“Right.”

There was little conversation after that. The task of climbing fourteen flights of stairs kept us both warm and quiet. Rachel was in terrific shape; Frank, Mr. Really Great You-Know-What, once told me that Rachel had shamedhim into a more rigorous work-out. I was still making a comeback from having been laid up for a while; for the last few floors, I had to put real effort into it.

At the top floor, we stepped out into a dark area near a set of elevators. We rounded a corner into a dimly lit hallway. The light was coming from two large glass doors, long plates of frosted green glass. Deco-style woodwork of mahogany and chrome framed the doors. Twin angels, as solemn as their counterparts on the exterior of the building, faced us. Draped in heavy robes, each held a sword. “The angels on this building are the saddest heavenly creatures I’ve ever seen in my life,” Rachel said, pushing one of the doors open. “Maybe I won’t feel too bad if I go the other way.”

The doors opened on to one large room. Light streamed in from three directions, from long windows that must have once offered a fantastic view of the city and the water. Now, taller buildings blocked much of that view. Behind us, a long bar carved with smiling cherubs stood before a big mirror that had lost a lot of its silvering.

“The happier angels are here at the bar,” I said, my voice echoing in the empty room.

“I guess those serious types at the door are the bouncers,” she said.

“Guardian angels. Must be-if my guess about the age of the building is right, that glass and the rest of this place survived the big quake of 1933.”

Rachel shivered and made an Italian gesture to ward off evil. “Don’t say the word ‘earthquake,’” she said. A hardwood floor, scarred and buckling, remained in place, although I doubted that anything other than dust motes had danced in this room in the last few decades. I squatted down closer to the floor to look at it from another angle.

“Doesn’t look like anyone has been staying up here,” Rachel was saying.

“No, but look at the floor. Someone sat up here and admired the view.”

There were places here and there that might have been old footprints, but a set that was clearly newer led across the floor to a place along the south-facing windows, and back again to the doors. Whatever tables and chairs had been in the room had long ago been removed, but an overturned crate was propped up near the windows where the footprints ended.

“Let’s take a look,” she said.

“These windows face south, toward the ocean.”

“Do you think he was trying to look at the water?”

“Couldn’t see much of it from here.”

Near the crate, the view from the windows took in a narrow glimpse of the sea. The buildings directly across the street didn’t block the view, but several blocks away, especially along Broadway, a long cluster of skyscrapers stood between the Angelus and the Pacific Ocean. One in particular caught my attention-a black glass monolith, one of the tallest buildings downtown. Three letters crowned the giant: BLP. The Bank of Las Piernas. Ben Watterson’s bank.

“Let’s try the next floor down,” I said.

THERE WAS NO LIGHTin the hallway on the fourteenth floor of the Angelus Hotel, but there was still plenty of cold air. It didn’t stink like the first-floor hallway, making me wonder if that was one reason Lucas took the trouble to climb all of those stairs in the buildings he slept in.

Rachel grew cautious again, listening carefully before opening the first door we came to. As it creaked open, she waited a moment in the hallway before stepping into the room. I crept in after her.

Only when a hotel room is absolutely empty do you realize how small it is. No carpet, no drapes, no bed. A radiator against the wall beneath the window. Only the window trim and wainscoting kept the room from being utterly plain. I could see our breath as we looked around.

No sound.

Rachel glanced in the small bathroom and closet.

“Nobody has been in here for ages. Let’s keep looking.”

As we left the room, I started to pull the door shut.

“No, leave it open,” she said. “More light in the hallway.” She paused, then added, “Would you like me to open one of those windows?”

I shook my head. “I’m okay now. Thanks-for offering, and for what you did earlier.”

“You know I didn’t mean it, right? It’s just that you were looking like you might pass out down there, and that was the first thing I could think of to distract you.”

“You were successful. And yes, I know you didn’t mean it. But next time, let’s just argue politics or religion.”

“Wouldn’t have worked as fast,” she said, then leaned an ear to the next door. We opened six doors on six small rooms on the fourteenth floor of the Angelus, and found nothing.

On the seventh try, we found Lucas.

14

HE LOOKED DIFFERENTfrom when I had met him on the bus bench. Cleaner, for the most part. He had cut his hair and shaved since then. He wore the same jacket, but it had been washed. Beneath it, he was casually dressed-in worn jeans, a flannel shirt, running shoes.

Near him, in an open duffel bag, was a neatly folded suit. A pair of dress shoes next to the bag looked as if they had just been polished. If he had been wearing those clothes, he would have looked even more like the man I knew in college.

It’s strange, the things that will haunt you. In many later moments, I would think about the care he took with the suit and the shoes, and I would waste wishes.

He lay face-up on a sleeping bag. His breath wasn’t chilled like Rachel’s or mine-he wasn’t breathing at all. There was a small amount of dried blood on his face, as there was on the floor and the radiator. A thermos bottle lay on its side near his feet; on the floor beneath its gaping mirror mouth, a pool of liquid had congealed into a pancake-sized stain.

And someone had placed dull pennies on his eyes.

That much I saw.

Rachel had seen him first, and quickly turned and tried to block my way, but I looked over her shoulder. She held on to me, pushing against me as I tried hard to push past her. I learned that I’m no match for her-but I put up a decent struggle before I stumbled backward out into the hall. She followed, somehow keeping me from falling. When I had regained my balance, she quickly reached back and closed the door behind her.

“No-stay back,” she said, seeing I was willing to go at it again.

“It’s Lucas,” I said.

“Not anymore.”

“Yes-”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “Come on, you don’t want to march your big feet all over the evidence now, do you?”

Evidence.

There’s something of a blank in my recollections from the point that she asked that question until a little later, when we were sitting on the floor of the room next to Lucas’s. I was too numb, I suppose, to register most of it. I heard and didn’t hear Rachel talking to me. Felt and didn’t feel her arm around my shoulder.

I suddenly realized she was swearing like crazy in Italian. It startled me out of my detachment. She was holding her cellular phone in her free hand.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

“Can’t get a signal in here. Wait right here, okay?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly, “just over to the window.”

I watched as she struggled to get the window open. “Dammit. Fricking thingamajiggy won’t work. Probably hasn’t been opened in fifty years.” To my amazement, she pulled out her flashlight and used the grip end to bust out the window. “Destroying private property,” she muttered, clearing the last fragments from the frame. “Pete will really be thrilled.”

With phone in hand, she leaned out the window, then pushed some buttons. “This will only take a minute,” she said to me.