looked at one another, debating whether to climb back under the tarp.
'I've got it!' Mickey said. 'The lock on the cable works door. I'll bet Hackett forgot to have it changed.'
Earl Luke stretched out on the bench, wrapped in the tarp, and rolled onto his side, his back to them, a disgusted snort his only response. 'I don't think so, Mickey,' Mason said. 'I mean, you could be right about the lock. Earl Luke probably figures we're smart enough to check it out, but I don't think that's the question he wants us to ask.'
'What is it, then?' Mickey asked.
Mason shoved Earl Luke in the butt with the toe of his shoe. 'Earl! Wake up! Something I want to ask you.'
Earl Luke rose slowly, still covered in the tarp, a poor man's mummy come to life, parting the folds of the tarp enough to peek at them. 'What's your question, second-story man?'
'Hackett may not have had the lock on the cable works door changed. But if he did, we'll need to find another way inside the Depot. Care to lend a hand?'
Earl Luke licked his lips, rinsing his gums with rainwater, spitting onto the sidewalk. 'Expect you might could use some help,' he said, stuffing the tarp onto the bottom rack of the grocery cart, tightening the rope belt around his worn pants, zipping his Army fatigue jacket, all but snapping a salute. 'Nice to be asked,' he added.
'You ever been inside?' Mason asked him. 'In the basement or wherever the cable works used to be.'
'Practically grew up in that building,' Earl Luke said. 'My daddy, he worked there when the cable cars still ran. Chief mechanic, he was. Place was my playground and my school until I was ten years old. Then the city shut down the cable cars. Times was hard and my daddy started drifting. Like to say them times was my real education. Growing up, I figured I'd end up like my daddy, a mechanic and all. Guess I did end up like him, drifted right back here. Ain't been inside in a long time. Kinda like to see it.'
The backside of the Depot faced north, an eight-story shadow in the sun, an unlit, black curtain at night, the ground sloping away toward the bluff, the pale glow of headlights filtering up from the interstate like a planetary ring. The distant lights of the River Market blurred in the rain, the Missouri River flashing for an instant under the blinking lights of a private plane landing at the downtown airport. His back to the wall, Mason, trailed by Mickey, followed Earl Luke to the Dumpster that sat on top of the concrete pad housing the entrance to the cable works. The three of them shoved the Dumpster onto the grass.
Mason looked up, shielding his eyes from the rain with one hand, tapping Mickey with his other, pointing to the lights on in Arthur Hackett's office. A woman appeared in the window, too far away for Mason to identify her, though he had no doubt it was Carol Hackett. A man impossible to recognize at that distance materialized at her side, grabbing her arm, the woman pulling away, the man giving her the back of his hand, the woman collapsing against him, the light going out.
'Son of a bitch!' Mason said, grabbing the door handle, a six-inch L-shaped lever hinged to swing up, allowing the door to open skyward. It was locked tight. Mason slid the master key into the lock, his heart picking up a beat as he struggled with the key before the tumblers clicked into place, the key rotating clockwise, the bolt sliding open with a sharp clack. The lever handle offered no resistance this time, but the door held fast, Mason yanking so hard he lost his footing.
'What's up with that?' Mickey said, helping Mason to his feet, both of them looking at Earl Luke for an explanation.
The old man scratched his chin stubble, not answering. 'Come on,' Earl Luke said, walking toward the edge of the bluff.
'What is it?' Mason asked. 'Why won't the door open?'
'There's another bolt on the inside. Locks both ways,' Earl Luke said over his shoulder, not looking back.
'Where are you going?' Mason shouted.
'You ask too many questions,' Earl Luke said, disappearing in the darkness like he was walking out to sea.
'Mickey, stay here,' Mason said.
'Like hell I will, Boss!'
