Rachel stood still, looking at the hotel, and then at the ground. “Good thing it rained the other night,” she said. “That will help us find the preferred entrance.”
“Footprints.”
“Right. The ground is dry now, but some folks definitely took shelter here when it rained. These ought to point the way.”
The trail of bent grass and depressions in the dried mud angled to and from the back of the building. We followed them.
“Don’t slip on this palm crud,” Rachel said as we crunched our way across the messy drive. The “palm crud” was actually hundreds of unfertilized dates, dropped onto the concrete over God knows how many seasons without a gardener.
We made our way closer to the building. At one end of the hotel, we went past a metal door at street level-it was welded shut. Two floors above it, a series of small windows began, going to the top of the building. The lowest windows were broken out.
“So much for the stairwell,” Rachel said, looking up as we continued toward the back of the building. “Look-even the fire escape has been welded in place. Bad news.”
“Because of the danger to the unofficial tenants?”
She nodded. “These guys light fires to stay warm; if they fall asleep, or if they’re drunk or high or careless, there goes the building-and maybe everybody in it. Or they suffocate-the fire stays under control, but they don’t have proper ventilation in the room, and the fire burns up all the oxygen.”
We climbed some concrete steps at the back of the building. A little less picturesque than the front, the back was comprised mainly of a series of doors that had been boarded up.
“Wood’s fairly new,” I said. “Doesn’t look like this was done so long ago.”
“No, but look-here’s one that’s already been jimmied back open. Let me go in first, just in case any of the unofficial residents are in.”
She pulled the big flashlight out of her belt and turned it on. As she cautiously opened the door, we were greeted with the sharp, overpowering smell of excrement.
“Yeeech,” I said, backing away.
She laughed. “You weren’t expecting the maid service to have the place all clean and tidy, were you?”
“No, but I wasn’t expecting to walk into the bottom of an outhouse, either.”
She turned her back to me, flashing the light around the large room, which was lined with rusting pipes and sets of valves. A shaft of some sort rose from one end of the room.
“Laundry room, I think,” she said.
“Maybe so. But nothing’s been cleaned here for a while.”
“This isn’t so bad. Think how awful it would be if it were a warm day-just watch your step in this one place near the door,” she said, spotlighting it with the flashlight. It was about two feet away from where I stood.
“Let’s move on, okay?”
“Prop that door open,” she said. “I want to be able to get out of here in a hurry if we have to.”
The door still had a stop attached to it, so I kicked it down. It held.
We made our way to an interior door. We stepped into a long, dark hallway. Several doors led off it. The floor was sticky, and the odor of urine permeated the cold air. I tried not to think about it, and swore I’d throw my shoes away when I got home.
“Prop that one open, too,” Rachel said. “Make it easier to find our way out.”
As we walked away from the door, the hall grew darker, and it was the darkness and sense of confinement, not the stench, that began to stir a growing panic within me.
I once spent a few days locked in a small, dark room as the guest of a couple of creeps who got their kicks out of hearing people scream. One result of the experience is that I sometimes have to sleep with the light on. Other times, it’s better not to go to sleep at all. Darkness is not my old friend.
I tried to keep my mind away from memories as we went on. Rachel kept moving forward. I followed more closely. She looked back at me, holding the flashlight so that it didn’t blind me.
“You okay? You want to wait outside?”
I wanted it more than just about anything, but I shook my head. “Lucas knows me, he doesn’t know you.”
“He’s not likely to be hanging out here during the day.”
“I’m going with you.”
She shrugged and moved on. She stopped often to listen as we approached doors. The only noises to be heard were the now-distant sounds of occasional traffic on the street, our sticky footsteps, and the hammering of my heart. My claustrophobia was kicking in.
“We’re making our way to a stairwell,” she said, her tone gentle, coaxing. “There should be more light there.”
I couldn’t answer.
She looked back at me again, then put the light on the doors around us. Some were marked, most weren’t. She paused, as if debating something. I started shaking. I tried to force insistent images from my mind. This is different, I told myself. You’re safe, you’re safe. I heard my own breathing-quick, short breaths.
“Slow down,” she said. “You want to carry the light?”
“No.” I made myself take slower breaths.
She reached back and took my hand, then started walking again. My own hand felt cold in hers. I wanted to protest, to say she was making me feel like a child, but I was grateful for her warm, firm grip.
“Hope thatstronzo we found back there didn’t bother you too much.”
I shook my head. Useless in the dark.Get me out of here! I wanted to scream.
“Look at it like a hunter would,” she said. “Think of it as fresh spoor. Maybe your friend left it.”
“No, he didn’t,” I said, my voice tight. “Somebody else, maybe. Not Lucas.”
“Oh, so your friend the bum is such a saint he doesn’t ever take a shit, eh?”
I pulled my hand away.
“Oh,”she said, in the darkness, “so he’s a saint, just like St. Anthony?” She kept moving forward; I was forced to follow at a faster pace. “The saint who never took a dump,” she went on. “What a fantastic miracle to have to one’s credit!”
I felt my fists clench. “Stop it.”
“Maybe the pope will make him patron saint of the asshole. St. Bum of the bum.”
“Goddamn it, Rachel,” I shouted, “shut the fuck up!”
The words echoed in the hallway. She stopped, and flashed the light on the door just ahead of us.EXIT was painted on it. She turned back to look at me, bouncing the light off a nearby wall, illuminating both of our faces. She was smiling. “Much better.”
I realized what she had done, why she had done it. I dropped my gaze. “Forgive me if I don’t say ‘thank you’ right away.”
She laughed and opened the door.
There was light in the stairwell, and more air, a combination which helped me to calm down. I raced past her, up the stairs to the first broken window. I put my face up to the opening, took deep, gulping breaths of cold, fresh air. The knots went out of my stomach, I stopped shaking. Then, on that wave of relief, for the next few moments, I felt as if I might start crying.
At one time, an emotional reaction like that would have made me ashamed of myself. Now, I was growing used to it, and perhaps because I knew it would pass, it passed more quickly. I looked over at Rachel, who was waiting behind me on the landing, pretending to be studying her cellular phone. Her long hair cloaked her face, hiding her expression.
“Are my nose and cheeks as red as yours?” I asked.
She looked up. “Yes, and yourorecchi -your ears, too.”
I reached up and rubbed a hand through my hair. “I can’t wait for this to grow out again.”
“It will, it will. That stubbornness of yours will push it right out of your head. Your hair will be longer than mine by summer.”
I laughed.
She smiled. “A good sound, that laugh of yours,” she said, putting the phone away. She began to lead the way upstairs again. “I figure we should start at the top. That okay with you?”
“We’re thinking the same thing. Corky said Lucas liked to go to the upper floors in a building.”