Into the Fire(17)

Here on the bustling city sidewalk, a wintry breeze rattled an empty Pressed Juicery bottle over the cracked concrete past Evan’s and Max’s shoes. On the corner a man sold roasted corn out of a food cart, his face weather-battered, his skin a rich shade of umber. The smell reminded Evan that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he stared longingly as the man rolled an ear through metal troughs of melted butter, Cotija cheese, and powdered chili. Along the cart’s frame, freshly carved mango hung in clear bags, marinating in lime, salt, and sriracha.

Grant Merriweather’s firm, the imaginatively titled Merriweather Accountancy, resided on the seventeenth floor of the black-glass rise before them. This was a convenient part of downtown for a forensic accountant, a few blocks from City Hall, LAPD headquarters, and the Criminal Courts Building.

Evan clenched the Swiss Army knife key chain, the key swaying beneath his fist.

Those oddly symmetrical cuts. The shiny gold finish, unworn by use, not a single scrape from tumbler pins.

“Are we ever actually going to, you know, go inside?” Max asked.

Dragging Max along, Evan had circuited the nearby blocks three times, checking parked cars, passing faces, and searching windows for glints thrown by binoculars or sniper rifles. They’d ridden up the elevators of surrounding buildings and watched the street from various vantages. Sipped espresso in the catty-corner Starbucks and studied the lobby.

The Third Commandment: Master your surroundings.

Evan slid the key chain into his pocket. Then headed for the entrance.

Max followed.

They slid through the weighty revolving doors, delivered onto a white granite floor scuffed from the tread of loafers and high heels. The elevator bank was to the left, set behind a directory shimmering with brass letters. Foot traffic was light. Cutting across the lobby, Evan circled his gaze from faces to hands to faces.

No one reaching. No one sweating. No one with THE TERROR scraped into the flesh of his forearm.

Keeping Max at his side, Evan moved straight past the elevator and a sextet of Le Corbusier lounge chairs scattered like dice cubes. They stepped into the stairwell, the door sucked shut behind them, and they stood a moment in the silence.

No one walks in Los Angeles. And no one takes the stairs.

They started up.

Floor after floor, accompanied only by the tapping of their footsteps. Max seemed to be in good shape. Working construction will do that.

They emerged onto the seventeenth floor, Evan pressing the door open slowly with a flat palm. The empty hall fanned into view and, at the end, the sign for Merriweather Accountancy.

Corner office.

They exited the stairwell, Max picking up the pace.

Evan put the bar of his forearm across Max’s chest, stopping him.

Max said, “What?”

Evan pointed down. White drywall dust sprinkled the carpet fibers by the baseboard, right at the seam where a vacuum couldn’t reach.

Max said, “So?”

Evan pointed up.

Drilled into the ceiling, angled down the hall toward Grant’s door, was a bullet security camera with the sticker still applied to its base: IRONKLAD KAM. Fresh from the company.

Grant had been scared, all right. Scared enough to install a new security system at the office.

“What do we do now?” Max whispered.

Evan reached up and swiveled the camera, moving to keep them both in its blind spot. A red light glowed at the bottom the whole time, the recording uninterrupted. They wound up on its far side, the lens aimed at the stairwell door through which they had just emerged.

They walked down the hall. Evan paused near the thick wooden door, peering around the corner up the intersecting corridor. Aside from a fire-extinguisher cabinet and an anachronistic ashtray stand by the elevator, this hallway was also empty. Evan turned back to the door. Set his ear to the fine grain. No vibrations from within. The knob turned readily in his grip.

Unlocked.

The suction of the opening door pulled a mini flurry of feathers out across the tops of Evan’s boots. The door swung inward a few inches and then caught on a slashed throw pillow. Evan shoved through the wadded-up fabric and peered inside.

The lobby was trashed. Leather couch cushions punctured, framed pictures shattered, a sheepish fern rising naked from a mound of soil and pottery shards.

Behind Evan a strangled noise escaped Max’s throat.

They eased through the reception area. Files strewn across the carpet, reference books torn from shelves, the chairs upended. The desk looked violated, drawers extracted from the slots like teeth pulled from a wooden mouth.

Evan said, “Impressive job.”

Max wiped his forehead. “Can’t quite find it in me to marvel at the professionalism.”

Grant’s office showed more of the same. The cylindrical locks had been popped neatly out of the big file cabinets, the contents rifled through. On the desk an even row of unplugged cords edged the blank rectangle where a computer would go. Evan felt like he was connecting the dots that the Terror had connected days before, walking in his footsteps. He placed his hand on the leather blotter, wondering if the computer had held the address of Grant’s cabin in Big Bear.

The afternoon sun slanted through the blinds, chopping the bare desk into noirish bands of goldenrod. A dedicated monitor on the wall showed a livestream from the bullet camera in the hall. Were it not for the time stamp counting off minutes and seconds, it might have been a still life: Stairwell Door at Rest.