Inside Out by Barry Eisler Page A

and Taibbi, let me tell you, has seen his share of shit.”
    “That’s not what Wheeler told us,” Ben said. “She said your guy in Costa Rica disappeared.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I told her. I just wanted to keep it vague, you know? The fewer questions the better. Anyway, Taibbi told me he was done, called me a few choice words for not adequately warning him of what Larison was all about—like I knew, for fuck’s sake—and told me he was out. I started thinking about what I’d gotten myself into, what it would be like if Larison ever learned some PI had been following him. Well, the hell with that. So yeah, I told Wheeler my Costa Rica guy had disappeared and I gave her back her money. And that’s the last I heard of any of this, until now.”
    Paula said, “And Taibbi didn’t go to the police?”
    “Taibbi lives the kind of life that doesn’t mix well with law enforcement. And if your next question is why I didn’t go to the cops either, what was I supposed to do? Tell the Costa Rican police I heard there was a murder that the guy who might have seen it will never testify about? Please.”
    “So you saw Larison traveling from Miami to Costa Rica,” Ben said. “What were the dates?”
    “Are you shitting me? It was three years ago.”
    “You don’t have records?”
    “Oh, yeah, I have records,” McGlade said, looking around the office. “I’m sure they’re here somewhere. I’ll just get some excavation equipment and we’ll turn them up in no time.”
    Ben tried not to let his impatience show. “What was the season?”
    “First time was … shit, I can’t remember. But wait. Second time … I remember the Magic had just made the play-offs. It was a big deal, their first time since 2003. So that would havebeen … April. Yeah, April 2007. Yeah, they beat the Celtics the night before, I remember that. So … hold on.”
    McGlade leaned forward and worked his computer for a moment. “April 16, 2007. That was the day Larison flew from Miami to San Jose the second time. So the first time would have been … maybe three months before that. Four at the most.”
    “Remember the airline?” Ben said.
    “Lacsa. Costa Rican carrier, United affiliate, I think.”
    Ben nodded. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a pretty good start. Hort could check the passenger manifest on the day Larison traveled. Ben doubted the man would have been traveling under his own name, but now they had a good shot at uncovering an alias. Or one of them, anyway.
    McGlade said, “All right? That’s everything I know. You don’t have to crawl up my ass now. Unless you’re into that kind of thing.”
    “One more question,” Paula said, smiling. “The name of your friend’s bar.”

10
Someone Else’s Dreams
    Larison stepped off the bus at the Greyhound station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The ticket he’d bought was for Scranton. One was as good as the other, he just didn’t like going where the ticket said he would. He knew no one was watching—paying cash and moving by bus was the most secure and anonymous means of travel left in America—but there was no downside to layering in another level of security, either.
    He slung his bag over his shoulder and started walking, his boots crunching quietly on the cement sidewalk. The sun was setting behind the tired-looking buildings to his right, but the air was still suffused with a stagnant heat. He didn’t care. A little sweat, a little body odor would make it less likely that anyone would take an interest in him or recall his passage after he was gone.
    He headed south along Market Street, knowing he’d find ahotel soon enough. In his worn jeans and faded flannel shirt, his unshaven face obscured by a Cat Diesel hat, he knew he looked like a tradesman of some sort who’d lost his job in the hollowed-out economy and was looking to find another. Nobody important, but not a criminal, either, just a down-on-his-luck guy moving away from something sad and toward