He walked along the hallway with his shoulders stooped, stopping in front of a nondescript door with a small, wire-mesh window. It looked like there had been an identifying plaque on it, but all that was left was the adhesive where the sign had been.
Albert fumbled with more keys as I leaned against the concrete wall. “Sounds like Loraine Two Two doesn’t care for Barrett Long.”
“Loraine Two Two doesn’t care for anybody who shows an interest in Inez, and that would be about half the tribe.”
“The male half?”
“Pretty much, but that kid.” He shook his head as he turned a key in the lock. “She’s a tough one.” He pushed the door open with a scraping sound from the hinges, noisy from lack of use. “Here we go.”
He brushed a hand along the wall, and I heard a switch being flipped but it was unaccompanied by illumination.
“Damn it.” I heard him shuffle closer to me. “Hold the door open, and I’ll steal a bulb from the hallway.”
I watched as he went out, licked his fingers, and reached up to untwist one of the bulbs, only to let it escape from his grip and pop on the concrete floor with a surprisingly loud sound. I glanced at the army of retreating lights. “Looks like there are plenty more to choose from.”
He nodded, advanced on the next one, and was more careful this time. Cradling the bulb in his hand as he entered the room, he undid the old bulb, handed it to me, and screwed in the borrowed one. The room flashed into view and so did the dust and cobwebs of the abandoned security center. There was a single chair, a counter, and small monitors in a shelf system, along with a rack of recording decks that looked as if they might’ve never been used.
“Looks like you were right; nobody’s been in this place in years.”
“Do you mind if I ask what it is you are looking for?”
I took a few steps toward the rolling chair, placed the burnt-out bulb on the counter, and studied the monitors that studied me back like gigantic, myopic eyes. “Nothing, really, I was just thinking.”
There was a portion of one of the audio recording decks where some of the dust had been wiped away, as if by accident. I reached behind it and nudged it forward-something brushed against the back of my hand. I caught a couple of cables. “Should these be unplugged?”
He shrugged. “They’re just the usual RCA cables, stereo-one red and one white, and this place hasn’t been used in years.” He paused for a moment and then fingered the end where another Y-shaped cable joined the other two and combined them into one small, thin junction plug. “Hmm.”
“What is it?”
He ignored me and leaned around the side in order to study the back and then turned with a puzzled look on his face. “It’s disconnected from the junction box, but that’s not the only funny part; that splicer on there is to connect the cables into a modern computer.”
I fingered the cable end. “You didn’t have anything like this back when you wired the place?”
“No, this is a USB connector.” He glanced up at me. “You don’t know a lot about computers, do you?”
“Next to nothing.” I looked at the monitors. “Albert, are the audio and visual surveillance systems connected or separate?”
“Separate; we had a lot of money back then but not that much.”
“Is every office in the building wired for sound?”
He shook his head. “No, just the communal areas.”
“Like reception?”
“Yes.”
I held up the cables. “Are these the ones connected to Human Services?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there any way to find out?”
He shrugged. “Sure, there should be a location code on the junction box, and then we just need the code off of the mic at the reception desk.” He leaned behind the rack and ran a hand up the wall to a large, open junction box in the ceiling. His eyes raced down the small black and white labels. “R-7.”
I was about to speak when it sounded like one of the heavy metal doors to the stairs opened and, after a few seconds, closed. Albert and I froze, looking at each other and then toward the audio room door which we’d lodged open.
Albert looked more worried than me. “Should we close that door and turn off the light?”
“We’re the good guys.” I listened, but there weren’t any more sounds. “But maybe we can catch a bad guy.”
He nodded, went to the doorway, and peered around the corner, then turned back to me. “Should I go down the hall the other way and up those stairs, double back and come down behind them?”
I pulled the. 45 from the small of my back. “Do you have a weapon?”
He reached under his black satin jacket and held out one of those antiquated, garage-door-opener style Tasers. “I have this.”
I looked at the thing doubtfully. “Well, let’s hope it’s not a gunfight.”
He nodded solemnly, went down the hall the other way, quickly made a right, and disappeared. I could hear him climb the stairs. As he moved away, I flipped off the switch in the security room.
Albert was gone for about a minute when the rest of the lights also went out.
I edged to the doorway and kneeled, placing my shoulder against the jamb. It sounded as if someone was moving to the left, the grit of the hard floor twisting underneath leather soles.
My eyes closed, because there wasn’t anything to see there in the subterranean part of the rambling complex, and I wanted to give my ears all of my attention. Whoever was out there was out there in the dark along with me, and it was also possible that he didn’t care for the thought of bullets ricocheting in the confined, concrete area any better than I did.
I heard the sound of footfalls again, but this time it was farther away, and I got the feeling that whoever it was, he had gotten to a certain point and was now retreating.
