"As he walked the sodden planks of the Municipal Dock, his eyes wandered from overcoats to leather shoes, across roped bollards to steam rising off the mills. He sighed a lungful of cigarette smoke. Tacoma’s dreary, wet weather could not compare to the glorious blue skies of Los Angeles. Drizzle saturated everything here, but in California the wind rustling the palms reminded a man of the nearby ocean, even when the views were framed by hotel and automobile windows, or caught in the short walks to and from a courthouse. It felt good to be alone, though, not shadowed by a bodyguard: protection is another word for confinement. Soon enough, he would be on the familiar slope above Joe’s Bay and tucked into his mother’s cabin." -- From the opening paragraph