Close Reading: Coming Through Slaughter

"It looked as if Bolden had no notion he was not coming back when he left for Shell Beach. Webb took much more seriously than others of his profession sudden actions and off hand gestures. Always found them more dangerous, more determined. Also he had discovered that Bolden had never spoken of his past. To the people here he was a musician who arrived in the city at the age of twenty-two. Webb had known him since fifteen. He could easily be wiping out his past again in a casual gesture, contemptuous. Landscape suicide. So perhaps the only clue to Bolden's body was in Webb's brain. Sleeping in childhood stories and now thrown into the future like an arrow. To be finished when they grew up. What was Bolden's favorite story? Whose moment of terror did he want to witness, Webb thought as he began the third banana." Pg. 14 (in my edition).

In this text from the novel, the author gives the reader some clues about Bolden. When Webb is thinking to himself, the narrator says "He could easily be wiping out his past again in a casual gesture, contemptuous." as if suggesting Buddy is hiding something from his past. We also see the strong relationship that Webb and Buddy have, and how the close detective unrestfully searches for his friend. The reader now knows that they knew each other since their younger years, and we can infer that Webb is using his past knowledge of Bolden, such as his favorite childhood story, to find his missing friend.