I wasn’t going to see the inside that day, though, because the man we were looking for was right where Blue had told us he would be-outside, kneeling before a statue of St. Anthony of Padua. Patron saint of the poor.

The “crazy kind of hat” turned out to be a long stocking cap of rainbow colors-it vaguely resembled one an aunt gave me in the 1960s, the Christmas after she got a knitting machine. His beard, which was dark brown, was almost as long and pointy as the cap. There was a sort of symmetry in it, I suppose.

Inside the church, a mass was being said. I could hear the congregation singing the Gloria. “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth,” they sang, a group of guitars strumming in the background.

Two Toes was a big man. I could see that, even while he was on his knees. He heard us approaching and suddenly stood. He turned toward us, his feet planted wide apart. He pointed at us, his eyes narrowed, and he sniffed the air, as if catching a scent.

Rachel immediately put me behind her, her own stance one of calm readiness. “Hello,” she said, watching him.

“Who are you?” he thundered.

“I’m Rachel,” she said in a quiet, but firm voice. “This is Irene. We just wondered if we could talk to you for a minute.”

He tilted his head to one side, tried to peer around to see me. “Tell her not to hide behind you,” he said to Rachel, not shouting now. “This is the Sabbath. A day of rest. Peace be with you.”

I stepped over to one side, but Rachel said in a low voice, “Whatever you do, don’t get between me and him.”

“Have you lost something?” he asked.

Rachel looked puzzled, but I said, “Yes, that’s why we’ve come to St. Anthony.”

“Good, good,” he said. “St. Anthony prays for those who have lost something. Then the Lord helps them find what they have lost. A saintly service, free of cost.”

“Of course,” Rachel said, her own Catholic days coming back to her.

“What have you lost, my dear? I have St. Anthony’s ear.”

“I’ve lost a friend,” I said.

He closed his eyes and swayed a little on his feet, began humming to himself. “Tell me more,” he said after a moment.

Any minute now, I thought, Toto will pull back the curtain. But if this was the way he was going to play it, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“My friend is named Lucas. Some call him the Prof.”

His eyes flew open. He raised a fist over his head.

“Step back,” Rachel said to me in a low voice. “Slowly.”

“No!” he roared. “You are not worthy!”

Inside the church, the congregation began singing the Alleluia. It distracted him. He tilted his head again, listened. He lowered his fist.

“Our Lord loves sinners. He takes sinners and makes them winners. He wants me to tell you.” He lowered his head, then raised his eyes up to us again.“An angel watches over the Prof-watches over him all the time. Seen it with my own eyes at the Great Wall of China.” He smiled and started singing in a loud voice-to the tune of “Chattanooga Choochoo”-“Nothing could be finer, sittin’ in the diner, than eat your ham and eggs in good ol’ China.” He stopped singing and frowned. “Wall of China. An angel led me to him. Got to say it three times, when the bells ring. The ring, the ring, the ring.”

“What?” Rachel asked, though I doubt she had high hopes for an explanation.

“Amen, amen, I say to you.” He turned back to the statue and dropped back down to his knees. He began humming “Chattanooga Choo-choo” again.

“What angel?” I asked.

“Many angels,” he replied. “I follow the angels. Go in peace. Go while you can.”

We stood there for a while, but he only hummed. We gave up trying to get his attention. As we walked back to the car, I could hear the parishioners of St. Anthony’s singing again. The Lord’s Prayer.

Give us this day…

But in an association of ideas perhaps only slightly less random than those of Two Toes, the singing of that prayer gave me an idea about where we might find Lucas.

13

STOP THE CAR,” I said.

Rachel complied, pulling over. “Do you see it? Over there. Look at the building across the street.”

“The one they’re working on?” she asked, indicating a scaffolded tower, where on a weekday, workers with jackhammers and cement mixers and other equipment would create the cacophony of construction work. Today, it was silent.

“No, the one to the right of it,” I said.

On the next lot, a tall, gray building stood, its dignity sagging like the chain-link fence which surrounded it. Like a lonely old woman whose dress and makeup are passé, it was both ornate and abandoned. At the top of the building, at each corner, a pair of angels stood, wings long and tucked close, hands folded in prayer, long robes draped heavily to their feet. Faces solemn and watchful.

If they were guardian angels, there was little left to guard, but perhaps it was through their protection that one or two of the large street-level windows miraculously remained unbroken. The owners and patrons of what I would guess were once opulent shops and elegant restaurants were long gone, no wares displayed in the windows dull with dirt and brick dust from the project next door. Still, the bright red Chinese characters painted on one of them were plainly visible, as were the words which had caught my attention: Great Wall of China Restaurant.

My gaze moved to the building’s front entry. At the top of a set of stairs, a banner held by two smaller stone angels spelled out a name: The Angelus Hotel.

An angel watches over the Prof-watches over him all the time. Seen it with my own eyes at the Great Wall of China…Got to say it three times, when the bells ring.

“Looks like you were right,” she said. “Two Toes was talking about the Angelus.”

“It was the only hotel on Corky’s list that fit with anything Two Toes was saying. I’m not sure they ever served ham and eggs in there, but maybe he was just saying that it was a restaurant, not the actual Wall of China.”

“Saying?” she chided. “I think it was as much a secret code to him as to us.”

We got out of the car and started walking toward the old hotel. It looked like it had been built in the 1920s, one of Las Piernas’s boom periods.

“Domini angelus…”Rachel intoned, reciting the Latin opening which gave the prayer its name. “Should have known. Used to say the Angelus three times a day. You, too?”

“Sure. I went to Catholic school, remember? Should I sing a few bars ofO Salutarus Hostia for you?”

“Some other time. Wonder if a Catholic built the hotel?”

“That or someone who was trying to connect this town up with Los Angeles. But L.A. might not have been such a big place itself when this was built, and given all those angels on the corners, I’m betting this was put together by one of our more devout brethren.”

“One of our more affluent brethren,” Rachel said.

The fence along the front of the hotel was intact, if not exactly forbidding. We walked outside it to our right, away from the construction site and toward an alley on the other side of the Angelus. The alley was deserted, cut off from a one-way street by three large metal posts with bent reflector signs on them. I burrowed my hands into my coat pockets and followed Rachel as she walked down the alley, studying the building.

Ahead of us, in a section that would have been out of sight from the construction workers, the fence had been cut. Rachel pulled back on the mesh of chain link and made an “after you” bow.

Squatting low, I made my way through, then waited for Rachel. We now stood on a long strip of ground that might have once been a lawn or garden. A pair of tall palm trees and a few clumps of weeds were all that remained of it.

A long paved drive ran between the strip and the hotel. Beyond the drive was what must have been a parking lot-what I could see of it was cracked asphalt studded with weeds.