Lockridge expelled his breath.

"That's a tall order," he said.

But he began to tell me the story. What he initially told me matched the minimal accounts I had read in the Las Vegas papers and what I had then heard when I attended McCaleb's funeral. McCaleb and Lockridge had been on a four-day, three-night charter, taking a party of one into waters off Baja California to fish for marlin. While returning to Avalon Harbor on Catalina on the fourth day McCaleb collapsed at the boat's topside helm station. They were 22 miles off the coast, midway between San Diego and Los Angeles. A help call was radioed to the U.S. Coast Guard and a rescue chopper was dispatched. McCaleb was airlifted to a hospital in Long Beach, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.