Lynch shows the Salvaras being warned about Locke's game by the Midnighters to inject another layer of danger into things for the crew. And then he shows the crew celebrating how clever they are, when we know that they're in big trouble because the Midnighters are onto them. But then it's revealed that the celebration scene actually came before the Midnighters scene; it's being shown out of chronological order for dramatic purposes. At the end of the chapter we see that Locke and whichever one of the twins was with him were disguised as the two Midnighters we saw earlier in the chapter. So everything in the second part of the chapter took place before the first part.

Fortunately, Lynch straightens the narrative out from this point, I think. Most of the rest of the book follows a chronological order, with the interludes as flashbacks. This is a good thing, I think. While it's entirely possible to work out his time-shifts in the narrative in Chapters One and Three, it's a bit of a jarring way to start a book.

This is where Locke lampshades his plan. To forstall the possibility that the Salvaras might get suspicious about all the coincidences stacking up in the Fehrwright thing, Locke dresses up as a Midnighter and tells the Salvaras everything he's doing to them as Fehrwright. This way, it doesn't matter if they would have become suspicious. Now they'll just hand all the money over without asking questions.

I think this was a risky way for Lynch to start a novel, and I remember that this chapter almost put me off when I first read it. I had been excited about the possibility of this Spider person and the Midnighters being onto Locke, and the danger that represented. And then by the end of that same chapter (or was it in the next chapter? I can't remember), that whole setup gets taken apart as we see that it was Locke disguised as a Midnighter, and that it was all part of his plan. Suddenly it seems as if there's no danger to the crew after all, except for that mysterious shadow following them.

It works, it's just a little convoluted. It sets up the idea of the Spider and the Midnighters for much later in the novel, and it shows how complex Locke's plans can be. And as I said, I think it's fairly brilliant how he lampshades his own plan like that, getting everything he wants without needing a foolproof setup. But even though important things are learned, both Chapter One and Chapter Three are all over the place. When combined with the flashback interludes and the flashback prologue, the reader has chronology issues coming out of every hole. It holds together, and everything that happens afterward is absolutely worth it once you have things straight, but wow, what a strange way to start a novel.

In one of these interludes, I think, we see Locke, Calo, and Galdo stealing a body and then using it to bilk people out of some extra cash, just for the hell of it. Because he's the boy who steals too much. Richer and cleverer than anyone, but a bit too rich and clever for his own good. He's never quite been able to get away from that.