I edged farther into the hallway and listened. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know somebody was down here, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t know that I knew he was there. The big question was whether he was armed.
I clicked off the safety on the big Colt, the noise echoing through the darkness. There was no metallic mating call, so either they were unarmed or already in a position to fire.
I leaned out a little farther and could hear someone carefully retreat. I was momentarily distracted by an unpleasant smell but then slowly raised myself from the crouching position, stood, and listened to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was. Satisfied, I took a step and softly moved forward in the darkness on the balls of my cowboy boots. I got halfway down the hall and crunched the broken glass of the forgotten lightbulb.
Every muscle in my body seized as I waited for the incoming bullet.
After about forty seconds, I heard a slight sound and raised the Colt in my hand, aiming it toward the faint glow coming through the tiny window in the door leading to the stairwell where we’d descended.
In one flash of movement, the door was yanked open and somebody threw himself through the opening and let the door slam behind him.
I launched myself and ran down the hall as fast as my limited visibility would allow. I glanced off the wall, caught my balance, and turned right to claw at the handle with my free hand, finally getting some fingers wrapped around it and throwing it open.
Someone’s boots pounded up the concrete steps, and I followed at full speed, making the landing in two strides. I raised the Colt and took aim at the individual who had his back to the door, his empty hands outstretched toward me. “Don’t shoot!”
I looked at Barrett Long. “What the hell are you doing?”
He looked as if his heart might explode from his chest as one hand was placed over it, the other coming up to clutch his forehead. “What the hell are you doing?”
I lowered the. 45 and held out an open hand in supplication. “Investigating.”
His voice was hoarse and whistled in his throat in exasperation as he tried to catch his breath. “In the dark?”
“Sorry.”
He looked around, possibly for his breath. “Jesus.”
I holstered the Colt, more than a little relieved that most likely the possible shooting part of the evening was over. “I’m here with Albert Black Horse. I had an idea and wanted him to show me the old security room.”
He breathed for a moment. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I didn’t figure you were around.”
“I wasn’t actually, but I got a call from Karl Red Fox and some friends of mine who said they thought they might’ve seen somebody breaking into the building.”
“That’d be us.”
“Jesus.” He took a few more deep breaths. “Is my sister with you?”
“No, she had to make a run to Hardin.”
“So, who’s with you again?”
“Albert Black Horse.”
“The casino guy?”
“And retired police chief.”
“Jesus.”
“Let’s go find him before he Tasers somebody.”
The young man turned and pushed the bar on the heavy door, but it didn’t budge. He paused for a second and then pushed on it again, this time with a great deal of force, but the thing didn’t move. “Shit.”
“What?”
He slammed an open palm against it, the echo filling the stairwell. “The damn thing must’ve locked when I came through.”
I stepped next to him and tried pushing on the lever, but it still didn’t move. “That’s strange; this is a fire door, and they’re supposed to always stay open out.”
“The building’s closed.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s no big deal-there are three more exits in the basement; we just have to go down and come up another stairwell.”
I pushed off and started down the steps. “All right, but let’s hurry; I don’t want Albert to think that something’s happened-I don’t think his heart can take it.”
Barrett clomped down the steps behind me as I opened the basement door and walked through, my hand still clutching it when I stopped and jammed the doorway with my bulk.
The young man ran into the back of me as I stood there. “Jesus.” He stood still for a moment and then coughed. “Why’d you stop?”
I didn’t move. “Do you smell that?”
“Yeah… Smells like fart.” I ignored him, and he coughed again before leaning forward into the hallway. “What is that?”
I bent down, sniffing the air at a lower level. “Propane-a lot of it.”
16
If the overwhelming smell of the compressed, three-carbon-alkane, one-and-a-half-times-heavier-than-air compound was now at waist height, there was enough propane in the substantial basement to choke us to death, if not blow us to the moon if ignited.
Barrett made a face. “Gas leak?”
“Either that or somebody drove a propane delivery truck into the basement and opened the hatch.” I looked around. “Where are the other exits?”
He pressed himself against the door. “Four corner stairwells and two central on either side, but we should go back up and force this door open.”
“It’s a three-inch metal security door; if it’s been locked on the outside then there’s no way we’re getting out.”
“You think somebody locked it?”
“I don’t know, but Albert Black Horse was down here with me and went upstairs to check the mic designation in the Human Services office, and he didn’t come back.”
Barrett stayed planted. “You’ve got your gun; you could shoot the lock.”
I holstered my. 45 and explained. “With the amount of propane flooding into this basement, discharging a weapon would most assuredly blow us to hell and not necessarily back.” I did a few calculations. “Barrett, this basement is filling with propane, a highly flammable gas that sinks; pretty soon we’re not going to be able to breathe because the oxygen it replaces will be gone. Now, that’s the least of our problems, because if this gas reaches an ignition point like a pilot light or any kind of open flame, this entire basement is going to be like the ass end of a Saturn-V rocket.”