'You've got to watch the garage and the front door. Blues went to check out Evans's house. He'll be here in a few minutes. Call Harry and see if he found anything at Paula Sutton's.' Mickey started to argue, Mason holding up his hand. 'You know I'm right, so just do it. If I don't open the front door in ten minutes, find a brick and open it yourself.'
Mason scrambled to catch up with Earl Luke, standing at the edge of the bluff, peering down into the dark tangle of weeds grown into rough hedges. He gauged the distance to the highway as the length of a football field, barely making out a zigzagged goat track worn across the face of the bluff.
'Earl Luke!' Mason shouted, the roar of eighteen-wheelers swallowing his words. He saw Earl Luke's head bob between a pair of stunted trees halfway down the bluff, their height exaggerated by the sharp descent. Mason followed, picking his way, fighting for footing on the slick surface.
'You ain't much for the outdoors, is you?' Earl Luke asked him when Mason found him sitting on a shallow ledge cut into the bluff.
'I'll show you my merit badges if you'll tell me what the hell we're doing down here,' Mason told him.
Earl Luke leaned over, clearing a layer of wet brush around his feet, stamping his boot, the loud thwack of shoe leather smacking against wood. Mason squatted down, sweeping away the rest of the brush, running his hands over a weather-beaten square of wood, his fingers finding the hinges of a small door.
'What is it?' Mason asked.
'Cable cars used to run up and down this slope, all the way down to the River Market. That was before they cut the bluff down so they could build the streets south from the river. In those days, the bluff ran all the way down to Third Street.'
Earl Luke stopped, staring into the night, remembering the past or forgetting the present, Mason couldn't tell. 'Earl Luke,' Mason said, 'the door. Tell me about this door.'
'Cable car company cut a shaft straight through the bluff to run the power lines for the cars. A short man couldn't hardly stand up in it, but it was great for a kid like me. Better than digging a hole to China. My old man used to tan my hide when he caught me playing in that shaft. This here door was like a manhole cover for a sewer so's you could get to this part of the shaft without going all the way down from the top. They was put in every fifty feet or so. Guess the city forgot about it when they tore up the tracks. Long time ago, it was.'
Mason felt around the edges of the door, prying at the corners, searching for a handle. 'Will it open?'
Earl Luke got down on his hands and knees, popping up one of the wooden slats, exposing a steel ring, grunting as he raised the wooden door. 'Say the magic word.'
They hovered over the black opening, the rain beating against their backs, Earl Luke lost again in his memories, Mason dreading another dark, claustrophobic passage. He'd crawled through enough tunnels and shafts to be a charter member of the Mole People, and every time the light at the end of the tunnel had turned out to be a train coming straight at him.
'Old times,' Earl Luke said, as if making a toast, and dropped into the opening.
Mason took a deep breath and followed him, Earl Luke's street scent a better guide than any flashlight. Mason paused for a moment, using his hands to measure the shaft, finding he could scurry in a tight crouch, saving his knees from an uphill crawl, keeping one hand outstretched against low-hanging obstacles. The angle of the shaft was not as severe as the surface of the bluff, though Mason had to brace one hand against the side of the shaft to keep his balance. The air in the shaft was cool and fresh, encouraging Mason that there was a way out at the top. He slipped twice when Earl Luke disturbed rats that ran squealing past him.
The climb took only a few minutes, though it felt longer, the darkness distorting the passage of time, Earl Luke kicking out a wire mesh grate at the mouth of the shaft cut low on a wall, the two of them sliding out onto a smooth cement floor. Feeling his way along the wall, Mason found a light switch, his eyes happily adjusting to a wide room dominated by a round wooden platform in the center of the floor, a large gleaming black gear marking a bull's eye in the circle.
'Where are we?' Mason asked.
'Turnaround room,' Earl Luke said. 'The cars came in through there before they bricked it up,' he added, pointing to a section of the wall against the bluff that was covered in brick, unlike the cement that formed the rest of the wall. 'The big gearbox turned a giant wheel, like a wagon wheel turned on its side, and kept the cables