I started off again but then turned and looked at him and then down the hallway at the lightbulb filaments. “Whatever you do, don’t turn on any light switches or anything else for that matter.”
“You think Albert did this to us?”
I sighed, coughed, and breathed in more of the gas as we made our way down the hallway where the smell was even greater. “I don’t know, but somebody’s killing people around here and one of the key elements for pinning it on Artie Small Song is that doctored recording. I’ve got a suspicion that Artie’s side of that recording was made with the security mics in Human Services.”
“The old security recording system?”
“You got it.”
He’d caught up. “When he had that blowup with Audrey?”
“I’d avoid using the term blowup, considering our current situation.”
He shook his head. “There aren’t any fire sources down here; they’re all up in the utility areas.”
“That’s not what concerns me.”
“What, then?”
We arrived at the central stairwell. “I’ll tell you if the doors at the top of these stairs are locked, too.”
We hustled up the steps, and it was with a great deal of resignation that I pushed down on the latch. I pushed again, just to make sure, but there was only a little movement and the doors wouldn’t open. “Damn.”
Barrett stepped in as I peered through the small, rectangular windows and down at the bars on the other side, securely chained together with a heavy padlock. He shoved as hard as he could, but the two doors only budged open about an inch.
“Barrett, do they normally chain the security doors together when the building is closed?”
His eyes were widening a little as the realization of our predicament started settling in. “No, never. It’s against the law.” He went up on tiptoe again to look down at the heavy chains wrapped around the bars on the other side. “Jesus.”
I nodded. “Like rats.”
“We gotta get to another door.”
“They’re all going to be locked.”
His hands slammed against the solid surface. “Then we gotta get this one open.”
I looked up and could see that the doors were hinged from the other side. “Is there any way out of the basement other than the doors? Utility hatches, air ducts, dumbwaiters?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep, polluted breath. “We’re safe, right? I mean, if all the doors are locked then there’s no way that anybody could light the gas.”
“Sure they could; all you’d have to do is drill a hole in the floor and drop a match into the basement. Of course, they have to figure out how to get away before the explosion.”
“Then why don’t we just stay up here above the propane?”
“Because if that gas ignites, it’s going to expand and take out every door in the place, probably with parts of us, and I don’t mean gently.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I’m trying to figure that out, if you’d stop asking questions.” I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Albert about the sordid history of the structure. “Is this building sitting on top of the original tribal headquarters that burnt down twice?”
“Yeah, part of it.”
“Do you have any idea how they used to heat that building back in the sixties and before?”
He shook his head but then pointed at it. “Duh, the one thing we have plenty of on the Rez-coal.”
I nodded. “That means there’s a coal chute back there somewhere if it hasn’t been filled in and sealed off.”
I watched as he thought about it. “Like a cellar.”
“Yep.”
“It’s there; I mean the doors are.”
As we gingerly made our way down the steps and opened the door at the bottom, we could tell th
e limited airspace in the basement was filling with even more of the gas. “Same rules; don’t flip any switches and stay clear of those lightbulbs-you break one and we’re dead.”
We ignored the stairwell doors at the southeastern corner of the building, and we could see where the poured concrete walls changed to block. By the time we got to the rear of the building, it had changed once again to a slip-form foundation with large rocks imbedded in the concrete.
There was a section of the wall with T-111 siding sealing off the opening. “Is this it?”
Barrett nodded his head. “Yeah, but don’t you think it’s sealed?”
“One way to find out.” I pulled my Case XX from my pocket, slipped it between the thin sheath of wood, and pried loose a corner, revealing the stud wall underneath. I placed a hand up to the opening. “I feel warm air.”
I wrapped my fingers around the paneling and pulled it loose, yanking it with a little more urgency. “C’mon, help me.”
“What if a nail scratches the concrete?”
“Let’s try to make sure that that doesn’t happen, shall we?”
Once we’d worked the plywood loose, we could see the facing on the other side, along with the cobwebs where the wall had been undisturbed for decades. I pushed at the top and was able to smell the freshness of clean air, spread my fingers across the splintering wood, and forced it on top of the poured concrete they had used to fill the open space behind the wall. I braced a boot against one of the two-by-fours and lodged a shoulder in the opening just enough to give me the leverage I needed to pull the stud loose from the header. “It’s been filled in, but there’s room at the top where you might be able to squeeze through.”
“What about you?”
I shook my head. “I’m too big, I’ll never fit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait for you to come back and get me out of here.” I laced my hands in a stirrup to give him a boost up. “C’mon, we’re wasting time.”
As the crow flies wl-8 Page 27